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

tomorrow.”
    Joshua wheeled around to me and almost fell off his rock. “We’re going to Cana tomorrow?”
    “Yes, Maggie’s there, Josh. She’s dying.”

C hapter 25
    Philip, who was called the new guy, asked that we go to Cana by way of Bethany, as he had a friend there that he wanted to recruit to follow along with us. “I tried to get him to join with John the Baptist,” Philip said, “but he wouldn’t stand for the eating-locusts, living-in-pits thing. Anyway, he’s from Cana, I’m sure he’d love to have a visit home.”
    As we came into the square of Bethany, Philip called out to a blond kid who was sitting under a fig tree. He was the same yellow-haired kid that Joshua and I had seen when we first passed through Bethany over a year ago.
    “Hey, Nathaniel,” Philip called. “Come join me and my friends on the way to Cana. They’re from Nazareth. Joshua here might be the Messiah.”
    “Might be?” I said.
    Nathaniel walked out into the street to look at us, shading his eyes against the sun. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. He barely had the fuzz of a beard on his chin. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he said.
    “Joshua, Biff, Bartholomew,” Philip said, “this is my friend Nathaniel.”
    “I know you,” Joshua said. “I saw you when we last passed through here.”
    Then, inexplicably, Nathaniel fell to his knees in front of Joshua’s camel and said, “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”
    Joshua looked at me, then at Philip, then at the kid, prostrating himself on camel’s feet. “Because I’ve seen you before you believe that I’m the Messiah, even though a minute ago nothing good could come out of Nazareth?”
    “Sure, why not?” said Nathaniel.
    And Josh looked at me again, as if I could explain it. Meanwhile Bartholomew, who was on foot along with his pack of doggie followers (whom he had disturbingly begun to refer to as his “disciples”), went over to Nathaniel and helped the boy to his feet. “Stand up, if you’re coming with us.”
    Nathaniel prostrated himself before Bartholomew now. “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”
    “No, I’m not,” Bart said, lifting the kid to his feet. “He is.” Bart pointed to Joshua. Nathaniel looked to me, for some reason, for confirmation.
    “You are truly a babe in the woods,” I said to Nathaniel. “You don’t gamble, do you?”
    “Biff!” Joshua said. He shook his head and I shrugged. To Nathaniel he said, “You’re welcome to join us. We share the camels, our food, and what little money we have.” Here Joshua nodded toward Philip, who had been nominated to carry the communal purse because he was good at math.
    “Thanks,” said Nathaniel, and he fell in behind us.
    And thus we became five.
    “Josh,” I said in a harsh whisper, “that kid is as dumb as a stick.”
    “He’s not dumb, Biff, he just has a talent for belief.”
    “Fine,” I said, turning to Philip. “Don’t let the kid anywhere near the money.”
    As we headed out of the square toward the Mount of Olives, Abel and Crustus, the two old blind guys who’d helped me over Maggie’s wall, called out from the gutter. (I’d learned their names after correcting their little gender mistake.)
    “Oh son of David, have mercy on us!”
    Joshua pulled up on the reins of his camel. “What makes you call me that?”
    “You are Joshua of Nazareth, the young preacher who was studying under John?”
    “Yes, I am Joshua.”
    “We heard the Lord say that you were his son with whom he was well pleased.”
    “You heard that?”
    “Yes. About five or six weeks ago. Right out of the sky.”
    “Dammit, did everyone hear but me?”
    “Have mercy on us, Joshua,” said one blind guy.
    “Yeah, mercy,” said the other.
    Then Joshua climbed down from his camel, laid his hands upon the old men’s eyes, and said, “You have faith in the Lord, and you have heard, as evidently everyone in Judea has, that I am his son with whom he is well pleased.” Then he pulled his hands from their faces and the old men looked around.
    “Tell me what you see,” Joshua said.
    The old guys sort of looked around, saying nothing.
    “So, tell me what you see.”
    The blind men looked at each other.
    “Something wrong?” Joshua asked. “You can see, can’t you?”
    “Well, yeah,” said Abel, “but I thought there’d be more color.”
    “Yeah,” said Crustus, “it’s kind of dull.”
    I stepped up.