Every Easter since He was taken from Us, Jesus has resurrected Himself in various improbable environs, just to see if anyone noticed. Not as a joke, or a test---though He is damn good at both---- but just to catch the zeitgeist, chat a few souls up, and then go back Home with a good idea of how the Human Race is running these days....

 This year He showed up at my friend's Section8 housing for elderly & diabled persons. People on the "dole". An interesting place, I have to say.  As a "disabled (mentally) " individual, it is one of my life goals to get a little studio apartment there someday. The waiting list is at least 3 or 4 years. My friend, a big guy (350 lbs), waited 5 years in "group homes" in the enlightened state of Connecticut.

  My best friend Mikeis confined to a couch. He occupies it unashamedly in 6x extra large shorts, only a comforter to cover himself.  He owes his size to modern pharmaceuticals,specifically clozaril. Atypical anti-psychotic, for people who respond to no other drugs. It was one of the first drugs they prescribed him, after a brief delusional  episode that was actually kind of comical, but not conducive to his neighbors' peace of mind. He was 150 lbs, buff from years of athletic success.  Now he consumes 8-9,000 calories daily. With no exercise.  His metabolism is fucked beyond repair. He is 33.

  I was ready for my ever-ready "hey,man" to hippy detritus when I saw his eyes. Like He was expecting me. I had always (never) expected Him! My frozen dead heart came to life...

That was how I knew it was Him, standing with his shopping cart full of  redeemable bottles and cans . Next to the complex's dumpster.  Mike, my friend, is abit agoraphobic, even to go out for the 2 minute walk to get rid of all all his garbage, mostly (delivered) food containers.

  I take out my friend's garbage. 

  ....................................................................................

  He looked like Hippie Royalty, this guy, long gray pony tail, neat beard, incandescent blue eyes , small sliver of a smile, leaning over his redeemables.

 "You ain't throwing those out, are you, man?" I broke the ice. I knew a lady with M.S., 98 lbs, who collected such refuse .  A friend and benefactor of my friend.  Mike put all his diet soda 2 liter bottles at her door. Mike drank at least 5 of them a day. His lithium gives him incessant thirst. ..his body needs to counteract a dose of lithium appropriate for a  rhinocerous.

  "Maybe, not sure. They're crushed. Some not even redeemable. Just what I collected this week."  He smiled and lit a home-rolled cig. Could have been the legal or the illegal kind. I didn't give a shit...well...maybe I did, he might give me a hit. Of the only thing that has ever had any effect at all on my own personal mental problems: depression & anxiety.  I have to self-medicate with the legal stuff. Have been for 25 years.  I am 43.

  First hint that this was Him: "Hit?" he said, reading my mind.  It has been a pet theory of mine that Jesus was a very intuitive guy. Almost telepathic.Like how I felt in a social gathering...sort of hearing others' thoughts in my head.  Not in a psychotic way, in a...um....neurotic way....just one of my own many delusions...

  I hit, and it hit just right, and our eyes fell into instant unquestionable communion, like looking in the mirror on a day when you kinda like yourself, only friendlier...less judgmental....

  He smiled and stood up from his hunch over his cart.  Sighed.  Looked at the clouds.  "Gonna be a cloudy easter, guess."

  "Not maybe so cloudy as i or my friend thought, thinking today would be a harbinger of tomorrow, which it isn't necessarily, but would be apropos to our moods.." As always, when stoned , the words fell off my tongue into what i now perceived was Eternity (thus no need to hurry). I stopped.  I have learned how to stop talking. I went 20 years without as much as 40 words a day! Major depression sucks...but this, the "mania", makes up for it. Always a crash, though. Always say something shameful and stupid.

 "You have a way with words." he scoffed, handed me the joint in a way that said, let's hear more. Usually happened when illegal substances were offered to me by an enabler. But He was different.

  I immediately intuited that terseness was the way to go. The way I should always have been going. But I am a clown, so I said,

  "Words are immaterial,and this is the great attraction of them in today's,or any day's , world, i would surmise; being power, they hit an existential punch to the solar plexus, or mayhap..." (diabolical grin)..."the funny bone..."

 He laughed appreciatively. "You oughta, gotta write." Then He fixed me with a Father's look. Pinning me to the far back edge of the theater. My ribs hurt from the bang they got hitting it.

  "Yeah."

  "No shit, man. " Eyes locked.

  "Some would say 'bullshit'" I offered.

  "Throw your garbage out, man. Your dross."  he said with a hippie laugh.  I was still clutching it to my chest with one hand.

  I threw it in the dumpster. Felt like the burden of Eurasia had been lifted from my head and heart.

  He said, "I'm gonna redeem what I can, here, and the rest they'll give back for the  trash. Some of the redeemable ones are pretty skank and beaten to shit. They'll return to me. I'll try again a few times, and if the machine rejects them, so be it. " He wheeled his cart away from the trash.

  "The bottle place is a hike. Got a lift?" I said. Terse.

 "Nope, never. No friends for that."

  "My friend's got a car. We might could take ya."

  "No need. Your friend needs to stay inside awhile, til the weather's past, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm good to go. How bout you?"
 

  "Yep, " I said in a small voice.