Christian Clarity Review

The trailer park at Madison and Main is a clean mobile home park in comparison to others. Bob Mathers sees to it the tenants are clean, employed families that stay together and for the most part pray together. Bob, being a freemason, is for any kind of private religious practice as long as it has public fruits of non-violence. He likes to say his park is full of “Hindis, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Mexicans, Catholics and Christians of all races” and it is true the police never have to come to his park for anything but the collection of donations at certain times of the year. A look at some of the homes and the float the park sponsors in the local Christmas parade makes it plain that by Mexican, he means old Aztec or Mixtec religious influences. The park is full of murals depicting various demigods eying each other playfully in the peaceful daylight mixed in among the satellite dishes, shortwave radio antennas and the new model trucks and cars that fill the park at night.

The tenants for the most part work at Brother William’s box factory for wages and standards spurned by those born locally, but are a boon to those of non-native stock when compared to their own economies. Recent comments in the news had made Bob and William proud; that they had provided so much to foreign economies by the wages they paid and the housing they provided that those very nations had said publicly that those monies sent back by their families ( “diasporas” being the exact word, parsed to each language) in the United States were a literal foundation of their own Gross Domestic Product. The local merchants, mostly freemason brethren, were a bit confounded that they received so little of the cut for the money they had paid in to make the whole thing work.

Back in the nineties Bob had paid extra dues at the lodge and had gotten permission ( from ..some one who had made many think they could give it ) to buy the land; to have the trailer park. In what appeared to some to be an excess of effort, indeed, a certain incredulity on their part over the whole purpose of the visit, he had traveled all the way to London England to get the simple idea to sell fried chicken with his gasoline in his local stores. The fried chicken being its own niche and the combination thereof a boon to his business, the other local masons had spread the saying as independent citizens “some people climb mountains for inspiration. Illumination as it were. Other people go to London.” So many people all coming to the same conclusion, many others thought it possible. The incredulity of still others was that bascially, inspiration, illumination as it were, always stayed in one spot and was regularly found by certain means to be so controllable as to keep it tied down and to produce itself on que.

In addition to his chicken and gas, he had gone into partnership with Brother William and brought in the box factory under the auspices of providing jobs for the local economy. The local people had naturally thought of themselves as the local economy but had come to realize, after it was too late, they weren’t. The factory was built with no help for the tax base for the county, given the incentives to get it there given by the local people in anticipation of the local jobs that would offset the loss of the property taxes.

The local pastors, all brethren, had said it was God’s will for the local people to provide such a benefit to the Nations and to spur the local people to greater industry among themselves, given their freedom of will and natural inclination to intelligence and wisdom. The former pastors had all greatly pressed the people to receive the benefit of the new factory. Now the new pastors took up the call to keep it established as a gift of God’s grace to a people He is loving and to make plain that a Christian’s first duty, no matter their ancestry or racial background, was to stay out of politics.

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Mary Ann McArty is every boy’s dream. Pretty, good grades in school, cheerleader, great figure, from a Christian home of solid reputation. Of late her Dad has been laid off from his work when the factory closed and they have hit on hard times. The new car was sold to make way for the older model that had the virtue of being fully paid for. The mortgage had been refinanced to make smaller payments for two more decades of the same payments.

Her Dad, not being a Freemason, ( he is of the profane in Brother William’s eyes ) had been offered a job at the box factory for less than half what he had made at his former job at another box factory, but he had to promise not to be public of his private belief in Jesus Christ. Everyone knows John McArty. As he put it, “that won’t work.” John is a veteran and had walked away from the local VFW in the Big Stink when they had expressed new rules about publicly saying the Name of Jesus Christ –you couldn’t and be “one of us”.

Mary Ann’s mother had taken a job at a local convenience store, and the Indian owner was very nice. Supportive. John did not like at all that his wife was outside the home or that she was surrounded by all sorts of pagan religion that somehow made peace between themselves as long as the money was freely being exchanged. No one saved anything for the sake of peace and were greatly reliant on public services instead of personal thrift. He had laid before Jesus Christ multiple times that her common sense was becoming the common sense of the pagans and as a women who cared more for money and what other people said and was daily having her sense of fear of Jesus Christ numbed.

Mary Ann takes all this stride; sometimes people don’t have as much money as they used to have ; sometimes they have more. As her Dad had said, “these things come in cycles”.

But it was her mother’s birthday and she had no money for a present. The local .99 Store had a beautiful broach. Not real gold, you understand; but pretty nonetheless.

Some Mexican boys at school have told her repeatedly they would give her fifty dollars if she would sleep with them. Everyone knows she is a virgin. She never says or brags about it –not ever. It is just a fact. But everyone knows: She isn’t just pretty, she is clean. Clean is, on its own level, a sign of spiritual intelligence given by God in Jesus Christ.

Boys like clean. Everybody likes clean.

Her mother had lately said that money rules the world; those that have it have everything. Her mother had always been a bit against organized religion, but had gone to Church to support her husband there. The bible studies at the house she never took part in; most that came were in her eyes ( and she said so after they left, every time they left..) , those down on their luck who had no initiative; they were soft and leaned on religion as a crutch.

Her mother is all heart; she has no end of sensibilities of the moment to make things emotionally smooth and gets more every day she goes to work.

——

After the deed, she felt dirty. The boys of course bragged to everyone and her public reaction to what had taken place in private confirmed they were for once, telling the truth. She spent weeks in bed. She heard the conversations of her parents that went on in denial; got the point very clearly from her mother that she had used her free will in a bad way. It was her fault.

Even the trip with her Dad to the overlook to have a conversation had changed nothing.

“Just tell me yourself what happened.”

It finally came out of her; the place, the people, the pictures; the stink of the place. It was just like all the other white girls she had seen on the internet at her friends homes. All except the money. Strangely the boys had never spoken of the money. They had played it as a personal conquest and her natural desire of their obvious superiority over the native boys. The native boys now spurned her in spite of the public spirit of acceptance of everything by anyone she had been told would smooth things over.

He had hugged her and holding her face in his hands had plainly told her: “It isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I saw all this coming and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to have to stop them myself. I had plenty for us all at the time and I thought..”

She hadn’t understood. But over the weeks, she had heard her mother say “It had to happen sometime, honey. All the girls do it. You’ll like it now. Trust me on this.”

——

Mary Ann still has a great figure. She got some pills from a girlfriend who went to another Church. Her mother’s birthday having passed by in the midst of her sorrow, and the affections of the boy long gone at the exchange of money, she finally takes the money and goes to the grocery store after hearing an argument between her mother and Dad over food and gas prices. It is in the same wad –exactly like it was handed to her — a twenty on the outside and the other bills squished between its being folded and then crushed into a ball.

The last thing anyone ever remembers seeing of her is caught on the security camera inside the store: She is standing in the isle by the register. The caption plays on the bottom of the screen: the cashier is turned toward her: “Can I help you find something?” “I dropped my money somewhere in here –I think. I can’t find it.” The cashier has no reply and Mary Ann is searching in all her pockets. The look on her face and her general demeanor has all the customers at a standstill.

John himself had no notion that the definition of money is completely arbitrary and that those who presently control it have failed themselves to see that they are mere squirrels who have built a nest in a high tree in the midst of much larger forest. They see themselves as the forest. Amidst the den of the squirrels calling to themselves from the branches, John hasn’t heard that no one controls anything but Jesus Christ, even though Jesus Christ says that very thing through him to others in the Bible studies. So he never told her that money defined by liars is a measure of nothing while all she heard was that money is a measure of freedom and respect and the definition of money itself was a force of nature like the sun or the sea. It supposedly defined and prospered or wrecked whole nations…

She thought only that the sun shines the same in all places it reaches and the sea surrounds the whole. Escape..salvation.. simply wasn’t possible in those terms. To have it simply fall out ..to lose it when no one had used their free will at all either for or against her ..it mocked her very worth in all she knew.

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The last time anyone ever saw Bob Mathers was after an exchange with John McArty. John was speaking up against a new factory that was rumored to bring jobs and money to the local economy. He was pointing out the discrepancies between the rhetoric and the reality of the present factory. Brother William, wanting to appear to have many friends in the community who thought the same as he did, had asked the brothers at the lodge that they speak for him. To the locals who were unaware, it seemed Mr. William’s was a man of peculiar business acumen that had friends who were in no way dependent on his money or influence and so were true independent voices in the community. Bob Mathers had pointed out that even were it true that the local people were being reduced to less wages that those of more prosperous times and other, less greedy people were willing to work harder than them for less money, those other people had no ill effect on the local economy and had asked the sheriff, himself a Shriner, to testify that the tenants of his trailer park ( he was pointing out his “personal experience with the kind of people in question” ) had perpetuated crimes less than the statistics kept on the local native populace.

John had said “There are a lot of types of crime.” Everyone knew that John was a Calvinist. When he said crimes, he didn’t mean free willed expressions that were merely out side the bounds of written legal codes of men. He meant the surrounding of the sheep with wolves that were calling themselves preachers, intellectual and business elites and oligarchs and the constant tearing of the flock while blaming the wounds being multiplied on the sheep on their own supposed free willed actions. “If you wrap a sheep in barbed wire or teeth, how can you blame it if when it moves at all it gets cut?”

Bob, a great believer in free will and the unrestrained and generic expression of it by all those of any private convictions whatsoever, had ( he had very loudly ( when his brethren had let him down in own estimation when it came to the spreading the word of his Charity surreptitiously ) supported many candidates to seminary provided they only say that men had free will and God offered his gospel to everyone and never forced anyone to do anything and that you could be saved today but not tomorrow and you never knew “your status” if you strayed from what the preacher said next..) , with a certain gentleness in his voice, told John that personal failings had resulted in personal and familial tragedies of John and that those were not the fault of others who took their sense of responsibility of their personal freedom more seriously. John had gotten a calm look on his face, like a man seeing things clearly and had taken at simple face value a Word he had recently read “Answer a fool according to his folly..” while simultaneously seeing the truth that public expressions of forgiveness for those who have not asked for it, but instead are proud and vain to have wronged their neighbor is casting pearls before swine and that he had been in a state of being rended for some years past. He had smiled apologetically and said, “Well on that, I think you are correct and I am glad you have been the one to have pointed it out.” John had gone on to point out the follies of the new factory and it had been soundly defeated.

But the former deeds, events and some effects were never undone and all had eternal consequences despite the extermination of the Freemasons and the lie of free will in that area. The names who were killed and maimed in the experimentation with the lie of free will never changed.

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John 19:10,11 Pilate therefore says to him, Speakest thou not to *me*? Dost thou not know that I have authority to release thee and have authority to crucify thee? Jesus answered, Thou hadst no authority whatever against me if it were not given to thee from above. On this account he that has delivered me up to thee has the greater sin.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

What say ye lads? Are ye game for Moby Dick?!

Indeed.

Watched the older version of Moby Dick recently ..the one with Gregory Peck playing Ahab.

I have never heard of Ahab as hero before; he was always portrayed as the crazed lunatic who “hated” Moby Dick because of what the whale had done to him in former times and thus scared but not a hero in any sense.

The scene in which Ahab shows Starbuck the map of the whales journeys he nails it: “the thing behind the mask ..the malignant thing that has plagued and frightened man since time began. The thing that mauls and mutilates our race…”

Non-creating speech/anti-Christ. Come out, come out wherever you are. I seee you. I heear you…

Isaiah 47:10 For thou hast confided in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath seduced thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, It is I, and there is none but me.

But God Says:

Amos 9:1-4 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar; and he said, Smite the chapiter that the thresholds may shake; and break all of them in pieces, in the head; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not get away by flight, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall my hand take them; and though they climb up to the heavens, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them; and though they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.

Compare that with Ahab’s “from hell’s heart I stab at thee.., etc..”

God uses anti-Christ until anti-Christ’s usefulness is at an end..

Zep 3:9 For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve him with one consent.

The last scene before the showdown between Ahab and Moby Dick is very insightful. It comes out in the scene where Starbuck is going to shoot Ahab and take over the ship; Ahab tells him why he has to kill Moby Dick –I never saw it before: Ahab was hunting the anti-Christ. He doesn’t say it, but that’s it. Moby Dick was just the story. If you’re writing a Christian story its all there: Jonah, whaling, the time period of history in which Melville lived, etc. ( That’s also why Starbuck joined ranks with Ahab at the end instead of rowing away… a chance at the anti-Christ, harpoon already in hand .. are you kidding me..?! who is going to row away from that?)

“This is what you’ve shipped for mates ..death to Moby Dick.” Classic because its true. Even the pagans know it though they know it wrong.

I only saw it because in my own novel one of the characters doesn’t know what he is doing for a long time, but is driven in that same way. Late in the novel when confronted by an exasperated friend “well at least give me a physical description of what your looking for!” Izzy replies “It’s a got a man’s heart — a man’s heart –don’t forget that. It’s got feet like a bear and looks like a leopard, seven heads and all lies.” He’s has been sent after the anti-Christ and had to go through a period of oblivion that such a thing as anti-Christ even exists, then a fear of it, then a loathing of it, then a command to kill it and understand what has been going on his whole life…( I need to re-write a lot of the novel..)

Rev 13:1-3 And I stood upon the sand of the sea; and I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten diadems, and upon its heads names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like to a leopardess, and its feet as of a bear, and its mouth as a lion’s mouth; and the dragon gave to it his power, and his throne, and great authority; and one of his heads was as slain to death, and his wound of death had been healed: and the whole earth wondered after the beast.

and later on reminds his friend of :

Daniel 7:2-8 Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens broke forth upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, different one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till its wings were plucked; and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second, like unto a bear, and it raised up itself on one side; and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and they said thus unto it: Arise, devour much flesh. After this I saw, and behold, another, like a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird upon its back; and the beast had four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceeding strong; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the rest with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another, a little horn, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

Melville was also warning in the character of Ahab against a self-willed attack against the anti-Christ –on the basis of human emotion “for hates sake I stab at thee! , etc…” Ahab was the classic flawed hero who won when Moby Dick died in the book. But it cost him his life of the flesh to do it.

————-

He’s after what?

Anti-Christ.

You’re joking, right?

The movie Moby Dick plays in the background. The young man points to Ahab stabbing Moby Dick with the harpoon over and over. “That guy look like he’s kidding?”

—————–

God reserves some things for Him to accomplish through new creatures in Jesus Christ. All that stuff about ‘can’t be killed by a man’ means nothing. The beast will come back to life. But he’s got to be killed first.

God says of the anti-Christ:

Revelation 13:3 and one of his heads was as slain to death, and his wound of death had been healed: and the whole earth wondered after the beast.

But He says of us in Jesus Christ as new creatures in Jesus Christ; we are Jacob:

Jer 51:19-24 The portion of Jacob is not like them; for it is he that hath formed all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is his name. Thou art my maul, my weapons of war: and with thee I will break in pieces the nations, and I will with thee destroy kingdoms; and with thee I will break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee I will break in pieces the chariot and its driver; and with thee will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid; and with thee will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces governors and rulers. And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea, in your sight, all their evil which they have done in Zion, saith Jehovah.

God also says of us:

Isaiah 27:6,7 In the future Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with fruit. Hath he smitten him according to the smiting of those that smote him? Is he slain according to the slaughter of those slain by him?

and

Proverbs 24:15,16 Lay not wait, O wicked man , against the dwelling of the righteous; lay not waste his resting-place. For the righteous falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked stumble into disaster.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

We leave the doctor’s office: Let’s go eat at Hunter’s. It is not a request.

Hunter has a new hotdog stand out in front of the local Home Depot. His wife works with the state; they’ve both got benefits. He has retired from insurance and now sells hotdogs full time. He talked about doing it for years; has had a rig he pulls behind his truck on weekends: Talledega; Daytona. All the big venues.

People come and go at the entrance of the store and only buy the hotdogs. They don’t go inside. Mostly white males twenty five and up: nice, upscale trucks or cars.

Friends.

I don’t know what to do for him. He can’t go to church, but he says he needs friends. Now he’s goin’ to join the Shriners. He said it –just like that: I need friends. Now that he is all networked into his success, what is he going to say to God? Watch ‘em –they probably got orders down at the lodge to eat his hotdogs to sucker him in.

Dad is always like that: Hunter is probably the leader of the pack. Dad just wants him to be the victim because he knows him. He gets out; buys a hotdog. He’s known Hunter for years, since Hunter was in high school. They lost touch when Hunter moved away. Tennessee, Kentucky. Somewhere around there.

Biggest drug trafficking center in the US: Knoxville, Tennessee. He sees the look on my face. Really. I always thought it would be Miami or El Paso. Maybe New York. They got everything. Meth. Better weed than the Mexicans. Cocaine. Yeah, Buddy. They got it. Heroin too.

Hunter is a wealth of peculiar knowledge. Best truck to buy to haul heavy loads. Best way to keep out of public sight. Most guys want to get big –have their name on the side all splashed out lettin’ everybody know what they’re doing. Not me. Plain white panel trailer pulled by a dodge dually. You know that if you put a brand name on the side of the trailer you have to stop at all the weigh stations, right? It’s the food stuffs. I look surprised. It’s the truth. No sign, easy peasy. Just keep on truckin’. Guys want to get too ambitious. Too famous. That’s a problem. Too much red tape.

Did I tell you I was goin’ to Daytona? Got a guy there –the guy that showed me how to do all this? One gonna sell me his license? He’s got the papers but he’s gonna rent me his spot ’til I get the hang of things.. I’ll go through a thousand pounds of roast beef sellin’ philly steak and cheese in two days. Got the peppers on ‘em? Pepper and onions? They line up around the block for it. Probably make five grand that weekend.

There is a new man there with him today: older, maybe seventies; tennis shoes, shorts, wearing the money apron and sitting on the cooler. Jewish guy.

This is Ira. He came with the deal -a regular institution. Got this stand and those two gas tanks –it’s all gas, the whole thing –all self contained — for six grand. I’m getting’ three more over the summer. That’ll make four total over the whole Jacksonville metro area.

Ira smiles. He shoulda’ done this years ago. He’d be a millionaire by now. A millionaire! The word comes out like a foreign language word spoken in an absolutely unique way.

Hunter nods. Yeah, Buddy.

Dad says his knee has been bothering him. That’s why he hasn’t been here regularly. He wants to support Hunter; help him in his new venture; let him know that God isn’t against success; He just won’t let His children have it any way but honestly.

I’m certainly no poof of God’s success in the world. Maybe I scare people into dishonesty. Maybe that is my big usefulness to God: trap the wicked by default. I’m probably scary just standing here: Hunter’s probably thinkin’ as he sees me “Whatever else I do, I don’t want to be like him!”

Ira: If he had started this years ago he’d be a millionare by now. See this knee? They sent me to this doctor I never heard of. The minute I saw that plaque that said “shriner’s hospital” on his ..what do you call that, his boni fides wall? The minute I saw that I knew ..this was the only doctor for me. The shriners only take the top of the top –the cream, the cream of doctors. An hour later? He had me fixed. I went in in pain, all through here, ( he sweeps his hand over his left side as he lifts up his other arm ) ..couldn’t even sit! Came out in no pain. The best. Here, I’m gonna give you an Italian sausage to take with you. My preacher discount. Fix it up any way you want. Right over here. Now that’s a quality hotdog. Same quality every time; consistency –that’s the key. We serve only the Best!

Dad takes the sandwich, smiles; heads for the condiments. I wave one off with the one I’m holding for Dad as Ira asks me with his eyebrows and his hand on the tongs.

Hunter: Guy across town –he’s gonna sell me his end of a really sweet deal –he’s tired of it, seven day a week thing, you know? It’s hard. My knees hurt all the time. Hunter is a short guy for three fifty. I’ll have four more of these all over town soon. I’m payin’ six hundred a week here–making three grand on this spot. Sellin’ hotdogs! You wouldn’t think it would you? Did you like that Italian sausage? That’s really special ain’t it? Ira here is ninety six. I tell everybody that: see this old man–he’s ninety six. Eats one of these Italian hotdogs every day. Hunter chuckles.

Ira: Elixir of life.

Hunter looks at me: You getting’ a new truck? I say nothing. How the heck am I going to afford a new truck? What did I just say? Then it hits me: I didn’t say it out loud. Get the chevy votec engine–thing’ll pull a load, decent gas milage and plenty of power. Built to be a five hundred thousand mile engine. At two hundred thousand? Just now breakin’ it in. Rest of the truck might fall to pieces –but not that engine or drivetrain. I wouldn’t drive anything else for what I do.

Got your name on the side?

Nah. Some guys like that –they want to see their name on everything goin’ down the road. Then they gotta stop at every weigh station if the trailer has food stuffs in it for retail. Not me. I’m just a guy goin’ down the road with a trailer. Plain white saves time. The secret is to stay small: don’t be too aggressive. Made five grand one weekend at Daytona –that was just my share. I don’t own the contract, I just fill a slot. You gotta maintain some humility, you know? He looks at Dad in a very particular kind of admiration.

Dad didn’t hear him. He’s got the mustard .. which he drops trying to balance the sausage and the huge mustard bottle. Damn!

Ira smiles: That ain’t no way for a preacher to speak.

Dad smiles apologetically.

I look at Ira as Dad reaches for the bottle. You an expert on preacher speak, Ira? Know what they ought to say before they say it? When they stick to a script? Seems everybody knows what preachers ought to say before they say it except real preachers. God will say some things that will blow your freakin’ mind when you least expect it. And He don’t give a shit about how that makes you feel. Ask Him. Ask Him right now.

Ira’s got a “I just gave your Dad a free hotdog.” look on his face.

Dad hears none of it. The bottle is rolling down the slight incline of the sidewalk toward the parking lot and he’s after it with the hotdog held high like he’s in water and doesn’t want to get it wet.

I’m not my Dad, Ira. Ask Hunter. So don’t look at me the way you look at him. I’m the next generation and we both worship the same Jesus Christ. The real thing. You think God’s gonna come see you to ask you for a sandwich? Are you out o’ your fuckin’ mind?!

Ira looks at Hunter. Hunter adjusts the gas.

———————–

The years have gone by: Hunter would call, always in some sort of trouble. Was Dad around? Could he talk on the phone? Always late at night. Hey, buddy? How ya’ doin’? Your Dad around? Always made Dad proud to be the goto preacher in those situations. It made other things seem small. Hunter moved back; his ex-wife was crazy –tried to shot him. Crazy bitch– Pardon my French. We had cows. Barn, –whole setup. Yeah, Buddy. He married again; his old high school sweetheart. Dad married them. I was a witness. God’s will –puttin’ us back together.

Dad always thought his own persistence could save people: you just gotta outlast ‘em in prayer. Satan will not win! It isn’t true. A lesson I know, more than the aged, is this: our desires don’t equal the blood of Jesus Christ. You can love your neighbor as yourself and Satan can still drag your neighbor down; there is not a thing you can do about it unless God wants to act. And God doesn’t always want to act. You get to a certain point and God Says “Stop asking me for things for them. Just stop. I’ve got other things for you to do.”

That’s an astounding thing to understand: people being ravaged by Satan is no mistake; no error on God’s part. As long as they get the money: ravage? Who’s gettin’ ravaged?

It’s not a mistake.

It’s not a mistake.

Dad sits in the car with the hotdog wrapped in foil in his hand. He looks older; weaker; a little slumped and rumpled. With the new haircut he looks balder than he actually is and his ears look bigger than they normally do. Then he looks over at me and says “I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat. I gotta take my medicine.” in a strong voice. “I want to go in somewhere and sit in the air conditioning and order off a menu. I just didn’t want him to see me throw this away.”

We eat in silence. He always liked the roadside breakfast places because Grandpa worked for the railroad; coffee, bacon and eggs are romance food. Railroad guys went everywhere ( except Grandpa; he worked as a morse code operator, then in the office tallying up the fares for freight to pay the bills when the congregation couldn’t afford his salary ) : railroad guys know good food when they see it. Those guys knew how to drink coffee. These days it’s water, bacon and eggs. He eats with a gusto I haven’t seen in a long time. When he gives up these little prides he’s always better. God has it His way –all the time; not just some of the time. We all forget that in short spurts.

I was worse back in the day: stupid. God made me the fool for so long that when He turned me everyone had walked away. That was its own blessing. I look at Dad and I know: I can’t keep him here: I can’t pray him into immortality in his present flesh. His slipping away years from now, decades from now; centuries from now; it’s a certain thing. But his slipping away won’t be the slipping away of others; He will rise from his fall.

Until then he’s going to be buying hotdogs from Hunter; throwing some of them away. And I’m gonna be there.

Isaiah 27:3-7 I Jehovah keep it, I will water it every moment; lest any harm it, I will keep it night and day. Fury is not in me. Oh that I had briars and thorns in battle against me! I would march against them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength; let him make peace with me: yea, let him make peace with me. In the future Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with fruit. Hath he smitten him according to the smiting of those that smote him? Is he slain according to the slaughter of those slain by him?

Psalm 50:12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

——————

Hebrews 7:11-28 If indeed then perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for the people had their law given to them in connexion with *it*, what need was there still that a different priest should arise according to the order of Melchisedec, and not be named after the order of Aaron? For, the priesthood being changed, there takes place of necessity a change of law also. For he, of whom these things are said, belongs to a different tribe, of which no one has ever been attached to the service of the altar. For it is clear that our Lord has sprung out of Juda, as to which tribe Moses spake nothing as to priests. And it is yet more abundantly evident, since a different priest arises according to the similitude of Melchisedec, who has been constituted not according to law of fleshly commandment, but according to power of indissoluble life. For it is borne witness, *Thou* art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec. For there is a setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness, (for the law perfected nothing,) and the introduction of a better hope by which we draw nigh to God. And by how much it was not without the swearing of an oath; (for they are become priests without the swearing of an oath, but he with the swearing of an oath, by him who said, as to him, The Lord has sworn, and will not repent of it , *Thou* art priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec ;) by so much Jesus became surety of a better covenant. And they have been many priests, on account of being hindered from continuing by death; but he, because of his continuing for ever, has the priesthood unchangeable. Whence also he is able to save completely those who approach by him to God, always living to intercede for them. For such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens: who has not day by day need, as the high priests, first to offer up sacrifices for his own sins, then for those of the people; for this he did once for all in having offered up himself. For the law constitutes men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the swearing of the oath which is after the law, a Son perfected for ever.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Harrell hears as if from a long way off: A guy like you prays that God save me into what you need saving out of yourself. He’s hearing all that! It isn’t that he don’t hear it. It ain’t that at all.

Harrell is sweating profusely. He wakes with a start, wants to say “I’m sorry!” but it only comes out as a muffled whoof through the gag. All he can hear is himself breathing faster and faster mainly through his nose as the man circles around him.

He had come out of nowhere, hit him from behind.

Waking up in this place… Clean house. Not his. He knows the man doesn’t own it but doesn’t know why he knows it: no one is home. We are in a family place doing non-family things. The man and the décor don’t match for some reason Harrell can’t see immediately. They are both visitors here. The only thing out of place in the home is not belonging; being tied up.

Some guys travel to hear things. They take them extreme vacations. Know what I’m sayin’? .. join the military to hear things, see things. To listen. On a certain level, seeing a goat farmer in Afghanistan, who don’t know nothin’ ’bout Mexican drug cartels or porno kings or Russian mob guys say ” mi guarro en el centro” .. in Spanish –not farsi mind you, while looking over th’ fightin’ goin on.. ” the man stretches out his hand and points as if on that hill himself “.. in the valley below. You had t’ be there. Where the hell did he get that saying: Piggy in the Middle? in Spanish? A freakin’ Afghan goat herder? That’s an English saying. Then it hits me –how they travel. Like viruses that jump species, see? They jump languages. TV. Internet. Radio. Because they is the whole language. It don’t matter none to them.

There are no sounds from outside. Even the usual neighborhood sounds are gone. Are they in some remote place? The décor isn’t rustic. If you live in a rustic place would you automatically have rustic furniture? Harrell tries to calm down and thinks of his survival skills in deep woods; wonders how fast he can run through a thick forest. He thinks of the huge golden orb spider webs that are found in the southern part of the United States.; how they creeped him out when he would run into them in the woods at home when he was younger; wonders if he will run into one in California. Are you still in California?

I’ve seen young men so fast –you wouldn’t believe it. But God ..negated their speed by making them enjoy the thought of fakin’ somebody out so much, that they put the move on their opponent three times more than they needed too. So the effect was as if they was slow. And their team, that shoulda won, lost becuz of that very thing. I seen that a lot.

I seen God be a genius, a guru, through a retarded person. I seen it. And they didn’t even know what they’d said. They just got that smile cause they knew something had happened but they didn’t know what. But they knew it was good by the way every body was looking at them. Then they’d change their mind and cry or take a dump in they pants or somethin’ ‘cause they wanted it to buy them somethin’ from the other people and they couldn’t do it again.

I seen billions of dollars of effort and years worth of sweat ..God sends a hurricane and it be, gone, baby.

I seen things Man can’t admit exists and yet they do exist –all at the same time –man’s lie –them sayin’s? — and the reality that proves them a lie. I seen some wild stuff, let me tell you. Poetic, freakin’ epic stuff.

But until ..I was just like you. Young punk. No direction. No goals. No wisdom. No depth. Then this dude put the move on me ..just like I put it on you. Now this dude, he was righteous. I didn’t know it at the time. He was usin’ them sayin’ against theyselves! I kid you not. I mean a guy like me –back then– was just goin’ through life hopin to hear somethin cool. Maybe wise if I was lucky and could keep m’ mouth shut long enough for somebody to think I was worth it. But this dude. I mean .. to use them sayin’s like radar, to pinpoint the invisible and draw ‘em in ..so you can put the hit on the invisible. That’s it, man. That’s it. That’s righteous, brother.

I’m gonna help you out. Like he helped me out. It won’t hurt. You won’t even remember it for ..a while. And when you do you’ll know you were blessed. Now this dude..

Harrell can hear footsteps. The man hesitates.

Who.. am I to be a part o’ such things? To even see and hear them?

This dude a while back had me kinda like I got you. And he took my head in his hand and ..I thought I was dead. But that dude, with all that power, he had mercy on me. He had all that power to have mercy with, see? To have that much power –a man’s head in your hands — and then to have mercy like that. That’s.. that’s ..mercy. Where do that come from and where do it go?

I been sittin here, while you was out, thinking how I could give it to you without confoundin’ you with it. How to .. ( he moves his hand forward through the air, turning it at the last instant as if sliding something under something else..) …get it in between. See?

Harrell sees the small, flexible video lens slide out from beneath the door, rotate slowly across the room.

There may be thousands of such things. Millions. And it may be I ain’t got but one. But I got that one, see? So the mercy I have I give you. It’s all I got. And that means I’m a good person. ( he laughs.) God gave me somethin’ good to give away. That means I’m a good person. See? ( laughs hysterically and cries at the same time. ) I’m okay! “Cause somebody gave me some o’ that ivory tower shit. I don’t mean shit. I mean .. I shouldn’t talk like that.

You said you know where I live. You said you were gonna come and get me ‘cause I stood up to you young punks. Cause I said no –in public. So I got somethin’ for you. I got the mercy.

The man seizes Harrell by the head in both hands, stands over and looks down in his eyes. Say hello to my little friend. He’s not much: just a saying. But he will freakin’ amaze you at what he can accomplish. You said you know where I live? May you keep knowin’…

The door bursts open and a rifle barrel appears first, followed by men in armor behind clear, bulletproof shields with POLICE in large, white letters across the front.

Police! Step away from him! Step away from him!

He hears the shouting; it is unintelligible to him. Harrell is all eyes and ears on the man and understands nothing but what the man says. ..May you be unable to tell anyone and yet everything be unable to stop tryin’ to get it out of you. For five years, Harrell. You hear me? Fiiive years. There some things you’ll see during that time. Things that..

A shot and the man is falling. As he falls he puts one hand to his lips as if extracting something invisible and winks at Harrell as he turns his hand toward Harrell and opens his fingers wide as if throwing what he extracted from his mouth. When he hits the floor, his eyes are open but he’s gone.

You okay?! You okay, son?

Harrell is breathing slower now. A man with bulging muscles in a black jump suit and body armor that says POLICE in the front and back and wearing a mask is holstering his sidearm, ..taking off the gag: You okay? You hurt? Cut? Shot? Bruised? He is patting Harrell down for signs of blood in what Harrell instantly understands is a pre-fab search pattern in regular probes here and there. They do this all the time. They practice it. This is happening to other people too. People get paid a regular salary just to be prepared to help people out in these types of situations. Other men fan out in the house. The man grabs his head and looks at his eyes; but not within. He give you any drugs?

No. I just ..Hm?

You know this guy? Where he lived?

Wha’?

Where is he now?

Huh?

The guy, where is he?

Uh.. Harrell looks over at the man lying on the floor. He knows, it’s right on the tip of his tongue. He rubs his wrists, scratches his head clumsily and laughs nervously.

It’s okay. We can talk later.

———————————–

Harrell is hustled outside. A cheer goes up from the crowd as he emerges. Cameras rush forward.

Harrell takes it all in: urban neighborhood, emergency vehicles; organized activity going n by the police; reporters; himself the subject of attention; all speaking and understanding a language in which he is ..fluent.

California.

—————————————-

Inside the house, Mike Valis looks down at the corpse. He finds a chair and sits down slowly; stares at the corpse and lets out a long breath.

Jim Barber is coming out of the rear bedrooms: What? It was a good shoot.

Look at him.

Jim squats beside the body, looks at the face. That’s ..

Mike: ..the guy from Afghanistan.

Remind me. What was his deal?

He was running heroin out of Uzbekistan for the Black Muslim Brotherhood. On the border?

R-U six eighty. Three tours ago. Two thousand ..four? three? Somewhere in there..

That’s him. All the way back home..

What was he doing?

You know what he was doing. God changed him. He wanted to help somebody that came at him. Kid’s probably a low level somethin’ or other in the same gang. They told him to do something to this guy to make his name…

You take the shot?

Yeah.

Jim nods; shrugs. Not your fault.

Mike stands up and they walk to the door as forensics come in: No. Not my fault. God did through me what God did through me. That’s how it goes.

You know how I remember that guy? Strange –I don’t remember him that way. I remember that was the same day we got the new interpreter in –that fat chick? She was all proud she could speak six languages, had a masters, Phd .. something like that. You –like it was nothing, pointed to the bodies that were piled up by the road after the mortar attack. “The one with the shoe missing? The only bare foot in the pile? He could do the same thing. Only he did it for the enemy and he wasn’t vain or proud about it. He probably went to college in the States, got some advanced training from Russian FSB, could fire a mortar as good as the best and yet there he is, just like all the rest.” She just stood there, Man. I don’t think we heard a squeak out of her the rest of the time she was with us.

Margaret? From Jersey, Jonestown, something..

That’s her. Wonder what she’s doin’ now?

She had a kid with MS. Husband was sleepin’ around on her while she was in country. I still pray for them. Less and less. Thanks for reminding me.

——————————

Proverbs 22:17-21 Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thy heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee: they shall be together fitted on thy lips. That thy confidence may be in Jehovah, I have made them known to thee this day, even to thee. Have not I written to thee excellent things, in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest carry back words of truth to them that send thee?

Pro 22:17-21 Inclina tu oído, y oye las palabras de los sabios, Y pon tu corazón á mi sabiduría: Porque es cosa deleitable, si las guardares en tus entrañas; Y que juntamente sean ordenadas en tus labios. Para que tu confianza sea en Jehová, Te las he hecho saber hoy á ti también. ¿No te he escrito tres veces En consejos y ciencia, Para hacerte saber la certidumbre de las razones verdaderas, Para que puedas responder razones de verdad á los que á ti enviaren?

Hab 2:12 -15 Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by unrighteousness! Behold, is it not of Jehovah of hosts that the peoples labour for the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain? For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, –that pourest out thy flask, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

He tries to teach them. Over the years he finds virtue in the repetition; the mere re-saying of it over and over in hundreds of ways; having to do it at all made it seem like patience and sacrifice. But as he grows older, he comes to understand it is a real mission field and that sometimes he really does need a break, even beyond what he can, in his new found virtues with the wisdom they give him, admit. He sighs in satisfaction that others are looking out for him and thanks them silently for having the authority to yank him back to reality when he gets in over his head.

It is the breaks now he looks forward to: getting spanked. The getting clean of the misunderstanding of the true doctrine is necessary. The peasants are slow on the uptake. It is as if they are retarded; literally. They just don’t get the Fear.

That lack of fear of what he knows to be true is seductive. It is nice sometimes, to think reality isn’t really the way it actually is: to think that there is plenty for everyone and that human beings can populate the planet with no regard for limited resources.

These peasants knew only plenty and procreation. They have no notion of not-enough. All his attempts to teach it to them had been met with amusement at worst. He knows He is a type of imbecile to them; always going on about not-enough and that they had to prepare.

They told him Jesus Christ created enough –all the time; that Noah had not killed off all the rest of the people so there would be room on the ark for himself. They said God knew the exact size the ark needed to be before the flood ever happened; that Noah had begged everyone to come inside –not blocked the door so they couldn’t get in. God had made the decisions –not Noah.

Noah? Jesus winking in enough supplies from nowhere ? He knows in their eyes he is the peasant; maybe even evil. The small women’s clinic in Uganda has still managed to make nine hundred operations that first year, thanks to the generous donations of those concerned at home. The women had been given sweet potato plants in payment for the children to drive home the point: See? Now there is more! Less is more! It is a scratch on the surface of what needs to be done. But it is a start.

Flying home is unsettling. These deprogramming events can be ..dicey. Yell festivals.

Over and over they found he had begun to side with life. The moments of confusion, as they had once more hammered into him the importance that Less is More, took longer and longer to move past. But each time they have been able to recover his original zeal and sent him out again.

This time he’s not sure. He needs proof he is over the influence of life for good. He wants a final, over-the-top shot of confidence. But he is growing less sure they can provide it for him. Didn’t even the desert sprout when the rains came? The seeds are hidden in the sands. Everywhere he looks, even if a farmer abandons a field because his family is smaller or his children move away, that field sprouts. You can’t stop it; not if pesticides were rain could you stop it. It seems hopeless; all those useless little plants sucking up water. Life is coming out everywhere with no regard for the doctrine.

The flight is long and tedious. Babies, weird movies, an American Christian sitting next to him reading a bible and the bad food combined to make him think that perhaps he needs a clinic closer to home.

He can still do the work, even be more involved in the political end of things, not have to be so hands on. Baby brains and arms are in all his dreams. Blood. No faces. No voices. Just puréed body parts in a thick, gelatinous ooze coming out of the machine and into the disposable bio-waste bags. The green of sweet potato leaves. The smell of the manure the local headman mixes in with the sandy clay to grow the sprouts in..

He needs to start over; needs the new spiritual technology. He had read about it online, heard rumors of it here and there: somebody has proof that they are right to send him out.

You’re with a humanitarian NGO? I saw your brochure earlier. Who? That must really give you some satisfaction: messing with all that technical legalese and being willing to go through it for other people.

The Christian on a bible break. The only thing worse than fathers and mothers who selfishly want big families is someone so gullible they never see when they are helping what they say they are fighting against.

It is ironic; he hates the people taken in by his lies. He always thought he would feel sorry for them. It is the combination of knowing the superiority of his own doctrine and the weakness of the Christian doctrine to do anything about what it says is evil that makes him despise them. He stares and is astounded by the stupidity before him.

Sorry, did I disturb you? I think we’re about an hour out from JFK.

He blinks; rubs his hands with his palms, then remembers: the doctrine is to instill the doctrine, to give them the emotional response set — even if you can’t use it on the spot– with which to see the Fear. “Thank you.”

————————————————————

Psalm 106:35-39 But they mingled with the nations, and learned their works; And they served their idols; and they were a snare unto them: And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons, And shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood. And they were defiled with their works, and went a-whoring in their doings.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

She knows what experienced law enforcement officers and some real preachers know without the authority to do anything about it. Everybody knows.

She is an old whore from Newark driving south, bringing all her secrets and understanding with her. Everything but the secrets is the same.

Her retirement goes well; better than she expected.

She made it: past the unexpected tragedies even those so-called upstanding people had to endure; past the serial killers who hate whores; past the sermonizing preachers condemning her to hell for making bad choices and being haughty about it; past the AIDs and HIV, even blowing by the drug dealers and the other sets of evil-doers-with-money who got away with everything and had a habit of stealing from themselves and killing for sport.

She knows: past all the warnings and all the others who hadn’t, past the everyday of “I can’t make it.” ..she had got away with it.

She studied up on it: having money. A little bit all along just in case she made it. The way people with money act; how easy everything is for them. How they give away and that only makes them richer and more well liked for having money. They were graceful and easy. She studied the mannerisms and the language they spoke; how they gave people things and what that did for the giver.

“No really. Have some more!” She laughs in the mirror. They wouldn’t say it like that. “No. Really. It’s okay. Have another helping. We would only throw it out anyway.” It was fun having plenty. She always wanted to say “Here. Have another fifty.” perfectly. She had got to say it in Georgia when she had a flat on the Lexus; a local yokel had changed it for her on the side of the road. She grinned as she watched him get smaller in the rear view mirror as he stared at the money and tried out her French in a whisper in case she got it wrong.

She never saw him let it go in the breeze and walk away.

The remaining drive down is peaceful. New car. It starts every time and runs beautifully. She doesn’t have to pretend her car has problems to stay safe; to keep the moochers away. She just gets in and drives right out in the open. The farther she drives the less she remembers her powerlessness; the more the money takes on the significance she has heard of in the past.

It’s nice having money.

———-

A few weeks in Panama City and she is working again; not on her back. She is the one in charge of the girls. She doesn’t need the money and it shows; being casual, even non-commital about things somebody desperate would be grateful to have. So she gets paid more. She gets the kick backs and still get the stares from the guys. She measures the liquor every night and catches a new barkeep being sloppy.

He gets his ass kicked.

There are more days off; sometimes even weekends. The only problem is what to do with the money. Her new place is new. It has new everything and some old antiques for balance.

She gets a bulldog from the pound; buys him an air conditioned dog house and sweater that says “Butch”. He looks magnificent breezin’ down Back Beach Road, standing up on the door with his big head sticking out the Lexus.

Dreams of Florida. The reality is better than the dream.

———————

She has heard about the grandma fightin’ and what a hoot it is for a few weeks. Old ladies put on tights, call themselves ferocious names and say they have a career in the American Wrestling Federation. It is well known as the Whig Party. The fights took place in the backrooms of the modern, small town sundries stores; this particular one calls itself, after seven pm every night except Sunday, the Telogia Game Room and Roadhouse. They even had a special light that said it out front after dark. They put a big gold star on the ladies bathroom door for the events.

After being pestered by invites and particulars from her new girlfriends, she goes over to see the action.

———————-

The drinks are strange: beers in the normal bottles, just like anywhere else. But the place.. Painted over windows, real sawdust, or maybe just really old dirt on the concrete floor. Someone says it used to be a garage where they worked on big trucks. That could very well be the case. It is, she decides, after she has taken a stand at a table with her friends and has a few of the very normal looking beers, a proto, even paleo version of what she has worked at in Newark when she had first started out. Someone has hand painted over the windows with a used brush, the tables are the oversized spools for electric wire she has seen on the highway a few times when a storm has snapped the power lines and they are being repaired. Each table has white freezer paper over it, and a small box of crayons. No chairs. The place is lit by optics along the wall that look too modern to be here. It is tight little space, set up almost like a game of twister surrounding the ring with popular, name brand pleasures at regular intervals. It is a place she had been warned, back in the day, she didn’t want to end up working.

In the center is the ring. Like the ones she had seen on tv: three ropes with a brand name on them linked all the way around with what at least looked like custom gear for the job; a mat raised three feet off the floor and the whole thing tied to overlap the edges of the foundation underneath it. It could easily pass for an official WWF ring. The microphone swings above the ring as if someone had recently spoken into it; she is assured nothing has started yet. Just a sound check.

She can see the action; the pimps, the whores, the drug dealers with their under-the-table dealing. This is a locals place. That’s the real action. That’s the angle: getting to know the local action.

Then in marches Marla Mayhem, Queeeeen of Disaaassster. White woman. Shiny robe with a hood, little stool in the corner, guy with a towel, …everything. Grey hair. A bit flabby. No fashion statement for sure. But grandma? Maybe fifty.

Why do they use stools for wrestling? I thought that was a boxing thing.

Federation rules.

It’s a developed art form. She has been working all these years completely ignorant that anything like this even existed while it had gone through its proto stages. She is watching the mature sport for a ten dollar cover charge.

Jenny Walker. White. Fifties. Hair died black as used motor oil. Big titties. Floppin’. Flabby.

That’s it? No Jen the terrible! No Jen-erator? No JenSling? Walker the Wonderful?

No. That’s how she operates.

——–

He comes in by the exit door; a mark of special privileges in such places, she knows. He stands by the door taking in the whole place with his arms at his side. Someone scurries around and offers him a cola; he refuses with a small shake of his head.

She hasn’t seen a lot like him, even though she has seen a lot of the type: pleated starched shirt, obvious body armor underneath, muscled arms, radio hanging from the lapel, automatic and flashlight on the belt. Ridiculously shiny shoes. She knew just looking at him he had no tattoos.

Is he county or state?

County. They just keep the peace, hon.

She looks over at the waiter and can’t help but laugh at the reply. Next she’d describe what a beer was and how it “worked”?

It is, as they say, all that. Blood packs. Body slams. Nifty insults. Comin’ off the top rope, elbow to the head, the one that is down suddenly come back to life ..somebody threw in a chair, Marla went for it, ..that was it.

That Jenny. She don’t take no shit. She just goes by her own name. The guy at the next table is eyeing her, and sayin’ things to hear himself talk. Go Jenny girl! He is a true believer, if only for an instant, in the righteous Jenny fighting the evil forces of the Queen of Disaster. It shows in his eyes when he watches the ring: good and evil are in a throwdown and you’d be a fool to miss it. He speaks righteousness and wants the world to hear it. To Jenny. Use the chair! The freakin’ chair!

She can’t help it. He is too..there. Too quiet. Too completely in charge and so what? The angels come down to take another shift in Babylon.

She gets a fresh beer and wanders over as Jenny puts the finishing touches on the Queen of Disaster. She stands there and says nothing, holding her cold beer against her nipple and then turning slightly so he could see the results. If he looks.

He isn’t lookin’.

After a while she has to say something. Just a little flirt. Men like flirts.
“I’m a witch you know.” She is going to talk about spells and hints of sex ..and she would. She knows it.

He turns his head slightly toward her and looks at her. “What kind of witch are you? You the kind of witch that because life didn’t give you what you saw other people have you grabbed onto some pussy crap about being controversial and outrageous? Or are you one of those “Fuck you! My momma was a witch. My daddy was a witch and we were proud of it. We kill babies out back in the name of Satan and don’t care if you know about it. In fact, we’re gonna fight for political acceptance so we can kill your babies too! That kinda witch?”

His look isn’t what she wanted or expected. He isn’t angry. It is a matter of fact truth that catches her off guard. The place has put her to sleep, made her forget the distinctions. The things she knows that only a whore or God can know come out in certain places that make it plain she isn’t God. And then..

She thinks of all the tarot cards and the amulets: the pop witch themes and hardcore games of confusion she was always thinking as a beautiful mystery that makes her feel powerful. She thinks of her abortions; the sterile environment, the official doctor and nurse garb and the steel instruments. She remembers knowing that she was just a John to them for their ideology and yet she didn’t leave. She thinks of the secrets she knows of the men in Newark: their connections, their infidelities, their crimes and what they did together with a few drinks and fine food. And the laughs. She thinks of true things she hasn’t thought of in years.

“I’m both, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I’m both.”

“Just being honest about who and what you are don’t mean you’re good. And you ain’t gonna do that shit around here, you hear? Everybody don’t get a second chance. I know Bud Jacobs over in Panama City. I’ll be giving him a call about you. We find out you’re doing that Satanic crap you’ll be dead. You understand me?”

How did he know I’m in Panama City? He ran the plates outside before he came in. They already know.

Yes, officer.

Shepherds are beautiful in their own way to wolves. Even she wolves. It’s not respect. Wolves can’t respect anything and don’t know what respect is. It is the longing for camaraderie: “you should be with us”. To run into another power that don’t think like you and is stronger is a provocation; it is being denounced.

We could use a guy like you. You should be with us. You should be with me.

She stares at him: his badge, his grey hair on the sides, the tired, patient eyes and rumpled pants; his familiarity with all she knew and his patience with the people but not with the wickedness. His trueness. His simplicity. It is a combination beyond any stereotypes she has ever heard. He is the real thing and dangerous that way, with a forty five on his hip, a wash and wear haircut, the radio clipped to his shirt and big drops of sweat on his temple he makes no effort to wipe away.

He is full in a way she is empty and empty in a way she is full. And he likes it –he lives there when even the temporary brush with it is more vacation in the idea of it than she ever wants to feel again.

Well, I know he don’t smoke. The waitress had said he didn’t drink either and “probably don’t like money” just before “good luck, hon”. He probably drinks Gatorade for fun and watches sticks rot when he isn’t on duty.

She walks away and laughs at the thought of his pile of Sunday school tracts, empty Gatorade jugs and sweaty clothes; when her friends turn at her outburst she suppresses the laughter into a twisted smile and says “It wasn’t that funny anyway.”

Gloria, it ain’t polite to be witty in private.

Besides, she smiles to herself by way of revenge as her girlfriends pile in the Lexus, guys like that end up marrying a whore they find in Church that gets ‘em with the religious angle. The spirit in her has lots of moves. She has lots of sisters. Didn’t somebody say Jesus hung out with whores? Even if they were in a place that didn’t call itself by its own name until after seven?

—————————————————

2Timothy 3:1-7 But this know, that in the last days difficult times shall be there; for men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, evil speakers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, profane, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, of unsubdued passions, savage, having no love for what is good, traitors, headlong, of vain pretensions, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; having a form of piety but denying the power of it: and from these turn away. For of these are they who are getting into houses, and leading captive silly women, laden with sins, led by various lusts, always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

The trip to Rawalpindi is uneventful. The speech comes in; blends with itself in the others as they come into the city, carrying with it the common understanding. There are no strangers here; only a multitude of other versions of the same events and the need for each one to express it individually in the chorus. The city is moving; breathing softly for a time.

Jamal smiles genuinely with the boy who is mischievously but intently still ( since Bannu ) pulling the stuffing out of the seat thread by thread as the ride jostles to a stop. The boy shows him he can finally reach his hand inside the vinyl. “Getting to the bottom of it, little brother? What does it all mean, eh?” he says as he rubs the boy’s head. Reaching overhead to get the bag, he shuffles toward the door and steps off the bus. Dressed in village attire and now in the city, he needs a change.

—–

How long were you there?

Long enough.

Who was your instructor?

Al Samuel.

Sammy two-tone? The mutterer? He is very harsh, no?

He was ..thorough.

And yet you always felt as if you had not done well enough because of his mutterings, eh? Everyone says that. I say he does it on purpose just to incite such feelings and gain the mastery over his students. Jalat is looking directly at Jamal.

Jamal nods his head as he sips chai; swallows. Could be.

Jalat sees the tick under Jamal’s left eye. “Are you alright, my brother?” he says, in that tone Arabs have for others.

Jamal looks directly at Jalat. I lost a girl that way. It always ticks when I’m being honest and simple. But she always thought it meant I was lying. It is my burden. Shall I explain it to you in greater detail? In Farsi? English or French? Perhaps written in code on the back of a napkin? He smiles easily and slowly, waiting.

The moment passes. They sit and stare in their given sectors as a tourist looks to see what is next. The conversation is drying up after the initial introductions, the strain of watching the surroundings; having to trust another’s view of a sector one cannot see for oneself and the overall nervousness of the new contacts is beginning to show.

Jamal: “I learned something the other day. How to say foreign words convincingly. You have to get over the mindset of not knowing it and trying to out-say native english speakers in english. Like “Tues-day” for instance. If you say it like they owe you money and they better have it on Tues-day, then it sounds more natural than saying Tues-day as if you’re asking an instructor if you said it right.” He looks casually serious and says: “Tues-day. See? Even if you say it wrong, the certainty blinds them.”

Jalat looks disapprovingly at Jamal. That’s amazing Jamal. Truly amazing. You come up with that all by yourself?

“In veginning vas Vord.” Says Amat in american english to break the ice. He smiles at his success to the others.

“AnD Vord vas ..alLAH.” replies Jamal in the same.

“See? Turks and their speech impediments. They always send people out early. You are not ready. You both forgot ‘thhhe’. Americans always say thhe, although they usually say it as “thha”. In tha BEginning. Not VE-ginning. And they don’t say Allah. They say GoD. Sammy two-tone has screwed up another bunch.” He turns to Abdul: “I say again I think he is a mole teaching recruits how to be caught.” He smirks and says in perfect english. “And yet the whole world wants to see Islamic underwear. We’re the shit. Everybody watches us now.”

Amat and Jamal don’t know what to say.

—

Ha Che snorts a laugh. Over his head in the van’s equipment rack the speech-to-text readout on the microphone array is unintelligble . You know, I can’t read lips and the mike cannot pick out what they are saying? But I bet a months pay that guy just told the other two they were picked to be the drivers on the next attack.

So Ni smiles his rookie smile. I never thought about that. He feigns authority and says in English: “It’s you! Stawt sweatin’ mamma’s boie! I nevew liked you anyway!”

Delung Changpu takes the cigarette out of Ha Che’s hand. I told you already two times now: Not around the equipment. Software problem?

Ha Che sighs. No. The crowd.. ..ambient noise. Even infrasound. Sometime it scrambles the filters.

Save it anyway. Update the filters.

Unless it has something specific on it, what’s the point? We can’t tell where they are from these days from accent. The same guy will say American “fart” like they do in Islamabad and “bomb” like they do in Saigon. Very international. They learn English off the internet, not from one, local instructor.”

Changpu looks directly at Ha Che.

Okay, okay. Ha Che taps the keyboard. A small status bar flashes on the screen and is gone.

Changpu: Old eyes. New ways. But the same thing. You’re generation is victim of treachery of education and experience. You come to depend on it. But it can make you blind when evil changes skin. Track them by what they say and do –not how they say it or what they feel as they do it. This is not academy. But training –always.

Ha Che: They all jihhadi. Wahhabi. What-tha-havi. We study their religion, we know them.

Changpu looks at the monitor, sees one man get up and leave. He taps his keyboard: follow. A man in street vendor attire walks toward the corner store watching the jihadi by the reflection in the shop windows as they walk on opposite sides of the street.

Changpu: En Sitchoo. He smirks. Russian way of intelligence. People get killed while other people get educated about what happened as if something good had happened ..so a clerk can say “why” and teach it to children as history.

So Ni is confused. Eh?

Changpu pushes the joystick forward, zooming in on the remaining jihadis, now drinking chai in silence. “Nothing. Too old for you. Too young for you too. They teach you everything but simple eyes. You graduate from Beijing in complex ..and miss everything.”

———————-

Two floors above the now empty chai vendor’s cart, Bobby pushes his joystick to the left, zooms in on the van. The text-to-speech graphics show nothing but nonsense.

James: What?

Thought I saw the van move. Like somebody was in the back?

They got eyes on the area? That’s new. But expected.

How?

The longer they exist, the more their sophistication grows. It’s inevitable. That’s in addition to them getting help and training from Beijing ..or the Russians.

I meant did you have specifics on that?

No. Just makes sense. James looks at the bottom of his coffee cup and breathes a heavy sigh of impatience. A whole week of this crap.

What if it is and isn’t.

Somebody else watching? You know I bet that happens more often than we think.

Life on the thirty third parallel. It’s a whole different zone, brother. Bobby adjusts the filters on the video and sharpens the image of the van.

What do you mean?

Where we are now. Thirty third parallel.

What does that mean?

“Well that’s the question isn’t it? I mean, in this city, people get killed all the time. Famous for it. Both Bhuttos by the way –right here.” Bobby moves camera two and adjusts the gain; reads the small print on the paper Jamal is holding. “They find skulls around here –and Islamabad, all the time from the death cults ..although they keep saying the skulls are ancient and play them off as artifacts. And some of them probably are. Everywhere you look on the thirty third parallel –all over the world, all through history, it’s a death zone. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Syria –all on the thirty third parallel. Us too. Did you know that death row of every prison system in the US — that have states the thirty third parallel runs through — are exactly on that parallel? What are the odds on that? And here we are, saving today’s slice of it on video for posterity.

I never heard of that. James frowns as he types in the half-hour sitrep. How wide is it? As wide as chair? A car? A nation?

Why would you? They teach you guys today all things are the same. They don’t want you to look at what’s going on in front of you. You’re all looking for the clever crap. Bobby hits ‘record’ on the video. Up for some kie?

“Chai. CH-iee. “C”. “H”. Not a “Keey” sound. It doesn’t make you more loyal to mom and pop to not say the local speech correctly.” James switches to camera four. “It looks like the chai guy is taking a break anyway.”

“Okay.” Bobby shrugs. “Si. Da. Not all knowledge we don’t know yet is vain. Only most of it.”

James punches the keyboard again and begins recording camera four. “And the boys at home want to see the whole roast so they can make a big deal out of carving it up. Other wise, somebody might think somebody got a taste before supper. Same ‘ol same ‘ol. But the thing is, everything we record? Somebody else has to check. Terabits of this crap coming out every single day.”

———-

The reservoir and the dam, insects, the animals, the land and the angels, the drinkers and the thirsty, the staring ones and the inattentive writhe under the clear skin of the city’s voice as the sun sets over the horizon and the Turks fly in from Istanbul to watch the rumored groupings.

———————————————-

Isaiah 6:5-8 And I said, Woe unto me! for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts. And one of the seraphim flew unto me, and he had in his hand a glowing coal, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he made it touch my mouth, and said, Behold, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin expiated. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I; send me.

Jeremiah 9:4-6 Take ye heed every one of his friend, and confide not in any brother; for every brother only supplanteth, and every friend goeth about with slander. And they act deceitfully every one with his neighbour, and speak not the truth: they teach their tongue to speak falsehood, they weary themselves with perverse dealing. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith Jehovah.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Back in the Day

It looks like a manual. Smeared with dirt and God knows what else, it is heavy, floppy in a paperback kind of way; a thing of at least a thousand pages. Roger flips through it noting charts, diagrams, photos and numbered pages. There is an implied order to it; subtlety; implied authority for simply existing as such. No one would write that much language if it wasn’t somehow connected to reality in some permanent way. Not on purpose anyway.

Just holding it implies a wisdom of something intricate now long past.

Roger remembers such books lining his office walls: most were outdated before they were printed. But to have them around implied a studious nature and that one was keeping up ..or perhaps at least one was possessed of exactly the right amount of humility for the money paid, was teachable and not afraid to be openly seen catching up from behind. “See! I’ve got books!”

The difference between the guru who wrote it and the newbie who read it was minimal; so minimal it was obsolete in less than a month. Any competitive advantage it had given its reader it had also given all the other readers. So they needed new books. New gurus.

Roger smiles. Everybody, even the handicapped, is a guru every now and then. God is fair that way as He hides Himself in the whole while men take the credit for cash.

Roger drops it slowly; it falls out of his hand and lands in approximately the same position on the sand from which he had picked it up.

It was on these occasions of re-encountering the small proofs that he had actually lived that life that the same thought came to him: just because other people had learned that same lesson didn’t mean it was worthless that he had to go through it himself and alone. The vanity was in trying to place it with regard to others; always thinking of the connection with others and not thinking at all about being alone with Jesus Christ, even though that was the stated ideal of old time.

To have an image of that ideal with Christ is one thing: it is communal and can be shared. They called it fellowship. But to arrive. No one could say what it was until they got there. Then they couldn’t say what it was to those coming behind; those coming were too full of delusions even a step away.

Roger watches the tide rush in and out, only a few feet from the book. Not everything has to be unique. It is the race to be unique that has destroyed the most. If some other guy has nailed it with a comment so awesome in its completeness to describe the totality of it all, so what? Even in the middle of all the gibberish, everything to understand, everything true has already been said over and over again. But he knows he has to live it out anyway. He has to keep trying to nail it and then give it to those a step away.

Isn’t it? Isn’t that It?

He has never understood unique until everything had been taken from him. Everybody knows being alone in a private wisdom a time or two. But he knew on that private beach for three grand a night and all the Jack he could drink at the tables, that most of that truth he ran into from behind and knew with a certainty the fathers had been there too ..is already obsolete because it can be bought. But Christ..

Kids watching him through the fence nod in wisdom as one of them says: See? Le dije: la gente rica ríe loco.

( Spanish via babel fish: See? I told you. Rich people laugh crazy. )

—————————-

It’s not finished but there it is for now..

—————————-

Isaiah 28:9-13 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the report? Them that are weaned from the milk, withdrawn from the breasts? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little. … For with stammering lips and a strange tongue will he speak to this people; to whom he said, This is the rest: cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing. But they would not hear. And the word of Jehovah was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little: that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Obadiah 1:5 If thieves had come to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had had enough? If grape-gatherers had come to thee, would they not have left some gleanings?

Isaiah 42:22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and hidden in prison-houses; they are become a prey, and none delivereth, –a spoil, and none saith, Restore.

Government shuts down mortgage lender IndyMac

Curtain opens revealing a pastoral scene. Or a city scene. Or an apartment in the worst side of New York or Tallahassee.

Satan is walking amongst men ( or knocking on doors ) and spies a victim; a sweating workman in the midst of his work.

Satan: Hello, Wannabe Popular Guy!

Wannabe Popular Guy: Who is that? My name is Earl.

( dubbed sit-com type laughter from offstage )

Satan: Why you are my good friend. I can see a guy like you wants to have women swooning in love with him and other men envious of him. To put it delicately, You wouldn’t have to sweat.

Wannabe Popular Guy throws down his work: I’m all ears, Friend.

Satan picks up a stick ( or a plastic spoon ) . “Take this stick, break it into pieces and say it is something called money.”

Wannabe Popular Guy: What is money?

Satan looks at the audience: It ain’t nothin’. But they don’t know that.

( dubbed laughter )

Wannabe Popular Guy: Why would they want a stick?

Satan: Because its money. And rare.

Wannabe Popular Guy: No it ain’t. ..I don’t understand. ( reaches for the work..)

Satan: ( takes the work out of Wannabe Popular Guy’s hand ): here’s what you do. You take this stick and a bunch more like it: you break ‘em up in pieces. Then you give a lot of pieces to some, a few pieces to others and none to all the ( waves his hand in disgust) ..other people. Then you speak and act toward those you gave the most pieces the nicest, the ones you gave the least pieces a little bit nice and you ignore them that ain’t got none. In fact, you always be sure and let ‘em know you think they’re stupid. After all, they ain’t got any of your stick. From then on, you’ll be Popular Guy and a Wannabe no more! The women will love you!

Wannabe popular guy: That’ll never work!

( uproarious laughter from offstage )

Burka clad ( woman?) walks across stage while Satan and Wannabe Popular Guy walk into a box that has been lowered on stage with a sign on it that says “Shadows of time”. The Burka person holds up a sign over her head toward the audience as she walks: “And the eons went by…” as a microphone echoes her footsteps…

Suddenly, Satan appears coming from offstage ( How’d he do that? ) as the “shadows of time” is lifted away.

We see a grave marker in its stead: “Popular Guy: Loved by women. Envied by men. Never sweated a drop. Had more money than anybody ever heard of.”

A young woman ( Burka baby ) in a burka is ( smirking?) at a young man who is standing beside a rack of overly large books that say variously: “Popular Guy’s Sticks: Fact or fiction?” and “Make poverty history: Money for everybody!” with a picture of Popular Guy with a shaved head, fu manchu in a T.D. Jake’s suit and gold cane.

Burka baby: Baby, if you ain’t got the money, you ain’t got me. You poor. Now if you wuz to get an education and learn how to be rich, I’d love you! Ain’t that holy? We can grow poppys with my daddy’s tractor and your daddy’s land. But you got to have somethin’ if’n you wanna be with me!

Curtain drops.

——————————————————-

It is good to recall at certain times what God Says in Scripture and what He does not say of the end times:

Rev 13:16,17 And it causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bondmen, that they should give them a mark upon their right hand or upon their forehead; and that no one should be able to buy or sell save he that had the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of its name.

Plainly, those who worship the beast ( as opposed to those that do not ) are deceived that without buying and selling, ( i.e. without money ) there can be no life or at least no life worth living and no government. The deceit of what money is is complete in them.

Plainly those who are called Christians by some that seek to make out that anti-Christ actually controls the world “because” he does and will control money and on that basis alone see a “one world government” mandated out of Scripture are just as deceived and part and parcel with those who seek to mandate the Empire of Money as the arbiter of all civilization and life.

Plainly real Christians can eat and drink, be clothed, have shelter, sleep and be prosperous without the need to buy or sell anything, exactly as all men did before money ever came into existence. We know that God Says very distinctly that there will be independent nations at the end of days that are deceived but live through that deception by the grace of God:

Rev 18:2-24 And he cried with a strong voice, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and has become the habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hated bird; because all the nations have drunk of the wine of the fury of her fornication; and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have been enriched through the might of her luxury. And I heard another voice out of the heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues: for her sins have been heaped on one another up to the heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses. Recompense her even as she has recompensed; and double to her double, according to her works. In the cup which she has mixed, mix to her double. So much as she has glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so much torment and grief give to her. Because she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and I am not a widow; and I shall in no wise see grief: for this reason in one day shall her plagues come, death and grief and famine, and she shall be burnt with fire; for strong is the Lord God who has judged her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication, and lived luxuriously with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off, through fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour thy judgment is come. And the merchants of the earth weep and grieve over her, because no one buys their lading any more; lading of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearl, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet dye, and all thyine wood, and every article in ivory, and every article in most precious wood, and in brass, and in iron, and in marble, and cinnamon, and amomum, and incense, and unguent, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and of horses, and of chariots, and of bodies, and souls of men. And the ripe fruits which were the lust of thy soul have departed from thee, and all fair and splendid things have perished from thee, and they shall not find them any more at all. The merchants of these things, who had been enriched through her, shall stand afar off through fear of her torment, weeping and grieving, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, which was clothed with fine linen and purple and scarlet, and had ornaments of gold and precious stones and pearls! for in one hour so great riches has been made desolate. And every steersman, and every one who sailed to any place, and sailors, and all who exercise their calling on the sea, stood afar off, and cried, seeing the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like to the great city? and cast dust upon their heads, and cried, weeping and grieving, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, in which all that had ships in the sea were enriched through her costliness! for in one hour she has been made desolate. Rejoice over her, heaven, and ye saints and apostles and prophets; for God has judged your judgment upon her. And a strong angel took up a stone, as a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall Babylon the great city be cast down, and shall be found no more at all; and voice of harp-singers and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters shall not be heard any more at all in thee, and no artificer of any art shall be found any more at all in thee, and voice of millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee, and light of lamp shall shine no more at all in thee, and voice of bridegroom and bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great ones of the earth; for by thy sorcery have all the nations been deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all the slain upon the earth.

And

Revelation 21:22-27 And I saw no temple in it; for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by its light; and the kings of the earth bring their glory to it. And its gates shall not be shut at all by day, for night shall not be there. And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations to it. And nothing common, nor that maketh an abomination and a lie, shall at all enter into it; but those only who are written in the book of life of the Lamb.

The “one world government” is no “inevitability” as both Satan and those who say they oppose Satan but that “the bible speaks of one world government” pretend. A mass conspiracy of nations against God? Yes. They will be deceived. The demise of independent nations? No. God Says they will be here even at the end and beyond.

Gal 5:22-26 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control: against such things there is no law. But they that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit. Let us not become vain-glorious, provoking one another, envying one another.

What we do see is an end of money:

Luke 16:8,9 And the lord praised the unrighteous steward because he had done prudently. For the sons of this world are, for their own generation, more prudent than the sons of light. And *I* say to you, Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails ye may be received into the eternal tabernacles.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

1. get main characters from anywhere USA

2. characters are church going honest-in-other-areas ( money and supposed self-chosen morality ) and hard working people; not real Christians: Religionists who compete among their name brand of organization for dibs on bragging rights to the title of Most Conservative

3. New Doctrine sweeps in both politically and theologically

4. People discuss the differences in the New Doctrine with the Truth plainly revealed from Holy Scripture. New Doctrine infiltrators moderate those discussions with the full knowledge and consent of all concerned so that New Doctrine adherents will not be able to say in honesty: “They wouldn’t give us a hearing.”

4a: everyone wears a preppy mix of sweaters, prep and jeans as “informal” all the time

5. New Doctrine adherents say that anyway after perceiving all those of the Old ever really wanted was to be approved by the non-creating speech of men.

6. New Doctrine is adopted piecemeal both politically and theologically. Those who object and whom God sends to correct them loathed ( per the New Common Emotional Sense of the New Doctrine ) and thrown out and/or murdered by new converts to the New Doctrine and the infiltators

7. Those who really really want the title of Most Conservative hold to the Old non-creating Doctrine. They leave the old name brand and start a new one. They take out New Mortgages on their houses to finance a public show piece of a New Building with a fifty million dollar organ and TV channel to broadcast such magnificence and make it seem what they are doing is exactly what the Most Conservative Fathers did while mis-quoting them to prove it and ignoring Scripture. They “decide” that they need New Music a little like what the New Doctrine is putting out and that music has all along been a “language of emotion” that they will put to excellent use in the service of the “gospel”. Those with different music termed “sub culture” and the “gospel” is changed per musical group. Only the smiles are the same for everybody.

8. Research New terms to apply to the New Conservative Denomination: Debt Stress; Generic Religious Suffering; Emotional IQ; herbal remedies; End Time/Rapture as Debt relief; Martha Stewart; Two kids is enough: Smite my womb please; Cultural Context Evangelism; Feminism; Hatred of ones own race

9. Lies of New Denomination compared to the new covenants the kings of Israel were always making with God because they didn’t like the Old one .. to no effect. Yet New Covenant Theology all the rage among them

10. community: present in the true nature of that word: disease ridden public welfare/socialism/theft deception taking advantage of the young by the thin smiling faces of those with sexually transmitted diseases saying “it’s not a death sentence/ aka : place with nasty toilets and gays/lesbians smiling at supposed acceptance for the camera while lying fake Christians and real occultists hug them and talk “art”, “dignity”, “unity”, socialized medicine, population control, government grants, Viagra, gay marriage and the latest medical breakthroughs with George Bush’s wife and daughter all sponsored by the Rand Corp, Fuller “Theological”, CFR, FreeMasons and the New Republican Party.

11. Have Most Conservative characters attend conferences as keynote speakers whose white papers read like a litany of nonsensical mental masturbation with Satan as the sex object: “The Love of Jesus and Community approaches to shared religious symbolism”/ “Gay and Lesbian sorrow in the context of acceptance in a Jesus dominated culture” / “Time for Change: Women Leaders over Men in religious settings Now!”/ “Smite My Womb Please: Growth in Conservative Settings”/ “God and the relief of Divorce”/ Why doesn’t God mean what He Says?: Confusion, Peace, Healing and Letting Go of the Past Doctrines as Permission to be Happy.

Have the leaders carefully explain to anyone who isn’t listening that while the conference was New doctrine Oriented, they only went to Witness and lend credibility to the deceived before God. Soliloquy/Monologue. Perhaps a musical in which they dance joyfully as they sing the Apology wearing tights.

12. Shots here and there of Old people, whose generation let in porn, homosexuality, organized crime in a multitude of guises, gross immorality in every aspect of life insisting they have free will and “we” all do “too”, vehemently rooting for corrupt politicians and tearfully watching the New Religious TV Channel, wishing they had a local version of the fifty million dollar organ to do the Old music at Christmas while they sign over their social security checks to those who already have one and open mail from every Conservative Cause asking for Emergency Funds the aged are glad to receive as a kind of flattery.

12. Somehow work in the very plain understanding of: Ezekiel 16:27-34 And behold, I stretched out my hand over thee, and diminished thine appointed portion; and I gave thee over unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who were confounded at thy lewd way. And thou didst commit fornication with the Assyrians, because thou wast insatiable; yea, thou didst commit fornication with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. And thou didst multiply thy whoredom with the land of merchants, Chaldea, and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. How weak is thy heart, saith the Lord Jehovah, seeing thou doest all these things , the work of a whorish woman, under no restraint; in that thou buildest thy place of debauchery at the head of every way, and makest thy high place in every street! And thou hast not been as a harlot, in that thou scornest reward, O adulterous wife, that taketh strangers instead of her husband. They give rewards to all harlots; but thou gavest thy rewards to all thy lovers, and rewardedst them, that they might come unto thee on every side for thy whoredoms. And in thee is the contrary from other women, in thy whoredoms, in that none followeth thee to commit fornication; and whereas thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, so art thou contrary.

and

2 Corinthians 11:19,20 For ye bear fools readily, being wise. For ye bear if any one bring you into bondage, if any one devour you , if any one get your money , if any one exalt himself, if any one beat you on the face.

and

Luke 22:35-38 And he said to them, When I sent you without purse and scrip and sandals, did ye lack anything? And they said, Nothing. He said therefore to them, But now he that has a purse let him take it , in like manner also a scrip, and he that has none let him sell his garment and buy a sword; for I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned with the lawless: for also the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold here are two swords. And he said to them, It is enough.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

A short parable on God confounding us, still being just and unbeliever’s inevitable reaction to God’s confounding us; remembering that God taught and disciplined the prophets before us and we are called not to seek to dodge the rebuke of God as making us wise. But sometimes we simply do not understand ..for years, decades.

Ecc 7:5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise, than to hear the song of fools.

——————–

Tom wanders into the Toucan cafe, a place of writers, thinkers, debaters, academics and aspiring movie producers. He is soon embroiled in a brainstorming session of new movie ideas.

Tom: How about a period piece: ancient Israel –before they went in the land. Guy has ten sheep set aside for the sacrifice. You had to have perfect sheep for that. No scars, no scratches, no scabs. No strange features. This guy, as he goes about his life, hears the law. He believes. He tries to do everything right because he is genuinely afraid of God. God gave him that fear as gift. It is real. He’s not a faker –not a religionist. He’s always checking himself out according to the law. Am I wrong? Did I break a rule? Maybe I did and I don’t know it? He’s counting on those sheep to set things right. This happens. That happens.

Blonde guy: Shit happens.

Tom: exactly. The thing about the story is that each time he wants to take one of those perfect sheep out and give it to the priest for his sin –something happens to it. One of his kids disobeys him and rides it and runs it into a tree; it gets cut –now it’s a no-go. This kind of thing happens one by one. Guy’s goin’ berserk. What am I gonna do? Where am I going to get a perfect sheep? Sheep take time to produce other sheep. Sheep of a certain age or the wrong sex were not acceptable for certain sins. He needs those sheep for whatever he does wrong and can’t know it in advance. I mean that sheep has to have no blemishes. So he’s not able to replace his perfect ones he set aside as fast as they are getting..

Blonde guy: knocked off.

Tom: Right. And its costing him to set them aside. His rams are basically in a safe house, –tent– to keep them perfect. They get fed the best food. Get the best care. So this guy is slowly replacing a few, but not as fast they get knocked off. He’s even made a few runs to the temple with a sheep only to have something happen to the sheep on the way. And the thing is this: the guy never finds out why. He has to live that way among his neighbors who are really unbelievers anyway and are just ritually following the system –with none of his problems. The film ends like that way –that guy just looking confused and asking the priest: why does God command me to do something, I take extreme precautions to make sure I do it –and He destroys my efforts! What did I do? Is it too late for me? Why does God hate me?

Blonde guy: Wow. Brain storm. I know I’m like a dufus sometimes but listen to this: that guy –doesn’t know it, has no clue — but that guy has been singled out by God to be a perfect sheep. ( Tom’s face falls..) I mean, the guy isn’t proud or vain or anything, but in God’s eyes, his neighbors have scabs and scratches and stuff according to God’s big, frickin, incomprehensible.. you know, standards. But this guy is being singled out to do some sacrificial thing see? See what I’m saying?

Man at a table nearby: What standards?

Blonde guy: the unspoken ones.

A woman at another table: What unspoken ones? Are you saying we can’t know God’s standards?

Tom is stunned, saying nothing.

Nearby girl: yeah but what thing –what sacrifice does God have him do? I want to see that –as a movie goer. I want to know Why.

Tom has a thousand mile stare at the wall.

Nearby girl: See what I’m saying? yeah but what? I want to see that –as a movie goer.

Blonde guy: That’s the end of my big thought. I don’t know. Maybe make him a warrior or something. And hey –he’s practicing the ancient Israeli high speed martial arts and stuff. That’s a good angle these days. He could shoot an arrow in slow motion over a ..what, a hundred yards? And hit a ..

Tom: why not just kill him and get it over with?

Blonde guy and girl and everyone nearby suddenly realize Tom sees himself as that man.

Blonde guy: hey man, I didn’t .. I didn’t mean to.. ( he looks at the girl ..) I didn’t ..who can know that kind of stuff in advance? How was I supposed ..

Tom : Don’t sweat it. It’s a good brainstorm. What are you having? ( nodding to Blonde guy’s drink. )

Blonde guy: Uh, it’s a mocha mint.

Tom: Do you mind? Want another one?

Blonde guy: sure.

Tom motions toward the barrista and points toward Blonde guy: mocha mint grande.

Tom looks at Blonde guy: thank you.

Nearby Girl: You ain’t like Jonah or something are you? You ain’t runnin’ or nothin’?

Tom sips water and shakes his head: ‘o. I was in full pursuit, –compliance, if you will, of what Jesus Christ told me to do. He was doing it through me. He had me running a mission –a shelter, for homeless people suffering from substance abuse. For two years. Good facility. Had some great results. Things were looking good. Then it burned to the ground, killed six people, and scarred two more for life.

Another guy sitting nearby: That was your sheep.

Tom: But I can’t earn anything –at all. I knew that going in. I know that now. The sacrificial system is no longer valid because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was that sacrifice for me –for all who are His. I can’t add to that. No one can.

Blonde guy: Maybe you forgot.

Tom: No. I didn’t. It was the basis of all the success God gave us –when they found out they didn’t have free will and all they were being told by the world was a false measurement system that was causing a cycle of vain to be hopeless. They were born again in reality –not as a farce. They were set free –from the whole thing, not just from the temporary cycle of addiction. Their whole lives were changed. I was going to open up another shelter if I could get some grants.

Blonde guy: He supposed to stop after you “know”?

Girl: You were doing what Jesus Christ told you to do–what you say He was doing through you –and He did that to you?

Tom: He did it to everybody there.

Man sitting nearby: Why would anybody choose Jesus?

Tom : Nobody can. He’s still the King of Kings of Lord of Lords. He does what He wants. I just..

Blonde guy suddenly burst out laughing.

Everyone looks at him.

Blonde guy: I’m just imagining the Jewish guy making a run for it toward the temple, cradling this hapless sheep in his arms, looking out everywhere for what’s going to happen next. He’s supposed to be this mighty warrior and everything. He’s got it in homemade body armor for sheep. No..no.. ( he’s wheezing in high pitched long breaths with laughter now..) nobody understands what it is like to be him. I mean nobody. Hell, even his neighbors probably think God hates him so they avoid him. You can almost hear ‘em “Yeah. That’s him. ( he he he he..! ) God scars all his sacrifices. Get away from him or it will rub off on you! He treats his sheep better than he treats his family!” Ha ha ha..

Tom smiles weakly in spite of himself: They weren’t my family?

Man sitting nearby: That guy is me.

Blonde guy: ( slapping the table, calming down) Now I’m buyin’ you one! You want something?

Tom points at the mocha mint grande: I’ll have one of yours.

——————————–

Psalm 88:1-18 A Song, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. An instruction. Of Heman the Ezrahite. Jehovah, God of my salvation, I have cried by day and in the night before thee. Let my prayer come before thee; incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to Sheol. I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength: Prostrate among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave; whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. Thy fury lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah. Thou hast put my familiar friends far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. Mine eye consumeth by reason of affliction. Upon thee, Jehovah, have I called every day; I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Wilt thou do wonders to the dead? shall the shades arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? thy faithfulness in Destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But as for me, Jehovah, I cry unto thee, and in the morning my prayer cometh before thee. Why, O Jehovah, castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and expiring from my youth up; I suffer thy terrors, and I am distracted. Thy fierce anger hath gone over me; thy terrors have brought me to nought: They have surrounded me all the day like water; they have compassed me about together. Lover and associate hast thou put far from me: my familiar friends are darkness.

Proverbs 3:11,12 My son, despise not the instruction of Jehovah, neither be weary of his chastisement; for whom Jehovah loveth he chasteneth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

jail scene. The jailer is trying to get those he is imprisoning to talk about the specifics of ..something:

Jailer: See, God controls everything. ( as he waves his hands in a circle, one hand holding the GUN)

Prisoner: Everything? ( looking at the gun ) ( his head following the gun around..)

Jailer: Everything, my friend. For instance ( as he herds the prisoner towards a cell already crowded with others ) take the coast. God controls when it expands so that men may build houses on more land and eat the fruit of trees that grow there. There is freedom in having more land. Everyone knows this. But then God sometimes ( he grips the air tightly) constricts the coastline. He squeezes all the men together in a smaller area with an iron band. See?

Prisoner: ( as they get to the door of the cell). I can see that.

Jailer: and the thing is, men like their privacy. They don’t like to be close to other men or women other than their families except for the necessities, no?

Prisoner ( as the jailer opens the door and he goes inside..) I suppose so.

Jailer: You suppose? No, I think you are certain. I think you understand that quietness is indeed golden. Especially for a person in your situation. Because you know that speech itself, no matter what is said, can sometimes be –no, a lot of the time is, the enemy. So I want you to stay in there and not say anything. You have all the time in the world, many millennia according to some for God to work these things out. God has merely constricted your coast to crowd you in with other men –other speakers. But I think –let us hope, it is only temporary and that God will act in a moment, in a miracle, for He has many, to give you more land.

Prisoner: looks at his hand and slowly constricts the air.

Jailer: See? You understand already. I want you to be quiet a very long time and then say something important. You will thank me later for this, I promise. Ch..eh, boleth. Are you familiar with this term?

Prisoner: Shibboleth?

Jailer: Exactly. I knew you were an educated man the moment I saw you. I want you to say a chi-bboleth.

Prisoner looks confused.

Jailer: Don’t worry. You will know it when it happens. ( closes the door and turns the key. Bolt loudly engages. He puts the gun in its holster.) It is different for everybody. And yet the same. You came all this way to be profound, to do what is profound. I could see it the moment I saw you, even beyond your obvious education. Do you have visions?

Prisoner: No. But I see new understandings all the time about things I wasn’t really thinking about. And I’ve heard the thought lately that although we speak a lot of words as sounds we understand and that have real meaning to us and even satisfies us, that beyond that we are saying something else with the same sounds in a language which is unknown to us; that all the little stops and starts as implied punctuation in our speech? –isn’t really, and that it is all something else. I don’t know if it is good or evil. But I think we say much more than we know in the middle of saying what we think we know.

Jailer ( after a small silence) : That is profound. You are a profound person. You will remember I said so. Unfortunately, that particular, ..how do you say ..profundity, is not what we are looking for is it?

Prisoner: Is a shibboleth a confession?

Jailer: It could be. I don’t know. I am not an educated man. It could be as simple as asking some Chinese people to say “fried rice”. You know how some of them are with r’s and l’s. It could be a bigger difference between you and me beyond you being in there and me being out here with the gun and the law. But really, I just hear things from time to time. I think you haven’t been quiet enough to find out and then tell me so we both will know. Even if we are saying mini things beyond what we know to understand, silence is the same in all languages, no? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe ..next year. We are but men and do not know these things –until God makes our coast small and gives us time to think. ( he puts his finger up to his lips) Shhh…

add foreign country, a bottle of locally specific liquor on the jailers desk, a dirty glass half full of the liquor, a few flies, an overhead fan creaking out the moving air as it cast shadows over the floor and faces of the players, subdued street noises, guns peeking out of waistbands and under arms from obviously custom rigs, a few days of beard growth on all the men except for one who is perfectly groomed and who is the only one not sweating and obviously ready to ( resigned to) sweating all the time, at least one or two idols that the jailer’s best honesty is to think is truly representative of Christianity and to whom incense is burning in a small dish throughout the whole scene, some graffti to that idol in the jail cell, tattoos on everybody except the guy not sweating. add the truth that both jailer and prisoner are deceived in the lie of free will and though they may make allusions to lack of free will and ‘things outside their mind’, their best honesty is to be deceived anyone can say and do anything they want given the “proper motivation” specifcally aimed at their will and that they all live in the only speech in total reality and that there simply is no hope of anything else and they the are most religious people they know ….there you go.

.. compare that to those who say they search for a “lost word” within their secret rituals and cannot and never could say shibboleth at all to God in the Word that is Jesus Christ, but merely keep speaking as if they had done so repeatedly and God was the one with the hearing problem:

Luke 16:19-31 Now there was a rich man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendour every day. And there was a poor man, by name Lazarus, who was laid at his gateway full of sores, and desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man; but the dogs also coming licked his sores. And it came to pass that the poor man died, and that he was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. And the rich man also died and was buried. And in hades lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he crying out said, Father Abraham, have compassion on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, recollect that *thou* hast fully received thy good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted here, and *thou* art in suffering. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that those who desire to pass hence to you cannot, nor do they who desire to cross from there pass over unto us. And he said, I beseech thee then, father, that thou wouldest send him to the house of my father, for I have five brothers, so that he may earnestly testify to them, that they also may not come to this place of torment. But Abraham says to him, They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them. But he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one from the dead should go to them, they will repent. And he said to him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, not even if one rise from among the dead will they be persuaded.

…then add again the truth that the jailer is a freemason witch with a gold tooth and that he thinks he knows a lost word and what it really means but is specifically forbidden to speak it in public. The lost words , the shibboleths he wants other people to say are beneath him to understand, no matter what they say. He thinks he is merely clever to catch other people in their primitive beliefs and make those beleifs work for him. What he says to the prisoner is just something he says to make them all think jail is temporary. He is a collector of human capital for a low-tech firm. They like to say (and advertise as much on tv in six languages) that they leverage human capital into fresh produce…

———-

Judges 12:5,6 And Gilead took the fords of the Jordan before Ephraim; and it came to pass that when the fugitives of Ephraim said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, Art thou an Ephraimite? and he said, No. Then they said to him, Say now Shibboleth! and he said, Sibboleth, and did not manage to pronounce it rightly. Then they took him, and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. And there fell at that time of Ephraim forty-two thousand.

shibboleth: stream of water

Proverbs 18:4 The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters, and the fountain of wisdom is a gushing brook.

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Proverbs 17:27,28 He that hath knowledge spareth his words; and a man of understanding is of a cool spirit. Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is reckoned wise, and he that shutteth his lips, intelligent.

Ecc 5:1-3 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and draw near to hear, rather than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool’s voice through a multitude of words.

Matthew 12:36,37 But I say unto you, that every idle word which men shall say, they shall render an account of it in judgment-day: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Tally heard the thought: “It is nice that God speaks French” ..and he understands.

Raised in an English bubble, with French spirits coming in from the side every now and then, that when translated is like listening to a stupid person that requires additional education and more work than usual to understand, ( and the constant pressure on everyone is the accusation of being perpetually under-educated) it was really nice to know that God did say things as the French at times. Being monolingual is a certain kind of deafness, in which one has to keep asking over and over for the speaker to repeat the phrase or the saying. Most of the time, after all the trouble, the effort and the rub on the patience of all concerned, it ( the whole thing..) is both a disappointment and a waste that in certain circumstances is required in the overall polite. Surely somebody somewhere had been through that, known that the overall polite isn’t necessarily a good thing and understands for the whole human race: “We’re in trouble. Something has happened here.” Even an old washer woman in Marseille could understand that, even though she knew that understanding it didn’t wash away any sins.

The weather breaks; the rain starts in a gentle downpour with hardly any thunder at all. The sound is a certain kind of sense, a talented player going through intelligent motions that are not understood and pounding away in a solitude of supposed power and an imperative to do so. Even the rain is deceived; running through the polite to deliver itself as medicine to the sick and injured accompanied by music.

Tally saw in his mind an old man from long ago, French even, but before France was France, that saw that he saw that, had stood up to protest that no one had understood (like a watchman reporting the present and distant truth to the genuinely deaf/wicked), nodding and sitting down as having passed on something real. Tally wanted to sit beside him and say nothing for at least a very long time.

He stepped from under the portico and held out his hand to catch some raindrops. Pouring his hand empty, he said: “No. It ain’t you either.”

———————

Romans 8:19-23 For the anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God: for the creature has been made subject to vanity, not of its will, but by reason of him who has subjected the same , in hope that the creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now. And not only that , but even *we* ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we also ourselves groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption, that is the redemption of our body.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

He doesn’t get it; doesn’t want to. While he was speaking for Jesus from the pulpit, they were taking oaths to Allah in secret with witchcraft rituals and giving themselves titles like “Grand Master” and “Imperial High Priest and Prophet”. They say it’s all in fun and that they are kidding –doing it for charity. After all, the congregation voted them into the office of elders and deacons: sound men of good repute.

So it’s like a jigsaw puzzle of humor: the Master Mason is one piece, the Imperial High Priest and prophet and is another; so forth; and the sum is a laugh?

Yeah. They say and smile. Exactly Like That.

The burn victim’s family is gushing with gratitude on the infomercials.

And while Dad was preaching, they had already got orders from somewhere else to lead the people astray a little bit at the same time. They always say Jesus Christ isn’t the only Way. They are not sure on que expressly so their doubts give room for another Way than that which they say they believe.

They were to have helped us all. They stayed to keep us back from error when the Church went down. They masquerade as the people God Says you have to say ‘Yes sir’ to because they are older and in office. Sunday school teachers. Principles. Lawyers. Politicians. Preachers. Business leaders. PatriSacrificers.

———————————–

He never could understand it through the years: the implications he was always doing something wrong and so wasn’t included; the small disagreements with core doctrine: their understanding is always almost perfect; just enough off to be warrant their own conversations per issue; just enough to monopolize the time meeting after meeting. I know we’re busy here. But now explain that part to me again Brother Bill…the difference between predestination and election. I don’t get that part. And I’m told I’m a smart man.

So he would diligently explain it a different way; use a different metaphor; accept their invitations to play golf; to go fishing; to eat dinner. ( He could talk to them then and say things in private they might be too embarrassed to say publicly. They were the weaker brother who needed help.) He accepted the twenties pressed into his palm to take his own family out to eat, even though for him it was really an interruption; he was always distracted in the expensive and unusual restaurant.

Always he looked for the final way to make them understand –to stop the little bit of confusion from which they suffered. It is what he talked about, argued over with the announcers on TV, prayed to God to receive to give to them. He had us looking too, though he never wanted to just accumulate wisdom. He wanted to get it to give it away. Thats who he was and what he did. He searched in books not the Bible for the perfect explanation that would win them freedom from doubt: to free them from “Yes, but..” into “yes.” and the Church into Peace. He searched the Bible for an answer to match their books. Too.

But he wouldn’t join the lodge. Grandpa had always told him: stay away from the Masons. They’ve got a loyalty only to the lodge. They do some good works. But something isn’t right. Don’t forget, Lucifer disguises himself as an angle of light –as a certain kind of mercy that ain’t mercy.

They had always understood. They provided the books. In their own nepotism of secret handshakes and code phrases, on the level and on the square, their circle of alternate brotherhood: they knew. In the city council and on the Board of the Church: they knew. In the charity drives and the little cars: they knew. With the Islamic fez and the crescent moon and star: they knew. It was never a joke: the ‘good’ Islam and ‘bad’ Islam in the war on us all from within.

He was working for them; for their benefit day and night; in prayer and out of it. He prayed before God for their benefit according to their books and their own desires. They trained him to search for the perfect metaphor that would win them over. He grew more concerned with getting them to say yes than listening to God. They set him up and he fell –for them. He did it all for them according to what they put in his heart. That had become his Christianity: the hope of the Perfect Explanation in the supposed non-interfering speech. There was nothing he could see outside of it.

But at least he was Reformed. He liked that word. He siad it often as his proof that at least he wasn’t a papist.

His life was a sacrifice he was certain, after having read their books, of which God would approve. Wasn’t God for certainty? Was God a god of confusion? Of course not! And while he was working for the confused, God took care of his own family. That’s how God is; that’s how It works. He ignored widows for them; the sick; the lame. He was studying for an Answer. Are non-widows or the healthy Less in God’s eyes?

———————————

I don’t want vengeance; wouldn’t care if I got it or gave it away. What is it? What’s it good for? Only God knows what to do with it. I’m not God.

He still doesn’t understand. It’s too much for him. He thought not understanding certain things made him better even as he searched for a certainty for them. He thought putting a mote in his own eye for the emotional stability of the whole was the Way. They taught him that, little bit by little bit. They taught everybody that through him together with some twenties for his family to get a little taste.

On his death bed he wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t do it. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. –as if God weren’t in us. He was always like that: for God in such a way that all the good people die while the angels harp a happy tune. He said that (about vengeance) after the argument that made him see what they had done; after the look on his face they would have laughed at. Jimmy Brand?! Gilbert Sousa?! The Whitehalls?! Then, moments later: That’s why Roscoe Hemmings went to First Church. He pushed to get me to join the Masons. He stared at the ceiling with a gaze that saw back through all the years and was a kind of simple hopelessness over the time spent.

They are ..what are they? Spiritual cuckolds. Deviants who prey on good faith. If the Church were their mother, they are literal Mother Fuckers: Incestuizers and Seducers while being a husband of one wife and a father who maintains his household within a certain range. They made the Church itself the idol that had to worshipped.

——————————–

Benny stands outside in the parking lot and says : You can’t do that. Your Dad..

I hold up my thumb (of all things). I remind him I have a green thumb. I can do better than this –God has proved it.. This isn’t my life or even my job. Just a temporary thing in the middle of everything else. All that Rosemary at the house? I rooted all that from sticks from the big plant out front. God did it through me. I got a green thumb—God proved it. God’s made things grow through me –done good things through me. And you can’t even say this is evil unless you use their books and swear their oaths to Lucifer. Unless you look through their eyes.

Ben says: We just have to keep looking. Have faith. We got to keep our faith! God will give us the Answer!

I never lost my faith. If anything I found it. God’s proving it right now.

I didn’t go looking for this; this came looking for me. Literally. It hunted me like all the rest. It had me while I was growing up, just like it had Dad. Looking back, Mom knew something was wrong; she just couldn’t put her finger on it. She and Grandpa didn’t get along.

I got that from them too: whatever Mom says can’t be right. Preachers wives …are preachers wives. I was there praying for their good according to what they wanted as I heard it from him. Nobody could stop me. Dad knew what he was doing. We were going for a Breakthrough together. How could Mom always be sabatoging his efforts? Why couldn’t she understand? I was there when they made everyone work for vanity. I was there! For decades.

It’s about the kids coming up. They will NOT live under the same.

Look around, Ben. Things weren’t like this when they first got here. Things weren’t like this when we got started in life. They were raised safe. Then they took over and now look at it –in one generation. It ain’t about Democrat or Republican either. It never was. It’s about what is right before God and not men.

I pull the slide back and hear the bolt slam a round in the chamber. It sounds heavy-quick: of good quality; real. You pull this trigger in a gun like this and it’ll actually go off and be ready to do it again before you can blink. Something will happen too. The Glock twenty three c is a good weapon. Nice balance. You can shoot Glock’s forever without having to clean them. Or about twenty thousand rounds worth of ammo per cleaning job. No joke. They shoot underwater for God’s sake. Only downside is plastic magazines. They wear out over time. Not like the metal magazines for a Sig Sauer or a Browning. The forty is a good caliber though. Good stopping power. Everything is a trade off: power versus portability; weight versus power; size versus overall utility; commonly available parts versus the specialized weapon; legal status of getting a permit for the different tools. You know. We got a CIA knife over here –on sale. Composite. Don’t show up on radar. X-ray either. But you probably knew that.

They say to those whose ears they think they have: You can play until the money runs out. –while they use cash as an addictive medium for the free will lie: The more money you got, the more your will is free! Who can’t use more money? You’ve won!

‘Til the money runs out you control? That the word from the Big Boss from Somewhere Else? From the Light Bearer? From the High Holy Potentate?

But justice is free; moneyless. Priceless. When God says go, the talking, the jokes is over. And God has already given His Word, even though they think there is no God except the ‘Light Bearer’, so supposedly any other He can never Speak.

It’s an old — an ancient war. This is just the current round between God in us and Lucifer in them. God brought me up the slow path. But I’m here now.

It took God a lot to get me here. It cost Him.

Glock’s don’t have a traditional safety. God in you squeezes –it goes off. So if they tell you as a last resort that you’ve forgotten to take off the safety? Don’t believe them on that one either. Just squeeze.

I’m all out of answers and technical details. Go home, Ben. I’ll be alright.

—————————————————-

2 Chronicles 36:15,16 And Jehovah the God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending; because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked at the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the fury of Jehovah rose against his people, and there was no remedy.

Ezekiel 8:7-18 And he brought me to the entry of the court, and I looked, and behold, a hole in the wall. And he said unto me, Son of man, dig now through the wall; and I digged through the wall, and behold, a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. And I went in and looked, and behold, every form of creeping thing and abominable beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. And he said unto me, Hast thou seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his chambers of imagery? for they say, Jehovah seeth us not; Jehovah hath forsaken the land. And he said unto me, Yet again thou shalt see great abominations which they do. And he brought me to the entry of the gate of Jehovah’s house that was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. And he said unto me, Seest thou, son of man? Thou shalt yet again see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Jehovah’s house, and behold, at the entry of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. And he said unto me, Seest thou, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here, that they yet fill the land with violence, and keep provoking me afresh to anger? And behold, they put the branch to their nose. And I also will deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.

Ezekiel 9:3-11 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house; and he called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s ink-horn by his side; and Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in my hearing, Go after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have pity. Slay utterly the old man, the young man, and the maiden, and little children, and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the elders who were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go forth. And they went forth, and smote in the city. And it came to pass, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah, Lord Jehovah! wilt thou destroy all the remnant of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? And he said unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness; for they say, Jehovah hath forsaken the earth, and Jehovah seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense their way upon their head. And behold, the man clothed with linen, who had the ink-horn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Chapter One

There he is.

Where?

Right there. Just behind the big cypress tree. He isn’t moving. He’s looking right at us. Look at the tree where it meets the water, trace it back up to the palmetto frond on the left. His head is between the tree and the frond. You can see the sunlight shine off the tips of his horns.

I don’t see him.

How can you not see him? He’s right there.

The black water is mirror smooth and reflects the scene before them upside down and in reverse just below the real thing. Dad inches his finger toward the trigger and raises the rifle slowly to his shoulder. The deer bolts, fading into the thick vegetation in a flash of brown, white and swaying palmettos.

The shot is lost.

There is something unsatisfactory in a shot not taken; even shots lost by other people. It isn’t the loss of the meat; hunger is only a limited threat even to the starving. It is the not finishing. Izzy hears the thought: Pull your own trigger. Anything less is unreliable.

Afterwards, when hunting on his own, he aims at the ground and squeezes the trigger just to hear the sound when he has lost the target. Taking the shot is not about killing. Or power. Yet shooting the earth doesn’t bring the satisfaction of getting the job done. It is only proof the effort still exists the way a river exists that doesn’t turn a wheel.

Over the years the shot morphs into many things completed. In Bosnia it had gone from the lost opportunity by the communications tower to taking the shot to saving her life. In Columbia it became the exposure of the Attorney General as a pedophile that just happened to delay the trial the three days they needed. In Afghanistan it was the deal on the border.

Everywhere he goes there is a possible “________” perceptible enough to mark the end of one thing and the beginning of others. But never the certainty of a big Ending.

Never the real one, eh?

————

He wheels into the parking lot, a finisher of things with the report in his pocket; parks with a view of the building. Spitting the lozenge into its wrapper, he places it on the dash. The radio speaks of rain.

Surrounded by a bustle of students and staff flowing here and there on concrete and grass thoroughfares, the biology building of Canton College stands to one side of its own parking lot in a pine and hickory isolation from the rest of the campus. A plain brick building, square with windows at regular intervals; it is an architectural experiment in keeping with what he has heard of the school: flat roof, faux columns; plumbing pipes on the exterior obviously symbolizing veins and arteries; a grand entrance of steps and benches in small nooks on several levels with multiple; automatic doors on his side complete the statement.

Izzy steps out of the truck and points the remote behind him; hears the doors lock in unison as he walks away. He pulls the parka closer around his neck and zips the collar tighter against the wind. A little weak and buzzed from the antibiotics, he moves toward a set of doors on the newly poured concrete walk and pockets the keys. Students brush by and smile at him as the breeze picks up.

Inside, at an intersection of long halls, he takes off the sunglasses; deposits them in a case he stores in a compartment in the arm of the jacket. There is a steel elevator door straight ahead of him, a sign that says ‘No Smoking’ and an emergency exit plan on the right hand wall. There is a directory of offices to the left. He finds her name and takes the elevator.

The door opens on three. Heading toward the right and hoping the numbers count upwards to match his hunch. There are no signs.

Four doors down her name is on a door. He knocks. Hearing a voice from inside, he takes it as a greeting and enters.

“I’m Izzy Baxter. I called yesterday.”

There is no one there. She comes in from a back room and smiles at him. She matches the photo.

“I remember. The Astrobiology Institute?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got the report?”

He hands it over and waits.

“Sorry I can’t offer you a chair. I think it was borrowed for the lounge.”

“That kind of thing goes on here too?”

She thumbs the report, nodding absently. “’Fraid so.”

A picture on the desk in front of him stares out at him. It is familiar and quiet in solid object certainty while he waits for the verdict. He wonders how much it will weigh when he picks it up.

“So it’s only been removed from the substrate for .. seventeen hours?”

He looks at his watch; does the math. “That’d be about right. Plus one.”

“But you called me yesterday..”

“I was asked to get a specialist to look at it. It’s in route to our facilities.”

“And all you have is the hand?”

“It will be there when you arrive.”

“Uh huh.” She flips the page. “That means you don’t have it now.”

The photograph is still there retaining its weight and rosewood shine. It is a cutout of a man’s head against a blue paper background. The man is looking down and to the right with a tired, haunted gaze through reddened eyes that shine from the bottom up. He is old, with a few days worth of white whiskers. The sparse, white hair of his head needs a comb. His shirt is unbuttoned. A dirty T-shirt wet with sweat is showing beneath. The mouth is slightly opened in an exaggerated exhale frozen by the camera. His expression is one of a tiredness deeper than bone. Frustration and a fatigue that can easily have been mistaken for insanity pour out of the photo.

“Any photos of it in situ?”

“No. Sorry. It surprised everyone. Not one of those things you go prepared for –that way.”

“I see. How did you get my name?”

“We know some of the same people. The work you did for the I-R-C? You’re rather well known, I take it. You came highly recommended.”

“The B-R-C?”

“I-R-C. You proved the victims, the bones unearthed at Astara, on the Caspian Sea were ritually killed with a blow to the back of the head.”

She looks at his clothes. “Okay. I have all the things I need here. If you could bring it…”

“We would like to keep the news of the discovery to ourselves for reasons I can’t go into here. I think they’ll be obvious when you see it.” A peal of thunder booms simultaneous with a flash of lightening just outside the window, shaking the building. “I don’t mean to be short. But we are pressed for time. Our facilities are up to date and will have any equipment you may need.”

“I really don’t like to go elsewhere if I don’t have to.” She looks at the report again. “Where was it found?”

“I can’t say.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t know what to say.

He looks around the office. She is an attractive woman with straight brown hair which she wears long, with a clip that holds it out of her face that somehow manages to enhance its shine. Her make-up is one step up from utilitarian. She keeps up with the fashions. She doesn’t like them. She is surrounded by interesting but odd things to stare at, placed at random around the office. There is a deer antler, chewed on one end with teeth marks exposing the marrow. A pine knot shaped vaguely like a bird’s head with green lichen growing on it is perched next to the window. Shards from ancient pottery are arranged in a display case. Each piece is numbered, arranged and held in place by a number of copper nails. There is a small charcoal drawing of what the whole would look like if assembled and a handwritten note of its origin. There are exotic plants with stunning blooms; old, leather bound books.

“That has to be rare.”

She looks up and follows his gaze to an orchid in a glass case. A color photo of the bloom is taped to the glass.

“Just difficult. Paphiopedilum appletonianum. Hasn’t bloomed since I’ve had it. I never can get the humidity right. Why not?”

He shrugs apologetically. “That either. But I think when you see it that will take care of itself.”

She peruses the report. “When will I see it —if I take the job. When will you expect a preliminary and final report? I generally like to have at least ten full working days to do the analysis and at least another four to submit the findings.”

“I’ve heard you like to say that, but that you usually have it in three days. This time if it’s true you won’t need to make a report. Just a yes will suffice.”

“If what is true?”

“That’s all I can say at this time.” At this time? It seems such a formal thing to say. He wishes for something better.

“That’s not very much.”

“The money will compensate for the rest.”

“Beyond the money..”

“And because you will have to know.”

She looks straight at him for the first time. “Why?”

“It’s one of those reasons you do what you do.” He extends his hand. “Sorry. I can’t leave it.”

She hands him the report. He is tall and a little thin. Jeans. Boots. Nice jacket—the kind of particular equipment not found in every sporting goods store. Short hair. Clean shaven. Muscular but not bulky. Military. Maybe intel. She has seen his type before. Very clear, plain eyes that ask and answer in less than a second with no accusation. He looks as if he would be very quick for a guy his size on a better day.

“I’ll send a car for you. Tomorrow. Here? Say eight o’clock?”

She nods. “Eight o’clock.”

He closes the door behind him and folds the report back into his pocket. He is glad this part is over.

Heading toward the elevator, the sound of laughter drifting into the hall from another office, he thinks of the mission; of Bobby. Pushing the button for the ride, he waits.

The laughter spills out, filling every thought.

He has never heard anything like it. Is it a gym? For what? He thinks of being that kind of buff as if thinking of another being with his name.

When he was younger, in those days with Dad or even a few years ago, he would have wanted to say all the things he thought on hearing it to someone who would understand: genuinely deep and unexpected things worthy of the time to say them. They come involuntarily: thoughts like living beings, certainties that he knows the other person will know hurtling into the same privacy with the laughter. They would have been his side of very good and satisfying conversation, the kind you only have once every couple of years at best and remember always. But having got them in mind, there is no one with which to share them and no time even if there was.

The door opens. He steps forward, the elevator closes with a soft whish, mechanically sealing the laughter and the floor from behind him and descends.

—————————————————————–

The car is punctual.

Riding through the Virginia countryside she begins to make plans for the summer with Beth Ann. For the first time since Sam’s death, she will be alone.

Florida University has accepted Beth Ann. Their arguments about it being so far away have only further strained an already tense time. Over the past few weeks they both have come to realize things are changing. After this seeing each other will never be the same. She wants to plan but doesn’t want to force anything. Wanting only to create a good memory for the both of them, she is lost in her thoughts of a vacation in the mountains as the hours roll by.

A complex that sharpens into buildings as they drive closer brings her to the present. The driver stops at a gate some distance from the main compound and speaks into a speaker, “Dr. Mary Black.”

The gate swings open. They drive past a small brown sign with white lettering: “Crenshaw Humming Research Division in Association with The Astrobiology Institute: a division of the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“NASA. Crenshaw Humming. The big leagues.”

The driver nods at her in the rear view mirror. “Yes, ma’am.” They drive past armed guards roving in golf carts. Geese with orange tags on their legs roam freely inside the fence. A few burros can be seen grazing.

—–

From an upstairs window, a young man looks out, spotting the approaching vehicle. “She’s here.”

Jack Wallace walks over to the window. He swirls the ice in his glass, watching her get out of the car. “They look the same as us.”

“Maybe they are.”

“Then we’d be right already? But then we would be out of the research business, wouldn’t we? And who knows? Maybe we’re wrong. And if we’re wrong, well, we’re already in ancient world that really does know more than we do.”

“We are the only intelligent unknown.”

——

Mary sees Baxter coming through the large, double doors.

“Good trip?”

“No complaints. What’s with the geese? Donkeys at NASA?”

He motions her toward the door. “Burros. The geese are very territorial–better than guard dogs for making noise. If anyone wanted to break in here they wouldn’t be scared of a dog anyway. The geese are cheaper too. Besides,” he says as the door slides shut behind them, “they make us popular with the wildlife people. The coyotes come for the geese. The burros kill the coyotes that don’t care about the noise.”

“Why would someone want to break in here?”

“A flaw in their upbringing. It happens.”

Marine guards escort them to the elevators.

“Burros kill coyotes?”

“They don’t hunt them. They just won’t tolerate them in the same area.”

“I didn’t know that.”

They begin to descend, standing silently for some time. He smiles at her, doing his best bureaucrat imitation to set her at ease.

“Are you alright?”

“Just in a hurry.” he replies quietly. “And out of practice with..”

“Civilians? You did okay yesterday. Marginal.”

He shrugs inoffensively and stars at the buttons on the elevator. “They have a casual outlook on everything. Their conversation is always fake.”

She smiles. “And you fake the fake just to get by.”

“Only for as long as it takes.”

A moment later the elevator stops.

The doors open to a steel grated balcony; stairs to their left lead down to the concrete floor beneath. Large, clear panels partition the room into smaller, rectangular laboratory and office cubicles. One central walkway runs the length of the large room.

Men and women in shirt sleeves sit arguing at a table in one of the larger offices near the foot of the stairs. Several of them look up at them as they walk down the steps. Everyone falls silent as they walk past.

At the end of the walkway, Izzy turns into a small lab, followed by an older man in white tennis shoes and lab coat. The small, steel briefcase he carries is carefully laid on the nearest counter. In a soft Russian accent he says, “I am here for ice while you study hand.”

For his part, Dr. Dmitri Pavolvitch sees a younger woman who looks at him with a direct, wide open stare. She is perhaps mid to late forties, naturally attractive, intelligent eyes, dark brown hair. She seems nice enough but has an expression that is a mixture of curiosity, apprehension and incredulity. There is a practical look about her, like a queen or a mother; a family sort of person, not very vain or arrogant, that has had any youthful vanity run out of her by caring for someone and being cared for in return. He knows looking at her face that she has children. The past is etched in her face. A hesitance, a guarded softness in her eyes, says she is sophisticated in a certain way, but not deceptive.

He likes her immediately and hears the thought “Sophisticated for defensive purposes only.” He smiles and laughs to himself.

“What?” Izzy is looking at him.

“Nothing”.

It shows that he likes her She fingers a small scar over one eyebrow and looks at the case.

Placing the steel case on a nearby bench, he opens it and takes out a large, clear container in which is a smoky haze.

“You placed it in nitrogen?!”

“Bad?”

She isn’t sure he is kidding until he says, “Wink.”

She knows she is supposed to laugh but frowns instead. He has the same sense of the absurd as Sam. Even though she knows it is a setup– it has been years– she says “You don’t say wink. It’s something you do.”

“Oh? It is C oh two.” He smiles.

Izzy frowns and clears his throat. “Am I the only one in a hurry here?” He taps a code in the keypad and the top slides open. The haze has obscured a cylinder of ice in which is clearly a human hand.

“I thought you said it was mummified?” she asks.

“That’s why you’re here.” Izzy points out the various instruments available. “Everything that you should need is here. We have x-ray facilities available as well, of course. You can call for anything more you’ll need on the intercom.” He points to the intercom on the wall.

Pavolvitch assists her until he has the ice.

Izzy points to the conference room. “We’ll be there.”

They walk away without another word.

She is alone and speaks to the silence as if it is a judge. “Okay.”

——

Baxter and Dmitri stand at the other end of the corridor, watching the technicians come and go.

“I said nothing. You said nothing. She doesn’t…”

“Then why are you defending yourself already? Wink?” Izzy said. “No wonder I’m not married. I can’t be that lame on purpose.”

Dmitri grins. “You’ve got to learn to relax, Israel. Today there is emergency. Tomorrow is emergency. Emergency everywhere. All the time! We go on living in the middle of them all. Did you notice?”

“What?”

“The ring.” Dmitri holds up his index finger. “She still wears her ring. Her husband has been dead almost two years.”

“No. I didn’t notice.”

Dmitri grips his arm. “She will find what there is to be found.”

They turn to the on-going conference to postpone the inevitable questions.

——

The x-rays reveal a human hand clutching a small, rectangular object. Mary waits for some time after getting the images for the technicians to return with the hand. By the time she gets it back it is thawing. A heat gun speeds things along after she has taken baseline photographs, measurements and weight.

The hand isn’t mummified at all.

It is ‘fresh’, as they say in school. There is no frostbite damage. She checks carefully again. But there is no tissue damage at all.

She does the microscopy of skin and muscular tissue. After looking at the tissue, she isn’t really sure why she has been called at all.

Never aware of her gift in any way which qualified as recognition, she has never been able name it, only understanidng that at the beginning of an investigation everyone seems to expect something of her. There is an odd kind of pressure. The only way she knows they have been satisfied is when they turn away.

Sam, in a rare, lucid moment before he his death had said she had a smooth combination of clarity and curiosity that would take her places. He had said she recognized beginnings and that she should recognize his passing as one for herself.

She loves that he said it. She repeats it sometimes; now to herself as she steps back and looks at the question.

She goes through the whole examination again, step by step. They would not have called her if they didn’t want her particular expertise. This is NASA. Crenshaw Humming.

Thinking the hand was mummified had been a mistake. But it is the natural assumption given the visual stimulus and the substrate.

She does a battery of telomeric tests. Not trusting the results, she does the tests again. Testing the equipment and doing the tests a third time afterwards, she stares at the confirmed results. “That’s not possible.”

——————————————

Revelation 4:1 After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying, Come up here, and I will shew thee the things which must take place after these things.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

It hadn’t rained in months.

A few sprinkles here and there had cooled things off. But no serious, steady rain had come in over sixty-three days.

Even as he watched it fall, hour after hour, it took most of the afternoon for Ken to realize the rain wasn’t worth hating and that standing in the rain knowing something was wrong with the world didn’t help him or the world. It made an impact on him the same way the air got heavier but didn’t keep him warm. He gave up standing and walking in it as way of understanding it with the same stoic grimace as when he finally stopped chasing the feeling he heard on somebody else’s guitar over the radio and packed his own away.

He went inside and changed.

When it did finally hit him that the weather wasn’t an interruption but a replacement of his plans, he sat down on the porch steps watching the water fall in steady thunder on the roof and searching for another reason to get away. At least for the next week, watering the garden wasn’t necessary.

It was almost four o’clock.

He didn’t care about getting wet. But there needed to be an efficency in the reason.

In just a little while she would be home. Something would start it up and she would be yelling again. She wouldn’t stop until she fell asleep.

Even though he knew at the bottom of it all he was just getting away from her words, still he wanted there to be a genuineness in his absence, a reality to hold up in the stead of the honesty she would use as more wood for her fire. If you was a man you wouldn’t be scared o’ me.

She never stopped.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes.

The rain hadn’t slowed since it began. That was good. They needed the rain; even desperately.

Without another thought he stood up, put on his hat and walked out into the rain, straight ahead and into the puddles forming in the dirt driveway. Soaked almost immediately, his overalls taking on the dark of wet and sagging with the weight, he headed toward the road in the opposite direction from which he knew she would come.

Lightning spread in crooked fingers all around him, crashing in thunder that rolled from what seemed arms length away into the distance. Car lights from up ahead appeared through the rain.

He walked on.

A few minutes later a truck went by, lumbering down the dirt road behind him and sloshing the water out of the ruts in the clay. He stood to one side and watched it disappear in the rain again.

The water in the ditches crept out over the road and onto the fields on either side. Weaving in and out of rushing water that ran down the ruts, he walked on wondering if he was only a quarter of a mile away by now and hoping it was a half a mile.

He topped the hill and started down the other side, knowing that if it stopped raining she couldn’t see him even if she looked this way.

He wasn’t walking out.

He was just going for a walk without making a point of it. Somehow he would know when it was over. Maybe it would be her voice, or an event unknown as yet. But one way or another he would be back with her. And her voice.

He stopped suddenly and looked at his watch. It was four-thirty. It seemed no time at all since he had taken the first step. He remembered the water, the puddles and the truck. They were no reason at all.

He walked on in a stumbling gait on the slippery road, holding his hand up now and then to see what was ahead.

A car had been abandoned. He could see both rear tires were buried in the mud. There wasn’t anyone inside.

He walked on.

Bobby Williams drove up in his big, new truck. Carol Lintel was sitting beside him. The radio blared country music. Bobby rolled the window down. “You need a ride, Ken?”

Ken didn’t answer, just stared ahead and then back at the truck.

“What are you doin’ out here? Get in! I’ll drive you home.”

Ken searched Bobby’s eyes for a reason and saw Carol frown.

“No thanks. Ya’ll go ahead.” He waved a thank you, turned and walked on.

The truck sat there a moment and pulled slowly away.

Later, several hills later and down by the bridge, he played the scene over in his head. Bobby would surely stop by and tell her where he was. Bobby would ask if something were wrong–which would only add fuel to her fire. He could hear her already. You embarressed me! How dare you! Bobby and that new woman of his –who just divorced Ed Jenkins by the way!–stopped by here and told me you were walking away..in the RAIN! Do you know what that makes me look like! Me!? You ain’t even got a job, I’m supportin’ the both of us and now I’m the one made to look bad?! No sir! No way! You’re gonna….

She would go on for hours and not even take a breath. Jesus would come up. He would of course agree to everything she said and if He was present would’ve added more besides.

He leaned on the bridge wondering why God let people do that. They used the name of Jesus for every heinous thing imaginable and it seemed God never said a word about it. If God was the one everybody appealed to ultimately, why did He let this go on? Sometimes it seemed as if God was against Himself through other people. If that was true…

He dispaired of understanding. Without understanding, nothing would change. It would just go on and on and no one would stop. He thanked God for the rain and prayed for understanding before he got home.

The wind picked up. He closed his collar and sat on the rail, watching the water rush by beneath.

A while later, he hopped down and walked on. Tiptoeing between ruts with a hunched back and exaggerated step, and avoiding the small puddles like a victory, he didn’t hear the car until it parked behind him. He turned to say no thanks when he saw it was her.

They stared at each other through the window.

He searched for a reason, or at least a little softness in her eyes.

But she was angry, irrespective of her uncertain smile and wave to get in the car.

He disliked her for a moment, even as he loved her. She didn’t know how to be real. Everything she did was to prove she knew what other peoples love was: every movement a probe, a test to get the same reaction the other people got when they used words like love and marriage. I’m doin’ it right. You ain’t got a clue.

How could she not know that?! She was the one.

He knew how to give the reaction she wanted to prove she was doing love. It was easy. If he did it just right they would make love tonight and there would be quietness for a day or for an hour.

He couldn’t fake it, at least not now. Not any more.

She rolled down the window an inch. “Get in!”

“I ain’t done yet.”

Lightning struck a tree on top of the hill. The thunder boomed across the field and over them, shaking the bridge.

“What are you doin’ but gettin’ wet?! Get in before you get sick! I can’t take off work to take care of you! We can’t afford…”

He turned and walked down the bridge, starting in a hesitant stride. She was like a magnet for him; always had been.

She was the one.

But not like this.

He walked on.

She grabbed him from behind and whirled him around. “You leavin’ me?!”

“No. I’m just goin’ for a walk. I’ll come home when I get home.”

She wiped her hair out of her face. “Bobby stopped by with his latest woman. Said you looked sad.”

“Get in the car before you get sick. I’ll be home later.”

“I love you.”

He turned in exasperation. “No, you don’t. You try. I know you try. You get as close to what them other people say is love as you can. But that love is just somethin’ to hold up in front of those other people…like a trophy from the fair. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.”

“I love you no matter what you say. I love you. That’s it. I don’t need your say so.”

“Go home. I’ll…be there later.”

“I want you there now.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

She stood there searching for what to say next. She thought of books and poems and Shakespeare and the women on TV. She thought of Jesus and the preacher and what they would say. She started several times to say something.

He disappeared in the rain toward the top of the hill.

She turned around on the bridge and drove toward home, fidgeting at first with the radio and then turning if off. The squeak and whump of the wipers timed his walk away.

He walked on searching for why he missed her when she wasn’t there. When he was engaged he would have said it was her simple laughter. A few years back it would have been her quiet assurance of things being right. But he had work at the mill then.

The rain slowed down to a drizzle and a breeze picked up. Shivering slightly, he finally turned around just shy of the old iron stob that everyone said was the old surveying landmark and that the surveyors said no one used any more. Even covered in weeds and mud it was its own spot just by reputation, situated on the other side of the ditch; three quarters of a mile from Johnson’s store.

Three steps back and he remembered what had happened. Somewhere, somehow she had gotten a new sense of humor. It had come from church and from work, from her folks and from his. It had come from him. It had taken him all this time to see it. Something invisible had come and stolen her while she was still standing there.

He nodded as he sloshed through the mud, the sound of birds once more filtering through the dusk. Nothing last forever, not even drought.

The more he knew God the more he was aware. There had been a promise of her, of everyone never fulfilled in all these years. They all pretended it was the humor and that the humor fulfilled all the promises. But as he walked he knew one day that real joy was coming, like a rain with hands and break the back of humor.

Turning back again he hopped the ditch and made his way through the soggy grass to the old iron stob. Taking out his pocket knife, he began cutting the grass and weeds away from it in a wide circle, beating back the onslaught of weeds that threatened a reputation; a promise.

Staying put was a defeat for him in her system; running away was worse in his. He knew God wouldn’t let him leave and yet had held her in ignorance that set her against him.

And Jesus is Christ; upright. God is perfect; holy.

—————————————————

Psalm 22:1-5 To the chief Musician. Upon Aijeleth-Shahar. A Psalm of David.

My *God, my *God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou far from my salvation, from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry by day, and thou answerest not; and by night, and there is no rest for me: And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel. Our fathers confided in thee: they confided, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered; they confided in thee, and were not confounded.

And Job said: Job 9:20-24 If I justified myself, mine own mouth would condemn me; were I perfect, he would prove me perverse. Were I perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life. It is all one; therefore I said, he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the scourge kill suddenly, he mocketh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given over into the hand of the wicked man ; he covereth the faces of its judges. If not, who then is it?

Job 42:7 And it came to pass after Jehovah had spoken these words to Job, that Jehovah said to Eliphaz the Temanite, Mine anger is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken rightly of me, like my servant Job.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

“Law enforcement was serious business back then—like it is today.”

Gab nods and smiles. He nods and smiles at everything.

We’re standing in front of the old Shady Rest juke joint. It’s run down now; a of concrete block shell: collapsed roof; vines everywhere. All that’s left of its former glory is the chipped paint, broken glass, a few beer cans from several generations, weeds spilling out the front windows; trees coming through and shading everything else.

The only thing that looks new, alive and authentic to the name (if you don’t know its history) is the huge oak trees with big, knotty roots and Spanish moss that swings easily in the breeze. They were probably here back then too. But trees always look new and alive no matter how big they get and you never really know how long they’ve been there.

Every time I come by here I think of a big, forties-looking sheriff’s car. It’s the kind of place a snake would live in: not much traffic, other small creatures for food, an excuse of any kind would work no matter what happened because there isn’t anybody else to say otherwise, except on those occassions when God comes around. –The kind with the big bubble on top and the yesteryear siren? “Sheriff” painted on the side with a single, big star and a little beat up. Couches for seats. No seat belts. A thirty eight special and twelve gauge shotgun for armament. Tragedy on wheels for a writer in the south.

One day I’m going to write a story about this place. It’ll have old, tinny blues music, sweat, the drinking of liquor, mason jars and period clothes. Tobacco. Law enforcement. Grits. Salvation. Screen porches and doors. Someone will say “What’ch you doin’ boy?” and something about New York and up north. Racial stuff. It’ll have souls and spirits and characters recognizable to the general public as people because of the emotions they’ll do. One group will be ‘out’ and another will be ‘in’. It won’t be a comedy. It’ll make a statement about God, the human condition. Love. Everything. Maybe even make peace between everybody up north and everybody down south.

Gab must be thinking the same thing. He lets out a “WaaaaAAAAA!” that starts out low and gets louder like the old sirens. I nod and grin.

Hank jumps. I laugh. He was lost in his own thoughts and Gab’s siren must have sounded like an alien, demon spirit from the pit of all the evil that took place here suddenly moving through to inspect his domain. Possession. (Hey—that too.). Everything. A prison or road gang angle. Women. People with cars and those without them. Mules. Hound dogs. Huntin’. Dancing and sex will be implied but not demonstrated.

The wind picks up and the moss brushes my face. I’m standing under the shade. You too, brother. Old oak trees and Spanish moss. Lemonade. Church. Fresh cut lumber. Turpentine. Guilty laughter. Clean fun.

It started out and finished a juke. No one recalls the owner’s name—or what happened that closed it down. But they do say he changed the name to Shady Rest (from ‘Traveler’s Rest’) because it is what the locals had taken to calling it: he sold beer; moonshine under the table and played that music. As deep a sin pit as there ever was.

Somebody will take a sip in that story. And a bite. Bobcats. Alligators. A body. The swamp.

We’re out walking because we had a flat tire. We usually drive by this place and don’t stop. It’s not spooky per se. It’s just that nobody really has any business here anymore.

We were on the other side of the road, but Hank just helped a turtle to cross the asphalt faster. They tend to be slow and get run over with some frequency. The sign is still here and creaks on its hinges. There will be a repetition of the same mistakes over and over.

A woman in a car drives by. We stare stupidly to make it obvious we’re just visitors and don’t know where we are.

Gab lives just up the road. We can bring his truck down. It’s got the tools we need. But the air is hot now and we’re soaked through already.

It’ll have shade too, that story–some relief beyond ‘I saw it and understood it.’ And somebody will come home and everything will be alright. Except for one character. One family. Somebody always takes a hit.

Tall grass. Turtles. Roads. A perfect, Red Delicious apple. Everything.

For now we stand here and wait. We see what we can see and be what we can be in the small concrete square of the old patio. A moment will come and we’ll know the time to move on has come. A breeze or maybe someone we know will blow by. Perhaps the sun will go down beyond the overhang of the old oak’s branches or moss. We’ll just know.

Hank kicks a can toward the tree and sighs.

The turtle? He’s not moving and has no expression on his face.

——————————————————

Isaiah 34:13-17 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in her fortresses; and it shall be a dwelling-place of wild dogs, a court for ostriches. And there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the lilith also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest. There shall the arrow-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there also shall the vultures be gathered one with another. Search ye in the book of Jehovah and read: not one of these shall fail, one shall not have to seek for the other; for my mouth, it hath commanded, and his Spirit, it hath gathered them. For he himself hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them with the line: they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

The blueberries are just coming in here in the panhandle. Blueberries—not gooseberries. Let the reader beware the difference. We had good rains this winter, even this spring, so it should be a good year for berries.

Nobody wants to pick the small berries—the ones with the real flavor. Not even me –and I know they taste good.

You go and see the bush and all you really do is gage two things: size and color. Blue with a little frosting—that’s good. Big is good. But small with a deep blue/black translucence to it—that’s best. It’s sweet with just a bit of tart to it. The best of berry pickers pick them all. The best pies have a mixture of all sizes and shapes.

There are teardrop shaped berries. Round berries. Squat, big-middle berries. Football shaped berries. They all get ripe at different times, even different berries on the same cluster on the same bush. So the season is spread from late April/May to July/early August.

Most people around here pick a certain amount generally known as enough–and never for cash: personal consumption. That amount is indicated by the size of the container. You take a quart jar, you get a quart. You take a ‘large bowl’, you get a large bowl of berries. Works for most people. Not Dad.

I’m at one bush, he’s at another. “How much have you got?” I mean—it’s hot. Rattlesnake season coincides with berry season as well. No kidding. I killed one last year longer than I am tall.

“Seven hundred and eighty nine.”

“How much is that?”

He knows other people’s units of measure, even as he counts in his own. “About a quart.”

But it is not as through you could keep track of how many berries in a quart. So I don’t really know how much longer we’re gonna be here. Different sizes—different shapes and different bushes—different amounts per quart.

I suppose as I pick that somewhere in heaven someone is writing down “Seven hundred and eighty nine blueberries almost makes a quart”—it’s the secret number that runs the crisis algorithm of the universe. God says: Seven eighty nine? Angel says: Check. Another age (dispensation actually, but we won’t go there) begins. It’s crucial not just that he pick the berries for personal consumption, but that he count them, I ask, he says in my hearing “seven hundred and eighty nine” and “almost a quart.”.Something clicks into place—the universe is saved. But not for long. Somewhere another crisis has developed: it’s not just the berries.

—————-

We go for a walk.

“How far do you think we’ve come?”

“..eight hundred ninety seven, ninety EIGHT, ninety NINE, NINE HUNDRED. Be quiet –it throws me off.”

Saved again. Mars spins on.

But the odd thing is he can be ordinary—if not cavalier on other numbers.

“You got any coke left?”

“A little.”

“Overdrawn again?”

“I don’t know what happened.”

——————-

It’s an odd thing. At the exact moment of crisis, he becomes entranced with the particular. Large asteroid headed towards earth—Dad starts counting. “That’s over two thousand.” We only hear about the asteroid later as it skips off the atmosphere.

“Two thousand what?”

“Peas. Zipper creams. That’s approximately four-fifths of a five gallon bucket of pods in which the pods are laid vertically in rows, not just all thrown in. Throw these hulls out for your mother.”

——————–

There’s one number that never changes in his mind. It’s the maximum number of persons that have been regular attenders at any church at which he has been the pastor: Fifty Five. Not the people on the rolls. The people who actually showed up.

His buddies from seminary? Hundreds. The guys on TV: thousands. Dad: fifty five.

He’s always viewed money, blueberries and such as a race. The more you have than zero the more distance between you and where you started and the faster you get away from what might catch you from behind. Know where you are. There is no such thing as too much or too fast.

But souls are a different arena altogether. The person in front of him is the speed limit. Even God only goes so fast so nothing flies apart.

I say he’s too nice. He beats around the bush. The big names are mostly in heresy anyway to get the numbers they do. Dad’s heard the arguments: mix a little heresy on purpose to draw the people and the then zap ‘em with the gospel when they get there. Funny thing. No zap. Crowds get bigger. Can’t zap ‘em now, the new building has to be paid for. If they actually told the truth, they would be back at the speed limit and wouldn’t be getting ahead. They’ve grown used to it now. There is Christian PR to be done in the overall culture. But the soul in front of you? Nice to meet you. Have you heard of our new members class? Otherwise you’re fired. Gotta have those people skills.

—————————–

Dad’s doing the speed limit in an old clunker car.

But he’s real. But it burns him sometimes. It makes him small in his own eyes, almost a failure. He knows he shouldn’t compare. But he does—until the next person in front of him. So the encounter is a strange mix of revelation and catastrophe-he-is-abruptly-getting-over-on-the-spot; smooth road and speech bump. He wants to say the thing that blesses you AND the thing to make you come back and come back and come back. Instead God says the truth and its catastrophe for us all; it is a rebuke. We don’t realize it’s a blessing until weeks and years afterward. The big numbers are a fly that buzzes him while he’s speaking. It’s the same with me. I think it’s the same with everybody.

If you tried to read him emotionally and you didn’t know Christ you’d go insane. When you meet him you’re a soul and his speed limit. God gives himself to you through my Dad. You can’t speed either—which can be its own catastrophe. The thing about the Anchor of the soul is that you don’t move. And the world is going by at the speed of light.

We’re on our way back from a church God’s starting. Today’s sermon was ‘I have received of the Lord.’ It was communion Sunday. It was just me and him and God. Mother wouldn’t go. After it gets going and there is a crowd she’ll waltz right in. “That’s my husband.” “I used to teach Bible studies.” She’s got words prepared already to make people stay at the speed of light. All she needs is a crowd. She used them today on herself and stayed home to watch the TV pastors as the camera swept over the crowd.

He slows down and looks at the gages on the dash. “See there?” he says. “Twenty seven point eight miles per gallon. Bet you can’t do that.”

———————————————————

Psalm 37:16 The little that the righteous hath is better than the abundance of many wicked;

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

He’s bending over the tractor as I drive up. “Come on over here and pick this up”, he says as I get out of the truck.

That’s Mr. Charlie–all business. No ‘good morning’, just straight to it.

I go over and pick up the back of the planter so he can fit the cotter pins that hold it in place.

“Now we got to go get some gas and go home and get my sixes.”

“What’s that?”

“My sixes! The plates that go in the planter. It lets a seed kernel of corn drop every six inches. We’re gonna plant them pretty close together today. Usually I use eights or nines. But not for this time of year.”

“Yes, sir.”

We drive out past an old tobacco barn growing up in weeds. He grimaces looking at it and says nothing. The wood is strong, but brown, grey with drought, stress. It’s my ideal of the color of patience. We go get gas, the plates; we’re back.

He walks over and checks the planter again; points to one of the hoppers.

“Can you get this one here open? I can’t get it to move, it’s a hard one.”

I reach over and pry the pin open. I’m back from the Army two years now and here to help him plant a few rows of corn today. He doesn’t need anything from me but muscle.

Mr. Charlie’s been planting corn for over seventy years with no irrigation and has lost only two crops. Today he wants to roll the dice one more time. It’s late August. One of the crops he lost was this year–it didn’t rain for three months straight.

“My fingers won’t do what I tell em’ to do anymore, after that doctor had my arm all constricted the way he did.” He works his fingers for the pleasure of it. “I tell you, I’m glad to get that cast off!” He looks the whole apparatus over and nods and rotates his hand and wrist. “That’s fine. I’ll drive over to the patch and we’ll fill’er up over there.” He climbs into the seat of the old tractor. A few tries and it’s purring. It sounds very …reliable.

I go for the truck, get in and see a way around the trees. I’m in a ‘73 Chevy beater truck with no reverse gear. I busted the reverse clutch in the transmission pulling out azalea stumps last year. His dust trail leads over the dirt road and we’re there before I have time to get hot.

“Yeah, ” he nods and says as if in reply to climbing off the tractor and leaning on the planter, “I’m glad we’re startin’ early. It’s supposed to get up to ninety something again today after some showers. I can’t stand that like I used to could.”

“You want the thirteen-thirteen-thirteen or the five-ten-ten first?” I ask.

“It don’t matter none. Just pour it on in the hopper there.” He pulls a small wrench out of his back pocket and tightens a fitting. “I’ll have to adjust this thing back here so it don’t let too much out. Otherwise the corn won’t come up. That thirteen-thirteen-thirteen will eat it up– burn it before it even breaks the …you know, surface.”

“So you want the five-ten-ten?”

“It don’t matter none.”

“Yes, sir.”

I bring a bag of fertilizer and dump it into the hopper. “That enough?” I ask.

He looks at it and says “We’ll start with that and see how we do. You got the seed?”

“Yes, sir.” I pull out a bag of seed corn and hand it to him.

“How much did you get?”

“Six pounds.”

“What is it?”

“Golden Queen.”

“Well, that’ll be alright. That’s really just a yellow ‘Silver Queen’. Couldn’t get any of that sixty day variety?”

“No sir. All they had at the co-op was ‘Silver Queen’ or ‘Golden Queen’. They said it would take more than two weeks to order anything else and that was if they could get it this time of year. I wanted to wait and see what I could get in Tallahassee. But Dad went ahead and bought it. I said if he was going to do it anyway we should get yellow corn. That’s my preference anyway.”

“How much was it?” he said, measuring out the corn into the two seed hoppers equally.

“We got a deal on it because he said it was so late in the year. It’s regularly seven dollars a pound. But we got it for five.”

“Well, that’s not bad.”

“No, sir.”

He gets on the tractor and squints toward the end of the row. Finally he pulls his hat down to shade his face and puts the tractor in gear, lowers the planter and he’s off. He goes slow, making sure he’s got his landmark still in sight but checking the rate of flow of the fertilizer and the corn occasionally.

He’s back. “Well, that’s four rows! Look at that. Can’t nobody say Charlie Walker can’t plow a straight row. But I think this thing back here needs adjustin’. I didn’t do anything but go down and back and look at all the fertilizer that’s gone.”

He steps down, pulls a larger wrench out from under the seat and adjusts the hopper. “Alright, let’s try it again!” He goes down and back again. “That’s just about perfect!” he says as he swings the tractor around for another run.

I nod and smile and he’s off again. After several more rounds he needs more fertilizer. “Don’t fill it up all the way. I don’t think we’ll need it and it’s hard to get out of the hopper once you put it in.” He climbs down and works his arm again.

“How many rows do you think we’ll end up with?” I ask.

“Twenty-four.” he says as if it were already done.

I start to put the empty bags in the back of the truck and he taps my shoulder and points at the end of the row. “You don’t never want to plant all the way to the end or out to the road. If you do the rainwater ‘ll just run right off. I been working this field for twenty-five years now; took it over when your granddaddy got tired of havin’ his calves shot ‘cause he wouldn’t let nobody hunt back in here.”

He takes off his hat and swipes his forehead with his arm. Squinting across the field, he says, “Now you look at this field. It’s as level as can be. When it rains all that water stays right here. I plow it one way one year and the other way another year and it don’t all get dragged to one side.” He turns me around by the shoulders. “Now look. Can you see ‘ol Summer’s field over there?”

I look past the line of trees and see the field next to ours. It hasn’t been plowed this year and is high in weeds.

“He plows the same direction every year. Ten years ago I told him he needed to go at it from another direction. He wouldn’t listen. Now one side of his field is a full eighteen inches higher than the other. Every time it rains he has to dig out his driveway again– keeps wonderin’ why.” He laughs to himself and gets back up on the tractor. He makes several more rounds.

“That’s twenty-four.” he says.

“Mr. Charlie, that’s more corn than all of us put together are gonna eat. Between the corn and the peas and squash, cucumbers and okra we’ve already got planted, we’ll have more than we can give away.”

“Nobody ever has more than they can give away. And this is gonna be the best corn we ever planted! The signs is in the heart today. Yesterday they wanted to plant but I said if you’d help me I’d rather plant today–yesterday’s signs was in the arms.” He stretches out his arms. His hands tremble slightly like a preacher, like Moses hands stretched out over the Red Sea. Then he smiles and drops his arms. “That’s O.K. for vining things like pumpkins and winter squash and such. But the heart sign is the best of all for corn and things that grow up and bushy. The weatherman said it wasn’t gonna rain so I waited.” The wind blows with the scent of rain over the field. “Well, I got some seed left over and some fertilizer. I’ll drive back under the shed yonder and we’ll unload.”

I follow him around and we unload and save what we didn’t use. I thought we were supposed to plant it until we ran out of seed. I don’t say anything as I store the remnants of the bag behind the seat in the truck.

“Well, ” he says, leaning on the truck before we go, “We did our part. Now it’s up to the Lord.”

They’re First Baptist. Free will all the way. Democrats. They have a role in life specially cut out for God after they have supposedly done what they wanted. I shrug. He frowns. In his system my shrug means I lack faith. He is an older man. “Yes, sir.”

I drive him home. He doesn’t see well enough to drive on the road any more. We pass our house on the way and he says after a small silence at the stop light, “How those bananas doin’ your daddy planted?”

“They’re doin O.K., I guess. He said I cut them back too low and they wouldn’t make any bananas this year. But I think they look fine.”

“Yeah, they’ll be alright. Those bananas, They’re used to hard livin’ –like those palm trees growin’ on the coast.”

“Yes, sir.”

The light changes just as I realize how cool it is now. The trees are beginning to whip back and forth. I gently press the pedal and we move on. The truck sputters. He grips the door harder as I push on the gas. In the side mirrors we see the rain coming up in a wall from behind us.

————————————————————–

Deutoronomy 32:9-18 For Jehovah’s portion is his people; Jacob the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, And in the waste, howling wilderness; He compassed him about, he watched over him, He preserved him as the apple of his eye. As the eagle stirreth up its nest, Hovereth over its young, Spreadeth out its wings, Taketh them, beareth them on its feathers, So Jehovah alone did lead him, And no strange *god was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And he made him suck honey out of the crag, And oil out of the flinty rock; Cream of kine, and milk of sheep, With the fat of lambs, And rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, With the fat of kidneys of wheat; And thou didst drink pure wine, the blood of the grape. Then Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked–Thou art waxen fat, Thou art grown thick, And thou art covered with fatness; –He gave up God who made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They moved him to jealousy with strange gods, With abominations did they provoke him to anger. They sacrificed unto demons who are not God; To gods whom they knew not, To new ones, who came newly up, Whom your fathers revered not. Of the Rock that begot thee wast thou unmindful, And thou hast forgotten God who brought thee forth.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Too big to get lost, the stone hangs so heavily around her neck that no matter how she moves it stays centered between her breasts. Her hair moves over her shoulders: one piece of silk. Her lips move when she talks. Her cheeks move when she smiles. Her eyes light up when she grins shyly and looks away. Her body moves a little to the music. But the jewel is always.. right there.

Faintly shining, it is dark blue on a rope of silver; a gold clasp through a small hole in the sides, the stone has become its own presence in the room.

Jimmy sees her and snaps his fingers with a smile. “Julie’s here.”

John stares at her, lowers his arms and wiggles his fingers at the scene before them like a boxer warming up for a fight. “Really? Where?”

Jimmy just laughs out loud and steps into the crowd. She hears his laugh and looks to the man standing next to her, suddenly admiring his tie.

When you see Julie, you don’t hear finger picked acoustic guitar with maybe a harmonica for innocence. Don’t get me wrong. She is her own kind of clean. But you hear old jazz, a kind of decadent, sophisticated music full of horns and drums. Hello. I knew a girl named Paula like that once. No matter where she is in the world I still do. Never even kissed her. Long story (only if you are young). She loved it—and hated it. I just hated it. I always hang out with the wrong kind of girl.

A guy like me—I’m more acoustic. A little too simple maybe. Even I think I’m stupid sometimes. Paula. I see what’s happening and just head to the bar.

Julie appears beside me. The music has picked up and everyone is dancing.

“Don’t look so shocked. I can’t help how I look.”

I smile and laugh a little at that. Yeah. Very heavy stone. Expensive.

“So what is it?”

“Oh. The stone?” She fingers it and holds it up so she can look at it.

“Aren’t you ever real?”

“It’s lapis L.”

“L?”

“I hate to say it because I’ve always seen it in print but I’ve never heard it pronounced. I hate being wrong. Lazoolee?”

I catch myself staring. And nodding. “Close enough. It’s a combination of the latin word ‘lapis’ which means stone and the Arabic word ‘azul’ which means blue. Mined mainly in Afghanistan. It looks good on you, whatever you call it. ” If I was a real authority on it and it was main attraction I would have pulled out a monocle, cradled it in my hand and twirled it in the light. But it’s just some info I picked up reading a magazine in the doctors office waiting for my mother. I’m a regular encyclopedia of trivia that spills out on the odd cues I never see coming.

“You ask questions you already know the answer to. I’d love to hear your prayers.”

I shrug and take a sip of my drink.

She doesn’t stop. “You want to get out of here?”

I look her in the eyes. She has that “I’m pleading but not really” look. Sometimes I think she is me in reverse. If I really thought she could be real for a minute, if I would get a real kiss and we could build something, (or at least get some good conversation) instead of a ‘hot’ kiss I would go. Hell, I’d run with her. But she just wants me to play against Jimmy and John and start some trouble.

We catch ourselves staring at each other and realize we don’t know how long we’ve been doing it. This is the third time we’ve come within a hair’s breadth of kissing and everything else. Before Paula I would have swallowed hard out of reflex. I pick up my drink and nod to the bartender. He comes over and asks her what she wants. She frowns and takes a deep breath as she sighs. The stone is a witness between us. She’s not mad, just frustrated. The only reason she comes back is because I haven’t fallen for it yet.

That’s how they get you on hold: Hoping for reality in the middle of all the background noise. She won’t speak to me at church. She just looks at me sometimes as she sits there; doesn’t answer when I speak to her. She says I’m more approachable in here.

She smoothes a stray hair back and pulls out the barstool next to mine. “I’m not leaving this time.” Her eyes play over my face. “Wine cooler.”

———————————————

Proverbs 7:10-12 And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house: now without, now in the broadways, –and she lieth in wait at every corner.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen