Jesus and the Centurion

By Wayne Lee Gay

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. - Matthew VIII: 5-6


Got no ma, no pa, no girl. Don't give a fuck. Don't-give-a-fuck is just what the army wants, and don't nobody don't-give-a-fuck as much as I don't-give-a-fuck.

First, I'm just another army grunt who don't give a fuck. I'm so good at it they give me five other grunts to order around. Then ten, then a hundred. Presto, I'm a centurion. Don't give a fuck. That's why I'm a goddam centurion and you're not, asshole. Because I don't-give-a-fuck. And I'm good at it.

They shipped us out to Judea. God-fuckin'-awful. Scorpions and whirlwinds. Barbed wire and concrete fences.

Main local occupation: suicide bombing.

Main local religion: None. Unless you count Yahweh worship. Local ragheads won't even spend the money for a statue of their cranky old-man god. Prissy-ass priests with a rule-book thick as the goddam AT&T Yellow Pages.

So, I'm down in Judea, see, nothing to do but keep an eye on a hundred asshole soldiers while they torture prisoners and take potshots at kids and old ladies who look like they might be terrorists.

Anyway, there's this slave market, see, just past the mall. You know, the mall with the twenty-screen movie land and the skating rink and the surplus store.

Shiny Sam's Slave Mart, you've seen the ads on late-night TV. Discount for military personnel.

Shiny Sam wears a bright yellow suit and a bright red tie. He's got a gold tooth. And a good deal for every asshole who walks onto the lot. Guarantees to undersell any deal you can find this side of Eden.

Just look at those girls, Shiny Sam says. Flashes that gold tooth.

What's that? he says, clearing his nostrils. Louder, I can't hear you. Boys, you say? We ain't got no boys. Excuse the hell outta me. What kinda gay-ass low-class place you think this is? We got no boys.

He pauses, picks at his gold tooth. Frowns. Then grins.

We got no boys. We got young men. Check their driver's license. All guaranteed over eighteen. And check out that cute number over there, the one with the eyes like dreams and faraway mountains and the tide rushing in at night under a full moon. He guaranteed to warm your cot, Sugar.

No payments or interest until July. Special discount for military personnel.

We do our part for y'all, Shiny Sam says. Love of God and country, y'all.

Boy don't say nothing. German, Greek, Arab, Mexican? Who the hell knows? Boy don't know, that's for sure. Eyes like a set of handcuffs, like a leash. Like a falling star in August.

I sign the papers.

Trouble is, who owns who?

Back at the base, two of those one hundred assholes in the company smirk when they see the boy. Or look like they might smirk. Lashes for those two, and lashes for two others just to make sure the message sinks in. A little blood on the whip, a lot of moans, one nice loud scream. Everybody's happy now, right? No more smirks, right?

Boy's still quiet. Talks a little now and then. It's just business, right? What's between me and him, that's just business. Convenient for both. Nobody gets his feelings hurt. Nobody gives a fuck.

One night, instead of rolling over and going to sleep, he holds onto me like he's falling off of a cliff. And I hold onto him, too, like I might fall off a cliff if I don't. I don't know why. But I think that I don't know what I'd do if something happened to him.

Then the sickness comes. Like it says in the book, the boy falls down. Grievously tormented, it says. But grievously tormented don't begin to describe the way I feel, when I see the way he shakes and carries on, like a thousand snakes are inside him, eating him up.




That's when the Son o' God Traveling Medicine Show comes to town. Folks say Son o' God can heal the sick. I spit. I don't give a fuck.

But the boy's shakin' and tormented. Sure as hell wouldn't hurt if I went down to see Son o' God. Just to look around. Get away from these one hundred assholes the army gave me and this one sick boy I ought to take back to Shiny Sam for the money-back guarantee.

We'll just see about Son o' God.

Yeah, he slick as shit. Good magic tricks. Fine-ass dancing girls, Magdalen and Salome, shakin' it, workin' it for the soldiers and young bucks and tired husbands. Did I see a little bare tittie, up there, a little hint of nekkid pussy bush? Nah. Maybe.

Son o' God himself, smooth as hell, sweet-talkin' for the blue-haired ladies and
horny girls. Nice message, love and peace and brotherhood shit. Lots of promises,
fuckin' pie-in-the-sky, if you ask me. Hallmark card shit.

Greater Judea Citizens Good Government League don't object to the show. Military occupation office ain't bothered, stuff like this keeps the crowds happy. Local ministerial alliance don't hardly notice, they don't-give-a-fuck. Different socio-economic target audience.

Hell of a good set of tricks there, Son o' God. Water into wine. Food out of thin air. Nothing fancy. Loaves and fishes. Tater tots. Those little packages of ketchup you never can get open. Heals the sick. Raises the dead.

All right, so I'm at the show. The boy's at home, probably writhing on the floor.

Allright, Son o' God, what you gonna do for my boy? I say. Beseeching just a little bit. Don't you see what's beginning to happen to me? See, asshole, goddammit, see?

Go home, mother-fuckin'-soldier-bashin'-right-wing-commie-pig, Son o' God says to me, smoothing down a lose strand of hair, adjusting the halo a little. And did I mention boy fucker? Go home, boy's alright. I mean young man. But check his driver's license, just to make sure.

I hear tell the FDA finally shut down the Son o' God Traveling Medicine Show. Gave him the whole cross and whips and nails routine. Set an example. Because what he was selling wasn't the problem at all. It was what he wasn't selling that got Son o' God in trouble.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, don't even give me or the boy a name in the big book. A certain centurion, Luke says. Servant who was dear to him, Luke calls the boy. They don't give a fuck. Just like everybody else don't give a fuck.

But if you should hear of this, or read of this, a hundred or a thousand years from now, know that the miracle wasn't that some no-count boy, some crazy boy with eyes like the sunrise, rose from his deathbed.

This was the miracle: I gave a fuck.



wlgay.jpg Wayne Lee Gay grew up on a farm in Oklahoma. He holds degrees in music history and musicology from Baylor University and the University of Iowa; he pursued a career in journalism, specializing in classical music criticism for twenty-five years, and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1989. He returned to graduate school as a student of creative writing and fiction at the age of fifty in 2005, and is currently completing an M.A. at the University of North Texas, where he is a teaching fellow in the English department and production editor for the American Literary Review. He will enter the Ph.D. program at UNT in August 2007.