The Weekly Screed (#938)

The stranger in the stable

by David Benjamin

BETHLEHEM, 0 A.D. — He had been there, in the haystack, long before the young couple arrived. But no one had noticed. He slept through the young girl’s labor and barely stirred from his hibernation at the sound of the infant’s first reedy cry. 

He only awoke when a shepherd, eager to see the newborn babe, stumbled over his scuffed black boots. 

“Hey!” roared the bedraggled figure in the far corner of the stable, “Get offa my dogs, you wool-gathering clodhopper!”

“Oh, sorry,” said the shepherd. “I was just trying to see the Savior.”

This statement plunged the awakening vagabond into thought. “Oh, right,” he muttered. “Stable, manger, Savior. I’d almost forgotten… Well, it’s about time.”

“Forgotten what?” asked the shepherd.

“You wouldn’t understand,” said the stranger, as he sat up and brushed crumbs off his bodice. “Listen, hayseed. Tell the father to come over here?”

“The father of the Lord?”

“Well, technically, he’s not the father. But what the heck. Send him over.”

This bizarre command from an unwashed bum alarmed several listeners, who began discussing how to dispatch this unwelcome character. Meanwhile, the stranger drank noisily from a goat-bladder flask. A thirsty shepherd took notice.

“Whaddya got there?” he asked.

The stranger, his cheeks now glowing, grinned crookedly. “This?” he said. “It’s a local brew. Called Bethlehem Blindness. Wanna blast?”

The shepherd accepted the offer, quaffed deep from the bladder and almost passed out on the spot. The stranger, laughing mightily, passed the spirits among the gathering of shepherds, farmers, fishermen and a couple of overdressed swells who claimed to be Kings from the Orient. The mounting air of festivity in the deepest corner of the stable inevitably stirred the interest of the infant’s father. 

He was perhaps sixty years old. Tall, straight and dignified, he approached. The throng gave way. The stranger offered a libation. The older man declined.

“You,” said the stranger, “must be Joseph.”

“Yes. I am.”

“I know all about ya,” said the odd little man.

Joseph suppressed his puzzlement over this intruder’s familiarity. He said, “And who are you?”

“Well, you might call me the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Fa-La-La.”

“Christmas? What is that?”

“It’s your kid’s birthday, Joe. It’s gonna be celebrated everywhere but the Ottoman Empire. But you’ll be long gone by then. Too bad. You’d love it. Lights, Jingle bells. Presents. Joy to the world. Good King Wenceslaus. Midnight Mass.”

Joseph was further confused, so he decided to change the subject. “What’s with the red suit?” he asked.

The stranger, finally, stood up. He was shorter than Joseph and much rounder, with a greasy white beard that was thick with food scraps and apparently home to a colony of insects. “This is all part of my look,” he said. “The boots, the whiskers, the big belly. I’m gonna be famous, thanks to your little boy over there.”

“Famous? You? But you’re just — ”

“A drunk, a slob, a homeless derelict,” said the stranger. “That’s right. But it’s been a long wait, and I didn’t have much to do but sleep and drink ’til the kid came along. But now, I’m cleaning up my act. This’ll probably my last blast from the bladder for two thousand years—except for maybe a little egg nog by the tree.”

“Egg what?” said Joseph. “Tree?”

“Hey, Joe, come on. Chill. Call me Nick. You sure you don’t want a sip? It’s good stuff. Local! Turnips and flax-roots with a nice fish-head for that extra kick.”

“Maybe I will.” 

Joseph gulped down a swig of Bethlehem Blindness and coughed for a while. When he could finally catch his breath, he said, “Jesus!”

“Right. That’s it. That’s what you’re gonna call ’im.”

“Call who?” asked Joseph.

“Your son, the babe in swaddling clothes. The Light of the World. The King of the Jews. The everlovin‘ Son of God! That’s our little Jesus, man! Right over there in the manger, next to the cow.”

Joseph could make scant sense of Nick’s rambling oratory. He replied, “No. We’ve already decided to call him Isadore, after my great uncle, who co-signed my business loan.”

“Izzy Christ?”said Nick. “You gotta be kiddin‘, dude.”

Joseph recoiled. “Dude?” he said. 

“Trust me,” said Nick. “Go with Jesus.”

“Go with Jesus,” said several shepherds in reprise. “We will go with Jesus.”

They began to chant, “Go with Jesus, go with Jesus, go with Jesus, Son of God…”

“That’s the spirit!” said Nick. “You see? These guys get it already, Joe. And wait ’til they spread the word to the fishermen and the lepers. Not to mention dead people and whores. I tell ya, this kid’s gonna be huge. I mean, huge! Loaves and fishes, sermons and parables, miracles, crucifixions, resurrections!Your little boy’s gonna have enough groupies to fill the Colosseum—right up ’til the moment that bastard centurion shoves the spear into his heart.”

“Spear?!”

“Ah, don’t worry, Joe,” said Nick.”You’ll be long gone by then.”

Joseph sighed. He was exhausted from the journey to Bethlehem and by a sleepless night during the birth of the babe. This crazy fat man in a filthy red suit was the last straw. He was being assailed by mysteries—Çhristmas, egg nog, miracles and spears. Joseph waved a hand dismissively and said, “You’re not making any sense. You have no idea what we’ve—”

“Oh no, Joe. I know what you and Mary’ve been up to. Trust me, man. I’ve done the reading. I even know you’re not the kid’s real father.”

Joseph blanched. “But that’s a secret…”

“Don’t worry, Joe. Ain’t nobody gonna know about all that ’til Luke dredges up the story about Elisabeth getting pregnant and Mary being highly favored by the Lord, and Gabriel dropping in all of a sudden, and the Holy Ghost ‘coming upon’ Mary. That’s the sort of yarn nobody can keep secret forever, Joe, except it doesn’t make you look exactly… well, manly. Sorry. But trust me. By the time anybody finds out what really happened between your virgin wife and the horny angel, hey! You’ll be long gone and on your way to becoming a saint.”

Joseph’s head was spinning. “A saint? What’s a saint?”

“Hey, and here’s the crazy thing. I’m gonna be one, too. Saint Nick? Can you believe it? Me, the smelly wino in the stable with the cockamamie red pajamas? I mean, really, those voters at the Vatican? Man, they’d canonize a ham sandwich if it showed up on the table at the Last Supper.”

“Last Supper?”

“Let’s not get into that, Joe. It ain’t gonna be a good weekend for your stepson,” said Nick. “Anyway, this blabbermouth Luke is gonna write up all this mishigoss, about how you were espoused to Mary and then, before the wedding, she got boinked by the angel.”

“Boinked? Angel?”

“Hey, come to think of it — that would make a great Sunday night TV series on CBS.” Nick made a frame with his hands. “‘Boinked by an Angel’. All new episode! Right after ‘Sixty Minutes’!”

Joseph looked faint. The shepherds held him up. He shook his head and stiffened his spine. He looked into Nick’s eyes. “Look here,” he said. “This might be only a humble stable but it’s the birthplace of my son. You’re making a disturbance and you’ll have to leave. You’re drunk—”

“Of course I’m drunk. But I’m happy-drunk. Joe. Now that your kid’s finally born, I’m immortal. I mean, you’re gonna die. Even little Jesus is gonna die—for a few days, anyway. But me? I’m forever now.”

“Nonsense. No one is immortal, you silly old boozer,” insisted Joseph.

Nick smiled knowingly. “Actually, some of us, are, Joe,” he said. “Me. Elvis. The Easter Bunny. John Wayne. The second gunman on the grassy knoll.”

Joseph ignored this. “I’m sorry, but I rented this stable, and I want you to leave. You’re bothering my wife, and little Isadore.”

“The kid’s name is Jesus, dude,” said Nick. “It’s in the Bible. You could look it up. Luke 1:31.”

“Goddammit, who the hell is Luke?”

A large, helpful King came to Joseph’s aid. He took Nick by the scruff of his neck. “Time to go, fella,” he said.

“That’s right. Hit the road, fatso,” said Joseph. “And take that crippled camel with you.”

“She’s not a camel,” said Nick.”She’s a reindeer. Named Vixen.”

“Vixen?” said a shepherd. “I have a ewe named Vixen.”

“You?” asked a King.

“No, ewe,” said the shepherd.

“Wait a minute!” cried Joseph, pointing at Nick. “You! What’s a reindeer?”

“Oh, that’s right. They don’t grow around here,” said Nick. “Well, a reindeer is a nomadic ruminant, native to the regions in and around the North Pole. It’s sort of a moose, actually.”

Joseph couldn’t help himself. “Moose?” he asked. “North Pole?”

Nick was being hustled out of the stable by a delegation of Kings and herdsmen. “The Earth is a globe,” he shouted over his shoulder. “It’s round. Right on top, that’s the North Pole. I’ll be moving there soon, to set up a toyshop, hire some elves, rustle up a few more reindeer, build an aerodynamic sleigh — ”

“Wait a minute,” shouted Joseph. “A globe? You said the Earth is round?”

“Yes! And I’m gonna fly all the way ’round it, every Christmas Eve!”

“Well, that tears it,” said Joseph to the others with a shrug of relief. “That loudmouth tub of lard isn’t just drunk. He’s crazy!”

“Obviously,” said one of the Kings. “But I still think you should go with ‘Jesus’.”