Sharing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 3)

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  “That’s right. I’m glad you’re making that connection,” Jesus said. “Let’s try it out with your band mates. You could relay some things to them that I’d like to communicate.”

  Fortunately, Jason had braked at a stop sign, because that last proposal required a steady gaze at Jesus. He was checking to see if he was serious. Unfortunately, there was a U.S. Postal truck behind him, and a quick beep was required to get him driving again.

  Jason didn’t answer Jesus directly, but he had a feeling that his passenger knew what he was thinking, and probably knew better than he did what he would finally decide on the matter.

  The three other guys from the band still lived in the same house that had been Jason’s home for two and a half years. Their drummer, Pedro, had just graduated in December, but Donnie and Steve had both graduated with Jason. All three of the other guys worked now as waiters, and they often had free time during weekdays. Jason knew that he had missed some jam sessions, while working and going to school the past few months.

  Pulling his little gold sedan to the curb in front of his old house evoked a homesick feeling, more so than pulling up to his childhood home would have. He was still missing his laid back freedom as a single guy, but not missing living at home with his parents. The former was another thing he would not discuss with Kayla, believing that he didn’t have to tell her anything that would likely hurt her feelings. A glance at Jesus, showed Jason that his guest was excited to be there as well.

  “So, you expect me to…like…relay messages from you to the guys?” Jason said, as he leaned into the back seat to pull out his guitar.

  Jesus climbed out of the passenger seat, right through the door, so no one would see the door open and close at the hand of the invisible man. He answered Jason even as the latter recoiled at the surprising means of egress. “You didn’t think I became visible just for you and Kayla, did you?”

  The friendly smile always on his face gave Jason no clue as to what the answer to Jesus’s last question should be. He bypassed it altogether, saying instead, “I’m not even sure you really have been visible. Maybe I’m just dreaming all this.” Again he said this aloud, but this time in a muted tone, and at a stilted pace. He was still recovering from the way Jesus got out of the car.

  “I would show up just to see you,” Jesus said, “but I want more for you than that.”

  That response had to be the last word on the subject, as Jason headed for the front porch of the house that still felt like it was his home. He didn’t want the guys to see him talking to his own shadow. Their ready teasing could turn to biting ridicule pretty quickly, one of the reasons Jason was doubtful about telling them he was getting messages from Jesus, let alone that he was actually seeing the man himself.

  Creaking quickly onto that porch, Jason and Jesus approached the front door. Jesus communicated to Jason without speaking, sending his thoughts into Jason’s head. “I can hear your thoughts, and can send you mine,” he said. “That makes it easier for you to remember not to speak aloud to me.”

  Jason stood at the front door absorbing what Jesus had just communicated to him. He hadn’t knocked, actually planning to walk right in, but Pedro came to see who was on the porch, and pushed the screen door open for Jason. The young drummer looked confused.

  “You plannin’ to knock or ring the bell? I guess you really are married now,” he said, with a curious curl to his eyebrows.

  Jason laughed unconvincingly, and held his guitar clear of the out-swinging screen door. He wasn’t as close with Pedro, and not used to his sense of humor. Add to that, the presence of a man that only Jason could see, and he entered the dark interior without an articulate response.

  Unlike any visit in recent memory, the sound of Steve thundering down the stairs to meet him, ignited a little bomb of anxiety in Jason. Like noticing a bit too late the sensation of a pickpocket lifting his wallet, Jason could feel the impending loss of his credibility with the band.

  The name, Frosty and the Wise Men, had stuck, in part, because of a joke about Jason’s reputation with the guys. He would have won an election among them as the wisest guy in the band, but had also been labeled “frosty” because of his restraint with his fiancée before marriage, something the other members viewed with suspicion. The name had therefore been doubly appropriate, according to Steve and Donnie.

  Steve landed on the first floor and raised a bony fist for a bump of greeting. He looked younger than his twenty-three years, including the dubious mouse-colored scruff on his chin, that he insisted on calling a beard. Jason had labeled it a “proto beard,” with typical college sophistication and disrespect. Jason met that raised fist with one of his own, but the completion of that customary greeting did nothing to erase his instability over bringing Jesus to band practice.

  “You okay? You look kinda sick,” Steve said. “And not in a good way.”

  For half a second, Jason considered taking that as his way of escape, turning around and going home due to illness. But he knew that was the chicken way out, and Jesus looked so happy to be there. Jason had to content himself with monitoring his guest’s reaction out of the corner of his eyes, which added to the impression that something was wrong with him.

  Instead of an answer, Jason stalled, by switching his guitar to his other hand and running his fingers through his hair. Kayla loved to tease him about this habit, because it didn’t make any impression on his hair, which was generally upright and relatively immutable. The maneuver did give Jason another chance to sneak a look at Jesus. But his guest was already on his way to the basement, as if he had been to band practice as often as Jason had. That notion prompted the beginning of a thought that Jason swept back out of his way. He was distracted enough already, without theological ponderings just now.

  Pedro added his voice to Steve’s concern. “Yeah, man, what’s up with you?”

  Jason tried to recover, offering a sideways smile to the stocky drummer. “Just distracted. I really need some down time,” he said.

  Steve deftly took the guitar from Jason’s hand and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. If he could have seen Jesus, Steve would have been following him down the stairs, to where the equipment was all setup for practice.

  “We got just what you need, one dose of funky rock and roll,” Steve said, adopting a sort of Jamaican accent that didn’t necessarily have any firm connection to what he was saying, or where he was from. As usual, no one bothered to analyze this choice.

  They did, on the other hand, tend to overanalyze their music, leading to an amazing number of factions in a band of only four guys. Steve emphasized the funk sound, when he talked about the band, Donnie loved classic rock and roll. Jason enjoyed the fusion of the two, and just needed the music to take him away from real world worries, about school and future employment. Pedro, against the whimsical debate just described, was intent on the band becoming an economically viable concern. None of the other guys could convince him that it wasn’t a serious band, even by pointing to the tongue-in-cheek name. He didn’t get that. Pedro tended to be serious about most things in his life.

  The three men arrived downstairs after Jesus, to find Donnie sitting on the old collapsed couch opposite the little stage where they played.

  Dante Riggins had somehow picked up the nick name Donnie during elementary school, though he refused to elaborate on the exact process, whenever pressed by the other guys. Jason suspected it was an ethnicity crisis. Donnie’s father was of African descent and his mother half Irish and half Puerto Rican. The result was hazel eyes, a permanently tan face, with curly black hair; and a young man who avoided the name Dante, which others would have cherished. Steve had teased that he would be willing to trade first names, in recovery from his own boredom at being so white.

  Jason, of course, saw more than Donnie when he entered the basement, which was lit by several bare, ceiling-mounted lightbulbs. Jesus was hovering over the brooding bass player. That’s how it looked to Jason. To the other two band members,
it just looked like Donnie was severely depressed. Though he was of average height and weight, the way he was slumped into the yielding cushions of the couch, left Donnie looking like a sullen bullfrog.

  “Man, it looks like someone else needs a pick-me-up,” Steve said, stopping in front of Donnie, and cocking his head thirty degrees to the left. “Who stole your catnip?” he said, prodding his grumpy friend with his right toe.

  Donnie didn’t look up. Jason and the guys had seen Donnie depressed before, and they had seen him under the influence of various stimulants, both legal and otherwise, so they didn’t all panic at his mood. They all hoped, along the lines of Steve’s prescription, that the music would pull him out of it.

  Pedro headed for the drum set, digging up a matching pair of sticks from the haystack of broken and dented sticks around the bass drum. Steve handed back Jason’s guitar and headed for his own Fender Stratocaster, propped next to an amp on the six-inch-high stage. But Jason stayed next to Donnie, not looking at his deflated friend, but consulting with Jesus. Jesus looked like he had expectations that involved Jason.

  He said, “Donnie is at a crossroads right now. The thing that has kept him down for so long, is right on the surface, where you and I could pick it off, if you’re willing.”

  The mental restraint required for Jason not to say, “What are you talking about!” at top volume, nearly made him dizzy. But, looking Jesus in the eyes, he decided to try to calm down and understand what he had just said. The best question he could find there was, “What thing?”

  “I would call it a spirit of depression,” Jesus said. He was speaking with his mouth, though Jason was clear that he had better not respond in kind.

  Pedro was tuning his toms on the drum set, tapping one beat per second and turning the tuning knobs, making the adjustment according to his practiced ear. Steve had his guitar on, and was just starting his own tuning process. Jason set his guitar against the end of the couch and slipped onto the seat next to Donnie.

  With Steve, Donnie had been Jason’s best friend since they both started college. They had been roommates, one of the truly successful roommate pairings of all time. Their love of rock music, and experience playing in garage bands, probably tipped off the student development office. The result was a deep bond between them—even deeper than their shared loyalty to the original Star Trek TV series. Jason was certain that he had not mentioned this sci-fi obsession on his application for housing, and neither had Donnie, but the match had been made by a higher intelligence, apparently.

  Jason waited a few seconds before speaking. Donnie had tensed up when he sat down. That was unusual. “What’s up, man? Did something happen?”

  Donnie still didn’t look at him. This was also unusual, even when he was depressed. Jason looked at Jesus, who had sat down on the other side of Donnie. Jesus’s proximity seemed to make him squirm, as if someone had slipped a snake down his back.

  “Whoa!” Jason said, without meaning to. He was reacting not only to Donnie’s weird convulsion, but to the obvious correspondence between that gyration and Jesus sitting down next to his friend.

  Jason heard Steve start with some warmup scales at medium volume and lots of gain. His guitar skated along the edge between clean tones and a scream just waiting to let loose.

  To Jason, it felt like Jesus was going to be his only help in what came next.

  Taking the lead, Jesus offered Jason instructions. “Remember the pastor down in Mexico, working with the young girl that was growling?”

  Of course, this was the sort of thing that Jason remembered. A growling teenaged girl leaves an impression, as did the authoritative way that minister silenced those growls.

  “You are in charge here. I’m at your command,” Jesus said. “And this spirit of depression is no match for us.”

  The latter point was very encouraging, even if the first was quite confusing. If Jesus was offering to be at his service, Jason had one clear question. “What do I do?” He didn’t have to say that aloud, he just looked pleadingly at his invisible partner.

  Instead of Jesus, Donnie responded. He raised his eyes to Jason with the most childish expression Jason had ever seen on him, and said, “Help me?”

  Jason answered that plea with courage that rose out of his love for Donnie, as well as compassion for that little kid dressed in a Donnie suit.

  “I’m gonna help you. Jesus is right here.”

  Pedro stopped drumming, intrigued by what was going on with Donnie and Jason. From behind the drum shield, all he could do was read body language. What he read there was a mystery. Donnie looked like he was about to cry, or to leap up and run, even though he still seemed to be weighted down to that maroon couch. Jason, on the other hand, had a sort of heroic tilt to his head, leaning forward, as if he was taking charge of something. But that impression was scuffed a bit by his raised eyebrows and a downturned mouth.

  Steve was still focused on his guitar and missed the mounting drama.

  Jesus answered Jason’s question. “Take a deep breath, relax, and tell this spirit of depression what you want it to do.”

  “Tell it what I want it to do?” Jason thought, as if he had some uncertainty about how he felt about a demon that was oppressing his best friend. Then he took that deep breath, as Jesus advised, and suddenly the answer seemed obvious. “Get outta here. That’s what I want it to do.”

  Looking at Jesus for a final check, Jason leaned in close to Donnie and said, “You demon spirit of depression, get off of Donnie right now.”

  Jason felt pretty good about how that came out, feeling as if he had accomplished something important. And, in terms of stretching way beyond his normal comfort level, he had. However, one heart beat after Jason congratulated himself, Donnie turned deep red and started to gag, as if he were choking on something, and just might throw up.

  “Tell it to stop choking Donnie,” Jesus said.

  Having already told the thing to leave, it seemed awkward to tell it to stop choking his friend, but Jason was filing away these questions of style and meaning for later consideration. For now, it felt like he was following Jesus’s commands. “You stop choking Donnie right now.”

  At that, Donnie slammed himself back against the couch, sitting unnaturally upright, in wide contrast to the slumped posture he had started with. Simultaneous to that slam against the back cushions, Jason heard the two guys on the stage gasp, one of them releasing his gasp in a curse.

  Donnie turned his attention to Steve, the speaker of the profanity, and seemed to stab at him with wide open eyes, like he was trying to reel him in. Steve saw that look and stopped his advance toward the couch, stumbling down the little step off the stage. Pedro tripped over the high hat stand, and made a clanging commotion that pulled Donnie’s zombie look in his direction.

  “This is just games and stalling.” Jesus sounded way too calm for the situation, as far as Jason was concerned.

  “You let my friend go, right now. I mean it!” Jason was shouting in anger, clearly, venting the fear that had been stockpiling inside him.

  Donnie recoiled at this declaration and then seemed to deflate, his body sinking, accompanied by a long expulsion of air.

  Steve was staring at Jason, thinking that he didn’t realize they taught this kind of stuff in the graduate school. He had never fully grasped Jason’s need for more study of theology and the Bible, thinking his friend had covered everything in church, Sunday school and college. Into that vacuum of understanding, he was now contemplating the notion that they were teaching Jason to be some kind of shaman or something, which actually made some sense, if it were true. At this speculative discovery, Steve was pretty impressed with his old friend.

  Pedro was speaking in Spanish, words and phrases that none of the other guys could understand completely, but both Steve and Jason recognized prayers, even in a language they had studied and forgotten as soon as the tests were passed. Neither of them had ever heard Pedro pray like that before. But then, they had never seen
Donnie’s eyes bugout like that before either.

  Still on the couch, in a more natural position, Donnie was heaving breaths, as if he had just lifted weights. Then that breathing turned to weeping. Gulping air, and moaning sobs into the stunned circle of guys, Donnie seemed completely broken down. Jesus just sat smiling at Donnie, patting his back gently.

  Jason saw that physical contact with someone other than he or Kayla, and wondered that this was allowed, wondering even more what Donnie knew about Jesus’s presence.

  Pedro had not yet noted the positive change that Jason and Jesus were celebrating. He certainly couldn’t see Jesus’s pacific smile. He reverted to English to say, “Guys, we gotta call somebody for help. This isn’t something to mess around with.”

  By “this,” Jason understood him to mean the whole demonic possession thing. And he was fully inclined to agree, except for one factor. He could see Jesus the whole time. Who were they going to call, that would be more helpful than him? Without even responding to Pedro, Jason reached a hand up next to Jesus’s and mirrored the comforting pats on Donnie’s back. Compared to the violent jerking and choking, tears seemed a promising response, but Jason was relying heavily on the look on Jesus’s face. Apparently, everything was okay, now. On the other hand, Jesus had looked calm throughout. Jason directed a silent question to Jesus.

  “Is he okay now?”

  Jesus nodded. “That’s enough for now. Go ahead and talk to him. He needs some reassurance about what just happened.”

  Jason was thinking that Donnie was not the only one in need of explanations and reassurances. He focused on Donnie’s face and addressed him tenderly. “How ya doin’ there, bud?”

  Donnie nodded. He sniffed forcefully and answered. “Yeah, much better. I feel normal. Was that what I think it was?”

  Snickering softly, Jason said, “Yeah, man, that was.”