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                                    Jesus and the Buddhist
                                                by Daniel McGinley

“So how did that whole manger scene play out for you?”

    Jesus looked out over the river, chewing some saw grass. “Good; thanks.  The wise men were a nice touch.”

    The Buddhist laughed and drank his beer. “I heard you used the ‘North Star’ story.”

    Jesus smiled and the Buddhist kept laughing, spitting his beer out. “You da man.”

    They chuckled and watched the sun sink away.

    “Oh look.  Here it comes now . . . “

                                                            * * *
    Much later, their fire was like the sun had been, simmering bright red along the floor of a coal black horizon.

    “You took about seventeen years to teach me.”

    The Buddhist cleared his throat. “I just wanted you out of that damn camel caravan.  It was no place for a young boy.”

    “I was scheming to run a few cons.  See other countries.”

    “Before the biggest cons of all.”

    “Yes,” Jesus said, recalling. “Water into wine, healing the sick, and a big grand finale.”

    “Back from the dead!”

    “Like a Phoenix!”

    “Or a crucified criminal.”

    They were chuckling again, two happy men shaking their heads and thinking over the past.

    “Where’re you supposed to be now, Jesus Christ?”

    “Floating around upstairs with my dad.”

    “You can really sell a story.”

    Jesus turned to smile. “Had a good sales team.”

    “Holy Apostles.  Nice ring to it.”

    “Rising from the dead was tough, but not sticking around to let doubt fester was key.”

    “Ahhhh,” the Buddhist exclaimed, raising his beer. “Rising from the dead!”

    “Still rising!”

    The Buddhist pointed up at brightening stars.

    “Look!  There he goes!”

    Jesus watched his friend carefully. “Good beer, huh?”

    The Buddhist patted his ample stomach.  “In his own image, brother.”

    “Buddha was a big one, huh?”

    “Hey now; I’ll take fat and content over lean and mean.”

    “Contentment?  This . . . from someone who told me life is suffering and death.”

    The Buddhist raised his beer. “Death, anyway.”

    Jesus pointed his finger. “Not for me!”

    They slapped high-fives and laughed.

    The Buddhist looked serious. “So now what?”

    “I get the west; your boy gets the east.”

    “No, no.  I mean what becomes of your legacy?”

    Jesus shrugged.  “Worship and spin doctors.”

    “Join the club.”

    “Cheers.”

    A large camel moved by in the moonlight, pearl grey and silent as a ghost.

    The Buddhist squinted in concentration. “One hump or two?”

    “Hard to tell.”

    “Ever miss the caravans?”

    Jesus shook his head. “They spit on you; the dirty beasts.”

    “Training you for the Romans.”

    “It wasn’t enough.”

    “Mean little Trojans.”

    “Bastards to the core.”

    The camel drifted away, as the Buddhist sighed. “You going to tell me about this Mary?”

    Jesus nodded at his friend’s beer. “Got another one of those?”

    “Thought you were a wine man.”

    Jesus grinned, and his friend got another beer.

 Dan McGinley's Bio:

Dan McGinley was first published in 1990 while living above a seaside club called The Bon Vue Inn, where he worked five nights a week punching drunks and cleaning-up the result.  Bored with high society, he started slipping humorous short stories and articles under an office door of the Great Swamp Gazette, a magazine of art and literature at the University of Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1996, after being elected the Gazette’s Managing Editor for four consecutive years and freelancing for the Providence Sunday Journal, Narragansett Times, and Westerly Sun.  Sabotage Press published two small books in 1992: Buddha at the Track and Trail of the Screaming Blue Fetus.  He also won two Nancy Potter Short Story awards, but since the name “Nancy Potter” draws big blank stares, forget about it.  More recently, his works have won, placed, and shown fourteen times in “America’s Funniest Humor!” contest, at HumorPress.com.  The Dog was at the Keg Again is a collection of HumorPress award pieces, and available at Amazon Kindle right about . . . NOW!  He lives with two Asian wolves and a neurotic Jack Russell in The Quiet Corner of northeastern Connecticut.