THE NAZARENE

Thanks for dropping by the other night. You were the last person I expected to see. That's obvious, I guess. Jesus would have been less of a surprise. But you remind me more of Lazarus, an ordinary type, a great sinner maybe, who got lucky on his dying day, and stuck around. Nobody knows where Lazarus has been or what he's been at since. Same as yourself. Have you been to Mexico City? That's where they say Lazarus is living, on the low down, nowadays. But where was he say, in the year 1177 or 654 or 1765, hey? Nobody knows. I'm tempted to head out Mexico City way, to get the story from the man himself. You didn't say, or I didn't hear you say, where you are shacked up. Or are you on the road the whole time? That's doable as long as you have something to trade for a bed and a meal, yeh?  My great-great-grandfather was a travelling dancing master, did you know that? Never stayed in one village or under one roof too long, and never had a roof of his own. Nor his own four walls. I guess all walls are prison walls to a man like that. Danced and whooped his way from townland to townland, for half a century, they say, and never ever settled down. He's buried up in the Cool mountain somewhere. Supposed to be anyway.

You are looking great by the way. Nothing like the way I had imagined you looking by now. The way we all end up looking. The bones picked clean and the clean bones gone, says the poet. Something for archeology to piece together and decode an entire era from, 10000 years from now. They say bones don't talk, but do you know what, if you know how to listen, they never shut up! T'was a dark day for your friends and family, and an even darker one for your customers, when they lowered you down, but what a banquet for the beasts that crawl and squirm, hey?

You fat bastard! Burger-mouth! Nah, not anymore man. You look like an undertaker now. You're slim and proud-looking. Like a crow on a pole!

Except for your white suit. What is it - Ozempic. You're like Elvis if he hadda had Ozempic. You must've had something like it it years ago to get away with what you did? And is there something for the aging now too? Something secretly elite? You always had the new stuff, the best stuff, before anyone else had it. Did you get a hair transplant as well?

I don't mean to be nosey man but I have a lot of questions. In the first place, how the fuck did you get away with it atall? You had the whole prison hooked on something? Including the warden, the screws, the lags, the medical staff, the coffin-carriers, the grave-diggers? You paid them all off? You had something on them all? You put everyone under a spell? Or maybe they all just did what they were supposed to do, just their little part in the process, everything strictly by the book, and if something seemed off, and in this case really off, it was somebody else's problem, not theirs? However you did it, t'was some pair of dice you were spinning!

Even now, man, after years of slimming and, well, not aging, you're no longer obese, but you're still short, and you're still white and you're still pocked from the acne and you still have your scars. So how the hell did everyone take the corpse of a tall, slim, smooth-skinned, blemish-free Indonesian guy to be yours? Not being mean, but you are a man who has always relied on his words, rather than his looks, to get what he wants in this world, and this other guy sounds like a model. What was he in for, in the first place? Or did you have him brought in? Was he a cleaner or something in for the day from the outside and did you walk out through the prison gates dressed up as him? How come he died at such a convenient time? Did you kill him? Did you have him killed? Did you commit his suicide for him like I always thought someone had committed yours for you? Not saying you killed yourself, just that I found it hard to believe someone with your track record could OD. Had to have been someone who wanted you dead, I always thought, and poisoned the gear. How come nobody noticed the Indonesian lad missing? Didn't he have any next-of-kin? Are you the only one who has managed this trick or is it a common thing? Is there a trade in dead bodies too?

I know you're not going to share much or any of this with me and obviously I'm gonna keep shut about what I already know. It's probably more fun guessing and trying to figure at all out anyway than knowing how you really managed it. Legend is better than truth, always was, and always will be, and you, my friend, are a legend of legends. They say, by the way, that Ireland will be like Indonesia soon, an archipelago. I won't be around to see it, thanks be to jaysus, but I'm sure you will!Test Layout