After the Last Supper...

I dunno why all them blokes, the apsalls I think they’re called, had it in for that man Escargot, you know Judas they calls him.

See it’s like this. I was earning a bit on the side up on Mount Zion. This geyser I know he has the catering contract up there and he had this booking for a big dinner. So he offered me the job of tidying up after them all for a bit of dosh on the side. I earned it, mind, messy buggers they was.

So I is waiting for them all to finish their suppers, not that any of them was eating much. See this head geyser, he tells them that the wine is his blood and the bread is his flesh. Well, it ain’t going to make you very hungry now, is it?

So that puts a bit of a dampener on the party dun’t it? Well it’s getting late and they all starts saying their bye-byes one at a time, kissing and hugging this head man with the beard and all.

And then it is the turn of this Escargot man, ‘snails’ I calls him.

He gives the boss a hug and he says thanks for the supper and all, but then he adds summat like you didn’t ought to ‘ave told them others that you’re the son of God…

The snail says he knows the head man’s mum, Mary she is, and his dad, what is just a chippie. So he tells him something like: We can go on helping the poor and trying to drive out them Roman buggers without you pretending you’re some bleeding mystic.

Well, I can see that the head man doesn’t really like that, but they hugs, all the same.

Then the head man, he goes off like with them others and they is all laughing and joking and this snail man is left to pay the bill.

So my boss comes along and they settle up. Thirty pieces it comes to, which is a lot in my opinion ‘cause as I said, they ain’t eaten much had they?

Any road, next morning this big Roman geyser what reckons he’s the bee’s knees, he finds out where this head man’s been staying and he sends his soldiers round to nick him for rabble rousing or summat.

Well, I tell you, all them apsalls is not at all happy and they blame the snail.

Now, here’s the thing: I was there and I knows what he ain’t done nothing wrong except tell the head man not to act too posh like and say he’s son-of-God, when he’s the son of a West Bank chippie.

Doesn’t matter. They has all got it in for snail and next thing you know they says he’s the one what told the Roman geyser were to find the boss man and that he did it for money. It ain’t true I don’t fink.

I feels sorry for old snaillie…

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like them stringing up the head man either.

All the same, I is even told one of them that the snail was not to blame. But they says to me: What d’you know about it? And they comes on all pious like, so I shuts up, don’t I. I mean there’s more of them than me.

But if you ask me, snail’s got a raw deal. He never told them Romans for thirty pieces; that was the bill for the meal, I’m telling you.

What a bloody muddle.

Ah! Well. It’s all too late now, ain’t it. Best not to make a fuss. I suppose it’ll all soon be forgotten…