“If I Could Just Crash Here Tonight” by Maggie DuBois
He called me, crying, because nobody believed he was Jesus. He was sobbing so hard that I could barely understand him. I told him to take a deep breath.
His sobbing slowed down as he wept, “I’m the lamb. I don’t understand why nobody sees it. I’m the lamb.”
We had dated years before, and he was always one for “out there” ideas, but I attributed that to his rampant drug use. He did more drugs than anyone I've ever met in my entire life. He had a lot of wild ideas, but being Jesus was pretty out there, even for him.
I tend to forgive people for their wild ideas when they’re high. It’s the only way to ensure that they’ll forgive me for mine. Do unto others, not casting stones, all that business. It's astonishing how many unspoken druggie rules are based on biblical principles.
Was it just coincidence that I had ended up with him all those years ago, my given name being Mary, nicknamed Maggie? If he were Jesus, then had I been his Mary Magdalene all along?
He liked to call me "Magpie" from the Donovan song, but that’s not the song in this story.
For all his faults, most folks would have described him back then as a kind and gentle soul, while I was most often described as a tramp because of the way I dressed. On paper, the whole Jesus and Mary Magdalene thing suddenly seemed like it wasn’t that out there.
Plus, he did kind of look like Jesus, if you believe Jesus was the fair-haired, blue-eyed, hippie-image that they try to foist onto kids at bible camp. He even wore sandals and used to work as a framer at an art store. That's sort of like being a carpenter, in a roundabout way. The tools are the same.
He continued, told me he had just gotten out of jail again, that his head hurt because he’d been beaten up by another inmate. The dried blood crusting down the sides of his head was proof of his crown of thorns.
I asked him if he had been busted for drugs again as a purely rhetorical question because, of course, he had to have been busted for drugs again.
He said, “Hang on. Let me get the papers.”
Still sniffling but no longer weeping, he read me the report.
“They arrested me for…uhh…speeding, running a bunch of red lights, reckless driving, public endangerment, fleeing and evading law enforcement, five counts of assault on a police officer, resisting arrest with violence, hang on, I have to turn the page...”
These were not the actions of the gentle, philosophical druggie soul I had dated years before. He and I had always been honest with each other, but I could tell he really believed he was Jesus, so I didn't dare tell him he was mistaken. I just told him that these particular crimes were hardly befitting of someone like Jesus.
“The radio, it talks to me in sermons, Magpie. It knows I’m the son. It knows I’m the lamb. That song had come on from when we were dating. It told me to lead the police on a chase, that it was how I’d get back to you. It wasn’t my fault, and the police wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain.”
“What song?” I asked, expecting something epic like Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run".
“It told me to travel ‘round this town, and let the cops chase us around.”
I said, "You mean "Hey Jealousy”, that 90’s song by Gin Blossoms?"
He said, "The past is gone but something might be found to take its place, Magpie. That's us. That's us."
Looking back on our times together, who's to say that it wasn't.
I didn’t know whether to hang up the phone and call the police to do a welfare check on him or drive all night to Indiana to climb into his arms again.
Mary DuBois is a cross-genre Southern writer and photographer who would gladly live on the fringes of society were it not for her love of air-conditioning and streaming services. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Cosmonauts Avenue, JMWW, Queen Mob’s Tea House, *82 Review, X-R-A-Y Magazine and elsewhere. Her memoir manuscript was a semifinalist for the 2019 Pamet River Prize and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Gimmick Press.
