By Jason Michael Martin
I watched pink and yellow children staggering around in a nearby yard as adults squatted and pointed enthusiastically in different directions. In response, the sugary children would charge off toward… nothing. The scene confused me until I heard a crack and then a cry. A small girl in a yellow dress held shards of pale blue eggshells.
It must have been Easter Sunday again.
The scene spurred my most memorable Easter. I was still young enough then to think about Jesus on that special Sunday, risen, bright white robes gleaming, looking rather refreshed for having been nailed to a cross, to be completely honest.
After just three days, he had rocketed right back to life. Just flicked the switch and removed the rock. For the big, I TOLD-YOU-SO. For, THE BIG PAYBACK. Jesus strutted serenely towards the apostles, jabbing an index finger towards them with a wolfish grin, and saying, I TOLD YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! Go ahead! Stick a finger through my hand! Try me bro!
My Lord, they cried. My Lord! You look… positively… reborn!
But why did they kill him? I would wonder. Sure, there were always Roman soldiers lurking around in the background bushes, but in general, it seemed that things were going well. Jesus was becoming a hit on the circuit, making solid progress with the local riffraff, at least. Maybe that was the problem. He was starting to get noticed and moving up in the polls. What to do?
Well, you do a Judas. Your spies tell you that Judas wanted a bigger part than moody apostle #9; Judas wanted some real spotlight. There’s always a Judas. Just as there’s always a prophecy. And a prophecy needs headlines in bright lights… a spectacle, in other words. What a spectacle, then, to pull off a crucifixion. They say there’s nothing like live theater.
I remember, as a child, wondering why they said Jesus died willingly. He cried all night in the garden, pleading with his father, looking for another way.
“Why do we die, Dad?” I tugged at my father’s sleeve. He was busy being shown his brother-in-law’s new pool. We were all dressed up for Easter.
“I don’t know son,” he said. I found this reassuring. He was taking me seriously for once, and his candor made me feel mature. I didn’t know why, either.
Suddenly, my father winked at his brother-in-law and grabbed both of my wrists, then swung me upwards in an arc that ended with me in the pool.
I remember the facial expressions passing across my line of vision as I soared through the air… my aunt: pure horror… my uncle: bewilderment… my father: still straining from the effort, but happy with his work.
When my head finally broke the water’s surface, I caught my breath and swam to the pool’s shallow end. I trudged up the steps while holding the bent silver pole, my pale blue shirt and burgundy blazer sagging from my body, thick, cold, and color-bleeding.
“You all right, pal?” asked my father.
I did not answer.
He took me inside to blow-dry my head and body and used a funny hairdresser voice the whole time. I loved the attention.
I put on a borrowed white shirt and rehearsed my smile as I prepared to step into my uncle’s living room. I received looks of pity masked by feigned admiration for my precocious resilience, oblique sentiments of sympathy expressed as reassurances, unspoken condemnations of my father’s actions lost in the collective denial of the event. That he had sacrificed me, his only son, to show that he was willing to do anything he thought might please his people I couldn’t understand yet.
“He has risen!” my uncle said.
Jason Michael Martin’s writing has been featured in many literary journals, including The Opiate, Black Fork Review, Hotel AmeriKa, Alt-X Magazine, and others. His novel Chevy Nova Scotia received the Bronx Council on the Arts Chapter One Award.