The end

I'm finishing the end of "The Gospel of Jesús."

He dies.

That is all.

A novel day

If Jesus returned to Earth today, in what manner would he return?

What would happen if he returned as an illegal immigrant, smuggled into the United States by his parents as an infant?

I raise the questions because they form the broad outline of my second novel, "The Gospel of Jesús," which I worked on the better part of today. It stands at about 52,000 words and still has about two chapters to go.

The idea occurred to me reading books by John Dominic Crossen, a former priest and monk who is among the leading Bible scholars of the day. It happens that the historical Jesus -- and there is such a figure external to what's written in The Bible -- wasn't a blue-eyed, blond-haired dude who sat in the front row of the mega Church. What we know according to contemporaneous histories of his time, he was of a Semitic people born into extreme poverty in what was then the armpit of the Roman Empire. And yet, within 60 years of his death, Roman writers like Pliny the Younger and Flavius Josephus were writing about this nobody and his follows (Pliny killed a bunch of them, to boot).

Believer or not, it is unique in the true sense of the word.

Tell me that's not intriguing.

Here's the beginning of the book:

They were to cross at El Paso.
José, Maria and the baby Jesús piled into the box truck that waited for them in the Paso del Norte neighborhood of Juarez, where they met the coyote, an unsmiling, sweaty, dirty and smelly man who simply stuck his hand out waiting for payment.
José handed the man a stack of American dollars, $2,000 for each of them. Six thousand total – virtually all of the money José had made in the last three years.
The coyote handed José a jar of axle grease, the smell of which would throw off any search dogs.

“Frótelo todo sobre usted,” the coyote whispered hoarsely. “Para cubrir encima del
olor humano.”
Rub it all over yourself. To cover the human smell.
José took the grease and looked at Maria. He could see the fear, the pain, the worry in her face. In her arms, she held Jesús, whom she had birthed just three days before. Jesús looked around, as he had since his birth, paying attention to everything, never crying, rarely sleeping, all of these traits unusual for a newborn.
José and Maria had hoped to cross before the birth, allowing Jesús to be born in America, the promised land, knowing that if the American policia caught them, at least Jesús could stay because he would be a U.S. citizen.
But too many people knew José had $6,000 on him and the danger of staying in Mexico became worse than the danger of attempting to cross into the U.S.
José opened the jar of grease and scooped his curled fingers into it, pulling out enough to cover Jesús in three quick swipes.
“¿Qué sobre el bebé?” Maria asked. “¿Lo lastimará?”

What about the baby? Will it hurt him?
José shook his head no. It did not matter that he didn’t know the answer. He had given the money to the coyote and must do what he was told. Even if he balked for the safety of the child or his wife, he would never see the money again. All coyotes knew only two things: money and violence. It would be one or the other for José and, worse, for his family.
After smearing the baby, who squirmed like he was in a bath, José covered Maria. He’d done as he heard, covering all exposed skin and rubbing extra areas that produce the human smells the dogs could pick up. The modest Maria did not flinch as José, whom she not yet been with, rubbed axle grease first on her.
Then José covered himself in the grease. They wrapped the baby in another bath towel, which they then painted with the last of the grease.
The coyote pointed them to the back of the box truck, which had tools and construction equipment and the countless stains of axle grease from predecessors, where a false wall had been pulled out. The space where they would make the short trip was just 10 inches deep, maybe less. It needed to be so border guards could not sense the subterfuge. They would splay their feet and turn their heads and clasp their hands to hold the baby Jesús. And then the wall would close on them.
The coyote asked if they had done as he’d asked the day before, giving the baby some cold medication to make it sleep during the crossing. If the baby cried, they were all caught. José nodded but he could see what the coyote could: the baby was as alert as they.
The coyote warned that if the baby cried, they must smother it even to the point of death if this is what they wanted, to go to America.
“Y no deje a bebé cagar cuando los perros están aquí,” the coyote sneered.
Do not let the baby crap.
For the first time in days, maybe months, José felt like smiling. “How do you stop a baby from crapping,” he thought. “You did not tell us to bring a cork.”
As they backed toward the wall, José and Maria turned their faces toward each other, José did smile and Maria smiled back as Jesús’ eyes darted back and forth between the two.
The wall went up and was snapped into place and it was utter darkness.