Jesus in the Desert

I was living in Baton Rouge across the street from Louisiana State University [L.S.U.].  Our building was a long two story affair with many loft apartments in it.  The front of the building was taken up by a barber shop and a small bar.  The locals knew the building as "The Ghetto."  I lived in a loft apartment [one room with a kitchenette and a bathroom] on the first floor.  Each apartment had its' own entryway facing outside.  There was no common hallway.  What we had was two alleys.  I lived on Drug Alley.  The dealers would cut through from the parking lot by the cinema.  There was never any lack of drugs.  I didn't have to leave my stoop.  I would open the door and wait for a drug dealer to show up.  Reefer was the most common but I took anything that anyone had. 

One evening two men wandered through.  They both had long hair, white robes tied with rope, sandals, and walking staffs.  The dominant guy said he was traveling around like Jesus did.  The other guy was his disciple.  They were living a Christian sort of life like Jesus did.  They had started out in California and made their way through the Arizona desert, then on through Texas and now here they were.  Us druggies conferred [all of us who had loft apartments at The Ghetto were party heads].  There was an empty apartment up Drug Alley.  We put Jesus and the disciple there for the night.  They got high with us and seemed to be happy to have the use of the apartment.

Later on that night, I got a chance to speak with the disciple alone, without Jesus.  "So, you really into this?" I asked.  The disciple shook his head.  "No," he said, "I just didn't have anything else to do."  I nodded.  I figured that at some point the disciple would split when he got tired of the robe get-up and tired of the Jesus dude.  Perhaps when they got to Florida or somewhere that the disciple would decide to stay for awhile.  Or perhaps a pretty woman would befriend the disciple and want him to stay awhile.

The next morning, Jesus thanked us for the hospitality and they were off on the road again.  I have not seen either Jesus or his disciple since.  I forgot about them until this morning when the memory came back.  I had put a sort of Jesus in a skit that I wrote.  Only my Jesus was named Hasus and he was more likeable than this particular Jesus was.  Hasus didn't have a false ego that required stroking.  The memory got me thinking:  What happened to Hasus before he showed up in my skit?  Perhaps sometime I will revisit the skit and make an extended story about Hasus and his history.

sapphoq on life