We blamed ourselves, of course,
the other eleven. Wasn’t it our fault?
Matthew should have been the keeper
of the purse, but no one liked Matthew,
so they made Judas do it because he was
the new guy. And soon no one liked him either.
We never seemed to have enough
money, and who else could we blame?
Not to his face, of course, though sometimes
an eye was rolled, a question left to hang
in the heavy air.
We didn’t know about the family he’d left
to join us. No one knew his mother’s name.
Or where his sister lived. We had to
piece it together from scraps of conversations, friends
of friends. Turns out he had a wife
and a little girl, too. Why had he never mentioned them?
Why had we never asked? Everyone
had been so preoccupied
with their own sacrifices, the pasts
we were trying so desperately to dress up
or hide. No one had felt worthy—no one
except John—and he was a pretentious—
well, you know—who distanced himself
from Judas early on, and that had been all
the permission we needed.
Some thought it was inevitable. Wasn’t he always
walking around in a funk? Bad mind,
someone called it. And he had it
the worst. Of course, no one thought
much of it at the time. But after what he did—
better a murder-suicide than just a murder, right?
That’s what some said, anyway. Or at least
they thought it. Maybe the devil made him
do it, someone said, and it gave everyone pause.
Others, enablers and minimizers, tried to give him
the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just
trying to provoke the rabbi to action. Hadn’t we all
been frustrated with the direction
things seemed to be headed? Everyone
had been so tired, and snippy. Everyone,
at one time or another, thought they had
a better idea. If only he had just
stuck around, surely he too
would have been forgiven, found his way back
under the wing, in spite of everything.
Someone heard he tried
to give the money back. Why
did we let him just disappear?
A few said maybe it just an accident.
Sometimes these things happen,
they said, and there’s nothing
anyone could have done. But no one
really believed this, no one
who knew him, even though we all longed
to be let off the hook. They say Mary
goes every year to the field
where they found him—those kids,
messing around where they had no business—
God, say a prayer for those kids—
they say Mary goes there every year
a few days after Easter, with some nard
and some wildflower seeds, and sometimes
one of us will go with her, but mostly
she goes alone. And the rest of us
just keep going over and over every—
wondering what it was we
could have—should
have done for him—with
him—I mean, you—
us