5.

They were waiting for the bus, on their way downtown to fill out applications at the Brown Palace and Adam’s Mark hotels, when a man in a suite and tie rode up to them on a bicycle and stopped, his leg going out to catch the curb. He wore a black helmet and was freshly shaved and neatly dressed. “Hey,” he said to Alex, “you ever interested in the Bible?”

“The Bible is shit,” said Marty. “All of it. Shit. Don’t believe a word of it.” Marty was enjoying this.

“Jesus died for you and you call it shit?”

“Jesus never existed at all,” said Marty. “Just some guy back then made it all up and you bought it. It’s all shit.”

“Hold on,” said Alex. “Are you telling me there’s no Jesus? Someone just made it up?”

“Jesus was crucified so you could receive his grace,” said the man on the bicycle.

“Yeah, and how many other thousands did the Romans crucify?” said Marty. “Are you saying they had it better than him?”

“You just said Jesus never existed,” said Alex.

“Some fucker had some wacky dreams about this really nice guy and wrote them down and hoodwinked the world,” said Marty. “The Bible is just some guy wrote down his dreams. Jesus is like the tooth fairy, Santa Claus--don’t believe it, not a word.”