The Man Dressed As Jesus

 There is a town somewhere between Georgia and Ohio that was built unlike any other town in America. Every year, a man constructed a house on a 150 plot of land that included several wells which the man had dug. He furnished the homes and filled each with nonperishable food. He also left a note on all the tables which read:

DEAR FRIEND:

 For whatever reason that you need a home at this moment, I am sorry for your struggles. Please take this bed, food and drinkable water as a token of promise that I will return. 

 I love you,

             Jesus Christ.

 The man wasn’t Jesus. Far from it. He had taken out a loan from his Father-In-Law, promising to build an ice cream shop in Milwaukee. Instead, he left his family to build shitty houses for drug addicts, which he filled with stolen groceries. 

 Even this might seem slightly noble, but the man also built a road through the town. Once a year, he would dress up as Jesus and walk down the road, awaiting the praises of his community’s members.

 The first year when the man got to town, there was only one person living there. Another man, his name was Toby. 

 Toby suffered from schizophrenia and, up until finding the town, had thought he himself was Jesus Christ. Toby was a weird dude, but you would be too if you had schizophrenia and thought you lived in a town built by Jesus. 

 When the man dressed as Jesus started walking down the road, Toby ran up to him and began kissing his feet. 

 The man had not expected this. 

 “Aw, what the fuck dude?” The man said, he then turned back the way he came and left Toby staring into the distance. 

 The next year was a little more enjoyable. Toby had left to God-knows-where, and had been replaced by two gorgeous women. 

 The man dressed as Jesus made love to them both and then left again, promising to come back with more food and cigarettes. 

 A year passed, and the man returned. Both of the women had babies. One of them was a boy, and the other a girl. Seeing an easy way out of town and not wanting to commit to any families, the man promised to come back once a year with food as long as the children were left in charge. The women agreed and the man dressed as Jesus left. 

 The next year when he returned, the town had grown larger. Every house was occupied, and there were also huts set up in-between the houses, which were each also filled with people. 

 The man instructed everyone in town to continue to worship him, the two women and their infant children, and promised that he would return with more food. 

 The man had sex with all of the women and ate all of their Oreos. In the evenings, he would give drunken lectures to the men about why it was important to not let anyone leave the town. 

 One day a precocious young boy came up to the man dressed as Jesus in front of everybody.

 “Jesus, do you do anything other than drink alcohol and eat Oreos all day?”

 The crowd around Jesus fell silent he stared at the child.

 “Um, I built the house you live in for one thing you little assho- I mean, my child.” The man said.

 “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. What have you done for us recently?” The child asked. 

 “I bring you food! Are you not full?” The man asked, really basking in the fact that these people thought he was Jesus.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t bring food anymore. Would you like that, little boy?” The man continued.

 “NO! No!” Everyone shouted. The boys mother walked out and slapped the boy across the face. They left, and the crowd settled down.

 “I want both of them banished from here.” The man dressed as Jesus said to one of the people in charge of security. 

 The man left and promised to return with food, which was becoming more difficult with the increased amount of people. 

 Over the years, the man had come into contact with several black market grocery dealers who supplied him plenty of food in exchange for one person from the town.  Every year before he left, Jesus would take one “chosen” person with him under the guise of bringing them to heaven. Instead, the person was sold into the black market for human trafficking purposes. 

 The difficult part for the man was making eye contact with some of the smarter townspeople while he handed them brand-name foods while dressed as Jesus Christ. Eventually he realized a solution to this problem would be to sell the smartest villagers.

 But then one day the man was caught, dressed as Jesus, trying to rob a gas station on the way back from his sanctuary. The police pegged the man for several grocery robberies over the years, and threw him into prison. 

 Through hours of interrogation about where all of the food was going, the man dressed as Jesus refused to give answers. His town would stay safe, even if he could not reap the glory of being their savior. 

 Meanwhile, the people in the town were growing hungry. It had been 19 months since Jesus had last been there, and supplies were running low. The two children Jesus had put in charge were growing older, but they did not see the town the same way. 

 The girl, now a young woman named Zenith, believed that it was time to start growing food in order to prepare for the winter. The boy, now a young man named Rock, firmly disagreed. He believed his Father would be infuriated over the planting of seeds on sacred ground. In reality, the man probably wouldn’t have given a shit. 

 Eventually, war broke out. It was particularly violent, since no weapons really existed in the town. Around 17 people now lived in the town, and all but 4 of them died. Rock, Zenith and the two women. The houses and huts had been destroyed and the winter was soon approaching. It was at this point that the women told their children of the time before the town. 

 “Wait, so you’re telling me that there are other places outside of this town to get food?” Zenith asked.

“Possibly.” Zenith’s mother said sheepishly. 

 At this point, the four of them looked out at the bodies and rubble that had been created in the town’s war. They all looked back at each other and laughed. They each hugged goodbye and went their separate ways. 

 Both of the women died pretty quickly. They were both relatively old and stupid, and didn’t know how to find a local road. They both collapsed somewhere in the woods and drifted into death. 

Rock got a job as a janitor at a church 25 miles down the road. He didn’t talk much to anybody. 

 Zenith, after realizing the size of the United States and the world she lived in, began to travel. She met lots of interesting people, including an old man named Toby who sold her mescaline. 

 The man who dressed as Jesus got hit very hard in the back of his head during a prison fight, which caused him to forget about the town and his schemes. He returned home to his old wife and family, and eventually built the ice cream shop with money left-over from human trafficking.