Jesse Christian and His Six Disciples

JESSE

CHRISTIAN

And

HIS SIX DISCIPLES

BY LARRY CROWELL

Published be Larry Crowell at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Larry Crowell

Is Jesse Christian really Jesus Christ?

And if he is, will he get out of the nut house?

And why does he want to be President of the

United States?

And how the hell is he leading in the polls?

A whacky political satire where everyone and everything is fairgame.

~~~~

DEDICATION

To Mom.

Some people talk the talk. Mom walks the walk.

Eighty-eight years old and still walking tall.

Thank you for the walking example.

~~~~

FORWORD

I think it was in the nineties. But then again it might have been in the eighties. Both of those decades were pretty hazy. Aw hell, who am I kidding? My whole life has been hazy. Hey, bartender! How about another drink! I’m looking for some clarity here.

Oh Jesus, I’m actually drinking to remember.

Jake

Table of Contents

Title & Copyright Page

Dedication

Forword

Prologue

CHAPTER 1 - Judy

CHAPTER 2 - Jake

CHAPTER 3 – The Book

CHAPTER 4 – Jesse’s Birth

CHAPTER 5 - Thomas

CHAPTER 6 – Joseph and Mary

CHAPTER 7 - Jesse 101

CHAPTER 8 – Peter and Simone

CHAPTER 9 – Matt and Andrew

CHAPTER 10 - Tears

CHAPTER 11 - Depression

CHAPTER 12 - Laughter

CHAPTER 13 – The Exodus

CHAPTER 14 – The First Press Conference

CHAPTER 15 – Beginning To Believe

CHAPTER 16 – The First Advertisement

CHAPTER 17 – The First Miracle

CHAPTER 18 – The Ark

CHAPTER 19 – Campaign Promises

CHAPTER 20 - Advertisements

CHAPTER 21 - The Polls

CHAPTER 22 - New Orleans

CHAPTER 23 - Big Easy Press

CHAPTER 24 - The Pentagon

CHAPTER 25 - Military Bashing

CHAPTER 26 - The Second Miracle

CHAPTER 27 - Cleveland

CHAPTER 28 - Reminiscing

CHAPTER 29 - Questions

CHAPTER 30 - Man In The Street

CHAPTER 31 - Las Vegas

CHAPTER 32 - The Producer

CHAPTER 33 - Los Angles

CHAPTER 34 - Hawaii

CHAPTER 35 - Alaska

CHAPTER 36 - The Debate

CHAPTER 37 - Mansion On The Hill

CHAPTER 38 - Aftermath

CHAPTER 39 - The Commercial

CHAPTER 40 - Three Days

CHAPTER 41 - Election Day

CHAPTER 42 - The Videotape

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

~~~~

PROLOGUE

New York City

Jake, the reporter, was drunk by now. He was sitting on the concrete curb, six inches from the gutter, waiting for the psychiatric nurse to appear. When he saw her he would confront her.

The nurse left the building. She was five feet tall, light as a feather, and carried the world upon her shoulders.

Jake screamed, Nurse Rached, Nurse Rached! Aren’t you sorry now you released Jesus Christ from the insane asylum? He’s running for President of the United States.. and might win, for God’s sake!

The nurse, recognizing the voice, turned and calmly said, His name isn’t Jesus Christ. It’s Jesse Christian. And yes, a lot of people insist he’s Jesus Christ, and yes, he’s going to get a lot of votes. In fact the election will be very close. And yes, Jake, you were the first to break the story and you only came up with it because you were in the same facility as Jesse and you needed a big story to revive your career after your big breakdown.

The words froze Jake.

The psychiatric nurse began to walk away, and then hesitating, she turned around and said, Jesse Christian is the wisest, gentlest, and most caring person I have ever met. It’s a shame you didn’t learn more from him while the two of you were rooming together. And Jake, my name is not Nurse Rached, as you insist on calling me. It’s Nurse Pritchett! And Jesse Christian is not Jesus Christ as half the world is beginning to believe right now because of your stories. But I will say this, Jake, we could all learn from Jesse Christian.

Nurse Pritchett did walk away this time and as she turned the corner she suddenly stopped, and looking toward the sky, she began to have her doubts. ‘No,’ she told herself, ‘He couldn’t possibly be Jesus Christ. He’s too crazy to be Jesus Christ.’

~~~~

CHAPTER 1

Judy

Jake woke up fully clothed in a penthouse suite. He also woke up in a panic. Jake didn’t know where he was.

Out of habit he rolled over and reached for the top drawer of the bedside table. Bypassing the Gideon Bible, he pulled out the phone book. He slowly focused on the cover. New York City. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘I may be in the wrong bed but at least I’m in the right city. Thank God for small favors.’

Jake used to regale people with his tales of waking up in strange cities and not knowing how he got there. This one should make a great story, he thought. I’ve never waken up in a place this opulent before. No, he thought to himself with a jolt of remorse, they were always dives. The stories were always funny in the telling, but never funny in the happening.

Then the second panic hit. He was supposed to be in L.A. covering the presidential campaign. It was winding down and the election was just around the corner. Damn. Out of habit again he went through his other routine of waking up. His eyes madly searched the room for a bottle. On good mornings there was always something left in the bottle. Better mornings meant there was enough left. His eyes zeroed in on a bottle on top of the T.V. A quart that was three-quarters full. Vodka. His drug of choice. The label was opulent too. Better than he could normally afford. Life is good, he thought.

He made his way to the television set and was tempted to turn it on to the news channel to see if he had missed anything important. No, first things first, and he throttled the bottle by its neck and he headed for the bathroom.

The first drink was always the toughest. He had to do it over the bathroom sink. Sometimes it just wouldn’t stay down. The second one usually did. Over the years he had mastered the fine art of throwing up while standing up. More dignified that way. It was only when nothing would stay down and he was reduced to the dry heaves that he knelt to the porcelain altar.

As he stood at the bathroom door he looked at the spacious suite. The place was huge. And that’s when she walked out of the kitchen.

She was wearing a heavy oversized terry cloth robe that hotels of this type provided. The type that if you don’t steal one it’s only because you already own one. Her hair was wet, she wore no makeup, and she looked like she hadn’t slept for several days. And she was probably still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Her name was Judy and she was sixteen years old. Along the campaign trail she became known among the media and then the nation at large as Judy, the teenaged prostitute. Actually it was a gross misnomer because Judy was still a virgin.

In fact, Judy had only touched one penis in her sixteen years. It had belonged to her stepfather. Late one night while her mother was asleep he had slipped into Judy’s bedroom and demanded that she touch it. Touch it she did. She almost wrung it off his body. She touched it with a vengeance.

The next day when her mother refused to believe her story, and her stepfather, walking around the room gingerly, rather than fatherly, suggested with much concern that maybe Judy needed psychiatric help, Judy, like so many other young girls before her, left home and made her way to the big city. That was three years ago.

Judy could technically be called a prostitute because she engaged in making a living at sex. She worked in an adult bookstore where customers could buy magazines, movies, and sexual paraphernalia or if they didn’t want to wait till they got home to find their release, they could go to small enclosed booths where they would feed quarters into a slot to watch pornographic movies and relieve themselves on the spot. Or with a bit of persuasion, you could invite another man to join you in your small closeted area.

Judy worked in another section of the sexual superstore. For customers who tired of the slick magazines and grainy movies, and wanted to see a live naked woman, they would venture into somewhat larger booths and instead of feeding quarters into a slot, they would feed dollars. As the money came in, a curtain would draw back and behind a thick glass partition there would be a live woman behind it. The woman would start her show fully clothed and as the money came in the clothes would come off. Should the money stop coming in the curtain would close on the act. The curtain would usually only stay shut for a few seconds.

As more money came in the woman would begin to touch herself as the man on the other side of the glass was almost certainly doing himself. There were also an assortment of dildos and vibrators lying about on the woman’s side and for enough money the woman would begin to fill every orifice with them. The feeding of money became frenzied as the orifices were filled. These women made a lot of money. And lived in their own personal hell.

Judy’s act was different. When the curtain parted on Judy’s most private part, and the smells of sex were evident, she could be seen engrossed with a big, thick book. She was curled around the book and studying it. She was wearing a light blue T-shirt, no bra, and pink panties. Her only props were the big thick book, a notebook, and a pencil. She was a girl doing her homework. The men who watched her felt like the neighborhood boy who would risk life and limb to climb the tallest tree to witness this sight.

Judy would read intently for a while, and then stop as if pondering a thought, and then go back to reading. The most erotic thing she would do at this time would be to wet the end of her pencil with her tongue and take a few notes.

Judy would continue to study, changing positions naturally. She would move from her side, to her stomach, to her back. Occasionally she might tap the eraser of her pencil on her lower lip. She would never look at the men on the other side of the glass.

After more money came through the slot, she would check the door to her cubicle to make sure it was locked, almost as if she didn’t want her parents to walk in unannounced, and then she would take off her T-shirt to reveal breasts that had developed much too early. The panties remained.

She would stand in front of the glass as if she were a young girl in front of a mirror, uncertain if she were pleased with the reflection. She would touch her breasts as if she had just discovered them. She would gently run her fingers over them, then palm them, then squeeze them together. Would she let the schoolboy sports star touch them after the dance this weekend? Her nipples were hard and so were the men.

She would then slowly remove her panties, and while standing in front of the glass she would blush. Then very slowly she would reach down with her index finger and lightly touch herself. She would only do it for an instant and it always caused her to shudder.

When Judy shuddered, no man ever lasted longer than a few strokes more. And no man ever complained that the show wasn’t graphic enough. Maybe had she worn a fig leaf it would be considered raunchy.

The men would always leave satisfied in more than one way. They were the young neighborhood boy again. Sex was a mystery then, the fumbling and fondling in the back seat of the car. Sex was sweet then, it was a journey and it hadn’t reached the destination of a sexual superstore.

When Judy’s day was over she would leave the frantically moving fists and the crumpled up tissues on the floor and make her way back to her sparsely furnished apartment. Once there she would count her money and determine how much she could give to the homeless shelter located around the block and whose funding had been drastically cut. Judy was usually able to give over fifty per cent of her earnings because she didn’t drink, smoke, or use drugs. She didn’t even watch TV. Her only luxuries were the big, thick books.

The irony of Judy’s act at work was that it wasn’t an act. She was really studying the books. They were used textbooks dealing with philosophy and theology and even though Judy had only finished the seventh grade before leaving home at thirteen, she had no difficulty grasping the concepts held in the books. Judy had a measured IQ of 224.

The teenaged prostitute who was a virgin, had an IQ of 224, and was possibly the most beautiful woman in the world, became a media darling during the presidential campaign. When questioned about her time working at the adult bookstore, Judy would look straight into the camera and reply, Lots of people are prostitutes. There are business prostitutes and there are political prostitutes and most of them pretend that they aren’t prostituting themselves. Well let me tell you this: in all my time at the adult bookstore I never bent over and kissed anybody’s ass! Half of America would cringe when she said this, while the other half would want to leap off their couch and high-five the TV set. Judy may have been even more beautiful when she was angry.

When the interviews were over and she had calmed down, Judy would usually start kidding around with the camera crew and would inevitably tell her favorite joke. It went like this: A young girl asked her mother where babies came from. The mother felt like the time was right to tell her and went on to explain to the little girl how daddy would put his penis into mommy’s vagina and that’s where babies came from. The young girl looked confused and said, I understand the penis and vagina part, but the other night I peeked in your bedroom and you had daddy’s penis in your mouth. Do you get babies that way? The mother slowly smiled and said, No, sweetheart, that’s how you get jewelry.

Judy was not allowed to tell this joke on national television but if she had, it might have better explained her views on prostitution. It may have also explained why Judy never wore jewelry.

Judy did have a young girls dream about jewelry however. Maybe it wasn’t even a young girl’s dream. Judy dreamed about one day having a wedding band on her finger. To her, a thin gold wedding band would be more impressive than the Hope Diamond. ‘But it will have to be a good man,’ Judy told herself. ‘Somebody like Jesse.’

Judy was Jesse Christian’s first disciple. They met while being held in the insane asylum.

~~~~

CHAPTER 2

Jake

When Jake saw Judy walking from the kitchen he made the decision of not taking his first drink over the bathroom sink. He would take it right in front of her, consequences be damned, and he would be cool while doing it. The drink would stay down even if it killed him in the process.

As a youngster he had watched the black and white movies that came out of Hollywood and the hero always seemed to be a hard drinking man, a real man who could throw back a shot of whiskey and wouldn’t flinch. Jake tilted the bottle of vodka back while saying his silent prayer. ‘Please, God, let it stay down.’

He raised the bottle, took a long swallow, and as his stomach revolted, his already red eyes began to water. ‘Damn,’ he thought, ‘Hollywood he-men never had their eyes to water.’ But God answered his prayer. The drink stayed down.

Jake was forty years older than Judy. He was fifty-six years old yet he wanted to impress this teenager. Hell, if she were ten years older he would make a play for her. That would only make her thirty years younger than him. Jake was having delusions of grandeur. In his prime he was quite the ladies man. Now he was quite repulsive. Delusions of grandeur were scarier than delirium tremens because you didn’t know they were happening. At least D.T.s got your attention.

Jake looked at Judy in the oversized bathrobe that was swallowing her up and he knew in that instant that he would never try to touch her. He also knew without a doubt that he would kill anyone who tried to harm her. Jake didn’t like the idea of caring this much about another human being. He thought he had shed those feelings long ago. There had only been one other person he had felt this protective towards. That had been his mother, and his caring hadn’t helped. And he had been mad at God ever since.

Jake was surely not known as a man of high moral standards. He had justified and rationalized every unacceptable behavior in the book. When he couldn’t find the excuses he found the liquid salve that assuaged the guilt. Yet he forced himself to believe that he still had a thread of common decency about him. He had to believe that for sometimes that thread was all he had to hang onto.

Judy looked at Jake with a mixture of pity and disgust, with pity tilting the scales oh so very slightly. At one time the man was talented beyond belief, a sorcerer of sentences, a man who in a paragraph or two could make you believe that three times three was ten. He was tenacious in looking for an angle, an angle that might mangle a reputation, but that was the cost of being a high profile investigative reporter. He was ruthless. He was the perfect journalist.

Judy had heard that he had always been a heavy drinker and that somewhere along the way he had crossed the line into chronic alcoholism. Jake probably would have laughed and said, ‘I don’t cross lines, I leap over them.’ And that may have been true. The man had made a name for himself fast, and fast was his favorite word. Life in the fast lane. He once said while extremely drunk, ‘I am a world renowned journalist. I don’t read about things happening, I see things happening. And then I let you in on them.’

Had Jake ever studied any kind of theology, Judy thought, he would know that through the history of time, the fastest lane was always littered with the waste of human lives.

Jake, after having stomached his first drink, began another routine in his life: the song and dance. He didn’t want Judy to know, how he didn’t know, why they were both here. As nonchalantly as possible, while scrambling to make sense, he said, I know why I’m in New York, but tell me again why you’re here and not in L.A. helping Jesse with the campaign?

Jake had lots of experience with coming out of blackouts with no idea of what had happened or what was going on, but handling it brilliantly nonetheless. He would begin with a series of distracted questions, and then with the answers that were given, he would slowly fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle himself. Sometimes though, it was like cramming a square peg into a deep, dark hole. This was one of those times.

Judy stared at him and the scales swung to utter disgust. Her gaze centered someplace at the back of his head, and she said, There’s ice and mixers in the kitchen. Fix yourself a drink because you’re going to need it.

Even Jake knew that this was not the time to try to make light of what was obviously a bad situation. He would throw a drink together and play even dumber about how he ended up back in New York. He would actually listen.

The kitchen was as finely appointed as the rest of the penthouse and he found a heavy pint glass best suited for beer, filled it with ice, and poured the vodka almost to the top. With the ice crackling its protest, he splashed just enough orange juice in the drink to slightly change its color. As the OJ made its way to the bottom, the glass looked like a lava lamp thrown into reverse. Breakfast of losers, he mused.

Judy was already seated at the kitchen table and when Jake hesitated, she evenly said, Sit down. You don’t want to hear this standing up.

He had seen a pack of cigarettes on the counter, and lit his first of the day. The usual wet cough followed. Sitting down, taking a medium size drink, and then stirring it again with his finger, he waited to take his other medicine.

Judy didn’t waste any time. What’s the last thing you remember?

No preliminaries, no easing into it, no foreplay whatsoever, just, ‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

Jake stared at his drink, took a long drag from his cigarette, took a longer swallow from his drink, and let the wheels churn in his head for a full ten seconds before he murmured, I remember Alaska. Vaguely.

You remember Alaska, repeated Judy while rolling her eyes only the way a teenager can do it.

Yeah, I remember Jesse wandering into the wilderness and none of us knowing where he was or what he was doing. God, I hated Alaska. I always thought that hell would be hot. Hell is cold! Fucking icebergs everywhere.

Yeah, Judy thought, you hated Alaska but you loved Hawaii. Said it was heaven on earth. Campaigning in Hawaii and Alaska had been Jesse’s idea and the campaign manager had almost had a seizure at the suggestion. He had pointed out to Jesse that they needed to be where the electoral votes were, that they needed to be in a place like Texas. At that point, Jesse rolled his eyes almost as well as a teenager.

The campaign manager’s name was Thomas. He had been an advertising guru in New York. He possibly had the brightest mind on Madison Avenue and had a thirty year track record of highly successful ad campaigns. He could force feed ice cream to Eskimos.

Thomas had been in the room down the hall from Jesse in the insane asylum. Thomas was Jesse’s second disciple.

The last thing you remember was Alaska? Judy repeated, and Jake drained a third of his drink.

No, wait a second. I think I remember us coming back to L.A. Yeah, when Jesse walked off the plane he was mobbed by the media wanting to know about that wilderness thing. Yeah, I think I remember that.

Judy looked at him in disbelief and the scales slowly swayed back to pity again. Judy realized that Jake had been in a three-week blackout. He probably didn’t remember a single event.

We got back from Alaska three weeks ago, she said and waited for it to sink in. Are you sure you don’t remember anything about the last three weeks? And the panic in his eyes gave her the answer.

He gulped down the remainder of his drink while the wheels churned faster in his brain. Three weeks in a blackout. That was a record for him. What’s the date? he demanded. Judy told him.

Jake shot out of his chair and screamed, That means the election was yesterday! And just as he was going to ask who won, his stomach churned harder than his brain, and he ran to the bathroom and began to throw up.

~~~~

CHAPTER 3

The Book

Jake was brought to his knees this time and it didn’t matter if one was in a fleabag motel or a penthouse suite, heaving your guts was heaving your guts.

As badly as he wanted to know who won the election, he couldn’t keep his head out of the toilet. When he finally felt like he had reached a reprieve, he got up and walked across the spacious tile floor to the sink. ‘If I missed the entire election I can at least wait another minute to find out who won,’ he told himself, as he splashed cold water on his face and rinsed out his mouth. He tried not to focus on his reflection in the mirror. ‘A three week blackout. Jesus.’

He slowly emerged from the bathroom and when Judy saw him coming she began to fix him another drink. Her mix included a healthier dose of orange juice than his did. She set the drink in front of his chair as Jake sat down.

She had never seen him quite like this before. There wasn’t even a hint of arrogance in his eyes or his voice as he looked up at her and quietly asked two simple questions. Who won? and Where’s Jesse?

It took Judy four hours to cover the missing three weeks in Jake’s life. He drank and smoked throughout the entire session and his emotions ran an obstacle course. He raced past shock, climbed a wall of wonderment, and crawled through a tunnel of discovery, and finally, finding something light and easy near the end of the course, he laughed so hard that Judy was forced to join him and as the two of them wiped tears of joy from their eyes, Jake contemplated the idea that maybe truth was stranger than fiction.

After four hours Jake was still attentive but he was also very intoxicated. As he stood and staggered to the counter for yet another drink, Judy kindly said, You’ve processed a lot of information in a short period of time. Don’t you think you should lie down for a while? I’ll answer any questions you might have after you get some rest.

Jake started to say something but then backed off. What he said instead was, You’re right. I promise I’ll have just one more drinky-poo before I take my nappy-poo. I just need to ask this right now. What the hell are we doing in this TajMahal anyway?

Judy smiled as if she had been wondering when he would finally ask it. You know Hutch Hutchison?

Of course I know Hutch. He’s made more illegal campaign contributions to the Republicans than anybody. And the competition is tough in that field. It’s amazing he can keep that much money under the rock that he slithers out from under. What does Hutch Hutchison have to do with.. aw shit, Judy. Tell me this isn’t Hutch’s place.

No, this isn’t Hutch’s place. Hutch lives in the most awful looking mansion in the universe. It’s so big that he asked that it be named the fifty-first state. No, this is his pretentious hotel; this is where he takes his mistresses and his suite is ours for the next three months.

Jake just stared at her. And just how did we gain the use of the asshole’s suite? And what is this about ‘our’? What’s this ‘we’ crap? His eyes tried to stay focused on Judy, tried to stay focused on anything for that matter, but his mind was set on a question. Are you sleeping with Hutch? he asked as softly as possible.

Judy didn’t respond softly. She screamed and swore like a sailor. A vulgar sailor. If it’s true that a beautiful woman becomes even more beautiful when she’s angry, then Judy’s radiance would have made Ray Charles hide under the piano in the parlor.

How dare you accuse me of going to bed with Hutch! I can’t stand him or his type. This was strictly a business deal. The only propositioning that went on was how long he would let us stay here.

Jake looked at her warily and noted the heavy marble ashtray near her hand. Heavy marble ashtrays might be great for impressing people but could be deadly if thrown by a beautiful teenage virgin prostitute with a genius IQ who probably had a good throwing arm to boot.

Judy, I’m sorry. I apologize from the darkest reaches of my heart. Just please calm down and tell me how we ended up here. Everything you’ve told me so far is so crazy that I’m willing to believe anything right now, which up to a minute ago included thinking that you might have slept with Hutch Hutchison. Judy, this is getting strange even by my standards.

Judy didn’t mean to laugh but she did anyway. Jake was exasperating to the extreme but in the next instant he would become this disarming little boy who was curious and clueless.

She then shook her hair about and looking at a spot just above his head, she took a deep breath and said, I know you’re going to be mad when I tell you this, but Hutch had sent word to me through one of his underlings that he wanted me to do a private show for him. When Jake opened his mouth to protest, Judy held up a hand, and like a child obeying a traffic officer, he stopped. I know that I told Jesse that I would give up the business but you and I needed a temporary place to live. We have both been evicted from our apartments. She raised her hand again and he stopped again. "You were evicted because even though Jesse paid you well for being his Press Secretary and we stayed in motels paid for by the campaign fund, you still neglected to pay your rent. You’re four months behind. I was evicted because when the media found out where my place was, they had so many camera crews around that the crack dealers started to complain to the landlord. Said it was bad for their customers.

Look, I did one show for the jerk-off and we now have a quiet place for three months to write the book together."

Jake raised his eyebrows at this, though one eyebrow was drunker than the other. Whoa, missy. Back up one sentence and hold that thought. Jake stood and made his way to the kitchen counter. The nappy-poo can wait. The drinky-poo demands immediate attention.

When he sat back down, he looked at her, and started laughing cruelly, Now tell me about this damn book that we’re supposed to be writing together. Last time I checked, I was the writer in this rag-tag bunch of Jesse’s misfits.

There is nothing scarier than a teenager who has made up their mind. Judy got a determined look on her face and then she set her jaw, and it may as well have been the jawbone of an ass for she slew every one of Jake’s preconceived notions of his importance to the campaign.

"While you were on that three week bender, who do you think wrote your stories? Who do you think did your press releases? Your style isn’t that hard to copy. I not only got the style down, I almost got the attitude down. That really scared me.

In fact, I did such a good job that the guy from the Washington Post said it was amazing that the more incoherent you got, the more understandable your stories became. So don’t tell me your tales about the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate, and Monica Lewinsky. From the age of thirteen I’ve lived in New York, on my own fending for myself. Who do you think has more street smarts? And as far as IQ’s go.. mine is 224. That’s about 200 points higher than yours has been the last three weeks!"

Judy paused for a second, maybe for effect, maybe just to catch her breath. Besides that, I’m one of the six disciples. You were just the Press Secretary and you didn’t even have to fend off questions because Jesse answered them all.

The last statement hurt Jake. He had wanted to be a disciple. That would have made seven of them. They could have called themselves-The Magnificent Seven-even though Jesse was big on humility.

As it was, by Jesse only having six disciples instead of twelve, the big joke among the press corps was that Jesse was into downsizing. When questioned about it, Jesse simply said that if more than six people in the insane asylum had believed that he was Jesus Christ; he would have had more disciples.

The fact that he was never really sure whether Jesse was Jesus, or just insane, is why he wasn’t chosen, knew Jake. ‘Maybe had I pretended to believe,’ he thought. ‘I’ve faked sincerity before.’

Judy interrupted his thoughts with, You won’t remember this but last week Jesse and all of the disciples planned a way to sneak away from the Secret Service agents and the TV crews and we went to a Chinese restaurant. Felt like we owed them. You decided to do Mexican instead. Doing Mexican meant you did tequila. Which meant you didn’t feel anything. Anyway, it was last call or last dinner or whatever, and Jesse told us that there needed to be a book written about the experience. He knew that all of us would be offered large advances by the biggest publishing houses to tell our individual stories, but Jesse felt like we should all collaborate on it with you being the writer.

Jake’s ears picked up when he heard that but he was having trouble lifting his chin off his chest.

Did Jesse really say that? Jake was slurring now but he was also impressed. Nobody had ever wanted Jake to write a book about them.

Yes. Jesse felt like you were the person to do it, but under certain conditions. You want to hear them?

Oh, fer-s-u-u-r-r-e, Judy. Tell me the conditions. And are they conditions or are they commandments. You know, Jesse added some commandments along the campaign trail.

Judy was pissed. Consider them commandments! Judy was also losing patience. "Look, this is the way it’s going to be. First off, fifty per cent of all profits go to charity. Thirty per cent go to the disciples, five per cent each, and you get the remaining twenty per cent. You