at first, i could handle the parlor tricks and the mysterious (obviously inane) babble. i could even deal with his useless confrontations with the other teachers. after all, you know there’s no love lost between you pharisees and anyone but yourselves. and i guess you could say i allowed myself some smiles at the expense of those who looked like fools after trying to trap him in his own words (i admit it–and i’m not afraid of you. you need me). you have to give him that much: he had a knack for confusing and disorienting his opponents in public, much to the people’s delight. ah, but the people! you know how they are–they’ll clap and cheer at any oddity. and doesn’t he know that’s what he is to them? just a curiosity! a curiosity, nonetheless, that manages to pull food out of thin air. i still haven’t figured out how he did that one. i don’t wonder if there weren’t people planted in the crowd with food stashed in hidden places–that might do the trick.
but what have years of wandering around the sewer districts of insignificant villages in samaria, producing food from god-knows-where and “healing” people (it’s very easy to be “blind”. i could do it myself. i wonder if jesus would pay me as much as he paid his plants), got him? the applause of rabble! and then, their sticks and stones, because of his repugnant habit of quoting irrelevant passages from the law and the prophets at the wrong times. not only did he pick the wrong kind of followers, he turned them on himself! if anything is a miracle, it’s that he’s still alive…
…or maybe it’s that i’m still around. at first, things were going smoothly. he wasn’t as prone to do so many damn rashful things. i smelled promise. and my companions weren’t so thick-headed. but he kept saying incomprehensible shit, and that gradually addled their brains. you’d never have thought so many fishermen could become so many useless mystics in such a short time! particularly that simon: going around, calling jesus the anointed. anointed, of all things! i’d make a better anointed than that carpenter. of course, jesus encouraged it, arrogant as he is, and “rewarded” simon by calling him peter. ha! i’m sure “peter” will get his fill of rocks when the people drag him to the gates and stone him for calling a carpenter the anointed. what will he think of his reward then? i hope i’m there to see it.
of course, as the only “disciple” with his head on straight, i was given charge of the money bags. and this, you see, is primarily why i stuck around and disgraced myself with jesus and his lot. for whatever reason, people opened their purses to us whenever he came by. in hopes of “healing” or some unimportant favor, no doubt (and he never tired of granting the most insignificant things to the most insignificant people! it was insufferable, not to mention a waste of time). this was especially the case after news about lazarus got out–lazarus, by the way, perplexes me. he never struck me as the kind who would pretend to die so jesus could “resurrect” him. in any case, it usually happened that even after feeding ourselves and that wretched gaggle of hangers-on (whores, to a one), there was a good deal of silver left over.
i kept faithful watch over the money, taking some for myself only as my services warranted, but i knew the other disciples were jealous of my position and probably tattled lies to jesus about my use of the funds. no matter. i could deal with those fools. but i couldn’t deal with jesus when popularity turned against him and the money stopped coming in. i knew then that i had to leave the crazy charlatan behind before he dragged me into the mess he’d prepared for us (“if it were not so, i would have told you”!). the night that i made the decision was the night one of his prostitutes poured an entire jar of myros nardos on his feet! that jar could have fed us for months, but he just sat there with a sad smile on his face (why, i’ll never know–i can’t fathom what goes on in his diseased mind) and let her do it. mary–that was her name, and not a bad-looking girl. i wouldn’t have minded meeting her in her whoring days (i know your types disapprove, but the bonds of business are stronger than those of morality, eh?). i complained, of course, but he responded with more of that nonsense that i can’t even remember.
so, here i am. you want jesus and i want money. i think we can come to some sort of agreement. but remember, we’re not talking bronze here: i’ll have to go into hiding or those big brutes of fishermen will come after me after they’ve got over the fact that their “anointed” is gone forever. i want silver. thirty pieces, and no less. well? do we have a deal?
