The Great Star of 2 BCE,
A Fat Roman in A Red Breastplate, A Bunch a’Frickin’ Angels,
The Night “Jumping” Yehoshua ben Josephus Finally Sold Used Camels to the Bethlehem Police and the Roman Military,
and
The Bad-Ass Bunny of Bethlehem!
A Fractured Christmas Fantasy, Part 1
by
Pete “The Elfman” D’Alessio
Copyright © 2012
Quirinius Atesties, the Roman Under-Assistant Governor of the District of Judea, and Ya’akov ben Moshe, the actual Mayor of Bethlehem near Jerusalem (as opposed to the Bethlehem of Galilee), walked side by side up the hill. They didn’t actually dislike each other, as was expected by those who supported their offices, and they had learned to work together in a Jewish-Roman perverse and friendlyish harmony based on professional respect (and to hide what others need not know). In the early days, Atesties and ben Moshe were trying to work out the difficult details for the new tax structure and sewage system, and ben Moshe’s brother-in-law kept interrupting the meeting and being, in general, his usual pesky self. Quirinius had offered to have him crucified as a courtesy, having a brother-in-law of his own who was also a major irritant and knowing what a pain they could be. While the Mayor didn’t take the Roman Under-Assistant Governor of the District of Judea up on his offer, mainly for fear of his sister—and he was sorely tempted—it was the step that was needed to mutually work out all the problems the Jews had with the Romans and vice versa. Usually, their answers didn’t make either side go away happy… it just made them go away, and that made both administrators happy!
“Do you hear what I hear?” Quirinius stopped and began looking around for the source of a weird whining sound.
Ben Moshe lifted a hand in a frustrated motion. “Don’t mind that, it’s only Yehoshua ben Josephus, the used camel salesman. He’s got the worst stock of camels in the history of Israel—and believe me, Roman, we’ve had some bad camels! He’s been after me for years to buy camels for the Bethlehem security militia. I don’t think the old boy has realized we’ve been conquered yet. City cops walk these days.”
Sure enough, old Yehoshua was burning sandal sole, hoofing it as best he could up the steep hill after the two officials. “God rest you, merry gentlemen! Have I got a used camel for you!” The two officials turned and just pointed down the hill. “Okay. So you’re busy now. You know I know you two sharp gents know a good deal when you see one. Come visit me at Jumpin’ Josephus’ Used Camel lot on the corner of Jericho Junction and Lot’s Wife’s Boulevard for the best deals of 2 BCE!”
They watched him stumble down the hill in silence, then continued to walk. “Why do you guys call it BCE?” Quirinius queried.
“Damned if I know!” the Mayor mumbled half under his breath. “Are you ready for this? It’s going to be a long night. Let’s hope it’s a silent night.”
Atesties nodded. It was almost mid-September; with fall came the shepherds who were tending flocks, what harvesting there was was underway, the new wine was being made, and Bethlehem was beginning to really rock as it filled up, the masses pouring into the little town of Bethlehem to register for the empire’s latest census. Caesar Augustus was preparing to commemorate his Silver Jubilee as Roman Emperor. Prior to the festivities, the old boy wanted a head count of his subjects and an official statement of their loyalty to his empire. Quirinius and ben Moshe both knew this was not going to be fun for them—it was an administrative nightmare.
The inns, the khans (or lodging house for caravans), hotels, motels, hospice houses, and even the local caves were packed with Jews from all over the country, Roman officials, and tourists from all over the Mediterranean on their way to Jerusalem or the pyramids were crammed into the little town so tightly, you couldn’t slip a greased Greek drachma through the mob.
“Quirinius, have you found a place for the Fourth Legion’s Commander?” The expression on the Roman’s face told the Mayor that he had. He suspected the place Quirinius had found might be under the wheels of a racing chariot!
Radolphius Marcus Ananus, or Ananus the Red, was the Commander of the Fourth Legion of Rome—the Red Legion! Vicious fighters, they were on their way to Jerusalem on a mission of harmony and peace. Ananus was resting his troops on the outskirts of town, their bright red breastplates sending out the message to Jews and tourists alike that absolutely no breach of the tranquility of Bethlehem—Ananus’ tranquility, while the legion was in town—was to be tolerated. The rumors as to just how this was to be accomplished were a bit terrifying, rather bloody, and as usual met with little or no resistance. This type of military behavior had earned Ananus the title ‘King of Peace’! This was all Atesties and ben Moshe needed in Bethlehem tonight—a strange star overhead and a personal visit from the King of Peace!
“I took the bridal suite at Hiltonius’ place,” Quirinius explained. “Nice man, but I can’t stand his daughters. One’s a ho and the other a schmo!” The Mayor was pleased by Quirinius’ choice of a Jewish putdown. “I gotta tell ya, Ya’akov… Ananus may be a Roman, but I can’t think too highly of a Commander who sleeps inside while his troops live in a field and fight off sheep for sleeping room.” The whole point of sheep being allowed to graze in these areas was to fertilize the field, and the sheep worked hard to that end. Not great places to sleep!
Ben Moshe just nodded. “Yeah, I hear Jews back in the day felt the same way about King David.” The Mayor paused and looked up into the sky. “Okay, grab a rock and get comfortable. We’re here. We should have a great view of the light from this roost.” Ben Moshe lifted a sack and a goatskin to show the Roman. “I brought a load of fresh-baked unleavened bread, cheese, and some of the best Jewish wine I have.”
“I thought you would. But why eat soldiers rations,” Quirinius lifted a bag he wore and a goatskin of his own, “when you can eat like an officer! Roman wine… and this!” He opened the sack and showed ben Moshe an almost-roasted leg of lamb portion that just needed a little warming to crust over, and would go great with the bread. “And don’t worry. It’s kosher. I got it from your Rabbi and swore him to secrecy!”
“You’re reputation is safe with him. I’ll get a fire going before it gets too dark. We roast a little, drink a little, and watch the sky a little… it’ll be a midnight clear, with no problems! Not a bad deal.” The Mayor smiled broadly. The Roman grinned back and nodded. With a little luck, they could sit here, get a little drunk, put this whole issue of a strange light in the sky to rest, and nobody would bother them. A strange light in the sky moving for Bethlehem, Ananus and his troops lounging around in sheep poop getting more and more twitchy, ten times the population taxing all the town's infrastructure, everybody shouting, shepherds and sheep all over the place, and the two most important officials in town were getting cold asses sitting on top of a small mountain watching for a crazy star. These were really big doings for a small town like Bethlehem!
The two men gathered wood, got a good fire going, started the roast, and drank a little wine as the day began to fade into night. As they settled back and waited for the darkness, they began to hear rustling noises from the bushes. Quirinius found a nice smooth rock and began to rise from the log he was resting against. “Hey, Ya’akov, does your old Jewish grandmother have a recipe for rabbit stew?” He was going to bean a nice fat rabbit dragging itself slowly from the covering bushes.
The Mayor reached up and grabbed the Roman official’s arm. In a hushed voice he whispered, “That’s the Bad-ass Bunny of Bethlehem, the meanest critter this side of the river Jordan!” It plopped down by the fire and appeared to be sleeping. The Mayor pointed to a distant bush. Out of the gloom were two foxes, stalking quietly towards the rabbit. “Now watch this. I got ten shekels says the rabbit kills or maims at least one of them!” Before Quirinius could respond, the foxes made a dash for the sleeping bunny rabbit.
It was the biggest mistake since Goliath went after David. It was clear to the Roman that the rabbit had suckered his enemies in. He bounded at least three cubits in the air, flipped around and landed square on the first fox. While it was ripping that fox a new asshole, it was kicking the face off the second fox. There was fur flying and body parts tumbling off in all directions. When it was over, the rabbit walked back to its place by the fire while the foxes disappeared very quickly in to the darkness. Before the bunny laid down, it looked at the two men, growled, turned and walked off back into the brush.
“Bad-ass Bunny of Bethlehem, you say?”
“Yep! A legend in these here parts. I thought the shepherds were pulling my leg, till I saw it myself.” He turned back to the fire. “I think the lamb is ready.”
The two men ate and drank and waited for the darkness. Overhead, slowly shining into clear view, was an unusually bright star. It had first appeared in June, and seemed to have moved from the east to settle over Bethlehem. It had scared the hell out of the population and forced both the Roman and Jewish authorities to look into the matter. Neither Quirinius nor Ya’akov saw it as an evil omen but, after a minor conspiracy, both decided that it was an excellent excuse to escape the army of pilgrims trekking in to register for the census, and all the problems that went with it. It was easy for Augustus to order a census of the whole frickin’ Roman world, but another thing to actually do it! Now the rush was on for people all over Israel to get checked in with the registers that they were members of the House of David here in Bethlehem, then high-tail it home before the cold of November and December.
“Well, Quirinius, what do you see?” Ya’akov asked.
The Roman had been gazing at the star for more than a little time. “I don’t know what I see, but I’ll tell you what I don’t! I don’t see the two brightest planets in the sky, Jupiter and Venus. In June, when the star showed up, they would have been… there!” He pointed the western horizon. “Suppose they aligned, sort of like you and me. That general area up there is where they might be in September. The two together would make a Hades of a light!”
“I never knew you were into astronomy?”
“Eh, my kid had a project for school and some of it stuck with me.” Before Quirinius Atesties could finish his dissertation on the stars, the rattle of armor slogging up the hill began to shatter the quiet night air. When two messengers got close enough to the fire to be seen, both officials were surprised to see Jewish police guards from the town.
The Mayor looked at his friend. “This can’t be good. These two don’t even like to go out in the dark. Yo! Amram. O, captain, my captain… wad up!”
The older of the two guards offered a halfhearted salute, obviously disdainful of the presence of the Roman. “Sorry to bother you, chief. We went first to tell our problem to the High Priest, HE sent us to tell it to Cincinnatus Ohious, the Roman Centurion at the garrison, HE sent us to tell your brother-in-law Zarahiah ha-Levi, and HE told us you were here and we should go tell it on the mountain!”
The Mayor put up his hands in frustration. “Tell me what, Amram, tell me what!?”
“Ah, we got a real prego woman in town! Her butthead husband has had her bouncing from Nazareth all the way to Bethlehem on the back of 18 BCE donkey. Does this kid need a midwife? Like you wouldn’t believe! Trouble is, there ain’t a midwife available between here and Jerusalem!”
Atesties shook his head. “Just what we need… a midwife crisis! Can they afford lodgings?”
Amram just shrugged. “I doubt it, sir. They look poor as temple mice. But it wouldn’t make a difference if they were as rich as the Emperor; there’s no room anywhere! Hell, we couldn’t find a room for the Messiah if he showed up tonight!... No offense.”
“None taken.” Quirinius looked at his friend. “We can’t let the kid be born in a ditch, Ya’akov. It just ain’t civilized. Can you think of any place to get them indoors?”
“Hiltonius…”
“But it’s packed, Mayor!”
“Go talk to Hiltonius. He owns a manger on the other side of town.” He turned to Quirinius. “The whole place is going out on that slum clearance bill you approved last week.” Atesties nodded and the Mayor turned back to Amram. “Go ask Hiltonius to do me a favor and let those two kids stay there. At least it’s warm and clean, in a barn sort of way… and even away in a manger sounds better than lying in a ditch.”
“Ahh, Mayor… it’ll take us all night to walk down the mountain and…”
“Take the short cut. Over the river and through the woods!” The Mayor pointed into the darkness.
Amram just dejectedly shrugged and he and his fellow cop began to walk off in the direction pointed. Amram suddenly stopped and turned to Atesties. “By the way, there are these three guys in town, princes or somethin’, running all over town looking for the King of the Jews. They looked harmless to me… actually, they looked a little nuts to me, but I thought you should know.”
The Roman nodded and flicked Amram a salute. “Get the new parents to some shelter first. Then! Go round up the wise guys and take the three of them with you to Hiltonius’ stable. We’ll meet you there to question them when we’re done here. When you go off duty, have one on Rome,” the Under-Assistant Governor of the District of Judea said, pitching the Jewish cops a gold Roman coin—as much as a bribe as a reward—and watched the city guards disappear in the shadows.
“So?” Ya’akov looked at his friend. “Do ya think we ought to go find Manny, Moe, and Jacob and see what they’re all about? We need to check on manger-kid, too. Neither one of us can afford a dead Jewish baby in our precinct; Herod would be all over us, you know how he loves children. We’d be out of our jobs in a flash.” The Mayor looked up at the star again and waited for his friend to talk them off the mountain.
But Quirinius just sat down again by the fire and drained off a little more wine. “Give ’em a few more hours,” he said. “Let them get all the little stuff done, you know, the stuff that makes us both crazy? Then we’ll deal with what’s left over.”
“You mean we’ll bury the bodies, hide the evidence, and bribe the witnesses. All the things we told the voters we wouldn’t be doing!”
“Yup! Business as usual. Hey, you are becoming Romanized. Just remember to ‘swear to God’ every once in a while, they love that!”
They sat and watched the star that seemed to have stopped moving. Although it was still a long way from December, the night air was getting a nasty chill to it. Quirinius pulled his cloak over his head as if it was a hood, and it cracked the Mayor up. “Quirinius, you look like a Jewish shepherd!” Ya’akov, in a sign of solidarity with his friend, pulled his cloak up too. They sat there for a bit, and earned the title ‘shepherd’ when they got invaded by three or four sheep that had strayed from the flock grazing in the field below. The two men made staves out of a scrawny tree and were going to chastise the future muttonchops down the hill, but they became aware of being surrounded by a dozen or so young men wearing over-bleached white togas who just appeared out of nowhere. Atesties straightened up and put a hand on his sword.
“Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,” the tallest fellow in the pack enunciated at the officials. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
“What the hell are you jerks talkin’ about?” Ya’akov returned. “Nobody’s ‘feared’, we’re just… confused… so wad’ up, boys?”
The biggest of the mob that had spoken first looked annoyed, and then looked confused too. It was obvious to Quirinius that this lad wasn’t used to being not understood, let alone questioned.
“Okay… let me try again! Fear not: for behold, I bring you good—”
“Whoa, strange person, we got that. Who the hell is this Chris guy, who the hell are you, and why the hell are you yammering at us?!” The Mayor was getting a bit concerned; he had a vague idea what these clowns were talking about, something he had been told about in Saturday school. And it was bloody dangerous to be talking like that in front of Quirinius, the representative Roman ruler who was willing to crucify his own brother-in-law as a courtesy… the Mayor still regretted turning him down on the offer…
“Huh? You’re shepherds… right?”
Quirinius threw his arms up in frustration, and his cloak fell back revealing his Roman armor. “Don’t let the sheep and the staff fool you! I’m Atesties, the Roman UnderAassistant Governor of the District of Judea, and this gentleman is Ya’akov ben Moshe, the actual Mayor of Bethlehem near Jerusalem, as opposed to the Bethlehem of Galilee.”
“B-b-but the sheep? You were looking up at the star? The way you were dressed, you have to be shepherds!”
“Sorry, big guy. We’re officials, like it or not, and we’re officially asking… what the hell are you idiots looking for shepherds for at midnight?” the Mayor grunted out in his most officially annoyed voice, although he was beginning to suspect these might not be the folk you wanted to piss off.
“Ahhh… we, ah, we’re supposed to tell the shepherds that the Son of God is born so they can tell everybody else. You know the drill; king’o peace, good cheer, no fear, tidings…” The big chap could see incredulous expressions on the faces of the two officials. “Ah, c’mon guys. This is our first Noel! Give us a break, we don’t know what we’re doin’. We’re flyin’ by the seat of our togas!”
Ya’akov just looked at the obvious leader of the pack. “Why are you telling this to us? Isn’t this the sort of thing you tell the High Priests?”
“We did!”
“And?”
“…They didn’t believe us. They threw us out. Millers, merchants, the army, swine herders, wine makers, olive growers… none of them wanted to hear it. Shepherds! Just shepherds. And we’re beginning to think the only reason they listened is because it gave them an excuse to get inside and warm up for a while! Boy, were they surprised to find the Son of God was being born in a stable!”
“Manger-kid is the son of who? You mean that family we sent to Hiltonius…”
“That was you two? You two shipped God’s only son to a barn to be born? If I were you guys, I’d live as long as possible!”
Quirinius looked at ben Moshe. “What’re these guys talkin’ about? What child is this? Are they your gods or mine? I thought we did a good thing!”
“Who knew?” The Mayor shrugged. He looked at the white toga mob. “I take it you guys are Angels?” The heads all bobbed a silent ‘yes’. “Q-man, I think it’s time we pay the kid a visit. It could be bullshit, or it could be big… but either way, we need to be there!” That sent up a roar from the Angels, all of whom wanted to go with the officials. “Out of the question, there’s too many of you. You want to draw attention to yourselves? Remember what happened at Sodom! Well, okay, maybe two or three…”
“Two or three of us? Are you crazy? We’re ‘the faithful’, we deserve better than two or three!”
The argument got loud, all the Angels insisting the faithful deserved to be there at ground zero. Finally, Ya’akov grabbed Quirinius’ arm and turned to walk down the hill. Aggravated with all the shouting and wrangling, he threw up his arms in frustration.
“Oh, come! ALL YE FAITHFUL!!! Just stop bickering and SHUT UP, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!
To be continued…
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