Project J (26 page)

“I’m off to bed,” Myers told her.
 
“Please tuck Jesus in when you two get tired.
 
Fielding insists that someone be with him every minute.
 
Of course, that doesn’t include when he’s sleeping.”

Was there a hint of amusement in his voice?
 
Surely the older man could not be thinking that Tamara would make any sexual move towards Jesus!
 
She almost said something aloud when she realized that he had already left.
 
She turned back to the showcase sky before them and thought about it.
 
She was unmarried, but Jesus was.
 
To a woman dead two thousand years.
 
Did that make him a widower?
 
Probably, in a technical sense.
 
But to Jesus, she was certain, his wife was still alive, along with his children.
 
There was simply no way he could have any concept of the incredible amount of time that had passed since his day.

Tamara shrugged off the idea of anything between them.
 
She did care for him as a man, true.
 
And here was a man who would never see his wife again.
 
But the idea of actually going to bed with him...
 
No!
 
It wouldn’t be right.
 
She had to laugh at the idea of bedding down with Jesus.
 
That would really make a good tale for the National Tattler!

The night was beginning to turn chilly, as it does at the higher elevations.
 
If they were going to stay out watching the stars, it would be a good idea to put on a coat or something.
 
She rose from the chair and Jesus did also.
 
In the dim light coming from one of the house’s windows, she could make out his face.
 
Wrapping her arms around herself, she made shivering motions.
 
He nodded and turned towards the house, waiting for her.
 
They walked into the warmth of the house together.

Tamara showed him to his bedroom.
 
At the door, Jesus turned to her and again took her hand in his.
 
“Thank you,” he said again.
 
Then, with a gentle squeeze, he let go of her hand.
 
After she walked away, he closed the door.

Chapter 45:
 
A Good Way to See the World

It was early the next morning, after a breakfast of warmed up leftover steak and eggs, that they set out to show Jesus the world.
 
The first part was a road down to a small village called Jemez Pueblo where they stopped for gas.
 
It was only a forty-minute drive, but all got out and stretched their legs.
 
Jesus was particularly interested in Tamara refueling the car, but it was beyond her power to explain about the internal combustion engine, and would have been even if she could speak Aramaic.
 
The concept was simply too advanced.
 
He did, however, get the idea that adding that funny smelling stuff into that hole in the side of the car was necessary to make it run.
 
He also stared at the handful of people around, most of whom appeared to be Indians or of Mexican descent.
 
This was the first time he had seen more than four people at a time since he awoke.

They followed the two lane road down until they came to Interstate 25, then turned south.
 
Before long they were entering the outskirts of Albuquerque.
 
As the city grew, Jesus could not take his eyes off the buildings.
 
This was also the first time he had seen so many cars driving all at once.
 
Tamara, who was driving at that point, could hear him muttering to himself as the buildings grew in size until they were opposite the downtown portion and some of the buildings reached twenty-stories.

“You have so many people in your land,” Jesus said, the awe showing in his voice and on his face.

“This is one of our small cities,” Myers told him.
 
“We have much bigger.”

Jesus could only shake his head.

“In Jesus’ day, Jerusalem held only about fifty thousand people maximum.
 
Of course, that increased dramatically during the holy festivals when pilgrims flooded into the city.
 
The population of Albuquerque is about half a million, around ten times that of Jerusalem.”
 
Myers chuckled.
 
“He should see New York.”

“Got that right,” chimed in Juliette, “finest city in the world.
 
Also one of the biggest.”

When the densest buildings were opposite them, Myers leaned forward and told Tamara, “I hope you’re not going any farther south.
 
We wouldn’t want to run into a border checkpoint.
 
Remember, Jesus is an undocumented alien.”

Tamara did not know if that was meant as a joke, but it was literally the truth.
 
If stopped by authorities, how could they prove Jesus was legally in the country?
 
For that matter, was he?

Shortly after the downtown section, they turned off the freeway and headed towards a sizeable airport nearby with commercial jets taking off and landing regularly.

“This is Albuquerque International,” Tamara said.
 
“Please tell Jesus not to worry about the noise.
 
We’re going to a business called ‘Sunport Jets’, and it’s on the flight line.
 
I’m sure he’s never heard a 747 taking off.”

Driving along a main street paralleling the airport runways, she found what she was looking for: a row of restaurants.
 
She pulled into one called “Milton’s,” and parked.

“But first, lunch,” she announced.

Milton’s, as Tamara had planned, was an upscale delicatessen.
 
The waitress looked at Jesus’ long hair, beard and sandals with disdain, but seated them anyway.
 
The food, as she expected, proved to be quite good and they all had a sizeable lunch.
 
Jesus liked the turkey with cranberries and stuffing.
 
It was a bit early for lunch, so the restaurant was not crowded, which pleased them because avoiding crowds was high on their list.
 
Talk over the meal was casual.
 
Jesus did, at one point, ask where they were going, but Tamara and Juliette looked at each other, grinned, and told Myers to inform Jesus that he would really like where they were going.
 
They did not, however, inform either of the Jews just exactly where that was, but Myers undoubtedly had a notion.

An incident occurred during the meal that left Tamara in a state of confusion.
 
They were eating when Juliette began choking, apparently on a piece of food lodged in the windpipe.
 
When she saw what was happening, Tamara leapt out of her chair and was coming around the table with the intent of administering the Heimlich Maneuver to clear Juliette’s air passage.
 
However, Jesus, who was sitting next to the distressed woman, reached over and touched her on the shoulder.
 
Immediately the piece of food was coughed out and Juliette sucked in air gratefully.

Jesus said nothing but turned back to his plate.

Tamara stood there for a few moments, confused and surprised.
 
Looking across the table, she saw that Myers was also surprised but perhaps less confused.
 
She went back to her seat, shaking her head.
 
What had she just seen? she wondered.
 
Had the problem cleared by itself and just happened to coincide with Jesus’ touching her?
 
Or did his touch have something to do with it?
 
Tamara was confused.
 
The manner in which he had acted, the calm, confident look on his face, and the results, combined to make her wonder.

No one spoke of it and the meal went on, but Tamara was left wondering what she had just seen.

After lunch, it was a short drive to Sunport Jets.
 
As they disembarked from the car, a 787 Dreamliner took off, its engine roar loud enough so you could not talk.
 
Jesus stood there, staring at the aircraft in astonishment – or disbelief – as it climbed into the sky, banked, and departed into the blue.

Jesus turned to Tamara, tugged on the sleeve of her blouse and said something.

“He wants to know if that is the same thing you showed him up in the sky.
 
I told him yes.”
 
Then he said a few more words to Jesus before returning his attention to Tamara.
 
“You aren’t going to do what I think you are... Are you?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll like it,” she told Myers with a smile.
 
Then she and Juliette were leading the men into the office building.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Myers commented as Tamara went up to the desk and began talking to the clerk.
 
“Whose idea was this?”

“Tamara suggested it, but I fully agreed,” Juliette told him.
 
“Don’t worry.”

“I should have guessed it, coming from a woman who took Jesus joyriding around the compound.”

Tamara returned to them.
 
“The pilot is checking out the plane.
 
We can go onboard in a couple minutes.”

She turned to Myers.
 
“Now I want you to explain to him that we are going to take him for a ride on an airplane.
 
Make it sound like it is nothing more than driving in a car.
 
Got that?”

Myers sighed.
 
“I’ll try.”

He need not have worried about Jesus’ reaction.
 
It was positive, to say the least.
 
Maybe he had been prepared for it by Tamara’s showing him a high performance sports car, or maybe he simply liked the idea of flying into the sky.
 
He nodded, and smiled at them all.

The clerk called to Tamara that the plane was ready.
 
Tamara gestured towards the side door, and Juliette took Jesus’ arm to escort him outside.
 
There they found a sleek jet with twin engines mounted by the tail and swept-back wings.
 
A young man walked up to them from the aircraft.

“Welcome,” he said with a smile.
 
“I’m Sandy Nelson, your pilot.
 
This is a Beechjet 400.
 
Seats eight, has a fifteen hundred mile range, and will cruise at five hundred miles per hour.
 
I’ve just finished pre-flight, and you can come on board.”

As he stood by the boarding ladder, he gave Jesus a funny look, then shrugged.

The inside was not overly large but did have seven seats, each a window seat.
 
All were of soft black leather.
 
The walls were white and the windows were round portholes about two feet wide.
 
The second and third pair of seats faced each other, and it was into one of the forward facing seats that they placed Jesus.
 
Tamara and Juliette took the seats facing backwards, but facing Jesus and Myers.
 
Each seat had a good view out the adjacent window with the leading edge of the wing only obstructing Jesus’ and Myers’ view slightly.

Once the seat belts were secured, the pilot closed the door and made his way forward.
 
Jesus seemed especially interested in the mass of instruments and dials visible through the small door to the flight deck.
 
The engines came on before the pilot reached his seat, and Tamara could see a second pilot in the right hand seat.
 
He must have been the one to start the engines.
 
The engines sounded loud, but the jet did not move for a couple minutes while the pilot continued his checklist.
 
Finally, he put it aside, glanced back to see that his passengers were all secured, and then pushed the throttles forward.
 
The engine noise increased and the plane began to move forward.
 
Jesus turned his eyes to the window and watched intently as they taxied out to the runways.
 
For a minute they sat near one end of a runway, waiting for a larger jet to land.
 
Then the pilot moved them to the end of the runway and pointed the nose along the dotted line.
 
The engines increased their roar, heard mutedly in the insulated cabin, and they began their roll.
 
Faster and faster the jet moved down the runway, gathering speed and lift.
 
Just when it seemed the jet was straining to become airborne, their nose pointed upward and they left the ground.

Jesus grasped the seat armrests tightly as the ground fell away.
 
The buildings were becoming smaller and farther away as he watched, awestruck.
 
When they were high enough to begin to lose the perspective of being at a height, Jesus turned to Tamara and spoke a few words, then turned back to the window.

Myers choked on a laugh he could not prevent.
 
“He says that this is better than sex!”