Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

favorite son has returned.” James turned away and I saw the tears literally shoot out of Joshua’s eyes into the dust.
    “James,” Joshua was pleading. “I didn’t know. When?”
    James turned and looked his half brother in the eye. There was no pity there, no grief, just anger. “Two months ago, Joshua. Joseph died two months ago. He asked for you.”
    “I didn’t know,” Joshua said, still holding his arms out for the embrace that wasn’t going to come.
    “Go inside. Mother has been waiting for you. She starts every morning wondering if this is the day you’ll return. Go inside.” He turned away as Joshua went past him into the house, then James looked up at me. “The last thing he said was ‘Tell the bastard I love him.’”
    “The bastard?” I said as I coaxed my camel to let me down.
    “That’s what he always called Joshua. ‘I wonder how the bastard is doing. I wonder where the bastard is today?’ Always talking about the bastard. And Mother yammering on always about how Joshua did this, and Joshua did that, and what great things Joshua would do when he returned. And all the while I’m the one looking out for my brothers and sisters, taking care of them when Father got sick, taking care of my own family. Still, was there any thanks? A kind word? No, I was doing nothing more than paving Joshua’s road. You have no idea what it’s like to always be second to Joshua.”
    “Really,” I said. “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime,” I said. “Tell Josh if he needs me I’ll be at my father’s house. My father is still alive, isn’t he?”
    “Yes, and your mother too.”
    “Oh good, I didn’t want to put one of my brothers through breaking the painful news.” I turned and led my camel away.
    “Go with God, Levi,” James said.
    I turned. “James, it is written, ‘To the work you are entitled, but not the fruits thereof.’”
    “I’ve never heard that. Where is that written?”
    “In the Bhagavad Gita, James. It’s a long poem about going into battle, and this warrior’s god tells him not to worry about killing his kinsmen in battle, because they are already dead, they just don’t know it yet. I don’t know what made me think of it.”

    My father hugged me until I thought he’d broken my ribs, then he handed me off to my mother, who did the same until she seemed to come to her senses, then she began to cuff me about the head and shoulders with her sandal, which she had whipped off with surprising speed and dexterity for a woman her age.
    “Seventeen years you’re gone and you couldn’t write?”
    “You don’t know how to read.”
    “So you couldn’t send word, smart mouth?”
    I fended off the blows by directing their energy away from me, as I had been taught at the monastery, and soon two small boys who I didn’t recognize were catching the brunt of the beating. Fearing lawsuits from small strangers, I caught my mother’s arms and hugged them to her sides as I looked at my father, nodded to the two little ones, and raised my eyebrows as if to say, Who are the squirts ?
    “Those are your brothers, Moses and Japeth,” my father said. “Moses is six and Japeth is five.”
    The little guys grinned. Both were missing front teeth, probably sacrificed to the squirming harpy I was currently holding at bay. My father beamed as if to say, I can still build the aqueduct—lay a little pipe, if you know what I mean—when I need to.
    I scowled as if to say, Look, I was barely able to hold on to my respect for you when I found out what you did to make the first three of us; these little fellows are only evidence that you’ve no memory for suffering.
    “Mother, if I let you go will you calm down?” I looked over her shoulder at Japeth and Moses. “I used to tell people she was besought by a demon, do you guys do that?” I winked at them.
    They giggled as if to say, Please, end our suffering, kill us, kill us now, or kill this bitch that plagues us like the torments of Job. Okay, maybe I was just imagining that’s what they were saying. Maybe they were just giggling.
    I let my mother go and she backed off. “Japeth, Moses,” Mother said, “come meet Biff. You’ve heard your father and me talk about our oldest disappointment—well, this is him. Now run and get your other brothers, I’ll go fix something nice.”
    My brothers Shem and Lucius brought their families and joined us for dinner and we all lay around the table as Mother served us something