Hobo Jesus Wants his Weed Money

Hobo Jesus says he’s returning to the wilderness soon. Forty-days and nights of fasting, solitude, silence, and temptation. Up in the mountains. When the snow melts. For work. He says.

Before that he asks, “Don’t you still owe me some ganja?” 

The day is dark grey, cloudy and cool behind my sunglasses, but Hobo Jesus is wearing cargo shorts and a green t-shirt with “Heaven is a Place on Earth” in purple print, peeling across the front. He squints and shades his eyes looking up at me, so I squat down beside him on his concrete slab. 

I’m careful not to kick the “Free Palm Readings” sign set on the sidewalk by his feet. It’s just a square of brown cardboard folded in half but he’s painted it neon blue, and drawn little purple stars around the black, blocky, magic-marker lettering, so it feels, not expensive, but valued.

I did owe Hobo Jesus weed. I still do. But I don’t have any on me. The smallest bill in my pocket is, regrettably, a ten. I’m sheepish about pulling it out and handing it over, because I have a couple twenties, too, which I don’t want him to see. I get clumsy when I’m sheepish, so I fumble the bills and he sees the twenties, anyway. He still smiles at the ten. I tell him I’ll bring him bud next time - I didn’t expect to see him today. When he screws his smile into a smirk and says he’ll hold me to it, I believe him. 

I owe Hobo Jesus weed for a painting of a fallen angel he sold me a few weeks back. I own three of his paintings. This is the only one I didn’t purchase with weed up front. I’d paid $11 cash at the time. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’d had a spare twenty then, too. 

It’s a canvas painting of a fallen angel in contemplation. Crudely etched lines of heavy charcoal veil the angel’s prayerful figure in the violence of some inescapable inner turmoil. The angel’s wings are coal black, like a dirty crow’s. His feathers are molting and melting into the mustard-gas yellow background. It’s propped up shelf in my apartment, beside the other two. 

I watch as a constellation of fragmented triangles erupts from the surface of a neon-paint-flecked scrap of cardboard folded over the lap of Hobo Jesus. The purple Sharpie  held in his neon-paint-flecked fingers seems to have a mind of its own. It’s frenzied assault of the cardboard is out of step with the calm, smiling countenance of its ostensible owner. 

Hobo Jesus is smiling when he says that he feels like calling hellfire down from heaven to destroy humanity. I ask what’s going on. 

He tells me he has it on good authority that his mom was kidnapped. His earthly mom, he clarifies. And no, he protests without prompting, the conception was not divine. Hence the divorce, he giggles. Seriously though, he tells me, they were both pre-ordained. His stare is so severe that his golden face and blazing aqua-marine eyes harden to marble before his gaze drops back to his canvas. 

We watch with passive wonder as the possessed Sharpie conjures a purply constellation of fragmented triangles from the folds of paint-flecked cardboard. 

He hasn’t heard from his mom in a few days. He says, most likely, it’s a hostage situation. Worst part is, he doesn’t even know what on earth or in heaven the kidnappers could possibly want. He says it’s just pure evil, probably. He’s wagging his head like there’s water in his ears. It really pisses him off, he says. His tanned brow is loosely knotted. He’s knifing empty space with his free hand, palm up. It kind of reminds me of a minivan driver I once snaked a parking lot stall from at Target. 

But I take Hobo Jesus at his word, so it’s easy to sympathize. I can imagine only a few scenarios more distressing than the sudden, senseless abduction of my adult mother. 

I ask if there’s anything I can do to help. Hobo Jesus says he’s got it - he has a plan. He agrees to tell me if I promise not to freak out or get upset. My feet are falling asleep and I can feel the damp concrete seeping through my sweatpants. But I promise. 

About two years ago, Hobo Jesus got a call from his father that he was to return to the silence and solitude of the wilderness. Kind of like he did the desert of Judea, last time. Only this time, he’s going into the Wasatch Mountains of Ogden, Utah. He’ll face temptation and everything, he explains - different sorts of temptation than he did back then. Mostly, he says, this trip was supposed to be more of a work-training type thing. He’ll fast, of course. He’ll be led to a place of perfect peace and absolute quiet, naturally, where he can commune with the father directly, sans satellite interference.

A car bleeps twice from the curb. I see the diamond blue headlights of a BMW 1-series hatchback blink closed as the driver’s door swings open. A middle-aged woman in a black trenchcoat glides out while Hobo Jesus details the conditions for his upcoming stint in the wilderness. 

He’ll take a vow of silence, obviously.

The woman’s black stiletto heels click-clack briskly along the sidewalk. I feel them getting closer and I glance up. They slow down. The woman’s waving her black Coach clutch at Hobo Jesus, trying to get his attention. He looks up, still smiling. He waves and breaks off mid-sentence to shout, “Come see me before you leave and you can catch me up!” Giddy, the woman coos, “Oooh, you better be right here! I’m gonna be lookin’ forward to it!” And I believe her. 

“But now!” he continues, “With what they’ve done to mom - it’s - !” Hobo Jesus sometimes speaks in tongues when he’s really angry. Or when he’s performing a sidewalk exorcism. Or giving a blessing. Or granting a wish. In any instance, I can’t understand it. It kind of freaks me out. I focus hard on chewing my gum until it’s over, to stifle my instinctive reaction to his outbursts in the “angelic language.” It's shockingly guttural. 

It ends with a growl and a yip. He explains that it’s been happening a lot more lately. The angelic tongue sweeps him up in these streams of spiritual curses, where he’s invoking the name of Yahweh to prepare the weapons of the apocalypse. 

People just don’t want to listen to me. They won’t obey me. He complains. He insists they don’t listen to him because he doesn’t talk and walk like the straight, white, hetero, peace-loving Jesus they’ve all been brainwashed to accept. They don’t appreciate his sacrifice, he moans. They have ears but they won't fucking hear him! When he tries to call his mom - and more importantly! He bellows. The possessed Sharpie is a furious purple blur. He’s been telling humanity to get those kids out of those damn cages and fucking protect them! For three years! But do they listen? He asks. I don’t have a chance to respond before he’s screaming: NO!! No! They! Do! NOT! Someone needs to protect those kids! You can’t let bad things happen to kids! You can’t do bad things to little kids and not expect me to get angry! I’ve told you before, he says, if you hurt the children, you will pay with fire!

I showed Noah the water sign, whispers Hobo Jesus, leaning in close. Then, rocking back on his heels, hand still gripped on the bucking purple Sharpie, he hollers at the sky: No more water! FIRE next time! 

A car horn bleats twice from the road. 

Hobo Jesus explains that he needs perfect peace and absolute quiet to discuss the details of the apocalypse with his father. He really hopes he won’t have to. He’s been instructed to wait for the snow to melt on the mountain before he starts his stint. Should be a couple more weeks, he assures me. And maybe by then, he says - hopefully, by then, he corrects himself - humanity will have changed its ways. Hopefully, by then, he’ll have heard from his mom. Because he really doesn’t want it to be this way. He really hoped we would get the message last time. But, he explains, his father is angry and filled with hatred for humanity; for what they do to his children - and to the earthly moms he gives them. 

If Hobo Jesus hears from his mom before the snow melts, he assures me everything will probably be cool. He promises that, if he comes back from the mountain in peace, he’ll show me how he walks on water. Right now, he says, he can only walk on rain puddles. Even then, only sometimes. But if not, he reminds me, he’ll have to annihilate the entire human race with heavenly flames and righteous hellfire delivered from on high.

Hobo Jesus lifts his free palm to the sky as if to check for rain. Even behind my stormy-dark-tinted sunglass lenses, I can tell there’s not a cloud in the sky. 

Hobo Jesus is still smiling serenely until his blazing aqua-marine eyes fall back on my face.

“Heyy, buddy,” he coos, suddenly setting aside his purple Sharpie and cardboard constellation of fragmented triangles to rub my shoulder. “You look a little down, Jonny. Here I’ve been talking your ear off about me and my drama.” He slaps his forehead and laughs at himself. “Now tell me,” he says, “what’s going on with you?”