We Crucify the Cowtown Christ, II: The Cowtown Christ is Dead
John 13:1-18
Jesse the Cowtown Christ had become a political lightning rod. On one side were the far-left wing liberals, calling attention to the fact that Jude, a prominent psychiatrist, had declared Jesse in need of serious mental health treatment. Well, she wasn’t going to get any decent treatment in Texas, they said, noting the shortage of mental health services in the Lone Star State. And anyway, isn’t threatening to lock up or deport Jesse just a way for “The Man” to quiet dissent? Kinky Friedman put together a “Free Jesse” Concert in Zilker Park.
On the other side were far-right wing conservatives, fired up by the ongoing debate over giving rights to illegal immigrants. Here’s an illegal immigrant stirring up trouble! This is precisely why you need strict immigration policies! They were outraged that Jesse’s lawyers were attempting to give her legal status as an American. If there’s an example of anyone who needs to be deported, they argued, it’s Jesse. She’d violated federal law and she claims that she is God’s Daughter!
Even Latino groups were ambivalent when they were asked what should be done about Jesse’s immigration status. It was a no-win for them. Jesse the criminal cult leader wasn’t the sort of person they wanted as the face of immigration reform. But she also had a strong base among a lot of working class Latinos and illegal immigrants. Whenever Jesse’s name came up, pro- immigration reform activists simply said, “no comment.”
A group calling itself “Free Jesse” started a webpage and a Facebook page that quickly clocked up tens of thousands of hits. They collected money for her defense, posted videos and photos that people had of her from public appearances, and sold t-shirts, coffee cups, and other memorabilia. Its president, Marisol, was a dark-haired Latina who wore too much makeup. She wore Jesse T-shirts when she was interviewed on the Today Show and Ellen and when she cried, her make-up would run a lot. “Jesse is bigger than Elvis. She’s bigger than President Obama. She’s bigger than Selena. What they’re doing to her isn’t fair! We love you, Jesse!” She’d shout into the camera.
“None of this is what matters,” Jesse complained. “The whole point has gotten lost. Even my so-called ‘fans’ don’t talk about what I taught. What happened to talking about the healing of the world—The City of God—how we all need to change and see God in the world and in one another? I’ve become more important than my message. I’m on the cover of ‘Us’ Magazine, for heaven’s sake!”
“This is how we make our heroes irrelevant,” John, the former mega-church pastor said. “We make them celebrities.”
That past Sunday, John’s mega-church held a congregational meeting and voted him out of his position. They declared his association with Jesse was heretical, and accused him of being a leader in a cult. John and his family had accepted their loss with equanimity. “It’s nothing compared to what you’re going through right now, Jesse,” John said. “And anyway, a fair number of my folks left the church with me. We can keep the message going until you can get back on your feet in Mexico. This isn’t a local message, Jesse. It’s worldwide. It needs to be heard.”
John’s confidence that the message could live on after Jesse was deported wasn’t completely shared by her companeros cercanos. Their faith had been sorely shaken. Joanna, the police officer, was Jesse’s best friend, but she was also the most disappointed and confused. Jesse had broken the law! And Jude’s diagnosis that Jesse was mentally ill had shaken her, because Joanna couldn’t help but wonder if, even though Jude was a complete idiot, he might also be right.
Nate, the African-American community organizer, was just straight-up angry at Jesse. He agreed that Jesse’s newfound notoriety was undermining the message, but he felt that she’d brought it on herself. After all, she was claiming to be the Daughter of God, right? What did she think was going to happen? It had happened before, he knew—a movement leader would start out with good intentions and a good message and then fame would go to his head and he’d think the issue was more about him than about his constituents. He’d develop a messiah complex. To Nate, there couldn’t be a worse betrayal.
But at the same time, he just couldn’t see Jesse as that kind of narcissist. Serving others was deep in her soul. And her message was right!
Nate had become a community organizer to stave off his own sense of helplessness and confusion in the face of the problems of the world. For years, he’d organized frustrated, desperate people to use their power as citizens. He felt that he was doing something to make a difference. Now, he was experiencing that old sense of helplessness and confusion again, and he didn’t like it.
Peter mouthed a lot of support for Jesse, but deep down he was just as confused as anyone else. He had exactly the same reservations as both Joanna and Nate, but added to that were the legal difficulties he was facing. Jesse had taken complete responsibility for the broadcast interruption, meaning that her accomplices, Peter and Mary, were let off the legal hook, at least federally. Peter now faced the possibility of civil suits. And all this legal trouble was complicating the legal arrangements he’d made with his ex-wife regarding parental rights. Despite himself, Peter felt like Jesse was taking off and leaving him holding the bag, and he resented it.
The only ones who remained completely and unambiguously committed to Jesse were Mary, Anna, Glenda, and John. When Jesse thought about this, a small smile would cross her face. A teenage runaway, a Muslim feminist doctor, a mentally ill homeless person, and a fundamentalist preacher, she’d muse. That sounds just about right.
The night she was to be deported, Jesse and her companeros cercanos gathered in the small dining area of the Bastion, a gourmet catering company in property that was once the Gladney Home for Unwed Mothers, located off Hemphill. Peter’d had a hard time finding a location that was private without alerting the media, protesters, or so-called friends like Marisol and the Jesse Fan Club, who felt like they deserved to be at any “good-bye” events for Jesse.
Her troubled companions didn’t know this was to be the night Jesse was to be deported, but Jesse knew it.
Everyone ate mostly in silence. After dinner, Jesse asked them to gather their chairs in a large circle, while she went off and changed out of her nice suit and skirt and into a white tee-shirt, baggy pants and beat-up tennis shoes. Her hair was pulled back with a bandanna. She carried a large stoppered jar as big as the vase for a small indoor tree. Peter and John got up to try to help her carry it, but she wouldn’t let them. She set the jar down in the center of their circle with a thud.
“This outfit is what my mother’s worn for thirty years working as a maid in anglo homes,” Jesse said. Today mi Papa’s daughter honors her mother.”
She got down on her knees next to the jar and opened it up. The heady, slightly ammoniac, beautiful smell of expensive perfume filled the room. She took the bandanna out of her long, dark luxurious hair and let it fall. None of her companions had ever seen her with her hair down. “Take off your shoes and socks,” she commanded them.
Still on her knees, Jesse pushed the jar to Peter and gingerly poured some of the perfume on his feet. Peter looked in her eyes and could see she was crying. She bent over and much to his embarrassment, began to wash his feet with the perfume. “Jesse, don’t!” he said, but he was afraid to move because he was afraid he would kick her face. She then began to dry his feet with her long hair. “Don’t do this,” he said. “It’s—it’s beneath you.”
“If you don’t do the things you think are beneath you, Peter, you can’t follow me,” she said.
“Then I’ll wash your feet,” Peter said, and started to stand, but Jesse said, “You’ve already done a lot for me. The time is coming when you’ll do more. But right now, everything that I do, I do for you. And for the world.”
After that, Jesse went to each of the other companeros cercanos, and no one asked her a question. They cried with her, embarrassed, ashamed, and deeply moved as she dried their perfumed feet with her hair. Last of all she came to Joanna. Both women choked out heavy, gasping sobs, and after Jesse had engulfed Joanna’s feet in her hair, Joanna got down on her knees with Jesse and draped her arms around her, their foreheads touching as they cried.
After a moment, Jesse stood and wiped her own face with her fragrant, matted hair. Then she tied it back with the bandanna, and took a mop and bucket that she’d left outside the circle and began to mop up the perfume on the floor. No one spoke.
“I can’t blame any of you if you feel betrayed or confused or doubtful,” Jesse said. “And I’m about to say some stuff that will only make things worse. So it’s important that I do this right now. It’s the only way I know to prove to you that I am your Lord.”
There was silence, except for the swishing of Jesse’s mop on the floor. All her companeros cercanos knew it was true that in acting as their servant, Jesse had proven her Lordship. In that moment, they felt washed not only in perfume but a deep sense of assurance—the Jesse they’d always believed in was still the same. She wasn’t blemished by the events of the last week. She was the Jesse they’d always known, and in fact even more so, because now they knew with certainty that she was the Daughter of God, the Queen of La Ciudad de Dios, the City of God. To them, Jesse could not prove better that she was the Lord of all than by being their servant.
Jesus could see the enlightenment in their eyes as she looked around. “Good,” she said. “Now here’s what you need to know. In a few minutes, INS is going to be here to take me back across the border. They’ll find me because even though he’s not here, Jude got an invitation to this too, and he told them where we are. They want to do this in a place where I’m not under public scrutiny so they can bury any negative publicity.
“John, I know you’re expecting me to keep leading the movement from Mexico, but I’m not going to. This is the end of my ministry.”
John gasped. “What? What do you mean? You can’t just stop!”
“John,” Jesse said gently, “I have to. When I started, I was a messenger. But now I’m a barrier. You said it yourself: the best way to destroy a message is turn the messenger into a celebrity. No matter how hard I try, this is all going to be about me, now.”
“But Jesse,” Joanna said, “you’ve said you’re the Daughter of God. You just claimed to be Lord! How can it not be about you?”
“The message is the City of God,” Jesse agreed, “And I am its Queen. I am its Lord. Your focus is to be on me, but not to just do the stale religion thing of ‘remember the good ol’ days, when Jesse taught us and we did what she said.’ No, mis companeros cercanos, this is graduation day. It’s time to stop being my students and start to be the teachers. It’s time to stop being my servants and start to be my friends. I need to go away so that you can shine. If I do it all myself, you’ll never be the City of God—you’ll keep expecting me to do it for you. But now’s the time to step up. It’s your turn to make la Ciudad de Dios a reality.”
“But Jesse,” Glenda said, “How can we do what you do? Huh? How can we? I’m like, just a crazy chick who would be homeless if not for you. I can’t do miracles or feed other people or help people to figure out how to love other people. I have to take pills just to keep it together!”
“That’s the other reason I need to go away,” Jesse said. “If I go to mi Papa, I can fill you with my spirit. I can’t do that while I’m here. But if you’re filled with my spirit, you can do ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times what I’ve done, because I won’t simply be an idea, a hope, a dream. I’ll live inside you. There’s lots of you, but only one of me. But if I live inside you, then I’m multiplied by however many of you follow me. And if I live inside you, then mi Papa lives inside you. ‘I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,’ like John Lennon said. You will be the real, living presence of mi Papa on earth.”
Joanna shook her head. “This is making no sense, Jesse. Let’s back up here. You said ‘go to your Papa’? Are you saying you’re going to die? Jesse, even your biggest detractors aren’t talking about executing you! They just want you as far away as possible!”
“I know all this sounds crazy,” Jesse said apologetically. “I don’t know how else to explain it. In a few days you’ll understand. Or maybe you won’t. In the next few hours some crazy stuff will happen. And you’ll decide whether I’m the Lord, or whether you’ve been duped by a crazy person with delusions of grandeur. ”
Nate said, “Crazy stuff will happen? Crazy stuff already has happened. And honestly, I can’t think what to do here, where to go when you’re gone, anything. I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t have any direction to turn but you. You have the words of eternal life.”
After a bit, Jesse took Joanna, John, and Peter aside and said, “Come with me.” The Bastion has a nice garden area in the courtyard between the buildings. Joanna, John and Peter had often gone to pray with Jesse, and this is what they did now. Jesse said, “Mi Papa, I’ll be honest. I’m scared about what lies ahead. I’m scared that I may have misled my friends and that they’ve put their trust in someone who will let them down. And I’m grieving, mi Papa: I’m grieving because I love this world so much, and all the people in it. I was over there by John Peter Smith Hospital before we came here, and I watched all those people in their wheelchairs or on their walkers, crossing the street in front of traffic as if they were the kings and queens of Fort Worth! This morning there was a bunch of Hispanic laborers in front of the liquor store on Hemphill waiting for someone to take them to work, so that they can support their families and give their children the American dream! Right now right up the street folks are hitting the nightspots on Magnolia so that they can say, ‘I don’t care how much work or life stinks, there’s so much in life to celebrate! I refuse to let it get me down!’ Lord, no wonder you love these people so much! How blessed I feel that I’ve gotten to know them, that I’ve gotten this opportunity to tell them that yes, they are right, there’s so much to celebrate, so much to look forward to, so much to strut about—because their Papa God loves them!
“Now Papa, I have to put it all in your hands. I know you are Lord of the Universe, and you’ll make it all right, but I confess I’m still nervous and that I am grieving. But I’m your Daughter and I trust you. I give it all to you. And I pray that you bless mis companeros cercanos, because they’ll need more courage than I have ever needed to do what needs to be done. Let them know that you are with them, Papa. Let them know.”
There was a long silence. Peter, Joanna and John waited, watching the sky. They expected what they’d seen before—a sign in the sky, a voice from the heavens.
They heard a great crash. A voice said, “Agents, she’s over here.”
Jude came over to them, followed by dark garbed law enforcement types. “This is for your own good, Jesse,” he said sympathetically.
Jesse said, “Jude, will you betray me with an intervention?”
_______________________________________________________
Jesse, still dressed in her bandanna and loose pants, had been riding several hours in a bus filled with men, women, and children being taken to the border. Everyone was in their own little world. No one recognized Jesse dressed like a maid. She was one of them. She had a nice conversation with a Latino INS agent who knew who she was.
The bus arrived at Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras border and the passengers were let out at the immigration office, under armed supervision. Someone stepped out of the shadows, wearing a neon “Jesse” tee-shirt, her long hair down and her makeup smeared by her tears. She brought up an automatic weapon and aimed at Jesse screaming, “Jesse, how could you?”
Jesse didn’t want anyone else to be hurt. She threw herself right at Marisol as the automatic began to chatter. Her body caught several bullets before she hit Marisol, knocking the weapon from her hand and throwing her to the ground with Jesse on top. Passengers and witnesses were screaming, but no one was injured. INS agents pointed weapons at Marisol, squirming under Jesse. They turned Jesse over. She had bullet wounds in both hands and across her abdomen. She stared up at the sky and gasped, “I forgive you, Marisol.”
The agent she’d been speaking to on the bus put his hand under her head. “You saved everyone, Jesse,” he said.
Jesse lifted her hands from her abdomen, up to the sky, smiling slightly. The air was filled with the heady smells of cordite and Jesse’s perfumed hair. She said, “Mi Papa!”
Then Jesse gave up the ghost.
Cowtown Christ, The Cowtown Christ is Dead, and We Crucify the Cowtown Christ, II: The Cowtown Christ is Dead, and all contents herein, copyright Fritz Ritsch, 2013.