What Do You Do with a Two-Hundred Pound Jesus?
They’d had one too many that night, again. Sometime after midnight, Petey and Earl found themselves standing by Earl’s truck without a plan.
“We can’t sell a sucker big as this,” Earl said. “And besides who sells Jesus?”
The statue had been a lot heavier than they’d expected. They’d dragged it into the back of the truck and covered it with a tarp and an unzipped sleeping bag.
“Let’s talk tomorrow,” Petey said. “I’m beat.”
“No way is this staying in my truck, man.”
They decided on Petey’s half-finished basement rec room. He’d done one wall, with wood paneling and a shelf of Oakland As bobbleheads, but never finished putting up the rest of the paneling or floor. After Marcy left him, he didn’t really see the point in finishing the rec room. The whole house was basically his rec room.
“Are we just leaving him here?” Petey asked.
“You got a better idea?” Earl, halfway up the stairs to the kitchen, looked over his shoulder like the statue might be staring at him.
“We’ll think of something else later, right?”
“Yeah, later.”
News at the Anchor Bar
Seven guys sat in the Anchor Bar and Grill in Pleasant Valley, a sleepy town east of the San Francisco Bay Area, nowhere near the ocean. A stuffed marlin graced the wall over the bar, probably from a previous owner’s fishing trip to Florida. Rope fishnets dotted with starfish and foam buoys hung in the corners. Despite calling itself a Grill, the Anchor didn’t serve food. Maybe it had once upon a time. Maybe not.
Someone pointed at the picture of Holy Redeemer Church on the screen of the TV.
“Hey, take a look! That’s Pleasant Valley on the news!”
The bartender turned up the sound.
“Last night a life-size Jesus was stolen off the outdoor cross at Holy Redeemer Church on East Pleasant Valley Boulevard sometime after dark. Sgt. Vincent Petrelli from the County Sheriff’s office said the bronze statue would have weighed more than 200 pounds, and required a truck to cart away.” A well-groomed police officer’s head filled the screen. “Bronze runs $1.61 a point, give or take, so it’s worth a lot. It’s also worth a lot to the parishioners at Holy Redeemer.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? They stole a Jesus that big from right under everyone’s noses?”
“Don’t know if the priest lives there. Sometimes they don’t.”
“Still, someone would’ve seen it, don’t you think? Must have been at least two guys.”
“I can lift two hundred pounds by myself, easy,” a regular piped up from the end of the bar.
The rest of them guffawed. “Yeah, right. A two-hundred pound Jesus.”
“Well we’re in the news now,” one of the other guys said. “Haven’t seen Pleasant Valley on the ten o’clock news since, shit, I don’t know. When were we in the news?”
“Hit and run on the freeway. That motorcyclist bit it.”
“Well, that’s the freeway. I mean the town.”
“Chick on the county sanitary board who lived in one of those new houses. The one who shoplifted.”
“Yeah, there was her.”
“These guys must’ve been stone cold atheists to steal a life-size statue of Jesus. Wouldn’t most people be a little superstitious about that?”
“Meth. I think it was probably meth.”
“What do you mean? They needed money for meth?”
“No, meth made them crazy. Ever listened to tweakers talk?”
How It Started
Only a few guys know the inside story. One of those stories with no women, unless you want to count Petey’s ex-wife Marcy. Yeah, you could say she played a role in how Petey acted that night just by not being around anymore.
It all started out pretty normal, two guys shooting the breeze in another bar in Pleasant Valley, a place called O’Malley’s. Beer drinkers, not tweakers. Seedier than the Anchor but not really seedy, darker than the Anchor, O’Malley’s looked like a lot of bars with dusty Guinness ads and ancient photos of local athletic teams on the walls. The corridor outside the johns smelled like pee and air freshener.
Petey, a young guy with a beer belly and tats, drank at O’Malley’s most weeknights. He grew melancholy after a few beers. This night was no different. “Jeez, it really burns me. Here’s this guy supposedly saved us all, and we’ve got to look at him nailed on the cross. Over and over. There he is in agony. Kids and everything in all these churches, looking at this torture scene.”
“I hear you,” his buddy Earl said. “Amen to that.”
“Torture. That’s what it is. And I think we should do something about it.”
“Yeah.” Earl looked a little confused, drained his beer and signaled for another one. “Yeah.” He took a long sip. “Like what?”
“I tell you. I been looking at that big one in the Catholic Church across from 24 Hour Fitness. Big sucker.”
“What are you going to do, write ‘em about it or something?”
“Nah. I’m going to steal it.”
Earl laughed. “Right.”
“Wouldn’t be hard. My tools. Your truck. We could be in and out of there in fifteen minutes. Ain’t nobody around at night.”
“Ain’t there a priest sleeping there?”
“I don’t think so. And besides, he’d be asleep. I’m talking late, like closing time.”
“We’re just talking here, right?”
“Yeah, we’re just talking.”
Petey paused and stared into his empty glass.
“I’m just saying it’s possible. Or we could just leave him there, suffering on the cross.”
“Well I mean, when you put it that way.”
How Petey’s Marriage Ended
They’d only been married for two years when Marcy told Petey he had no ambition. “You’ve barely left Pleasant Valley,” she said. “When was the last time you went to the city?”
“So let’s go to the city,” he said. “How about this weekend.”
She told him he was missing the point, which she said a lot. One night he got home from work and she was gone. Moved to the city, probably. At least that’s how he figured it. She didn’t take much with her: clothes, her yoga mat, the full-length mirror, a travel guide to Paris, a box of yearbooks and souvenirs from high school, some stuff that had been her grandma’s—the kitchen clock, two Hummel figures, a crystal candy dish, a framed print of the Last Supper. She left the album of wedding pictures behind. He was glad she didn’t leave her wedding ring and diamond engagement ring, since maybe that meant she was coming back. Even with the same furniture, same bed and sheets and towels, same pots and pans and dishes, the house felt empty. Petey didn’t bother to turn on the lights at night anymore, just hunkered down with some takeout in front of the glow of the TV.
Petey’s rec room was dim even in the daytime. At night, the overhead light illuminated the cracked cement floor and damp spots in the foundation with desolate clarity. Petey hadn’t gotten around to buying man cave furniture, but he’d cleared off a sagging old couch in the garage that they‘d never gotten rid of, and dragged it into the dark room. He’d propped the statue of Jesus up in the corner, with the couch angled to face it.
Sometimes in the evening Petey went down there with a six-pack and just sat on the couch and looked at Jesus in the semi-darkness. Still in agony, head pitched forward and eyes closed. Without the cross behind him you could imagine he was serene. At least a little more comfortable than he’d been. Petey took his time as he downed the beers, solemn-faced. He still wasn’t sure whether he’d done the right thing, but he was stuck with it now, all right.
One night he stood and extended his arms, tilting his head to try out the pose.
Final Judgment at the Anchor Bar
“My wife’s mother was at Holy Redeemer last week. The cross is still empty. Don’t know if they can afford to replace Jesus.”
“Probably they’ll do a fundraiser. Damn Catholics are always asking for money, you know?”
“They say they’ve got some leads to a guy,” the bartender said, “but I’m not buying it. And unless the guy’s really stupid, he’s not fencing it.” He swiped at the bar with a damp rag.
“What do you figure? A local?”
“I’d say local. Young, dumb, single. Or divorced. Can’t see a woman putting up with this shit, can you?”
“Doesn’t narrow it down much, in this town. Whoever he is, now the guy’s got his own personal Jesus.”
“Now that was a good song. The year I graduated from high school. You don’t hear anything that good on the radio these days.”
“I’m hearing it in my head but I’m not placing it. Who was it again?”
“Depeche Mode, man.”
The bartender chimed in. “Johnny Cash did a cover too.”
“No shit. Johnny Cash. And Depeche Mode. They were the greatest. You know what the song was really about?”
“No. What?”
“Elvis Presley. The song was about how Priscilla Presley turned the King into her own personal Jesus.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nah. That’s what I heard.”
“They seen him again.”
“Who, Jesus?”
“Nah, Elvis Presley. Just saw it on the front page of a tabloid in the Safeway.”
“So what else is new?”
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