JC's Manager

Table of Contents

Time Map

Character List I

Character List II

Prologue

Chapter I — The End of Just Begun

Chapter II — Marie

Chapter III — A.C. XXVII

Chapter IV — Mof’s got Talent

Chapter V — Prayer for The Real

Chapter VI — Aunt Thelusia

Chapter VII — Zunti !

Chapter VIII — Counterfeit Cows

Chapter IX — Ootbashkrgtpashkizmt!

Chapter X — Surrender to Who?

Chapter XI — Hackensack

Chapter XII — A True Fabrication

Chapter XIII — Me and My Mentula

Chapter XIV — The Gate

Chapter XV — Shingkoo

Chapter XVI — The New York Empire

Chapter XVII — Flying Prosthesis

Chapter XVIII — Kim the Complainer

Chapter XIX — Baseball & Sisyphus

Chapter XX — High Saichel

Chapter XXI — Tomaculum !

Chapter XXII — Don’t Bogart My Dogs

Chapter XXIII — Raj Panjit

Chapter XXIV — Chicken Mole

Chapter XXV — V=d over T

Chapter XXVI — Wooh!

Chapter XXVII — Cray Cray

Chapter XXVIII — Barge #1

Chapter XXIX — Epilogus

About the author

Time Map

Character List I

Character List II

Prologue

Spelunking below Ancient Rome, an Italian archaeological team, using a small bot known as Digga, have accidentally turned up a strange prize.

Deep within the earliest of engineering masterpieces, the Cloaca Maxima, a smallish watertight bundle has lain protected from the sewer’s effluent for millennia. But on a recent mission to map out the Cloaca’s many tunnels, Digga ran across two loose tiles, dislodging one as it passed.

Zooming in Digga’s camera for closer inspection, team members glued themselves to a monitor, watching intently from inside their glass pod perched on a hill above the Forum. Something else, clearly seen, illuminated by Digga’s lamp, was nested just behind the remaining tile.

Hours crawled by, while the team worked the bot’s mechanical arms to extract the bundle and back Digga out. At the Cloaca’s entrance, they scrambled to retrieve the bot, sending one member racing to the pod with the bundle.

Aramaic was the first word to break the silence inside the pod, the team having gently unrolled one of the scrolls just enough to read the first of what quickly became the The Cloacan Scrolls.

2000 years…? convinced them to stop, and get the scrolls to their permanent lab for thorough analysis. What was to come seemed impossible.

Probably the first of their kind, the scrolls read as a diary—written in a curiously rhythmic tempo the archeological team agree can only be associated with the author’s own pattern of speech—that describes how two Ancient Romans traveled through time two thousand years into the future…to New Jersey.

This book is in fact that diary.

The End of Just Begun

I’d never seen anyone walk on water! And when the loaf thing happened, forget it, we got hotter than before. Everyone could do water into wine, this wasn’t such a big thing...but for an entire village?

My contracts were simple. You always made sure your talent had transportation. We (I was a one-man show, but it was always better to say we) provided camels...not the best camels, they spit a lot. They were Egyptian rejects. I got ’em for cheap after the Gladiators were through with them...and food. We always made certain the talent got fed.

J.C. was an easy ticket on this count. He made his own. He could get it to fall from the sky, appear in the water. He did a fishes and loaves thing once that stopped ’em dead.

I know, I know, the Apostles tell all about it—that book they’re writing. I just hope they don’t get carried away.  They’re so full of themselves. Such proletarii—the lowest social class in Rome, with an even lower status and no property...none at all!

And who am I? Moishe Ben Dedundat, that’s me. Manager Supreme...probably the first, actually. If not the first, then I have to be right in there. I mean, the world hasn’t been going that long, you know what I’m saying? And with J.C. doin’ the food and me managing—it was bread and circuses, bread and circuses. Romans couldn’t get enough bread and circuses.

Anyway, things were very hot for us. We’d sold out all the small houses, and suddenly we were getting messages run over to us by the High Rabbis from over in the library town. You know... What was the name? Alexandria, that’s it.

Writing this stuff down is a little difficult at the moment. Not because it’s so emotionally charged or anything...it’s this cave I’m in. A mausoleum, we call it. It was J.C.’s.

Well, it didn’t actually belong to him. The real owner let me camp out here just after everything fell through. I mean, with the Empire disintegrating the way it is, and the taxes...they’re so high, this tomb’s all I can afford.

It’s the people. They keep visiting this cave place I’m in, wanting a piece of this, that, a rock. I’m thinking a move might be good, maybe the olive grove. It’s where J.C. hid, the Judas thing happened, communing with Spirit, all that.

Writing’s tough enough, what with the stylus and the messy ink. Sitting in a wet cave on a rock, trying to balance the scrolls and all...forget it. So it’s touch-and-go.

The plan is to chronicle all that has happened to me, before and after the Gate...especially after. Which you’ll soon understand. Then I’ll wrap the story up in something protective and hide it; somewhere back in Rome. Just inside the Cloaca Maxima, maybe. Behind a tile would be good, so someone from the future finds it.

Figuring that no one from my time is going to be too tempted to visit the inside of this thing; Rome’s largest sewer..? Forget it. However, if anybody in the future’s going to dig around looking for something, I’m guessing this  is the first place they’ll look ... sounds plausible.

So about J.C. :

Julian Cogwell ... that’s what came to me. A second or so later I get the letters J.C., glowing, bright. Right out of the blue, it fills my head. Go figure! (Not exactly the kinda name I was used to hearing around the Empire, I’ll tell ya.)

I’d been walking through a pair of sandals per week, looking for someone to manage. This had been going on for months. Then, Julian Cogwell?

It was my first experience with stuff just falling into my mind this way—left me a little confused for a few seconds. Then I remembered the advice of friends who’d hung out at the Oracles.

The general idea was: Inspiration drops in from out of the blue. You don’t argue. You don’t hesitate. You just jump right in. I mean, was it my fault I’d been communicating on another level? It hadn’t occurred to me there even was another level, until what happened to me happened.

Everyone in the Empire was talking about some new kid, Yahooshahoova...Yashoowaha...Yamway, something like that. I could never get it right. Granted, my mind remembered in the short term. So with people’s names I was a disaster. Plus, up to this point, I’d never actually seen this Yahooshawadeva ... Yehoshua, that’s it.

People were spending just as much time talking about another kid, who was also supposed to be one hell of a magician. Add to that my deep hunger to manage a white-hot talent, information overload, a whirlpool of ideas inside my head... And the final mix ended up looking like: We got the Yehoshua that’s hot ... We got the Yehoshua invoker ... They’re one and the same ... 2 + 2 = That’s who I would find, and that’s who I would sign!

You have to understand, this person everyone kept talking about, with the magic, the look, the crowds...he made all the other magicians look like town criers. Did their fans get fishes and loaves by the thousands? I don’t think so—he needed a name change—but I don’t think so.

They say he came from somewhere near Duodenum, the old country. I’m a little fuzzy on this. But what I am certain of is that it wasn’t difficult to see why the kid got so hot. Like I’d heard a famous Greek actress say once, He had the ‘It.’ You either got ‘It’ or you don’t, she’d say. And this J.C. kid had ‘It’ plenty and then some.

Here I’m going to segue, move forward a little:

So by this time, I’d already signed Julian. He was easy. It was his mother. This woman was difficult. But anyway, I’d thrown everything I had into a new stunt the kid promised would be bigger and better than anything he’d ever done. This is when we all got in a little deep.

J.C. had pulled off some spectacular stunts, but never a disappearing act. This was the thing that eluded him through the entire episode. You know how difficult it is to disappear? And when you’ve always got someone hounding you like he did, within an eyelash away. People got so close, they were like warts.

We were working up a bigger presentation. Kind of a You CAN walk on hot coals, but bigger. Someone was already using that anyway, so we needed something of our own—for halftime shows at the arenas, that sort of thing.

We got real close to making it all happen when this guy, Pilate, Pontius Pilate (such a name), started pulling our chain. Things were really looking good, until Pilate stuck himself in everyone’s face.

Personal hygiene was a fad of his, like constantly washing his hands and all. But his was his halitosis! What was up with that? How a guy’s hands could be so clean and his mouth so stinky, I’ll never know—a result of the fish sauce. (I’ll explain later).

There’ll never be another one like J.C. I should know. I looked everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of talent in the valley at that time, some great showmen. But that kid had it all. And he looked the part....

By the time you who are reading read this, the ancient Hebrew it’s written in is bound to be even more ancient. I only hope someone can still figure out the words...and the expressions. It’s all in the expressions. I’m thinking of getting Joshua Ben Evolent to do an alternate translation, maybe in Sumerian...Latin would be good.

Actually, he’s the one who came up with the J.C. thing. Naturally, I was thinking about it, but he gets the credit. It was after I suggested substituting Julian Cogwell for the Yehoshua name his mother had given him.

She had absolutely no imagination this woman. She’d sold Julian on becoming a complete Yehoshua invoker, right down to the name. He was a great little magician, Julian, but come on. Somehow, you’ve got to be different, I tried to tell her. A Yehoshua we’ve got already. Whatever, I thought J.C. was great...really sounded like something a manager should say.

Only problem I can see with the translation idea is Ben Evolent’s an alky. That and the letter J—it hasn’t been officially invented yet. I’m thinking about it though. The sound is pretty much there. Love the J sound. I’m just not sure what it’s going to look like yet...whatever. Getting that one through the Senate oughta be a joy.

But Ben Evolent? Generally, he slobbers on everything. He’d most likely take a little license here and there too, but you could pretty much figure out where by the stains. So maybe I’ll do it. You could fix it later. I don’t know. (Proletarii assholes. You know all those Thees and Thous?  Never happened. Only the phonies talked like that.)

Nobody could have convinced me I’d ever become J.C.’s manager. I mean, come on. You think he really needed a manager? But he did. He was going nowhere. Oh he had the tricks and the silver tongue, but he wasn’t exactly a snappy dresser this J.C. He was a loincloth kind of guy, very organic. He needed advice. And to tell you the truth, he needed to get away from his mother.

I gotta be fair. I hate to even mention this, but I seriously thought of signing Julian’s mother. There, I admit it.

She had terrific pipes...harridan though she was. I would never have known, if she hadn’t decided to sing me into her home. This was a big thing with her. She could have started a singing movement she was so good—no schtick, just voice and lots of good. But she was a hard woman. She’d sing you into submission, and then beat you to death with belligerence. And an actor, this she also was. Better than J.C., even and something I’d soon find out.

I had Ben Evolent in tow the day J.C. introduced me to his mother. And the stories. What this woman didn’t roll out. Like the virgin thing... Whaaat, are you crazy? How could she be a virgin? It just doesn’t work that way. Fans were swallowing it though.

Then again, we do have more than our fair share of gods and sensational stories here in the Empire. Just about every people who’ve ever lived have seen to that. Who’s to know? You gotta free your mind. The quintessential expansive mind, that’s how Ben Evolent puts what I’ve got.

Everything J.C’s mother said fit perfectly with the bits and pieces I’d picked from conversations I was constantly running into. Conversations people just couldn’t get enough of. Stories that left me hungrier to sign the kid each time I heard them.

My knowing zip about this other magician, the Yehoshua kid, didn’t faze me in the least. Was I actually going to argue with a yarn that was this fabulous? You can imagine. I swallowed up everything the woman threw at me.

She had a Vision, she says. This one, I don’t know. You’re on your own there. Whatever, the whole thing came together—that and the donkey.

The night J.C. was born, she said they actually did travel by donkey. It’s not like they had to. They had options. The Magi story was an embellishment, somewhat contrived but very good—stars, three kings, camels, incense. It was very good.

Are you sure you shouldn’t check into this a little further, talk to a few people, corroborate his mother’s story maybe, I remember Ben Evolent saying.

Who needs to check any further? I said. I’m going on instinct here."

Marie

I’LL NEVER FORGET WHEN I FIRST LAID EYES on this J.C. kid. Kid? Hell, he was always thirty-two going on infinite. And he always gave you the feeling he knew. What? You didn’t need to know. You just knew he knew; a real showman.

As it would turn out, the Empire would have its hands full. Messiahs began to multiply. It wasn’t long before they were running around all over the place. Every new movement wanted to be represented. On the upside, this Yehoshua kid actually made it to the top of the heap. That was impressive to say the least. Impressive and confusing, two things you didn’t want to leave on the Empire’s doorstep. This became the down side.

So life right now is something to bitch about. Isn’t it always that way? And you have the Roman thing. They’re giving everyone angst—what with the taxes, the Empire crumbling. You have to keep a low profile.

I’m not going to spend time filling in the details. We’ve got the disciples doing that. And believe you me, they’ll make some story out of this. Only thing is, I hope they all agree. These guys were a little obsessive. They could roll out any number of interpretations. Multiply that by hundreds and hundreds of years, it turns into a super religion, maybe even seven or eight super religions... Things could get unnecessarily complicated.

You who are reading will doubtless have all of this figured out in your time. But just for the record, with all that I’ve seen happen here in the Empire, the mishigas with religious people jockeying around for power and making everyone nuts? Separate church from state. That’s what I’d advise you. Do it early on, and you’ll save yourselves a lot of trouble.

I hope this isn’t going too fast for you. I don’t want it to drag, so I’m pushing it along, but I think I’m capturing the moment. I just don’t feel I should bother with the idiom. Know what I’m saying? I’ve got no time for BS, just J.C. as it were. So let me get on with this.

The kid’s ol’ man, it was Joseph, and his mother, Marie. It was Mary, actually. But the few times she let me speak to her she was so hard, I decided right then and there I’d annoy her a little with the Marie.

And here it comes, the acting part I mentioned. She said they ended up in a stable one night, which I’d actually heard. That’s where Julian, now J.C. (jeez, I love that) was born. It wasn’t easy. Look, she picked the donkey, right? Well, they had to pull the thing the whole way. They’re stubborn these animals. She’d been pregnant for a while, and that night was the night. What else could they do? The kid wanted to be born, so....

There were a lot of stories floating around. You could take your pick. I mean, it’s difficult to know the truth now.  In your time, it should be impossible. But the way it was told to me, J.C. showed signs of being different at a very early age.

How different? Who could know? It was understandable. With your average person, downtrodden for so many years (it was almost more fashionable to have nothing), imagination was the most anyone could hope to possess And imagination became J.C.’s middle name. He’d talk and everyone would listen...and he said some pretty outrageous things. Whatever the actual truth, it turned into a mess at the end.

I have to say here, that Marie was good. She had the kid thinking he could walk on water...which he eventually did!

So with the rumors, new messiah, prophet, king of the Iudaeans (Jews for you who are reading), all that...and only a baby yet! It was brilliant. Maybe a little too brilliant, I remember thinking, given Herod’s propensity for jealousy.

Nothing gets a king’s dander up like competition. Of course, there wasn’t much dander up there. Herod’s was one hairless pate. Baby or not, this was too much story to ignore.

Marie could have avoided the whole thing. Becoming the first family, that’s how fans knew ’em, this was not a good idea; with the clothes, the talk... Cloning at its best, that’s what it was. She figured that the shortest distance between poverty and living in style was lying.

The way they set it up, whoever it was who had final say, they decided to go with this virgin thing. This next bit had Marie written all over it. The birth, they called an immaculate conception—a little unusual for the time, even with all the magic going around.

Joseph was set up as a carpenter. Funny thing is, I never ran across anything he ever made—no chairs, boats, doors, nothing.

I’d heard that one time he’d been approached by a Senator to make something, an instrument of some sort. He got in way over his head. It came out horrible. Some say that’s the real reason they had to take a hike. This wasn’t exactly the greatest time for carpenters. And if they had debts, forget it. It’s always the same old story. So anyway, they got the hell out of there.

Let me go back to the beginning. In this case, it turned out to be the end. People, the fans, the system, they were all getting too close. To be honest, I thought it was dangerous—what with the Romans so paranoid, the Iudaeans pissed off and the populous so easily misled. I remember trying to talk him out of this disappearing trick, but J.C. knew better. Actually, he usually did.

Naturally, Marie fell right in step with her kid. He wants everything,! she said, wild eyed, salivating over the possibilities, the fame, the wealth. The whole megilla, the ganza gasheft!

Right there, I saw who was really running the show.  But the Manager within held firm. One slip and his career would be over before it had begun, I remember thinking. So I backed off and let him take complete control. Anyway, I had to pay attention to a couple of other people I had signed.

But before I get too involved with this part, let me move backward a little to when it all started; when it first hit me that I’d found big talent.

Postscript:

Actually, today’s the day—I’m getting out of this tomb place. It’s cold, plus I’m tired of eating grains and dried fruits. All I do is shit ... or merda, Latin for what the Empire’s turnin’ into.

Mausoleums aren’t conducive to writing, popular ones even less...what with the faithful discovering the location, showing up