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

if the angel might return to perch on his mast any second.
    Joshua stood his ground. “Right now let’s just stick with the women part of it, if that’s all right.” Joshua patted Titus’s arm to reassure him. I knew how that touch felt: Titus would feel the fear run out of him like water.
    “I’ve fucked every kind of woman there is. I’ve fucked Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Ethiopians, and women from places that haven’t even been named yet. I’ve fucked fat ones, skinny ones, women with no legs, women with—”
    “Are you married?” Joshua interrupted before the sailor started into how he had fucked them in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse…
    “I have a wife in Rome.”
    “Is it the same with your wife and, say, a harlot?”
    “What, fucking? No, it’s not the same at all.”
    “It’s moist,” I said. “Right?”
    “Well, yes, it’s moist. But that’s not—”
    I grabbed Joshua’s tunic and started to drag him away. “There you have it. Let’s go, Josh. Now you know, sin is moist. Make a mental note. Let’s get some supper.”
    Titus was laughing. “You Jews and your sin. You know if you had more gods you wouldn’t have to be so worried about making one angry?”
    “Right,” I said, “I’m going to take spiritual advice from a guy who fucks turtles.”
    “You shouldn’t be so judgmental, Biff,” Joshua said. “You’re not without sin yourself.”
    “Oh, you and your holier-than-thou attitude. You can just do your own sinning from now on if that’s how you feel. You think I enjoy bedding harlots night after night, describing the whole process to you over and over?”
    “Well, yeah,” Joshua said.
    “That’s not the point. The point is, well…the point is…well. Guilt. I mean—turtles. I mean—” So I was flustered. Sue me. I’d never look at a turtle again without imagining it being molested by a scruffy Phoenician sailor. That’s not disturbing to you? Imagine it right now. I’ll wait. See?
    “He’s gone mad,” Titus said.
    “You shut up, you scurvy viper,” Joshua said.
    “What about not being judgmental?” Titus said.
    “That’s him,” Josh said. “It’s different for me.” And suddenly, having said that, Joshua looked as sad as I had ever seen him. He slouched away toward the pigpen, where he sat down and cradled his head in his hands as if he’d just been crowned with the weight of all the worries of mankind. He kept to himself until we left the ship.

    The Silk Road, the main vein of trade and custom and culture from the Roman world to the Far East, terminated where it met the sea at the port city of Selucia Pieria, the harbor city and naval stronghold that had fed and guarded Antioch since the time of Alexander. As we left the ship with the rest of the crew, Captain Titus stopped us at the gangplank. He held his hands, palm down. Joshua and I reached out and Titus dropped the coins we’d paid for passage into our palms. “I might have been holding a brace of scorpions, but you two reached out without a thought.”
    “It was a fair price to pay,” Joshua said. “You don’t have to return our money.”
    “I almost drowned your friend. I’m sorry.”
    “You asked if he could swim before you threw him in. He had a chance.”
    I looked at Joshua’s eyes to see if he was joking, but it was obvious he wasn’t.
    “Still,” Titus said.
    “So perhaps you will be given a chance someday as well,” Joshua said.
    “A slim fucking chance,” I added.
    Titus grinned at me. “Follow the shore of the harbor until it becomes a river. That’s the Onrontes. Follow its left bank and you’ll be in Antioch by nightfall. In the market there will be an old woman who sells herbs and charms. I don’t remember her name, but she has only one eye and she wears a tunic of Tyran purple. If there is a magician in Antioch she will know where to find him.”
    “How do you know this old woman?” I asked.
    “I buy my tiger penis powder from her.”
    Joshua looked at me for explanation. “What?” I said. “I’ve had a couple of harlots, I didn’t exchange recipes.” Then I looked to Titus. “Should I have?”
    “It’s for my knees,” the sailor said. “They hurt when it rains.”
    Joshua took my shoulder and started to lead me away. “Go with God, Titus,” he said.
    “Put in a good word with the black-winged one for me,” Titus said.
    Once we were into the wash of merchants and sailors around the harbor, I said, “He gave us