Jesus Christ Superstore
“It’ll be the biggest goddamn Christian-themed super mall in the world,” J.T. Stubbs said, balancing his formidable girth on the barstool. His solid gold bolo tie clasp glittered in the dim light of the Plano Comfort Inn lounge. Smoke drifted in lazy eddies above the bar. Bursts of lubricious pedal steel and staccato drum fills issued from the front of the room as Bobby Ace and the Poker Chips set up for their sound check.
Samudragupta “Sammy” Sharma, looking out of place in his silk suit, the distinctive odor of deep money surrounding him like a pheromone mist, frowned slightly. He didn’t much like this Stubbs fellow (“Call me J.T.—everybody does”) but Stubbs had a reputation for turning straw into gold on the flimsiest of conceits and Sharma, having just sold Superior Fundamentals, Inc., a Duluth-based truck body manufacturing company, to a consortium of Pakistani investors, was looking for a new tax dodge.
“Can Collin County really support a new Christian-themed super mall? You’ve got plenty of local retail.”
That was an understatement. Since a Plano housewife had claimed to see the face of Jesus in a tuna casserole and posted the picture to Facebook, Bible stores, gun shops, and Left-Behind survivalist gear merchants had sprung up in and around Plano like mushrooms after a spring rain. Sharma thought the Tuna Jesus looked more like Jackson Browne, but the area’s propensity for religious nuttery was undeniable.
“Exactly,” said Stubbs. “My point exactly. It’s all about consolidation. One stop salvation with convenient parking. We’ll make it free for the first six months then start charging two bucks an hour.”
His eyes glazed as he focused on a distant point beyond the bar mirror. He sighed and shook his head.
“We’ll crush those indie sons of bitches like cockroaches. I talked the First Fundamentalist into using the Cineplex for Sunday services. Boy howdy, when we start charging for parking …”
He began ticking off his stubby fingers.
“We got a REI for the survivalists. TGI Fridays’ll have a Christian-only rock lineup. My brother-in-law Billy Bob owns the Bed, Bath & Beyond franchise down in Killeen and he’s gonna pop out a new one as soon as we get ink on the deal.”
Stubbs lowered his voice. “I asked him to go a little easy on the Bath and Beyond and pump up the Bed, if you know what I mean and I think you do.”
He looked down at his fingers, splayed out like the blunt tines of a fork. A gold ring with a ruby setting encircled his middle finger. It looked like a link of chorizo, red and ready to burst.
He raised the index finger of his other hand. “And oh yeah, we’re gonna run joint promos with the Six Flags Over Jesus theme park down in Red Bluff. Half off admission if you bring a Bible and a receipt from the Barnes and Noble.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything,” Sharma said. “At least until you run out of fingers.”
The Poker Chips launched into a lurching, polkacide rendition of “I Walk The Line,” effectively drowning out whatever reply Stubbs might have made. The pounding bass induced sympathetic circular waves in Sharma’s cranberry juice. Stubbs’s glass was empty, which he sought to remedy immediately.
“Bartender!” shouted Stubbs above the melodious din, waving a meaty hand in the air.
The bartender, a lanky young man wearing a Western shirt, cowboy hat, and handlebar mustache, was deep in conversation with a hooker at the other end of the bar.
“Barkeep!” Stubbs shouted again.
The bartender looked up, frowned, patted his friend on the hand, and ambled over to them.
“Kin I git you.”
“Two more of the same,” Stubbs said.
Sharma put his hand over his juice glass.
“I’m good,” he said.
The bartender poured Stubbs a generous shot of Old Crow and retreated as the song ground to a stuttering halt.
Stubbs turned to Sharma.
“What do you think?”
Sharma was silent. This was his favorite part of a deal, the pregnant pause, and he milked it without mercy. Stubbs downed his shot of bourbon and wiped a film of sweat from his forehead.
“I’m in,” Sharma said finally. He was excited in spite of the small surge of depression he felt at giving this nimrod what he wanted. “Tentatively. I’m going to want names and vitae of the other investors, and I’ll have my due diligence team look over the business plan and whatever architecture drawings you have at this time. If all goes well, you’ll have a term sheet in two weeks.”
Stubbs was prone on a massage table in the back room of Daisy’s Beauty and Nails on Division Street in Plano when his cell phone emitted the sound of a tinny, synthesized calliope playing “All My Exes Live in Texas.” His pale body glistened with coconut oil as Mei Ling’s tiny hands dug deep into his tender spots. She had just slid aside the towel draped over his gelatinous butt and the good stuff wasn’t far off.
“God damn it, this better be good.” He lifted his head. “Honey, I gotta take this. Grab my phone and hold it up to my ear, that’s a good girl.”
“This better be good,” he said again, without looking at the caller ID.
“Stubbs, this is Sharma.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Stubbs’s enthusiasm for the massage dwindled precipitously. “Hey there. I know why you’re calling but it’s all good. Construction’s going gangbusters again. We had that little problem with the rebar quality but I greased some palms at County and—”
“That’s fine, Stubbs. I’m sure you’ve got the graft and corruption end of things well in hand. What I’m concerned about is marketing and strategic planning. You know there’s a competing effort that just broke ground outside of Houston.”
“What, those guys? They don’t even have a Tuna Jesus! They—”
“This is not the first rodeo I’ve attended, Stubbs. We have a head start, but we need a decisive opening, something really big. I want their investors skittish and desperate. If I can buy them out at a lowball valuation early in the game, we’ll have a lock on the religious-themed megamall market for the entire Southwest. This is the big leagues, Stubbs. Time to swing for the fences.”
“Well, sure, but—”
“I want you to meet me at U.T. Austin this afternoon. There’s a Cessna waiting for you at the Plano airport.”
“Austin?” Stubbs avoided Austin like vegetarian lasagna. He regarded the place as a fetid swamp, infested with intellectuals and queers.
“I’m sponsoring a project out of the Physics Department,” Sharma said. “I think it might be of interest to us.”
As Stubbs walked across campus to his meeting with Sharma, he wondered if he’d made a mistake eschewing the benefits of higher education in favor of alcohol, cocaine, No Limit Texas Hold-Em, and Catholic girls. It was late spring, muggy as a bog, and the campus was crawling with young, nubile women sporting plenty of skin. As a middle-aged, corpulent redneck, he was effectively invisible to anyone under twenty-five and he could ogle with impunity.
The Physics Department was located in Robert Lee Moore Hall, a minimalist 12-story phallus towering over the technology ghetto on the North end of campus. It looked more like a Holiday Inn than any kind of “hall.” Sharma was waiting for him at the front entrance. He was wearing white, linen slacks and a navy blue polo shirt. The crushing heat seemed to bother him not at all.
“Let’s go,” he said. “You’re late.”
He led Stubbs though a warren of hallways, through a heavy, unmarked door, and down three flights of stairs. The air grew noticeably cooler as they descended.
The bottom landing was illuminated by a bare, twenty-five watt bulb. On the far wall, someone had painted a squat, hulking creature with a tentacled head and razor-sharp claws, belly pale and flaccid beneath a midriff T-shirt that read NO I WONT FIX YOUR GRAND UNIFIED FIELD THEORY.
Sharma led Stubbs though another maze of hallways. In one room he saw a student wielding a blowtorch perched atop something that looked like a diving bell. In another room, two students played speed chess surrounded by a litter of half-unpacked boxes of expensive looking electronics gear. Each shouted “Fuck you!” at the other when they slammed their side of the clock.
Finally, they arrived at a large open area in the back of the complex. An incomprehensible array of hardware occupied nearly half of the space, surrounding yet another diving bell. A scruffy, bearded student hunched near the structure applying a soldering gun to a tangle of cables and circuit boards. Several others pecked away at a bank of terminals.
Amidst the clutter stood a middle-aged man in a moth-eaten corduroy jacket. He had the worst haircut Stubbs had ever seen, his skull mottled with what looked like patches of mange, tufts of hair sticking out in all directions. Nevertheless, he had the bearing of a maestro conducting an orchestra. The air was thick with tension. Something was about to happen.
Stubbs stepped forward, ready to start glad-handing. He regarded any gathering as an opportunity to sell somebody something they didn’t need. Sharma stopped him with an extended arm. He shook his head, holding an index finger to his pursed lips for emphasis.
Wait, he mouthed silently.
The professor looked at each of his students in turn, then nodded. One of the students at a terminal said, “Okay, here we go. On three. One—”
“Is that on three, or three, then go?” said an attractive young woman in a BOYS SUCK T-shirt.
“Fuck off, Darla. One, two … three.”
A deep hum filled the room, almost below the threshold of hearing. The lights dimmed. Sharp pain flared in Stubbs’ dental fillings.
The air filled with an ozone reek. A bundle of wires and boxes next to the diving bell sizzled and burst into flame. The bearded student unhurriedly produced a fire extinguisher from somewhere and doused it.
The professor spoke. He had a voice like a television announcer, deep and mellifluous.
“I thought you put the accumulator behind a surge protector, Barlow. We can’t build a new one each time.”
“Well, clearly we can, because we are …” Darla said.
The professor glared at her. She shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
“Okay,” Barlow said. “Who’s hungry?”
He spun a circular locking mechanism and the door swung open. Mist curled around the edges of the frame. The chamber was empty except for a large, flat, grease-stained box. The students flocked to it like roaches to a discarded donut.
The professor turned to Sharma and Stubbs.
“Sammy,” he said. “Glad you could come.”
He looked dubiously at Stubbs. Before Sharma could make an introduction, Stubbs stepped forward, holding his hand out.
“Stubbs,” he said. “Call me J.T., everybody does.”
“I’m sure they do,” the professor said, taking his hand for a brief moment then dropping it like a hot biscuit.
“This is Dr. Peskin,” Sharma said. “His lab, his students.”
The students were clustered around the diving bell, gorging themselves on wedges of gooey, dripping pizza.
Stubbs looked at Sharma. Sharma looked back with a slight smile.
Figure it out, he seemed to be saying.
“So what’s that contraption,” Stubbs asked. “Some kind of fancy pizza oven?”
Peskin chuckled. “Not exactly. That isn’t just any pizza. It’s an extra-large jalapeño jack chorizo pizza from Ernesto’s on the south side of campus. Something of a local legend, actually.”
Stubbs’s beady eyes widened. “You mean it’s some kinda transporter deal, like Star Trek?”
Peskin turned to Sharma. “He’s not as stupid as he looks, is he?”
“He has a certain naive cunning,” Sharma said.
Peskin looked back at Stubbs. “No, not at all. The thing is, Ernesto’s burned to the ground last year. Ernesto himself is currently serving four years at Huntsville for insurance fraud and arson.”
Stubbs looked at Peskin, at Sharma, back at Peskin.
“Nuh-uh,” he said. “No way. A time machine? Boy howdy, you got yourself a time machine?”
Peskin shook his head. “Not bad, but … no. Time travel is impossible. Entropy, second law, and all that.”
Stubbs nodded. He patted his jacket pocket. “You mind if I smoke in here?”
“I’ll break your arm if you do,” Peskin said mildly.
Stubbs shrugged. He was used to a constant low level of hostility from pretty much everyone he met.
“Okay, I give up. What is it then?”
Peskin pushed his hands together in a steeple. He appeared to be collecting his thoughts.
While they were talking, the students had drifted over from their feeding frenzy.
Stubbs turned to Darla. “Honey, you think you could scare me up a beer, that’s a good girl.”
“Bite my ass, fat boy,” she said cheerfully.
The other students snickered. Sharma tried to contain a smile. Peskin ignored the exchange.
“Our universe is just one of many,” he said. “If the meta-universe were an ocean, ours would be one of a googleplex of bubbles comprising the foam on its surface. You with me so far?”
“You bet,” Stubbs said, thoroughly lost. He elbowed Sharma. “Googleplex,” he whispered.
Peskin glared briefly, then continued. “The laws of physics are not invariant from one universe to the next. Fundamental constants have different values, elements decay at different rates, even the speed of light is not consistent.”
He seemed to be warming to his subject, like a preacher to a particularly juicy manifestation of sin.
“In some of these universes, even the passage of time is different. A million years here could be the blink of an eye there. Now back to our foam, some of these bubbles are very close together, topologically speaking. That is, some of the universes are nearly identical. Minor details might differ. For example, there is a universe identical to ours in all respects except that, there, the Knicks beat the Lakers every time.”
Barlow snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s off the continuum, Doctor P.”
Peskin shrugged. “A singularity is a mathematical abstraction, Barlow.”
Barlow nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess.”
Some sort of Zen moment had passed between teacher and student, but as far as Stubbs was concerned, they were speaking in Mandarin.
“So what we’re looking for, Stubbs, is a universe identical to ours except that time passes at a different rate. Depending on what we’re looking for, we find the universe with the appropriate rate differential, open a portal, and grab what we need.”
“Hunh,” Stubbs said. “So the extra-large jalapeño jack chorizo pizza—”
“—is from the universe where Ernesto’s is eleven months behind ours, figuring from the Big Bang onwards.”
Big bang … Stubbs thought of Mei Ling and was lost briefly in fleshy reverie. He pulled himself together.
“So what you’re telling me is, basically, you got yourself a time machine.”
Peskin shrugged. “Pretty much.”
Stubbs nodded, starting to see the possibilities.
“So tell me, Doc, you ever brought over any people?”
“As a matter of fact we have,” Peskin said.
One of the other students, a chunky fellow with a shaved head, Coke bottle glasses, and a tiny soul patch, spoke up.
“John Lennon,” he said. “Art school phase.”
Barlow laughed. “What a douche.”
“Word,” Soul Patch said. “He wouldn’t shut up about himself.”
“Me auntie toor up me fookin pomes,” Darla said, in a passable Cockney lilt.
Soul Patch nodded. “Exactly. We gave him a hundred bucks, my kid brother’s Fender Squire, and put him on a bus to Nashville. He’ll be fine.”
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
“We gonna tell him about Hitler?” Darla asked.
Peskin coughed. “Yes, well … most unfortunate. A favor for a friend in the Psychology Department—”
“—who you were boning at the time,” Darla added.
Peskin glared at her, then shrugged. “Indeed. He shaved the mustache, stole some Dockers from the Men’s Faculty Locker Room, and took off on his own. We’re pretty sure he’s the new Director of Consumer Experience at Apple.”
Sharma winced.
“Hoo boy,” Stubbs said.
He looked at Sharma.
“I’ll tell you what, though. This brings up some interesting possibilities for Opening Day.”
“It does indeed,” Sharma said.
The only people out in the open during a typical Indian summer afternoon in East Texas are drunks, meth dealers, and outlet shoppers. It’s so hot you can grill quesadillas on the sidewalk. The humidity induces lizard-brain panic that you’re trying to breathe underwater.
On opening day for the Tabernacle Megamall, a heavy sun beat down on eighty acres of substandard concrete and Chinese prefab. In spite of the inhuman conditions, the marketing blitz had attracted a respectable flock of rubes, willing to scuttle from their air-conditioned muscle cars and pickups to the climate controlled mall interior while newly-poured parking lot asphalt threatened to suck the shoes off their feet.
The tantalizing hints about a special guest had been especially effective. Who would it be? Devin Nunes? Ted Nugent? Britney? Speculation was rampant.
Stubbs was waiting for Sharma in the Tabernacle Megamall Security Operations Center. It looked like NASA Ground Control. Banks of monitors covered two walls; the others were floor-to-ceiling two-way mirrors that looked out over the mall’s central commons. Half a dozen middle-aged men in Mall Security uniforms muttered into spidery headsets and hunched over keyboards.
Many of the stores had set out booths and displays in the commons. The Gun ‘n’ Grog had tapped a keg of Lone Star and a gaggle of patrons clustered unsteadily around the Glock table.
Sharma entered the room and walked up to Stubbs. “Nice crowd.”
Stubbs nodded distractedly. “Ayup.”
“How’s it going with our visitor?” Sharma asked. “I heard he came through kind of late but that’s all I know.”
“Yeah, the eggheads had some trouble with the gizmo. First try brought back a ton of sand and half a camel. Messy as all get out.”
Sharma winced.
“Yeah, you got it. They cleaned everything up and tried again and this time he came through all right. Guy was wearing a filthy burlap toga and smelled like ass. He took one look around and started screaming like a little girl. We tried to get him into a shower and that wigged him out even worse until he got used to it, then we couldn’t get him out. We shot him up full of Valium and he’s pretty quiet now. Got him into an all-white tracksuit from the Sport Authority and he’s looking pretty sharp. I gotta tell you, in spite of him being a bit skittish and all, there’s something about the guy. He’s the genuine article all right.”
“Glad to hear it, Stubbs. What are we going to do with him in the program?”
“We’re gonna keep him pumped full of Valium, welcome him to Texas, do a little meet and greet with the crowd, laying on of hands, that sort of thing, then get him out of there before he starts screaming again.”
“Works for me.”
They were set up in Theater 6 at the Cineplex—stadium seating, IMAX sound, and a decent backstage area. Stubbs looked out from the wings to a packed house. Baby strollers dotted the aisles. The big room was filled with the white-noise static of many conversations, like a huge swarm of sleepy bees, punctuated by the occasional Texas holler.
Behind the main curtains, a shortish, thin man with shoulder length hair and a hawk-like nose sat hunched on a wooden stool. Next to him, a small table held a glass of water. He seemed calm enough, muttering to himself and glaring at Stubbs from time to time.
Sharma appeared at Stubbs’s elbow.
“We ready?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Stubbs nodded to the tech, a pimply teen with five-day head stubble and huge dangling crucifix earrings. “Kill the house lights, open the curtains, then hit the spotlight on cue, just like we practiced. Ready, steady … go.”
The theater plunged into darkness. The curtain whispered open. After a chorus of gasps, the house fell silent.
There was a long, pregnant three-count, then the silky, ebullient voice of the announcer filled the room. Stubbs had hired Hurricane Bob, the weather guy from KBUG Houston, for his reassuring coverage of natural disasters.
“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Here to bless the grand opening of Plano’s Tabernacle Megamall, let’s give a big Texas welcome to the man with the plan, your favorite carpenter, Jesus Christ!”
A single spotlight beamed down from the ceiling, bathing the seated Jesus in bright, white light. Stubbs had run the house fog machine for two minutes, just enough so that the spotlight beam was a solid bar of illumination, widening slightly from ceiling to floor. It looked like it was shining down directly from Heaven. The tracksuit was a glowing nimbus.
The crowd seemed stunned. A ripple of applause began, faltered, then caught hold, filling the room.
Jesus stood up and took a sip of water. The house fell silent again. He looked out into the crowd, shielding his eyes, then he began to speak.
His voice was liquid, hypnotizing. Stubbs couldn’t understand a single word.
“Guy knows how to work a room, I’ll give him that,” Stubbs whispered to Sharma. “Sure wish I knew what he was saying.”
“You’re not telling me you didn’t think to get a translator,” Sharma said.
“How was I supposed to know? The Bible’s in English, ain’t it?”
Sharma fixed him with a long stare, then shook his head.
“Forget it, Stubbs.” He paused, listening. “I think it’s Aramaic, which was a Hebrew dialect. It might be close enough to the modern. We have to know what he’s saying.”
“Jesus talks Jew? Come on, Sammy, you’re yankin’ my crank here.” He took note of Sharma’s expression. “No, I guess you’re not.”
Jesus was becoming more animated, emphasizing his words with sharp hand gestures.
“Well, hold on now,” Stubbs said. “I know a Jew, guy over in Houston. Maybe he can help.”
He pulled out his cell, scrolled until he found the number, then jabbed the display and held the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Ira? This is J.T. … Yeah, Stubbs … No, I’m just fine, how are—Well, hey now, I told you, that’s a long-term investment. We gotta line up distribution, marketing … Yeah, like I told your lawyer boy we got at least a two year horizon … Ayup … ayup.”
Stubbs was listening, nodding, then noticed Sharma’s glare.
“So hey, Ira, the reason for my call, you talk Jew, right? … Yeah, Hebrew, s’what I meant. I got a situation here, and I could use some translating … Yeah, hang on, I’m gonna put you on speaker.”
Stubbs held the phone out in the direction of the stage. There was a pause, then Ira’s tinny voice issued from the phone.
“Wow,” he said. “Wow. Where’d you get this guy? He’s hopping mad.”
“That don’t matter,” Stubbs said. “He’s a standup act I’m lookin’ to invest in. What’s he saying?”
“The phrasing is a little weird, and there are some words I don’t understand …”
“That’s okay, Ira, just give me the ball park.”
“Okay … ‘You sons of bitches. You, uh … effing … sons of bitches. Why have you brought me here, you … defilers of camels. I will … ravish … your wives, daughters, and … camels … with my tremendous phallus of … camel. You whores, you painted whores and … malformed … sons of whores …’ It just goes on like that.”
“Hoo boy,” Stubbs said.
“We have to get him out of here,” Sharma said. “Thank Ganesh the Plano Zoo giraffe had triplets—that pretty much dominates the local media coverage. Otherwise we’d be crawling with TV crews and we’d be really sunk.”
“Thanks, Ira,” Stubbs said into the phone. “I’ll call you in a couple days about that other thing.”
He jabbed the keypad and slipped the phone into his pocket. He turned to the stage crew.
“All right, people, we got ourselves a Code Two. Kick it into gear, right now.”
Five seconds later, the house lights went out and the sound cut off. A security team hustled the struggling Jesus off the pitch-dark stage. He shouted a little more, then he went limp and began to sob.
The house lights came back and Hurricane Bob’s oily voice filled the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a small technical problem. We’ll be back in just a moment. Thank you for your patience.”
Jeers and catcalls issued from the crowd. Stubbs turned to a shadowy figure standing in the wings.
“Okay, big fella, you’re on.”
The man stepped into the light. Standing about six-two, pushing three hundred pounds, he would have been an imposing figure even without the sequined jacket, oversized sunglasses, and jet-black pompadour. He held a vintage Gibson J-200 by the neck. Inlaid mother-of-pearl roses covered the deck of the guitar, throwing rainbow highlights. It looked like a ukulele in his meaty hand. He staggered a bit as he walked forward.
“You okay?” Stubbs asked.
“Ayuh,” the man said. “I just threw up a little for a second. I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then, give ’em hell.”
Sharma looked at Stubbs with something resembling respect as the opening bars of “Heartbreak Hotel” reverberated in the auditorium.
“Well done,” he said.
Stubbs shrugged. “My daddy was a hard man, Sammy, barely gave me the time of day, and he died drunk in an oil rig fire when I was twelve, but there’s one thing he taught me.”
“What’s that?” Sharma asked.
“Always have a backup plan.”
In the Tabernacle Megamall Security Operations Center, huddled on a mattress in the back of a detention cell, Jesus wept.