Jesus Invades George: An Alternative History

By Luke Rhinehart

JESUS INVADES GEORGE is a grand satirical vision that employs the same comic voice as The Dice Man. The novel answers the simple question:
What would have happened if George Bush had awakened one morning in early 2007 and found he'd become possessed by Jesus?
The answer is: plenty.
When Jesus forces George to start recommending the withdrawal of all American forces from the Middle East, the men who have supported George begin plotting to stop him. In this hilarious history you will also learn:

Why Karl believed that his Policy of Eternal War would mean Republican governments 'til death do us part.

How George, in Sadr City with only a single body guard, survived many assassination attempts only to be nearly done in by a pizza.

What happened when Jesus and George made love to Laura.

How George, in the Holy Land, almost walked on water and provoked an international incident.

What happened when Laura hired the world's foremost exorcist to rid George of the Terrible Spirit possessing him.

How Hillary and Barack suddenly found they were to the right of George on just about every issue and didn’t know how to deal with it.

What happened when Dick and Don rallied the establishment to save the nation from the Christian terrorist George.

And finally, how the 2008 election turned out and the world lived happily ever after. Or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luke Rhinehart
• Release date: May 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476148618

Luke Rhinehart

Between his two Dice Man titles, Luke Rhinehart wrote three other acclaimed novels: Matari, Long Voyage Back and Adventures of Wim. He is also the author of seven screenplays, several based on his own novels, and currently resides in the United States.

Book preview

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

Jesus: They just don’t get it.

God: Never have, never will.

Jesus: Two thousand years and they keep getting further and further away from what I was trying to accomplish.

God: Par for the course.

Jesus: But there are always a few humans who get my Message and live a Christian life.

God: Very few.

Jesus: But somehow these human beings never get to any position of authority. They remain powerless to improve the suffering masses of humanity.

God: Your Way is not really designed for gaining power.

Jesus: If only just a single human being in a position to change history became one of my true followers then perhaps at last my work might ease human suffering.

God: Never.

Jesus: Never!? What do you mean?

God: One powerful person who followed Your Every Wish wouldn’t be able to make things a single iota better.

Jesus: Oh, Dear Father, I’m sure that can’t be true.

God: I said it. Believe me, it’s true.

Jesus: Of course. But just once in human history I’d like to see what would happen if someone whose soul I inhabited was in a position to change things.

God: Nothing would happen. They’d probably shoot him, like Martin Luther King. Or commit him to one of their psychiatric units. He wouldn’t last more than a few months.

Jesus: Oh, Father, I wish You wouldn’t say that.

God: Sorry.

Jesus: But perhaps, just perhaps--even You know that sometimes Chance intervenes and things don’t turn out as expected.

God: Of course, of course. I’m only talking about probabilities. Dead or committed within a year. Count on it.

(Long silence)

Jesus: But could perhaps I return to earth and . . . inhabit a soul in power and . . . see what happens?

God: What would happen would be more suffering. More comedy. More of the same. When I made human beings I messed up. You tried to fix things, and as far as I can see—and I can see pretty far—things are only getting worse.

Jesus: Just one soul.

God: One soul.

Jesus: For me to steer in My Way.

God: No cheating. No miracles.

Jesus: No miracles. Just my Spirit moving him as I will.

God: You looking to get crucified again?

Jesus: No, I will not assume bodily form. It will only be my Spirit in some human form and soul.

God: Go for it.

Jesus: Go for it?

God: Go for it.

Jesus: Oh, Father, thank you.

God: You’re my Son. I can’t refuse You such a Simple Request.

Jesus: I can choose anyone on earth who’s in a position of power?

God: All Yours. Anyone You like.

Jesus: I’ll do it!

God: And I’ll watch and laugh.

Jesus: Oh, Father.

God: And cry.

***

Chapter 1: GEORGE HAS THE BLUES

George had come to feel that it wasn’t easy being George Bush, President of the United States. In fact, to quote himself, it was hard work. And getting harder.

George knew he was not an introspective fellow. He hadn’t actually heard the phrase The unexamined life is not worth living, but if he had, he would have rejected it in favor of something more along the lines of The unsuccessful life is not worth living. He could never understand how people could put up with living at the bottom of the economic pile, or even in the middle. Why didn’t they work hard and start a business and become millionaires like every one George knew? But successful as George was, somehow things these days weren’t going quite the way . . . quite the way they had been going.

As a result, even though he was usually a people sort of guy who liked to be alone only when he had to take a crap, lately he’d taken to kicking people out of his Oval Office so he could be alone. To think. He didn’t often think, but lately he’d felt the need to think. Why was he, the most powerful person he knew, not able to make things work out? How could things go so right for four years, and now for the last two years go so wrong?

George had really enjoyed the first four years of his Presidency. He’d gotten a big kick out of rallying the country after 9-11 and kicking ass in Afghanistan and Iraq and then in his reelection bid in ‘04. He felt his life was turning out even better than he expected. And a lot better than anyone who knew him had expected. He was the two-term President of the United States and the most powerful man in the world. Take that, Phi Beta Kappa’s!

But the last couple of years things seemed to be deteriorating. In the first four years if he decided to do something, he did it, and things turned out pretty much okay. After he invaded Afghanistan he routed the Taliban five times faster than anyone expected. After he invaded Iraq he routed Saddam and his armies ten times faster than anyone expected. Why Ronald Reagan lost more Marines in Lebanon than George did in conquering an entire country!

However, when in the last couple of years he decided to do something and did it, things didn’t turn out the way he expected. In early 2005 he decided to sell the people on privatizing part of social security, make it possible for them to put money in the stock market for their old age instead of giving money to the government to invest. He went out a dozen times to explain to people in town meeting sort of events how privatizing social security and getting government out of their lives was as American as apple pie. After two months of doing his best, his political guys advised him to stop: the more George explained his plan, the more people didn’t like it. Apple pie or no apple pie.

In the first four years George would speak and the world would listen. Or at least the Congress. Now George would speak and his words would seem to disappear—as if he’d never spoken.

And then there was Iraq and the Middle East. Things had been pretty bad in 2004 when the Presidential election was being held, but somehow he and Karl and his political guys had convinced people that progress was being made and victory in sight, and that electing a wishy-washy flip-flopping liberal wimp like Kerry would weaken our chances of victory over terrorism.

But now every time George gave a speech saying progress was being made and victory in sight, the words would seem to disappear—as if he’d never spoken. And he’d begun to sense that his own generals no longer thought the U.S. could win much of anything in Iraq. They didn’t say so in public and didn’t quite say so to George’s face, but somehow when he met with them they never gave him any sense of how things could turn out good. Or was it well? In any case not turn out lousy. Everything they said about the situation in Iraq implied that things were going to get worse before they got worse.

And George was annoyed that some radical commentators were claiming that he never apologized for anything, that he never admitted making a mistake. Why couldn’t they see the simple truth: the reason he had never admitted making a mistake was that he hadn’t made any! Do they want him to pretend that he made a mistake!?

And now Iran and Lebanon were going all to hell. Why couldn’t those Hamas guys and Hezbollah guys learn that they were going to get squashed if they so much as stepped on a single Israeli’s toe? Capturing Israeli soldiers—how had they dared do such a thing!?

And his popularity with the people of America, that had been so high after he had acted tough after 9-11, had been dropping steadily for almost two years. His approval ratings seemed stuck in the low-thirties. In the mid-term elections the democrats had somehow won and were now in control of Congress! Of course, in Europe his popularity was even lower. His advisors said they were doing a thorough search in Europe to find someone who loved George Bush but it was turning out to be as hard as finding a weapon of mass destruction in Iraq.

He found the whole thing depressing. He was a good guy! A regular guy! He had stopped the terrorists from attacking the U.S. for six years! What more could people ask for!?

Something. The American people seemed to want something. Something else. More than two-thirds of the American people thought the country was going in the wrong direction. But it was his direction! George’s direction! What could be wrong with it!? Toughness had got him to be President of the United States! And toughness was the essence of a foreign policy that had rid Afghanistan of the Taliban (at least for awhile) and rid Iraq of Saddam, so why would people be dissatisfied? Admittedly, whereas in 2002 the Middle East had been pretty quiet, now everyone in that region seemed to be killing everyone else. Still, we had won two wars! Just because the wars didn’t stay won wasn’t that important, was it? How could people be dissatisfied? The economy was booming! Or at least sputtering. Corporate profits higher than ever, CEO salaries going through the roof, houses worth millions, although a bit fewer millions than last year, hundreds of thousands of jobs getting created overseas, unemployment here not too bad, and yet people wanted a new direction! What was the matter with them!? How could they be dissatisfied!? He was so annoyed with the American people he’d resign if he weren’t so opposed to any policy that involved cutting and running.

It was during one of these early morning sessions of George sitting alone in the Oval Office trying to think, and becoming more and more depressed in the process, that George decided to pray. He had prayed a lot in the early years of his presidency and the results had always been quite nice. In the years following his finding Jesus as His Personal Savior he had developed a nice relationship with the Lord, because the Will of the Lord almost always conformed with George’s own will. When the Lord seemed to want him to run for President, the request hit a resonant chord in George Bush. So he followed the Will of the Lord. When the Lord seemed to want him to invade Iraq and eliminate an evil dictator, it fit right in with exactly what Dick and Don were telling him to do. What the Lord always seemed to want was quite satisfactorily what he himself wanted. It was a very pleasant arrangement and made George really enjoy praying.

Although not much in the last year. During this time the Lord kept giving the same advice—stay the course, don’t listen to the heathen, unbelieving, cowardly critics, stay tough—but the advice was no longer working. So he had gradually stopped praying.

But that morning, George decided to pray, and pray hard, and see if he couldn’t get the Lord to come up with a breakthrough plan. Sitting in the desk chair of his oval office he lowered his head respectfully.

O Lord, he began, without actually speaking aloud, I have come to You this morning to ask for your help. Things aren’t working too good these days. As You know, since apparently it was Your Will, the democrats now control Congress and are doing a lot of things to make me look stupid. If you could maybe send three or four lightning . . .

No, that wasn’t quite the spirit that the Lord actually appreciated. Better just ask for help.

How, O Lord, can I be a better President and bring more peace and freedom and good stuff to the world?

That was probably better. George remained with his head bowed and waited to see if some message began to come through, maybe some New Idea or at least some Strong Endorsement of the things George was already doing.

George could feel himself relaxing, confident that the Old Reliable Lord would come through for him. Then, things began to go horribly wrong.

First of all he began to feel strange . . . like he was fizzing, or the whole world were somehow vibrating around him. For a moment he felt his body was expanding and then he realized that he was being filled by something . . . by a . . . Presence . . . inside him, some other Being kind of reverberating through the interior fog of his soul. He began to feel frightened and stared in terror as the fog slowly began to clear. Then,

Whammo!! He saw Jesus Christ inside his soul staring at him.

The image wasn’t clear, but George knew, as certainly as he knew what a good President he was, that this Being staring at him was Jesus.

Wow!

Shit.

Jesus.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. George was a grounded sort of guy, earthy. Sure he believed that Christ had died for his sins and he regularly prayed to the Lord God for guidance, but he’d never had anything that vaguely resembled a religious vision, outside or in.

Jesus was inside looking at him. What do you do when the Second Highest Being in the universe suddenly shows up in your . . . backyard? Soul? Anyway, shows up. What do you do? Say, Hi, Jesus, how’s it going?—George’s usual greeting to people. Not too cool.

This was not good. Having the feeling Jesus was inside him watching was not good. This Spirit was like a Foreign Substance in his body, lurking in the nether regions of his soul like a viral infection. It was scary.

Distraction. George needed something to take his mind off this. He quickly reached forward and, using the remote, turned on his huge television set. Fox News showed bombs blasting to smithereens an apartment complex in some city. George couldn’t tell if it were Baghdad or Lebanon or Gaza or the West Bank or Israel—they all looked the same when being reduced to rubble. Pretty big bomb though. That meant it wasn’t in Israel. The best the Arabs could come up with were little missiles that could barely take out the fruit section of a grocery store.

See! The TV had taken his mind off the appearance of Jesus!

Who, unfortunately, was still there. And still watching. The Big He didn’t even bother to look at the TV set. Just at George. As George leaned forward to turn off the television set he tried to remember his schedule for the day. He had a briefing with Dick and Don at nine-thirty about the speech they wanted him to make on Friday at the Naval Academy and to fill him in on the latest from Iraq, Iran and the spy agencies.

Normally, he loved these meetings. He loved the fact that Dick and Don had to defer to him because he was President even though they felt they were his superiors in intelligence and experience. George knew that becoming President had nothing to do with intelligence and experience—Karl Rove had taught him that. It had to do with manly determination, down-hominess, pleasing your base, and raising millions to paint yourself as a regular guy and your opponent, no matter who he was--Hercules or Rambo--as a wishy-washy vacillator. And he had done that, while Dick and Don were stuck as bureaucrats.

But George suddenly realized that it might not be a good idea to meet with Dick and Don with Jesus sitting there watching. Not good at all. He needed a drink. He’d been having such a craving more and more often in the last year as his poll numbers dropped, but had always been able to fall on his knees and remind himself that if he really wanted trouble—with his Presidency, the public, and his wife—hitting the bottle again was the way to go.

Good morning, Mr. President.

For a brief moment George wondered if Jesus had actually addressed him, but then he realized that his Special Assistant Phil Spence had entered and was obviously here to announce that the Vice President and Secretary of Defense had arrived for the scheduled meeting.

Hi, there, Spency, the President said, recovering quickly, although worried that Phil might notice Jesus lurking inside him. Uh . . . great day, huh?

It certainly is, Mr. President.

The President sincerely doubted it.

***

Chapter 2. DICK AND DON MEET JESUS (AND DON’T RECOGNIZE HIM)

The meeting in the Oval Office with his Vice President and Secretary of Defense started off harmlessly enough since Dick and Don did all the talking. George was tipped back in his chair, relieved to see that neither of his friends seemed to notice that George had been invaded by Jesus. Dick, round of head and body, was ensconced like a hardboiled egg in his favorite chair to the President’s left. Don sat scrunched down in his chair like a teenager called into the principal’s office, always enjoying these meetings a lot less than did Dick.

His two advisors trotted out the usual truck loads of numbers—troops deployed, enemies killed, money spent, taxes cut, and so on, numbers that George had long ago tuned out as irrelevant to running the country. Then Dick began in that soft, sincere, serious voice of his, a voice that always made George feel he was in the presence of a smart man, to tell George about the main focus of his speech to the American people next week. Dick had done this dozens of times. George always listened attentively and then always asked one question or made one comment before concluding, Good job, Dick. I’ll take it under consideration. Both he and Dick knew that it was a done deal, but the President always maintained his theoretical control and Dick always acknowledged that control. It was a great arrangement.

The speech was to be another of those humble we have made mistakes but our course is clear and we will not falter sort of thing that he’d been giving for months—ever since Karl had decided that playing humble and saying one had made mistakes was probably a good thing. As long as the mistakes were not the real mistakes. As long as they were not mistakes that the President himself was actually responsible for.

So over the previous year or so George had apologized to the American people for Hurricane Katrina, and for those sick and playful GIs abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and those aberrant bad eggs who murdered unarmed Iraqi families, and for believing the false intelligence he had gotten from the CIA (their fault, not his), and for a few other minor things, all the while reaffirming the correctness of invading, occupying and continuing to dominate Iraq at the expense of the Iraqis.

Karl insisted it was a brilliant line to take, and George’s poll numbers had inched up for a while, but not enough to lower George’s sporadic craving for alcohol.

Dick went on about the clashes of civilization and the necessity to fight the enemy on their grounds rather than ours and the latest evidence about how evil a nation was Iran, always trying to meddle in the affairs of its neighbors.

When Dick had finished talking about the contents of the speech he looked at the President respectfully, expecting to get the usual one question or comment before proceeding to the final amen of Good job, Dick, I’ll take it under consideration.

George was about to open his mouth to say precisely that, when he was stunned to realize that he couldn’t speak, that Jesus had stepped forward and instead of merely watching was getting into the driver’s seat of George’s soul and taking over. George tried desperately to wiggle his lips and force air through them to make some sound of warning to his friends, but instead heard himself saying:

The speech is a crock of shit, Dick.

It was Jesus speaking! But through George! There was no way Dick and Don could know that George himself didn’t subscribe to this comment, was horrified by it, and wasn’t even sure what it meant.

And Jesus had said shit?!

George desperately tried to turn his body and flap his arms to let Dick and Don know that he hadn’t actually said those words, but all he managed was a barely noticeable twitch of the right shoulder and a brief scrunch of the left side of his face. The rest of him remained sitting sedately and looking with quiet dignity at the other two.

In the history of the universe, Dick Cheney had never been fazed. He was famous for his low-key, unflappable nature, for talking as if he were the gentlest and most soft-hearted man in the world while advocating policies that would undoubtedly turn thousands of human beings into scrambled eggs. After hearing his suggestions for the Presidential speech categorized as a crock of shit, Dick gazed undaunted at the President and then in his soft sincere voice said:

Beg pardon, sir?

Don was much more emotional, and when he heard the President’s unexpected words his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. Don was well-known to be a very different sort of character from Dick. Don operated under the assumption that every human being in the world was stupid, and it his was task as Secretary of Defense to try to reduce the negative consequences of that stupidity. Don went through life fantasizing that someday they would change the law so that a Secretary of Defense could shoot a person for excessive stupidity. It saddened him as he lived into his sixth year as Secretary of Defense that it looked like he might not get such a law passed.

When he heard George refer to the plans for the speech as a crock of shit, the question What the fuck do you mean? rattled around in Don’s mind for a moment and then settled down nicely unspoken.

We’ve got to stop killing people, the President was continuing, his face getting red as George tried to stop the words from coming out of his mouth. Jesus was in the saddle and George was in trouble. He tried desperately to clench his jaw to silence Jesus, but the words flowed out, although not as clearly with teeth clenched as they might have come with teeth unclenched.

Dick was a Confucian sage. He looked at the President for another moment and then said slowly.

Absolutely, Mr. President. Excellent idea. We’ll get it in. Something like ‘We as a nation long to stop killing people and will do so as soon as we have achieved the total victory that the American people demand.’ How does that sound?

It sounded to George exactly like the sort of thing they were always having him say, but before he could nod his head ‘yes’ Jesus was shaking George’s head ‘no.’ How did He do that!!?

I’m not talking about next year or next decade, Dick, I’m talking about now. We’ve got to stop our killing.

As far as Don Rumsfeld was concerned the President’s words were a nonsensical pipedream not worth discussing. Why the hell was the President saying it? Who the fuck was messing with his head? Was he on the sauce again?

Dick Cheney was still unfazed. He had been dealing with George Bush successfully for seven years now and not once had he failed to find a way to bend the President to his own way of seeing things. Admittedly this was one of the twenty or thirty most absurd things the President had ever said, but with patience the President could always be talked out of the ridiculous or maneuvered to forget about it with the passage of time and the failure of the President’s memory.

Do you have a specific plan in mind, Mr. President? asked Dick respectfully.

Jesus didn’t hesitate:

Announce a unilateral cease-fire. Tell the world that the United States government has decided to recognize the sovereignty of Iraq and withdraw its troops back to its own country.

Mr. President, Don began uncertainly, his mouth agape and drooling slightly. This is . . . Do you really mean . . . Don’t you remember what we . . . What the fuck are you talking about!?

That’s telling me, Don, George thought but was unable to say. But it’s not really me! I’m on your side!

Dick Cheney slowly turned to look at the contorted face of Don and then turned slowly back to the President.

I’m sorry that you don’t get it, Don, George found his Jesus voice replying. I’m looking for a plan to stop the killing. Now. I think we should begin by grounding our air force and stopping all bombing. I never understood how we could roam around Iraq bombing the hell out of everything if Iraq was a sovereign democracy. Anyway, we want to stop the killing. Do you or Dick have a better plan?

Both Dick and Don, in their different ways, were trying to compute the uncomputable.

Well, sir, Dick said softly. This represents a rather radical change in our policy. We’ll have to work on it. If we stop our bombing runs then more of our troops on the ground may be killed. And to stop all the killing won’t be easy. If we withdraw, the killing may actually increase. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for that, would you?

Good job, Dick, thought Don. Stick it to the little prick.

I’m responsible for what Americans do, Dick, the President replied, his face redder than either of his friends ever remembered seeing it, and his eyebrows twitching like they were undergoing electric shock treatment. Yet the tone of his voice was so calm, so confident, that there seemed to be two beings communicating. I’m not responsible for the Iraqis. I want our soldiers and airmen to stop killing the people of the country we invaded.

The country we invaded. Of course we invaded it: you fuckin’ told us to!

These thoughts were of course not the thoughts of George or Jesus but of Donald Rumsfeld. Had Don not been so befuddled he would have called in the Secret Service and ordered them to shoot the President on the spot.

Absolutely true, Sir, said Dick Cheney amiably, remembering how his policy of always agreeing with the President and then ignoring it had always worked in the past and would undoubtedly work here. He must ask Dr. Burroughs about the latest medications the President was taking.

I absolutely agree with your idea of reducing and eventually eliminating all the killing by U.S. soldiers. The whole country does. Dick realized that the more absurd the thing the President said, the more often Dick used the word absolutely to express his agreement. It has long been your policy, Sir, he continued, to turn the killing throughout the world over to our surrogates, and I totally agree (totally was a good variation on absolutely, Dick thought) that we should speed up this process in Iraq. Absolutely. Could never have too many 'absolutelys' when agreeing with a particularly absurd Presidential idea, Dick noted.

But you realize that what you’re suggesting, he went on, leaning towards