I was pushed into this world on the dawn of Armageddon,
0530 hours, July 16, 1945, at an Army Air Force hospital near Alamogordo, New Mexico. As the doctor held me in the air by the ankles, the shock wave from the Trinity atomic blast struck the building with a roar, shattering a window in the delivery room. Startled, the obstetrician lost his grip and I fell nearly three feet head first and bounced on the linoleum floor.
They christened me Donald Thaddeus Stearns III. It
was a big name and my parents expected me to grow into it. Each
generation had produced at least one famous and successful Stearns. There
was Rear Admiral H. Lucius Stearns of the Spanish-American War, Lieutenant General Byron Stearns of World War I, and my father, Colonel Peter Stearns, chief of security at Alamogordo Army Air Base, who is primarily remembered for alerting America to Soviet espionage of Manhattan Project secrets. My family spoiled me rotten. We were quite well off and I always had the latest games, the best toys and the most fashionable clothes as I was growing up.
I was an average child, but average just wasn't good
enough for my mother and father. When I received "C's," they clamored
for "A's." When I made the Junior Varsity football team, they pressured me to make Varsity.
Since I wasn't capable of doing anything right, I began
to do things wrong. I joined a gang and was arrested for shoplifting. A week later, the coach caught me using cocaine in the locker room. To get even, I broke into the gymnasium and redecorated the walls with graffiti. But no matter what I did, my parents were able
to buy my way out of it.
Despite my destructive behavior, I managed to graduate
from high school. I had planned to travel for a year or so before I went to college, but my father wouldn't hear of it. He made
some kind of a deal with a Congressman and I was appointed to the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. My father hoped that strict military discipline would make a man out of me.
My first year at Colorado Springs was pure misery.
I hated the Academy and everyone in it. My knuckles were scabbed from innumerable fights. It didn't matter to me how big or powerful my opponents were - I just wanted to punch someone. Although
fighting earned me demerits, it also earned me a place on the Varsity Boxing Team. For the first time in my life I had found something I was good at.
My grades were horrible, but the coach got me a
tutor. I was surprised when I heard that I had survived the first year's cut. By the time I left for home and summer vacation, I was beginning
to feel that I might someday fill my father's shoes.
I was a lot more confident and self-assured my second
year. Some of my old habits such as drinking and shoplifting returned.
But I figured that I was a whole lot smarter now and could get away with it.
At 0330 one Tuesday morning, they woke the entire
academy for a surprise drug test. I pissed into a bottle like everybody
else and didn't give it another thought. Four days later I was
hauled before a Cadet Board of Conduct and charged with amphetamine and barbiturate abuse. I was shocked because I had been clean for almost two weeks before the test. This time my father's money couldn't save me. They kicked my young ass out of the Academy.
From Colorado Springs the road led downhill. There
wasn't enough alcohol in the entire world to drown my shame or curb my self-pity. I didn't want to return home in disgrace, so I hung out in the streets. I slept in doorways and in parks; I didn't bathe or shave for weeks; and I managed to snort, shoot and squander every penny my family sent me.
I drifted from place to place in the underworld of the bums and the homeless. Yet even there, I could never lose myself completely. No matter how low a person goes, his companions still demand that he do his share. Some bums specialize in panhandling, some in scavenging and others in dealing with the authorities. Due to the knowledge of engineering that I had acquired at the Academy, my specialty became shelter. I had a
talent for carving rooms from riverbanks, constructing tents of plastic sheeting and camouflaging the huts I built alongside freeways. But my most outstanding achievements were the inner city dwellings I built on vacant lots using large, discarded appliance boxes and scavenged building materials. They were condominiums for the homeless and earned me the nickname "Condo Don." It was short enough that I could live up to it.
Jesus wasn't the first person who tried to save me
from myself. There were scores of others. High, mighty, and
pious, they came slumming for a short time and then returned to their comfortable lives with rich tales about how ungrateful people like me were. I could spot the patronizing, condescending bastards from a mile away. Preaching to the downtrodden inflated their egos and they always secretly smiled when someone slipped from the grasp of their helping hand and fell back into the mire.
Thirty years of heavy drinking and drug abuse had taken
its toll on my body. Deep crow's feet etched my face beneath bloodshot eyes. What few teeth I had left were stained and encrusted. Puss oozed from open sores resulting from a vicious venereal disease that over the years had withstood massive doses of antibiotics. Arthritis inflamed my joints and left me stiff on cold mornings. Jaundice lent my puffy skin a yellow tinge.
When animals sense that a member of the herd is dying,
they abandon it so as not to endanger the rest. So it was with me. As I slept on a park bench in a municipal park adjacent to the Crystal Cathedral one night, my friends crept away and left me to my fate. But I was a fighter and refused to die. Like an aged toothless lion, I began to concentrate on easy prey, intimidating
old ladies, little children, and the handicapped into giving me a handout.
Jesus looked like an easy mark. I figured him to be no more than twelve or thirteen years of age and a mommy's boy due to his squeaky clean appearance in a pressed suit and a tie. I didn't particularly care for black people or their culture, but race is never a factor when a predator spots its victim.
I will save the story of my salvation for a later and more appropriate part of this testimony. Suffice it to say that I
was near enough to death that I figured I had nothing to lose by giving God a try. I must confess that at the time I was openly hostile towards religion and wouldn't have given a dime for my immortal soul.
God only knows the transformation that Jesus wrought in
me. Like Lazarus, I was miraculously brought back from the dead. I will always wonder why Jesus chose me to save. No other human being could have been so unwilling, so set in his vile ways, and so determined to destroy himself. No one was less worthy of His attention.
Following the destruction of the Crystal Cathedral by an earthquake, Jesus bid me to roam the world with the message of His coming. I did so with a buoyant heart and sureness of purpose that made my task easy. I no longer feared the police or what they could do to me. Shielded by the armor of truth, I felt immune to the barbs of my fellow men. Many were the times that I walked into the toughest bar in a blighted neighborhood and began to seek converts for Jesus. Making my way into abandoned
boarded up buildings, I confronted heroin addicts as they were fixing and showed them the tracks on my own arms. There were many people who either didn't listen to me or thought I was crazy. But no one ever doubted my sincerity.
I must atone for the heads I busted, arms I broke, and
any other damage I may have caused while evangelizing. Turning the other cheek never became a specialty of mine and those who angered or assaulted me inevitably got worse than they gave. I confess that there is something about my nature that attracts violence. Despite prayers for patience and serenity, my temper still occasionally gets the best of me.
Much of what I will relate I got first hand. I
was privileged to spend years accompanying Jesus in his ministries. Every word He spoke is burned into my memory and comes back to me as clear as if He were speaking to me at this very moment. When I close my eyes, I can visualize him shaking my hand the day I departed and I can feel the power surging through my body.
The story of Jesus which follows is rendered with
attention to accuracy and detail. Whenever possible, I have corroborated it with others who witnessed His miracles.
The only peace I have known in this life was the days I
spent with Jesus. May His words also bring you comfort. No man is
so low or degraded as to escape His notice; no man so exalted or powerful as to be beyond His judgment. Salvation is impossible unless you open your heart to Him.
I am told that I will die in this prison. If it be
His will, so be it. It would be a great honor to give my life for Jesus. The people who run this place do not yet believe in His healing powers. They think that the miracle of my physical regeneration should be credited to some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo.
There are those among them who wish to speed my death in order to dissect my corpse and discover the means by which Jesus cured my afflictions. I forgive them and pray that they may yet see the truth.
The blinding light by which I entered the material world
pales in comparison to the Almighty Eternal Light that awaits me at the exit.
May the grace of Our Living Savior be with you the rest
of your days and may He dwell in your heart forever. Amen.
The wall was pink. Marva knew this with certainty
because
whenever she lifted either of the two religious objects from the wall, its silhouette remained in the original color. Fly specks, dust, smoke, and grease had conspired over the years to
turn the remainder of the wall into an ugly, dark, uneven rose.
The two icons had shielded a portion of it from the grime and
pollution of the urban atmosphere. Marva truly believed they
had likewise shielded her for sixteen years against the rampant drugs, crime, and violence of the inner city hell in which she lived.
On the upper left hung a large, bare wooden cross.
It was originally rough and unfinished, but years of constant handling had smoothed it until it fairly glistened. Marva's father had given it to her for her second birthday shortly before dying from something which her mother termed "consumption." As she pressed it to her breast, she searched her memory for a picture of her father. But the only image that came to mind was from a faded black and white photograph her mother had once shown her. He was tall, black, and muscular. Marva thought that he was the second most handsome and kindly man who had ever walked the
earth.
A lithographed likeness of the first and best man
was centered on the wall in a gilded frame. Marva wasn't sure where it had come from. No matter where she stood in the small bedroom, her glance was returned by Jesus. Even now, as she lay on the brass bed directly beneath the portrait, His eyes lovingly met hers. It made her feel all warm and secure to know that Jesus was always watching her, even when she slept. Her relationship with Jesus was of a personal, one-on-one nature. He talked to her from within her mind and never let her stray from the path of righteousness. Jesus loved all children. And Marva knew in her heart of hearts that Jesus especially adored her.
The small room was divided in half by a green
blanket draped over a clothesline that ran between opposing walls. The other half of the bedroom had belonged to her older brother, Marcellus, before he had perished in a drive-by shooting several years back. The blanket was an imperfect partition. Any tall person could see over it and any small child could easily peer beneath it. When her mother entertained “gentlemen friends” at night in the combination living room-kitchen-den area of their one bedroom apartment, Marva sat quietly on her bed to avoid notice. The blanket gave no protection from the odor of alcohol or the stench of drugs. She would often hold the cross tightly to her breast in the darkness and pray that everything happening in the other room would soon go away.
The brass bed was the only thing left to remind her of
her brother. When they had shared the bedroom, it had been his and she had slept on a mattress on the floor. The bed wasn't really brass. In the eighth grade she had done a science project on ferrous metals and had found that a refrigerator magnet stuck to the bed. Besides, real brass didn't rust.
Marva believed her mother had been glad when
Marcellus died. He was big and tough and belonged to a gang.
Sometimes he called his mother a whore and threatened to kill her when he came home and found her under the influence of drugs. Once he had pistol whipped a gentleman friend and had slapped her repeatedly until she fell
to the floor. He even stole money from her purse and flushed her drugs down the toilet. Terrorizing his mother would have been a non-stop ritual, except that Marcellus had preferred to spend as little time as possible at home. He usually ignored Marva except to advise her to escape from their mother as soon as possible.
The day after the shooting, several gangsters from
the Rolling '60's Crips gang had dropped by the apartment. They had pressed a wad of money into Marva's mother's hand and told her it was to cover the funeral expenses plus a little extra for "party money." She had wept, repeating over and over again how lucky Marcellus had been to have such good friends.
The blanket and the clothesline had remained in
place following Marcellus' death. Marva's mother told her that the apartment was too cramped and she needed the extra space for storage. All of Marcellus' personal belongings had been thrown into the trash. In their place were now a broken television set, odds and ends of furniture, and an enormous steamer trunk filled with every losing lottery ticket her mother had ever purchased.
With Marcellus gone Marva's mother no longer had
any controls on her life. She made no attempt to hide her drug habit and her gentlemen friends visited with increasing frequency. Often the partying continued throughout the night.
It wasn't easy to get to sleep amid the racket.
After she said her prayers, Marva would curl up in a fetal position upon the bed and commence a ritual that had begun many years before. She would say "good night" to all of the inanimate objects in the bedroom until she fell asleep:
"Good night Jesus. Good night, Holy Cross.
Good night, floor. Good night ceiling. Good night light bulb. Good
night dresser. Good night, blue dress. Good night, black dress.
Good night shoes. Good night, scarf. Good night, mattress.
Good night, pink wall. Good night, brass bed. Good night pillow. Good night blanket. Good night, Bible. Good night, white socks."
As the inventory progressed, it became slower.
Soon, Marva began her nightly journey through a wonderful world of enchanted dreams that erased the day's pain. She walked with Jesus, talked with her father, and flew with angels. Always, when she woke in the morning, she was smiling and looking forward to another day.
It was the finest of Sunday mornings. The sun
basked the city in its warm glow - warm enough to be felt on exposed skin, but not hot enough to release the odor of the offal scattered about the streets. Nothing broke the blue skyline above the rooftops except for an occasional billboard touting the manly virtues of imbibing a particular brand of alcoholic beverage.
Marva nearly stumbled into one such derelict as she
exited her apartment building. The pile of dirty clothing before her stirred and looked up, showing that it still retained some vestige of the humanity God had bestowed upon it.
"Yo, mama," the derelict said, "that white lacy number is
absolutely divine. You has won your heart's desire with such finery," and he held the paper bag out towards Marva as if to invite her to share his elixir. She quickly stepped past him and was rid of everything about him but his voice as she reached the street. "You is brutal, mama. Is you in such a hurry that you can't stop a minute to socialize with your main man?"
Marva wished she had waited for one of the older
church ladies to pass by before she ventured out on the street. The vermin seemed to melt into the asphalt whenever they spotted one of the venerable matrons walking towards them. Sharp tongued and armed with weighty purses, they were capable of tearing a man to shreds who did not show them proper respect. Viewing their world with black and white severity, they trod on the unrighteous and unjust as they strode towards church on Sunday morning. But Marva was no longer a little girl and she knew it was time to learn to protect herself from the harsh environment. Transfixing her features into chiseled stone and glaring straight ahead as fiercely as she could manage, she set off at a fast pace down the sidewalk towards the storefront church.
Many of the buildings she passed were abandoned.
Not being able to generate the revenue for their absentee owners that it took to maintain them, they had, consequently, decayed beyond the point where they could attract tenants. They had become shooting galleries for addicts and breeding grounds for rats. Here and there, like skipped teeth, were garbage strewn empty lots where the city had demolished boarded-up buildings. The entire landscape resembled a war zone. And there was never an armistice or cease-fire. These streets had already claimed a dozen additional victims since Marcellus met his tragic fate. Sociologists viewed it as a continuing struggle for upward mobility by the disadvantaged. Politicians dubbed it an urban battleground instituted by drugs and crime. But Marva knew it for what it was - the ultimate war between Good and Evil.
As she walked, Marva passed neither trees nor birds.
All living things except man and vermin had vanished from the inner city long ago. Human beings were now the endangered species. With every building boarded-up or demolished, their habitat shrank. New immigrants were continually searching for cheap housing. Many of the older residents on fixed incomes sublet space in their cramped apartments to help pay their rent. The population density was soaring. In summer the entire inner city became a non-air conditioned pressure cooker waiting to explode. Periodic riots such as the Rodney King riot in 1992 vented steam and accomplished little else. Hopelessness pervaded the community. Few believed
that conditions would ever get better. The occasional politician or religious leader who attempted to make improvements was almost always overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.
Formerly Stroud's Discount Furniture, the
Missionary Baptist Church was indistinguishable from the buildings it adjoined. Built of unreinforced brick and mortar, it had the same crumbling appearance as the majority of older downtown buildings. What made it a community landmark, however, was not its looks. The indefatigable spirit of the church, personified by the Reverend Solomon Harms, acted as a magnet that attracted the faithful from the surrounding community on Sunday mornings. Competition was fierce for the hard-backed folding seats and it was not unusual to have a large number of people standing in the rear of the church as the Reverend Harms beseeched Almighty God to show them His mercy by restoring peace to the community.
People came early, congregating under an awning outside
the entrance. Gossip flowed freely as church matrons deplored the decadent state of the neighborhood. Marva ran the gauntlet of ladies, speaking politely to those who spoke to her, and took her usual seat in the sixth row. Before long, Carlos Ortiz, a clerk whom she knew from the market where her mother spent their food stamps, sat down next to her.
Carlos was light skinned with dark wavy hair. His
family had fled for their lives from Central America, crossing the border illegally from Mexico some six years before. They lived in constant fear of being discovered and deported. Carlos worked hard at the market and gave much of his earnings to an immigration lawyer who claimed that legal residency was only a few payments away. Carlos had been attracted to Marva because she was totally unlike the other women he had met in America. She was quiet and introspective and carried with her an aura that demanded respect. He was careful not to touch her and limited his conversation to religious matters.
Marva was well aware of Carlos' attraction to her.
When he had first sat next to her four weeks before, she had almost stood up and moved to another chair. There was something about him, however, that told her he was sincere. He did not attempt to force his attentions on her and he talked of religion rather than himself. Marva had begun to look forward to the precious minutes of conversation they shared before the sermon began.
Of course, Marva suspected that she and Carlos had
become a source of gossip for the church matrons. But she knew that it was only talk. The previous Sunday, following services, one of them had actually pressed her arm and whispered, "He's such a nice boy."
The Reverend Harms had no doubts as to the forces
which composed the universe. Everything was either positive or negative - Good or Evil. There were two classes of people - the sinners and the redeemed. The latter would enjoy everlasting pleasure in Heaven and the former would roast in Hell for eternity. Either an individual gave himself to God or he was consumed by Evil. One could read it in the Bible and one could see it in the streets. Alcohol, drugs, easy money, and a hundred other temptations of the flesh were waiting to destroy and devour anyone who failed to put his faith in God. It was Reverend Harm's job - his sacred God given mission - to share this certain knowledge with anyone who would listen.
Nobody described in greater detail or with more relish
the punishments of Hell. Fire and brimstone flowed from Reverend Harms' sermons like lava from a volcano. Demons ripped apart lost souls while the tormented screamed in anguish. As his voice rose, one could almost smell the sulfur and feel the heat from the flames. This was the fate that awaited the majority of mankind. Only by reaching out to God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, could anyone achieve redemption. Jesus would come again and gather up the pimps, whores, drug addicts, alcoholics, money-gouging slumlords, bigots, corrupt politicians, rapists, and sodomizers and cast the lot of them into the fiery furnace.
Today's sermon was entitled "Original Sin." Adam
had sinned and all men had inherited his sin. By succumbing to temptation in the Garden of Eden, Adam had sealed Man's fate. God now viewed mankind as tarnished and unclean and would only accept those individuals into Heaven whom His Son, Jesus Christ, had found sincerely repentant. The great of this world would tremble before the Gates of Heaven and those judged unfit would be denied admittance. Heaven was likened to an exclusive country club where Christian acts, rather than money, purchased membership. Those who gave willingly of themselves for their brethren, those who were persecuted in life for preaching the Word of God, and those who were born again in the Spirit of Jesus, would be forgiven all sin and admitted into the presence of the Lord. Only they would taste the cool, sweet waters of redemption and know everlasting Peace. And those who failed the extensive screening process had nobody but themselves to blame. The Word of God surrounds Man; he need but open his ears and heart to reach Glory.
Following the sermon, several ushers passed a collection plate among the congregation. Marva always dreaded this moment. She spent most of the money she made from babysitting on school supplies. Her offering usually consisted of one or two quarters which she would cup in her hand in the hope that nobody would notice the paucity of her contribution. Everyone was watching her, she felt, and she longed to become invisible whenever the collection plate approached. Her discomfort was compounded when she noticed that Carlos had placed folding money in the plate. Had she looked closer, she might have spotted two slugs and a bus token at the bottom.
What the congregation failed to contribute to God in
money, it more than made up for in song. The small choir was the envy of many larger churches in more affluent sections of the city. Over the years, it had gained a reputation that reached far beyond the brick and mortar walls of the storefront church. Marva, too, had a fine lilting soprano voice and planned to join the choir someday. As the congregation sang The Old Wooden Cross and Rock of Ages, the strains carried for blocks. Pedestrians on the sidewalk outside the church would stop to listen. All the misery and frustration that came from life in the inner city was vented in those hymns. Not since the psalms of the Israelites in bondage had there been such a harmonious appeal to God. The hymns of the Missionary Baptist Church were a cry from God's long suffering children to fulfill the promises that He had made to mankind. They were truly urban Christian soldiers and the tensions of the battlefield in which they lived burst forth in their songs.
When the services ended and everyone stood to leave,
Marva remained seated and turned towards Carlos.
"Do you ever study the Bible?" she asked.
"It's very hard to study with all my brothers and
sisters running around - I try sometimes."
"I often study the Bible on the roof where I live," Marva stated.
"It's quiet there and I feel like I am closer to heaven when I am outside. I close my eyes and I can feel His presence."
"I would like to share it with you, if you could find
the time to come to my home," Marva offered.
Temblors was what the evening news called them.
Small earthquakes that did little or no damage were shaking Southern California with increased frequency. In the previous week there had been eight temblors with a magnitude greater than 3.0 on the Richter scale.
The television reporters claimed that the temblors
were beneficial, serving to relieve stress along the numerous fault lines that criss-crossed Southern California and decreasing the likelihood of a destructive quake.
If anyone had surveyed them, most of Los Angeles'
residents would have disagreed with the conclusions of the experts. The majority perceived the series of small earthquakes as a warning. Panic was beginning to grip them. People who had the resources were moving from the earthquake zone to safer locations in the Southwest. But the inhabitants of the inner city could only roll with the temblors and wonder how much more punishment their unreinforced brick and mortar buildings could absorb before they crumbled and buried their occupants beneath mounds of rubble.
The Reverend Harms was quick to seize upon the
earthquakes as divine punishment for the sins of man. He visualized the ground opening and the wicked being swallowed by the earth.
But Marva did not find the temblors to be
threatening. As she was climbing the last of the steps to the roof, a jolt had thrust her into the sturdy arms of Carlos and he had carried her out onto the flat roof. The shaking had stopped but her body still trembled. Carlos thought that she was afraid and sought to reassure her that it was over and she was safe. He was not aware that her tremors were caused by his own proximity and that she was struggling to regain control of her emotions. At that moment he could have taken advantage of her and she would not have resisted. But Carlos was not that type of man. Concern for her safety, rather than animal lust, motivated his actions.
When Marva's heart finally slowed, she started to go
back down the stairs to get the Bible she had forgotten to bring with her. Carlos stopped her. He did not want her to
traverse the stairs alone in case of another earthquake. "Besides," he said looking across the rooftops, "we need nothing more than our senses to share the wonders of God's creation." And as he spoke, two white doves flew down and landed on the parapet. Marva was indeed overcome by the wonders of God's creation in a way she had never experienced before. Silently, she thanked God for bringing her Carlos.
Carlos and Marva remained on the roof for hours.
The sunset was spectacular. Each particle of pollution in the urban sky bent the angled light from the waning sun like a miniature prism to produce colors that were unequaled even in the tropics.
The doves flew away and Carlos knew it was time to
say goodbye. He started to bend down to kiss Marva's willing lips, but instead mumbled a few parting words and then bolted down the stairs.
Marva's mother was waiting for her when she entered
their apartment. "Everybody says you been making a fool of yourself with some wetback on the roof," her mother accused.
"They're all wetbacks. Why can't you find yourself
a man of your own color. If your brother were still alive, he'd have skinned that wetback for sure."
"You have some respect for your poor, departed brother. Remember, your father died from a bullet, too. And he was every bit as high and mighty of a self-righteous religious fool as you."
"That's right," Marva's mother snickered, "he tried
to consume a bullet, but it consumed him first. During the riots, he went around preachin' peace and stickin' his nose where it didn't belong. And, when he got shot, God deserted him.
He bled to death in my arms." She began to sob and pointed a scrawny, gnarled finger at her daughter. "At least he was a black man," she cried, "how dare you disgrace his memory with some goddamn filthy greaser?"
Marva stopped arguing. It never did any good and
only served to upset her mother. She reached out to hug, but her mother abruptly pulled away.
Grabbing her sequined purse and throwing a thin
jacket around her shoulders, Marva's mother turned towards the door. As she exited, she took one last parting shot at Marva:
"I'm goin' out. And when I come back, I'm bringin'
me a real man - a black man - not some foreign trash. He'll have a black face, and black hands, and a black pecker. He won't be the color of some turd that you flush down the toilet!"
The door slammed in Marva's face, almost catching
her outstretched fingers. Running to the bedroom, Marva quickly slipped under the green blanket, flung herself onto the bed, and cried for hours until finally, exhausted and soaked by warm, salty tears, sleep mercifully claimed her.
Washington, D.C.
Although Janet Carson had been appointed Attorney
General by the President of the United States, she considered him neither her mentor nor a man for whom she had any particular respect. She judged him to be a morally deficient womanizer who had cheated on his wife numerous times. Her appointment was a sop to the National Organization of Women who had supported the President's candidacy as the lesser of two evils. Now, following his successful election, they were pressing him for their fair share of the political spoils.
Janet Carson had cut her teeth in the rough and
tumble world of feminist politics. Unlike the President, who seemed to shift with the political wind, she intended to use her office as a tool to enforce civil rights for women and to expand the influence of the feminist movement on government.
At the close of the previous session, Congress had
narrowly passed a bill permitting doctors to perform abortions upon demand. Although the bill contained no provisions for funding abortions, it had angered religious organizations and resulted in the mass picketing of abortion clinics throughout the United States. There had been several incidents of violence and, as one of her first acts in office, Janet Carson had directed federal marshals to provide security for any abortionist who felt threatened. She had also personally telephoned the President and requested him to call out the National Guard to prevent protesters from forming impassable cordons around abortion clinics. Her impassioned plea had met with a "We'll wait and see how the situation develops" from the President. He had no intention of becoming embroiled in a battle with organized religion and suggested that she reconsider her decision to employ federal marshals as bodyguards.
Janet Carson firmly believed that all women had the
right to abort unwanted fetuses. When an unplanned pregnancy had threatened her ability to attend law school, Janet had not hesitated to get an abortion. She considered her body, like that of all women, to be her exclusive property to do with as she wished. As she watched the presidency vacillate on issues concerning women's rights, she felt a need to redouble her efforts to force the public to accept feminist values, regardless of the political cost to herself and the Administration. She felt that if she could not enforce the abortion rights of women, the pro-abortion issue would lose momentum as fast as the Equal Rights Amendment had in a previous decade. Abortion had become her personal crusade.
Nobody had ever mistaken Carl Utz for a crusader.
With close cropped gray hair, short arms and legs, and a stocky body, Carl resembled a bulldog. And like the bulldog, Carl plodded methodically after his opponents until he sunk his teeth into them. Short on bark and big on bite, he was a gruff veteran of 32 years on the Philadelphia Homicide Squad.
Forced to retire, Carl Utz had chosen to become the head of a
newly formed federal law enforcement agency rather than rust in a rocking chair. As chief of the Genetic Enforcement Service (GES), it was his responsibility to arrest anyone who had committed a biological crime in violation of federal statutes, especially those involving unauthorized alteration of DNA, and turn them over to the Justice Department for prosecution. Although he had at first imagined this to mean tracking down assorted Frankenstein monsters, he soon discovered that for the most part his duties consisted of preventing potentially dangerous genetic alterations of fruit and vegetables. His first case had involved a biologist who had attempted to market an apricot that was the size of an apple. It was firmer and sweeter than any conventional apricot and had only one drawback - it contained enough strychnine to make it potentially lethal to anyone who ate large quantities of the fruit. When confronted with the evidence, the unwitting offender had readily signed an Agreement to Desist. Because the altered apricot had yet to be marketed, nobody had been injured and Carl hadn't even bothered to prosecute the biologist for a misdemeanor.
It was difficult to accept that after a stunning 32
year career as a homicide detective in which he had single-handedly brought to justice the notorious Parkway Strangler, Carl now found himself working as a glorified agricultural inspector. Chief in name only, his entire workforce consisted of a buxom secretary and a geneticist who spent most of her working hours perusing obscure biological journals for evidence of criminal activity. His $165,000 per annum budget was the smallest agency budget in Washington, D.C. and had resulted in GES having to be headquartered in a rented one-room office in the far from upscale Adams-Morgan District. His request for a 9 mm standard police issue handgun had been turned down by the Government Accounting Office as an unnecessary expenditure.
Carl's boss was Attorney General Janet Carson.
They had never met and he would not have recognized her if he had passed her in a hallway. Considering the vast scope of her responsibilities, it was doubtful that she was aware that GES was part of her domain. Isolated and obscure, Carl Utz felt like the straight man in some bureaucratic joke. How he missed Philadelphia!
The Reverend Solomon Harms was a mortal man, made of
flesh and blood. He experienced the same urges and temptations as other men. Many was the time when he had succumbed to sin, but he was always sorry afterwards and prayed to God for forgiveness. And God had forgiven him - not seven times, but more than seven times seven.
And so it was on this dismal night that Solomon Harms
had felt the Forces of Evil transform him into Mr. Hyde and had gone out into the streets to seek relief from his torment. Sitting in a corner of a sleazy, darkened bar, he found his Jezebel.
After a few drinks, she suggested he accompany her to
her apartment. Soon, they were in the backseat of a taxi, indulging their passions.
Somehow, however, in the light of her apartment, the
magical feeling had vanished. He could now see the wrinkles beneath the makeup and the purple stains of varicose veins. Downing drink after drink in the futile hope that the distilled potion would transform the scrawny hag in his arms into a vision of loveliness, Solomon Harms at last achieved numbness. In a blissful state of Nirvana with the walls circling around him, he began to slip from the sofa onto the floor.
But as he went down, his blurred vision focused on a
beam of light that beckoned from beneath a green blanket in an adjoining room. Here was the vision of loveliness he craved, the Madonna
of his dreams. On hands and knees he wobbled towards the goddess, and then reached up to possess her.
Marva awoke screaming. She stood up on her bed and
stomped on the clutching hands. Grabbing the wooden cross, she brought it down like a pickax against the head of the inebriated cleric. Blood gushed from the wound and his body slumped to the floor. Marva's mother, shocked sober from her stupor, ran into the bedroom and cradled the bloody head in her arms.
"You keep your f.....g hands off my man," she screamed
at Marva.
"He attacked me."
"A man don't go after a woman unless she beckons
him. Next time, you stick to your Mexican trash or I'll throw you out on your black ass."
After stopping the bleeding with a towel, Marva's
mother splashed cold water on the Reverend's face until he regained consciousness. He kept blubbering something about forgiveness as she struggled to get him down the stairs and put him in the back of a taxi.
Marva's mother bounded back up the stairs, taking two
steps at a time. Bursting into the apartment, she hit the blanket
divider full force, pulling the clothesline from the wall. Pouncing on Marva's sobbing, prone body, she proceeded to pommel Marva, pulling Marva's hair and gouging Marva with her long fingernails.
Marva offered no resistance. She continued to sob
and attempted to bury her head in her pillow. Finally, Marva's
mother quit beating her and stood up, yelling, "You worthless bitch, how could you?" But the stream of tears continued unabated.
Marva's mother reached down, grabbed her daughter by the
hair and turned her over on the bed, screaming, "Listen to me when I talk to you!"
Marva curled into a fetal position and whispered,
"No."
"No what, you ungrateful little slut - no you're not
sorry or no you're not listening?"
"Mama, he's a bad man."
"You listen to me. He's a good man, an educated
man, a true man of God. He's a real gentleman. He treated me like a lady.
How dare you seduce my man?"
"Mama, he's not a man of God."
"Oh, no?," Marva's mother sneered, pulling a $100 bill
from her bra. "And I suppose this wasn't heaven sent. Look at
it child. Do you know how much money this is?"
"Four hundred quarters," Marva sobbed, recalling her
ordeal with the collection plate. She flipped over and again buried
her face in the pillow.
Marva lay, sobbing, amidst the blood-soaked sheets for
what seemed to be an eternity before she drifted into sleep. In her dreams she saw herself rising above a tumultuous battlefield towards the peaceful meadow where she normally met either Jesus or her father. This time, a stranger in a flowing robe awaited her. He seemed kindly and with his smile the pain drifted away.
"Fear not," he said. "I am God's messenger,
Gabriel, and I bring you good news. God has found you to be the most worthy of women. You shall suffer no longer. Rejoice! God has
chosen you to bear His Son. You will be the mother of the Savior, who as He promised two thousand years ago, will return to reveal to man the meaning of creation."
A warm glow overcame Marva as her soul reentered her
body. She awoke completely refreshed with a new purpose in life. God had favored her. She had fallen asleep as a girl and awoken as
a woman. Something wonderful was now growing inside her. She
was truly blessed!
* * *
Marva sat with her hands folded in her lap, staring at
the textured patterns on the opposite wall. It was freshly painted. Everything in the lobby was new. The carpet, the chairs, and
the other furnishings were luxurious and bespoke an opulence seldom seen in a commercial office.
Marva had come to Planned Parenthood, Incorporated, to
make certain that her baby would be born healthy. A lady for whom
she sometimes babysat had told her that Planned Parenthood offered free prenatal services for low income women.
After registering at the receptionist's window and
filling out several forms and a long questionnaire, a nurse had taken samples of her blood and urine. She was then directed to take a seat in the lobby until the tests were processed and she could then discuss the results with a counselor.
All the other girls in the lobby were younger than
Marva. She thought that one of them could not have been more than eleven years old. Several had their mothers with them, but most had come alone. One was accompanied by her boyfriend.
While Marva's attention was fully engrossed in
deciphering the textured pattern of the opposite wall, she was startled to hear her name called. Turning to her left, she saw an open door in which stood a tall, blonde, tanned, and immaculately dressed young white woman who was the epitome of the billboard people she had seen in liquor advertisements. Marva stood and walked into the office where the billboard lady asked her to take a seat.
"Hi, I'm Tina Miller and I will be your counselor,"
the billboard lady said. "Anything you tell me will be completely confidential. We will be discussing the results of your tests and I will help you to reach solutions to any problems that they might present. Any decisions made will be entirely your own. I am
here to assist you and answer any questions that you may have. Did anyone accompany you here today?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Please, call me Ms. Miller. You will have to
trust me if I am going to be of any assistance to you. I hope that we will become friends. Feel free to ask me anything."
"Am I pregnant?"
"Your test results were positive. I need to
clarify some of the information you provided on your questionnaire. It says
here that the father of your child is God. Of course, God is the spiritual father of all children. What we need to know is the name of the physical father."
"My child was fathered by God," Marva stated
confidently.
Ms. Miller started to say something and then closed her
mouth. She looked closely at Marva and announced, "I'm going to show
you a film that will help you understand your situation and answer my questions."
Ms. Miller pulled a screen down from the wall and dimmed
the lights. After fumbling with a projector for several minutes, it made a whirring sound and Ms. Miller focused the image of two animated characters, one male and one female, on the screen. The film was explicit and the overtly anatomically correct cartoon figures engaged in sex while the narrator defined such complex terms as penis and vagina. Several charts detailing how the
sperm swam up the fallopian tubes to fertilize the egg were also explained by the narrator. As the narrator began to warm to his subject and relate how the fetus developed in the womb, Ms. Miller switched off the projector and turned the lights back on.
"Now, Marva," Ms. Miller said gently, "I need to know
the names of the men with whom you have had sex in the past several weeks."
"I've taken Biology in school and I'm not stupid,"
Marva stated. "If I had made love with a man, I would have told you about it. The baby that I carry within me is the Child of God."
Ms. Miller fumbled for a while with the pens on her
desk. Marva was staring at her and Ms. Miller found it impossible to meet Marva's eyes. The silence lengthened until Ms. Miller finally stuttered, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the entire
world," Marva replied with enthusiasm.
"And what is his name?," Ms. Miller ventured.
"Carlos Ortiz."
Ms. Miller erased "God" from the answer on Marva's questionnaire and substituted "Carlos Ortiz" as the child's father. As she put her pen down, the floor began to roll
beneath her. "Earthquake!," she screamed and ran out of the office. Marva sat calmly in her chair until the shaking subsided. After several minutes, Ms. Miller returned red-faced and somewhat disheveled. "I'm so sorry," she apologized, "these earthquakes are frightening. I have had premonitions of the earth opening and swallowing me."
"Perhaps it shall," Marva replied coldly. And then, noticing how Ms. Miller was trembling, Marva took her hand and reassured, "We are all afraid at times. But we can find strength and courage in God."
Composing herself, Ms. Miller pulled away from Marva's
grasp. "We need to be discussing your problems, not mine," she said. "I'm sorry I lost control. It won't happen again."
Ms. Miller paced the room. She felt her strength
returning and picked up the questionnaire. "Have you given any thought as to whether or not you want to keep the child?," she resumed.
"I will be a good mother," Marva stated flatly.
"And how do you propose to support the child?"
"God will provide."
"That's hardly an answer and it certainly doesn't
provide a solution."
"I place my faith in God," Marva repeated.
"Will God pay your doctor's bills, will God put food on
your table, and will God pay child support?," Ms. Miller quipped.
"I have faith."
"Let me give you the benefit of my experience," offered
Ms. Miller in a confidential tone. "Single mothers like yourself
drop out of school and go on welfare. They curse their lives and
often abuse their babies. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Planned Parenthood can help you solve your problem. We can arrange for you to have an abortion. You can stay in school and live a
normal life. Nobody needs to know."
"I would know," Marva replied. "I would have the
blood of God's child on my hands."
"It won't cost you anything and it will rescue your
life, countered Ms. Miller. Please take some time to think about it."
"No!," Marva screamed and the earth jolted violently. Ms. Miller once again ran from the room, but Marva remained seated. She watched intensely as several cracks appeared in the walls and began to lengthen. After several minutes, the shaking stopped. Marva stood, walked out the front door of the deserted building and caught the bus home. She had no intentions of ever returning to the clinic.
"God will provide," she kept repeating to herself on the bus ride home. "God will provide."
It was quite dark by the time Marva reached her
apartment building. She shuddered in apprehension of what her mother
would say about her being out so late. It was an unsolvable dilemma - she thought she could neither lie to her mother nor tell her the truth without adverse consequences.
As Marva climbed the unlit stairs, she noticed a crowd
at the top of the landing. Neighbors were milling around the hallway. Everyone seemed in a festive mood. Marva pushed her way to the open doorway of the apartment.
Catching sight of her daughter, her mother ran to Marva
and flung her arms around her. Yelling, "I won, I won!," she spun round and round with her daughter until Marva's feet came off the ground. Never had Marva seen her mother this happy. After a
few seconds of shocked jubilation, Marva managed to ask her mother what she had won.
"I won it all, child!," Marva's mother exclaimed.
"All six numbers on the lottery - the big jackpot. I'm a goddamned millionaire. No more ghetto crap, no more nigger nonsense, no more having to kiss the white man's ass. I'm emancipated, darling, and nobody on earth is ever going to make me eat shit again."
Once more Marva's mother began to jump and dance around
the small living room. "Lucky sixes," she cried. "Who would
have thought that six sixes would be the winning numbers? I done played every number combination there is, but I never played my lucky sixes until now."
Gradually, Marva pieced together the entire story.
Several days before, Marva's mother had been watching the evening news and noticed the number 666666 on a locomotive that had jumped the tracks, resulting in a disastrous chemical spill. The following day, she had gone to the market and bet the numbers on a lottery ticket. Less than an hour before Marva returned home, Marva's mother had learned that she had won $22.3 million, payable in annual installments over a twenty year period. At first she had refused to believe it. In ten years of constant play, she had never won more than a $100 prize. How often she had dreamed of winning the lottery. And now, suddenly, she had found the solution to all of life's problems. Marva's mother was heady with the sudden rush of freedom that winning had bestowed upon her. She again grabbed Marva, hugged her, and pranced around the floor screaming, "I won, I won!"
Chapter 6
The day after Marva's mother received her first check
from the Lottery Commission, she threw the most extravagant party the neighborhood had ever seen - a fully catered, no-expense-spared bash to celebrate her good fortune. She was determined to leave the inner city and never return. Thoughts of Hawaii, Bora Bora, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, and a thousand other tropical paradises were jumbled in her mind. Maybe she would pick one, maybe she would visit them all. It didn't matter.
The important thing was that she was leaving poverty behind. This was to be Marva's mother's bon voyage party - her personal way of communicating to her friends and the world that she was destined for better things.
Marva wasn't quite sure where she fit into her
mother's plans. Whenever her mother mentioned the future, it was always prefaced by "I" rather than "we." Long ago she had learned life seldom offers guarantees. She would face the problem when she came to it.
Throughout the day, delivery men carried cases of
liquor, stereo equipment, and food up the stairs. The apartment was overflowing before any of the guests arrived. Marva's mother kept busy ordering the men to "put it here" and to "be careful." She was obviously enjoying her new role and didn't notice when Marva slipped quietly into her bedroom.
There was no invitation list. Word about the party
spread quickly by word of mouth. It wasn't quite yet dark when the festivities started. Upon the arrival of some Crips whom Marva recognized as Marcellus' friends, she closed the bedroom door and slid a chest of drawers against it. A short time later somebody pounded on the door and tried his weight against it. She braced a chair against the chest of drawers and lay down on the brass bed.
Several hours later Marva was startled awake by gunfire. Someone was firing a handgun at the ceiling and loud voices were cheering him. There were sounds of glass bottles breaking and raucous, unrestrained laughter. Putrid odors wafted from the crack beneath the door. The combined stench of alcohol, drugs, and cigarette smoke caused Marva to gag. She got on her hands and knees and stuffed rags into the crack.
It was daylight when Marva next awoke. The noise
of partying was gone and the silence was overwhelming. She quickly pushed the chair and the chest of drawers back where they belonged and opened the door.
Her eyes beheld an unnatural disaster. A cyclone
could not have caused half the damage that Marva witnessed in the living room. Splintered glass from broken liquor bottles littered the floor. Great chunks of plaster had been knocked from the walls, revealing the wooden lath beneath. Two used sanitary napkins clung to a ceiling that was punctuated by numerous bullet holes. Gang graffiti interspersed with the numbers 666666 were spray painted everywhere. The front door had been pulled from its hinges and now hung haphazardly across the doorway. Someone had defecated on a cushion that rested atop an overturned sofa. The room smelled worse than a garbage dumpster on a hot day.
Where was her mother? Had she left with everyone
else? Marva's eyes scanned the room and fell upon a lump beneath the soiled sheets on her mother's bed. Carefully picking her way through the broken glass and trash until she reached the bedside, she pulled back the sheets and froze in shock. Her mother lay curled on the bed clutching a hypodermic syringe in one hand. Blood seeped from her nostrils and pale green mucous marked the corners of her mouth. The numbers 666666 were scrawled on her forehead in red lipstick. A cockroach scurried to safety beneath the pillow.
Marva quickly dropped the sheet and ran screaming from
the apartment. As she bounded down the stairs, she stumbled on the last flight and rolled down half a dozen steps. Crawling to the edge of the stairs, she put her head over the side and succumbed to the cold nausea convulsing her body.
Someone draped a coat over her shoulders. Looking
up through blurred vision, she saw the comforting face of Carlos. As she continued to shake uncontrollably, he took her in his arms and drew her towards him. They sat huddled together on the stairs until the police arrived. And Marva was still in Carlos' strong arms when the coroner appeared an hour later.
Marva was unable to answer many of their
questions. Her mind was spinning. It all seemed so senseless. First, Marcellus,
and now, her mother. After the officials finished and her mother's lifeless body had been wheeled away on a gurney, Carlos assisted Marva up the stairs to the apartment.
Everything in the front room had been destroyed, broken,
or otherwise rendered useless. Carlos helped lug load after load
of trash down the stairs. By the time they finished, the dumpsters were overflowing. Little was left in the living room; not even a chair to sit on.
While Marva swept and mopped the bare floors, Carlos
studied the front door. The screws attaching the hinges to the frame had been jerked out, stripping the wood. Other than damage to the paint, Carlos could see nothing else wrong with the door.
He collected wooden splinters from where they had fallen on the door sill. Borrowing some white glue from Marva's school supplies, he carefully coated each splinter with white glue and inserted it into a hole in the doorframe. When he ran out of splinters, he used toothpicks to fill the remainder of the holes, painstakingly breaking them off flush with the frame.
Upon finishing, he set the door upright, lifting it
while she placed shims underneath until the holes in the thick metal hinges aligned with the filled in holes in the wooden frame.
Marva searched and found a rusty screwdriver in a bin beneath the kitchen sink. After allowing sufficient time for the glue
to dry, Carlos replaced the screws.
As he stood on a stack of books, screwing the topmost and final screw in place, a light tremor shook the building. Finishing quickly, Carlos and Marva stood in the doorway while the undulation continued. They watched in amazement as doors from neighboring apartments flung open and people raced down the hallway for the stairs. One man was in his undershorts. His wife still had on a mudpack and her hair was in curlers. Utter confusion reigned as they panicked and fled down the stairs. Marva and Carlos looked at each other and began to laugh. Carlos puffed out his cheeks and bugged his eyes until he resembled the lady with the mudpack, which made Marva laugh even harder.
Soon, Carlos had to leave for his job at the
market. Marva looked around for something to use as a seat and pushed the steamer trunk from her bedroom into the front room. Out of curiosity, she lifted the lid and stood transfixed by what she saw. There, on top of the losing lottery tickets, were bundles of crisp $100 bills.
When Carlos next returned several days later, he
was ecstatic. At long last the immigration lawyer had obtained
green cards for the entire Ortiz family. They were now legal
residents and no longer had to live in fear of "La Migra" (the Border Patrol). Marva could not get the normally taciturn Carlos to shut up.
Carlos had every reason to be happy. An older
brother and his father had found jobs as construction workers. He would no longer have to give every cent he made to his family. Thinking of the future made his head spin. There was no limit to what a man might accomplish in America.
While Carlos effervesced, giving vent to years of pent emotions, Marva brooded. Although she tried to share Carlos' happiness, she felt guilty about not having told him that she was pregnant. Try as she might, she could think of no easy way.
Perceiving her hesitancy, Carlos asked, "Is something wrong?"
"I'm pregnant," blurted Marva.
"So?," queried Carlos looking deep into her eyes.
"So, it's God's Child - you are not the father."
Carlos stood and began to pace the room. After
an interminable silence he offered, "These things happen."
"Yes, but it happened to me," said Marva. "I can
imagine how you must feel. I should have told you sooner."
"It makes no difference."
"It does make a difference. If you never want to
see me again, I will understand."
She began to cry. Carlos sat down next to her and
took her head in his arms. He kissed the tears that ran from her eyes. "I want to be with you for the rest of my life," he whispered in her ear.
Marva stopped crying and kissed Carlos with all the
passion that had accumulated within her. Before he could recover, she snatched his green card from his hand, waving it underneath his nose and daring him to try and get it back. Round the apartment they went, careening helter skelter into walls and each other, until they both collapsed from exhaustion.
"Give it back!," demanded Carlos.
"What will you give me for it," laughed Marva.
"I will marry you."
* * *
Staring through the storefront window of the
Missionary Baptist Church the following evening, Marva spotted her prey at the pulpit, rehearsing his Sunday sermon. She flung open the door and descended upon Reverend Harms like an avenging angel.
"What do you want of me?," the Reverend stammered.
"There is nothing of you worth taking!," screamed Marva.
"You took advantage of my mother and tried to rape me. You're a drunken fiend posing as a man of God."
"I'm only human, all men make mistakes," fumbled
Reverend Harms in a barely audible voice that begged for pity. "God forgives."
"You're a damned filthy animal!," Marva exploded.
"You're not fit to utter the name of God. How many other girls have you molested?"
"Please, it's not what you think."
"Of course it's not. In my worst nightmares I have
never imagined a creature as slimy and repulsive as you. The fires of hell are not hot enough for you."
"Please . . .," begged the Reverend.
"God won't have mercy on your wretched soul, so why
should I?"
"My congregation believes in me. I show them the
path of righteousness. It matters not what I myself am."
"It matters to every woman who ever put her trust in you
and had it betrayed. How many innocent girls have you polluted?
How many have you scarred with your animal lust?"
All the time that Marva talked, she continued to
stride towards the pulpit. As she met the Reverend Harm's gaze, her eyes shot fire and he partially shaded his vision with his right hand as if staring into brilliant sunlight. She now stood beside him and, smelling his breath, reached inside the pulpit for the bottle of rum that rested on a shelf. Breaking it against the pulpit, she pressed the jagged neck of the bottle against the Reverend Harms' genitals.
"I'll do anything," he blubbered.
"You will marry me and Carlos Ortiz for free in the
finest wedding this city has ever seen," Marva ordered. "And after
that I will decide what to do with your rotten carcass."
Marva dropped the bottle, turned on her heel, and strode back down the aisle with a gait and purpose that would have made a church matron proud.
* * *
Marva's mother did not leave a will. Her estate
had to be processed through Probate Court. With the exception of the
money she had discovered in the steamer trunk, this meant that Marva would not receive any of her mother's lottery winnings for quite some time. Although both Marva and Carlos longed to
escape the inner city, they agreed that it would be best to remain where they were until the estate was settled.
Repairing the damage to the apartment was no easy
task. Carlos mixed a large bag of Spackle with water and troweled it carefully over the holes in the plaster. After giving it
several days to dry, they washed the walls with a solution of trisodium phosphate that removed layers of dirt, grease, and grime. Next, they painted the front room white and the bedroom aqua. When they finished, they could hardly tell it was the same place.
Marva furnished the apartment with used furniture
purchased from a thrift store. It was sturdy and practical and would
serve them well until they moved.
However, when it came to buying things for her
expectant baby, Marva splurged. An oversized crib was made of genuine oak that exactly matched a high chair and a small chest of drawers. The small thermal blankets were woven of the finest cotton. And, she couldn't resist buying a perambulator with hard rubber tires that looked as if it belonged to Mary Poppins. The aqua bedroom was quickly converted into a nursery. All that remained of the past was the rough wooden cross and the portrait of Jesus.
Life with Carlos was a joy. Whenever he had time
off from his job, he took her somewhere. They went to amusement parks and movies. She saw museums and art exhibits. At a street fair
he bought her a large, ornate sombrero and won the unborn Baby a stuffed lamb at a ring toss booth. It seemed there was no end of new places to see and exciting things to do.
One Sunday Carlos took her on a long bus ride to the
suburbs. They attended services at the Crystal Cathedral, a magnificent church built entirely of glass. Sonorous tones poured forth from a stainless steel carillon and Marva remarked that it was truly the sound of heaven. They were both so impressed by the church and the surrounding neighborhood that they agreed it would be an excellent community in which to raise a family. Before they left for home, Carlos picked a white rosebud and placed it in Marva's hair. She was indeed the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Pregnancy was not the dread disease that Marva had been led to believe it was. All her life she had heard women describe
the ills of pregnancy. But she herself experienced none of these. There was no morning sickness or nausea. Marva was anything but moody; she couldn't remember any time in her life when she had been happier. Both her appetite and her sense of humor had sharpened. It was if the child growing inside her had rescued her from an otherwise inescapable dungeon of depression. Never before had she felt so free and alive. Sometimes for no reason at all she burst out singing while mopping the floor or preparing dinner.
But lingering doubts occasionally dimmed her
spirits. She worried about Carlos. Had he understood what she meant when she had told him that this was God's Child? How could she convey to him that her pregnancy was not some accident, but an indelible covenant between herself and God? Did Carlos understand that this would be no ordinary child? How could she best prepare him for the enormous responsibility they would both share? And once Carlos finally realized the truth about the Child, would he be jealous of Him? The more Marva worried about these things, the more questions she raised. But she fretted needlessly, for Carlos was a simple man who lived his life to the full extent permitted by God. Worrying was not part of his nature and he would have been very surprised to learn of Marva's misgivings. Long ago in Central America he had learned to accept life as God willed it. To Carlos the unborn Child was already a part of his life and was no more alien than his own brothers and sisters.
Marva spent long hours staring at the portrait of
Jesus. Was this how her Child would appear? She looked at the creamy white skin in the picture and tried to imagine it developing within her mulatto body. Her own hair was jet black and kinky.
Could she possibly produce a Son with long, flowing golden-brown hair? She recalled a priest named Mendel from her high school Biology lessons. Mendel was the first to discover dominant and recessive genes and had determined that all offspring received their genetic structure from their parents. If this was true and God was as white as Michalangello had painted Him in the Cistine Chapel, then maybe all her genes were recessive and the Baby would be as pale as Jesus in the portrait. Actually, she didn't really care what color His skin was; she would be content if He radiated the same kindness and warmth as the lithographed Savior.
Marva could feel Him thumping around inside her.
She was 8½ months along and was beginning to carry low. When Carlos rested his head on her belly, he too could hear the Child moving.
It was Carlos' day off and Marva wanted to go to the
zoo. Carlos was against the idea. He thought it would be too much walking for Marva. But she felt great and insisted on going.
Marva enjoyed the zoo. The only animals she had ever seen other than dogs and cats were in movies or on television. But the creatures in the petting zoo were darling. Rubbing her face against the soft fleece of a lamb, she begged Carlos to let her take it home. They did not leave until closing time and by then Marva's walk had slowed to a shuffle. Carlos led her gently to the busstop, where she was glad to sit down.
It was a long bus ride. They had to transfer twice
and each time Carlos had to push to help Marva up the stairwell. He
joked that she would have to give birth soon or she would get too big to ride the bus.
They were only a few miles from home on the #4 bus,
when Marva suddenly gripped Carlos' forearm and said, "He's coming."
Carlos was no stranger to childbirth. His mother
had given birth at home to all his brothers and sisters and, as a boy in Central America, he had assisted farm animals in giving birth. Instinctively, he stripped off his coat and shirt and propped them under Marva's head for a pillow. He loosened her skirt and noted that the contractions were already coming very close together.
"¡Parada!," he yelled, "my wife is having a baby."
The bus driver looked in the mirror, saw Marva, and
pulled to a stop at the curb. Grabbing the microphone on the
dashboard, he radioed the dispatcher to send an ambulance. Then, turning
to Carlos, he asked, "Can I help?"
"Give me your towel," requested Carlos, pointing at a
dingy towel hanging from a visor. Reaching up, the driver grabbed the towel he kept there to wipe sweat from his palms.
Suddenly there were sirens and flashing lights all
around as a Fire Rescue vehicle and a hook & ladder arrived. Just as
the paramedics reached the stairwell, Marva gave one final push and the Baby was born. Thus, Our Savior was born on the Number 4 Rapid Transit District bus between 3rd and Pico, wrapped in a busman's towel, and heralded by flashing emergency lights and sirens.
Feeling elated but weak, Marva drifted in a haze
of semi-consciousness. A warm, peaceful glow permeated her being. She was vaguely aware that a fireman was snipping the umbilical cord. Attempting to reach for her baby, she found that her arms would not respond and she sank deeper into the vinyl warmness of the bus seat.
A fireman dressed in a heavy slicker and hip boots
was telling passengers to return to their seats. Soon, the hook
& ladder left, leaving the paramedics to attend to the details.
One of the paramedics directed Carlos to an adjoining
seat and began to question him. Carlos gave the paramedic the information he needed for his report while constantly craning his neck to look at Marva and the Baby.
"Don't worry," the paramedic attending Marva said, "both
the mother and Baby are doing fine. It's a strong and healthy boy."
The first paramedic asked, "Do you have a name for
Him?"
"Jeruzabellah," Marva mumbled.
"Jesse, who?," said the paramedic.
"She means Jesus," laughed Carlos.
The second paramedic cleaned the newborn Jesus and
wrapped Him in fresh linen. The infant Jesus had protested for a short time when the paramedic first handled Him, but now He was quiet and smiling.
"Are you the father?," the first paramedic
queried. "No offense, but he sure doesn't look like you."
Carlos had seen that the Baby's skin was darker than
ebony, a deep black that almost shined. Now, glancing at the white skin of the paramedic, he quipped, "He doesn't resemble you either."
"We deliver two or three babies a month," said the
paramedic. "I normally carry cigars to celebrate the occasion, but I seem to be fresh out." Reaching deep in a pocket, he pulled out a small paper and foil tube. "Here, have a Lifesaver," he offered.
"Thanks," said Carlos accepting. Then, turning to
look at the Baby Jesus he ventured, "He's so big and strong. Maybe He will grow up to be a fireman and save lives."
Swivelling on the seat, the first paramedic took Jesus
from his partner. He stood and raised Him over his head until the Baby's backside touched the curved metal ceiling of the bus. Studying the Infant's face, he commented, "With a name like Jesus he will have to save more than a few lives - more like the entire world!"
Chapter 7
It wasn't long before Carl Utz got his genetic
Frankenstein monsters. Fourteen hideous inhuman babies were born to Chicago area mothers within a three week period. National tabloids ran their pictures on the front page. People wanted swift justice.
Solving the case proved easy. A common thread
linked the 14 mothers: all had undergone in vitro test tube fertilization and embryo transfers at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Within an hour after landing at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Utz interrogated
Emmanuel Feinstein, one of the Biology graduate students responsible for incubating the embryos until they were ready to be transplanted into their mothers' wombs. Feinstein, a timid, scruffy little man with a scraggly beard, unruly hair, and anodized gold wire rim spectacles, broke down almost immediately and confessed to having introduced pigeon culture into the embryos. Cells from pigeons were induced to fuse with human embryo cells, forming dual nuclei heterokaryons which, when they divided, produced hybrid pigeon-human cells and altered the genetic composition of the developing fetuses. Overcome with remorse, he claimed that he had not intended to create monsters. He had simply tried to combine the embryo transfers with a primate research project that had recently had its funding eliminated. Instead of effectuating primates with an infallible sense of direction, he had inadvertently unleashed a public distrust of scientists and genetics that threatened to doom him and his profession.
With a flare for the dramatic and an awareness of the
value of public relations, Utz arranged for the feckless man's arrest to take place at the Federal Building in a room filled with bright lights and reporters. After advising him of his Miranda rights and placing him under arrest, Utz ordered Feinstein to stand. Too dazed to comprehend or comply, he could only remain seated. Grabbing Feinstein by his shirt, Utz lifted him bodily from the chair. The next day the New York Times ran the photo on the front page beneath the headline "G-Man Collars Monster." Overnight Carl Utz and the GES became famous.
Several weeks later the White House received a threat
that terrorists had stolen a presidential blood sample from Walter Reed Hospital and were using it to clone perfect copies of the nation's leader. Although a Secret Service investigation found the threat to have been a hoax, the President was sufficiently disturbed to personally ask Utz what his agency would require to prevent something like this from actually taking place. Off the top of his head, Utz asked for 150 additional agents, a $40 million a year budget, a national DNA Identification & Research Center, and unprecedented police powers. To his amazement, Utz got more than he requested.
In less than a month Utz had gone from being an
obscure bureaucrat to the nation's top G-man. Success agreed with Carl. He had even bigger plans in mind.
PART TWO
JESUS, THE GREAT RECYCLER
". . . You must be born again!" John 3:7
Chapter 8
Orange County, California
Marva knew all about heaven. Heaven had a vacuum
cleaner, a food processor, a trash compactor, a microwave oven, an automatic dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a hot air popcorn popper, waffle iron, frost-free refrigerator, electric skillet, four-slice toaster, large capacity freezer, heavy duty washing machine, four cycle clothes dryer, six burner self-cleaning gas range and oven, Water-pik, hair dryer, electric can opener, personal computer, and an electric wok. In heaven there was a cordless telephone
with automatic redial, a digital answering machine, a big screen stereo television, four-head VCR, compact disc player, AM-FM console stereo radio, electronic security system, and a satellite dish antennae.
Heaven came complete with five bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths,
large walk-in closets, enclosed patio, cinder block fence, 3 car garage, remote control garage door opener, automatic sprinkler system, custom kitchen cabinets, central air conditioning, forced air heating, intercom, family room, dining room, plush stain-resistant carpeting, brick fireplace, greenhouse kitchen window, skylight, hardwood floors, gilded bathroom fixtures, and a 100% fireproof roof with a lifetime guarantee.
Heaven was in the suburbs, far away from drugs and
crime. Heaven had good public schools within walking distance, twice a week trash pickup, nearby shopping centers, and a fire department that responded in less than 30 seconds when you dialed 911.
Heaven was adorably landscaped with fruit trees and ground cover. Heaven was pastel pink stucco with chocolate brown trim and large brick planters. Heaven was the home that Marva had always longed for. And when the real estate agent showed Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz heaven, they instantly fell in love with it and considered it a bargain at only $198,000.
Marva and Carlos came to venerate technology. It
made their lives easier. Although neither understood the mechanics of the appliances they owned, both regarded them with a fascination bordering on reverence. Never before had they been so comfortable. Dinner was cooked by the turn of a timer and entertainment was summoned with the flick of a remote control. Life in Central Los Angeles had been survival of the fittest. Life in the suburbs was pleasantly mellow. The contrast was so shockingly vivid that the past seemed almost a surreal dream. Neither
Marva nor Carlos desired to ever wake again to the nightmare that was their former lives in the inner city.
God had created heaven and man had eventually managed
to clone it. To Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz, like many others, the distinction had become blurred.
Carlos got a job as a cabinetmaker for custom
homes. He was good at his work and much in demand. As the family prospered,
it grew. Esteban was born one year after Jesus. Then came
Carlos Jr., Christopher, David, and Paul.
Jesus was a strong and healthy child. As Marva
watched Him play with other children, she attempted to convince herself that He was not different from them. But He was. He carried an
aura that caused people to notice Him. A neighbor lady remarked that when she held the Infant Jesus, she felt a warm, tingling feeling, almost as if she had encountered an electrical field.
When Jesus was five, Marva registered Him for public
school.
He was given the usual inoculations, a physical, and a blood test. There was a minor discrepancy in the results.
Although Jesus seemed to be in perfect health, the doctor wanted to send the blood sample to the DNA Identification and Research Center for further analysis. There was nothing to worry about, he simply wanted to be safe.
Jesus did well in school. He made friends easily
and was a natural leader. One of His teachers remarked that He had a
knack for settling disagreements between other students. Although He did not make straight "A's", His grades were above average.
One day in the third grade during recess, Jesus was
playing basketball when a member of His team inadvertently threw the ball on the roof of the cafeteria. Another player shinnied up a pole supporting an overhang in order to retrieve it. But when he
went to get down, he found that he could not reach the pole. Some of the other third graders shouted at him to jump. For almost a minute he hesitated at the edge, unsure of what to do. More and more children yelled, "Jump!" Looking over the side, he lost his balance, slipped on the rain gutter, and fell to the asphalt head first. Many students later claimed that his head split open
like a ripe melon on impact, spattering blood and brains everywhere. However, when the teacher reached the accident, Jesus was holding the victim's head in His arms and all that appeared to be wrong with him were some minor lacerations. The teacher said it was a miracle that anyone could fall head first from such a height without sustaining serious injury. Jesus just smiled.
After school and on weekends, Jesus helped Marva take
care of His younger brothers. On Saturdays and holidays there were family outings. On Sundays they attended services at the
Crystal Cathedral.
The Crystal Cathedral was twentieth century man's Tower
of Babel. Pinnacles of glass rose to challenge the heavens. Like
a giant multi-faceted prism, it refracted heaven's rays, dazzling the beholder. Its transparent confusion marred the boundaries between earth and sky. One could not gaze upon it without being impressed by overwhelming achievement. Architecturally it was one of the wonders of the modern world.
The wonders of the Crystal Cathedral, however, were
not limited to architecture. Besides a seating capacity of several thousand worshippers, it boasted an outdoor drive-in complex complete with rows of speakers and a 50 foot silver screen. For those who preferred the comfort and independence of their own automobiles, the drive-in Crystal Cathedral afforded the ultimate in convenience. Mothers changed their infants' soiled diapers without missing a single word of the sermon. And fathers could occasionally turn on the car radio to see how their favorite football team was doing.
The Crystal Cathedral was no mere local landmark to be
seen once and then forgotten. Via a weekly syndicated television program, the Crystal Cathedral transmitted its evangelistic message throughout the United States and to 38 foreign countries. But it was perhaps best known for infomercials featuring starving Third World children with matchstick legs, distended bellies, and open sores who would soon die were it not for the monetary gifts of love being sent to a post office box in Southern California.
If God's benevolence could be measured in dollars, than
the Crystal Cathedral was truly the Holy of Holies. Each week it received millions in offerings and donations. The Internal Revenue Service had attempted to revoke its tax-free, non-profit status on several occasions, only to be outmaneuvered by hefty contributions from the Cathedral to the reigning political party. When the President of the United States took the oath of office for his second term, he used a Bible given to him by the church's founder. Business was good for the Crystal Cathedral and having the right political connections made it even better.
The founder, pastor and Chief Executive Officer of
the Crystal Cathedral was the Reverend Robert A. Schiller whose unique amalgamation of religion with technology, polemics and business savvy had begat personal success, fame and fortune. Sundays saw his benign image projected bigger than life on the drive-in's screen. Thanks to the electronic wizardry of television, he was also the guest of honor in tens of thousands of living rooms from Los Angeles to Yokohama. He had written 33 books - one of which had sold over a million and a half copies in the Orient alone. All the recognition, wealth, and respect that he had desperately craved as an only child growing up in a small Midwestern town had become his. But the Reverend Schiller was a fraud who benefited unduly from the donations he sought in God's name. And,
although he had succeeded in deceiving others, he could not hide his heart from his maker. He was as transparent as the Cathedral that was about to come crashing down around him.
Chapter 9
On Sunday mornings Marva awoke early to cook a big
breakfast. She placed two large platters in the center of the table heaped with waffles, bacon, and eggs. The younger children squirmed in their chairs in anticipation as the aroma wafted through the air, but nobody touched either platter until Carlos said grace. His prayers reflected the gratitude he felt for all that God had done for him and his family. Although there was more than enough
food, Carlos served his youngest sons before passing the platters around the table.
After breakfast everyone dressed in their best clothes
and got ready for church. It was a short drive to the Crystal
Cathedral. Carlos dropped the children off at Sunday School while he and Marva attended regular services. The boys were divided into classes by age groups; the younger ones colored biblical scenes with crayons while the older boys learned stories from the Bible and discussed religious principles with their teacher. Jesus
was forever questioning everything. He was especially interested in how various morals, ethics, and religious concepts applied to everyday modern life.
Jesus did not ask easy questions. Once, the
teacher became so frustrated that he asked Jesus if He would rather teach the class. The entire class snickered. But Jesus apologized and said that He meant no disrespect - He only wanted to make certain He clearly understood everything in the lesson.
Sunday School ended an hour before the regular services
did. When the weather was decent, Jesus and His brothers would play in the park across the street from the church until it was time to rejoin Marva and Carlos. Taking off their coats, they carefully laid them on a picnic table to keep them from getting dirty before climbing the palo verdes, black oaks, and pepper trees that dotted the small park. Jesus took it on Himself to make certain that
no one slipped and fell. He restricted the younger boys to an old spreading carob with low-lying branches until they developed the skills to join their older brothers.
Most times there were older people in the park, some
walking dogs and others picnicking. And almost always there were homeless people pushing shopping carts containing their meager possessions. An elderly bag lady often smiled at the children, but never said a word. Occasionally, a bum attempting to nap on a park bench would curse if they made too much noise.
Jesus was running along the sidewalk towards a towering
pepper tree that Esteban and Carlos, Jr. were already ascending. As He passed a park bench a voice rasped, "Hey kid, you got a quarter?"
Upon reaching the pepper tree's gnarled base, Jesus
abruptly stopped and turned to face the disheveled ancient derelict who was slowly rising from the park bench. The bum was wearing a grungy sweatshirt emblazoned with a happy face and a pair of threadbare jeans. Both he and his clothes were in dire need of washing.
"In the name of God, son, can you spare some change?," the derelict begged.
Staring at him for perhaps fifteen seconds, Jesus took
in the long graying hair beneath the Chicago Cubs baseball cap, the three day growth of beard, and the partially laced tennis shoes. Then His gaze penetrated the man's surface features and peered at his soul. Maintaining eye contact, Jesus advanced toward him,
asking, "What is it about your life that you would like God to change?"
The bum looked startled. Rarely had he
encountered such self-confidence in one so young. Taking a step backwards, he mumbled, "That's not what I meant."
"No," Jesus said, getting in the bum's face, "what you
want is money for liquor so you can commit slow suicide."
Recovering, the bum leaned forward and said, "You think
you're a right smart little bastard, speaking to your elders like that."
But Jesus refused to back down. Eyeball to
eyeball, inhaling second-hand, fetid breath, Jesus stood His ground, remarking, "Age does not always bring wisdom. You asked for my Father's help. Do you want it or not?"
Confused, the bum retreated to the park bench.
Attempting to focus his thoughts, he stammered, "I need . . . something."
"We all need something, sometimes," said Jesus as He sat
down next to the man. Then, extending His right hand in the
universal gesture of friendship, He asked "What is your name?"
Perfunctorily, the bum accepted the handshake. But
as he did so, he instantly felt an exhilarating force surge throughout his being. Startled, he recoiled, but Jesus held his hand firmly
and did not let go.
"What is your name?," Jesus calmly repeated.
Taken aback, the bum managed to utter, "Condo Don," as
Jesus relaxed His grip.
The Redeemer sat on the park bench talking with Condo
Don for almost a half hour. His brothers sat motionless in the tree,
but could only catch bits and pieces of the conversation that was taking place beneath them. Finally, they climbed down,
announcing that it was time to leave.
"Go ahead without me," ordered Jesus.
"But what will we tell mother?," asked Esteban.
"Tell her I am spending the night with a friend.
I'll be home before breakfast."
Esteban gathered his younger brothers, helping them to
put on their coats and brush themselves off. One final glance
backwards at Jesus sitting on the park bench and they dashed across the road to the Crystal Cathedral.
Condo Don didn't really trust Jesus. Thirty years
of hard living on the streets learning the lessons of life the tough way had made him a cynic. But he had also learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. This kid was offering to help him without
any obligation on his part. It was no skin off his ass to play it
out and see what the kid had to offer.
And Condo Don was desperate for help. Thirty years
of alcohol and drug abuse had aged him considerably. His skin was yellowed with jaundice and he had pussy open sores that refused to heal. Arthritis caused his joints to ratchet like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. He wasn't able to keep pace with the nomadic migrations the homeless must make to survive. A straggler cut of from the herd, he was easy prey for the predators that roam city streets at night. Sometimes delirium tremors made him envision his own death and awaken screaming. He felt physically and mentally that the end for him was near.
And this kid was different from the other Bible thumpers
that Condo Don had encountered. Jesus treated him like an equal and did not attempt to make personal decisions for him. He had
stood up to Condo Don's intimidation and had backed the aging derelict down. Jesus was somebody that Condo Don could respect.
Just sitting next to Jesus was having an effect on Condo
Don. His gestures were becoming more animated and his thoughts less hazy. He was slurring fewer words. It was almost as if Jesus
was recharging his battery.
Jesus proved to be the consummate listener. As
Condo Don rambled on, spinning tales of his travels, Jesus encouraged him to expound upon his somewhat vulgar philosophy of life, occasionally asking him to elaborate on certain points.
The time flew by and it was twilight before Condo Don
realized he hadn't had a drink in hours. Reaching under the park bench,
he fumbled with a plastic sack and brought forth a pint liquor bottle that had already been emptied of everything but the dregs and started to unscrew the cap.
"Is that what you want?," inquired Jesus.
"What I want is not important," scowled Condo Don.
"It's what I need." With that he raised the bottle to his lips and turned
it upside down, draining its contents. Just as quickly as it went down, the liquor came back up and was spat on the walkway. Condo Don's face turned a vivid red and he coughed violently.
Jesus laughed. He looked at Condo Don and doubled
up with laughter.
"What did you do?," Condo Don angrily demanded, "I bet
you pissed in the bottle when I wasn't looking."
"Your body had a normal reaction to alcohol," said Jesus
as His laughter subsided. "It has healed and is no longer
dependent on chemicals. The diseases that were ravaging you are gone and your sores are no more."
Condo Don rolled up the right sleeve of his
sweatshirt. Above a red tattoo of the number "13" on his forearm there had been an open sore. Nothing remained of it, not even a scab. The skin
was a healthy flesh tone and all traces of jaundice had vanished.
"How did you do that?," asked an astounded Condo
Don.
"Certainly not by urinating in your bottle," laughed
Jesus. "You asked for God's help and He gave it to you."
Condo Don hurriedly rolled up his other sleeve and both
pant legs. It was true. His afflictions had vanished. Even
the purple spidery varicose veins around his knees were gone.
Giving the empty bottle a toss, Condo Don watched as it
fell and shattered in a thousand pieces on the sidewalk. Once again he reached beneath the park bench. This time he removed a lump of cheddar cheese from the sack. Breaking it in two unequal parts, he offered the smaller half to Jesus.
"Thank you," said Jesus as He took the cheese from Condo Don's grimy hand.
"It's me that should be giving the thanks," remarked
Condo Don as tears began to well in his eyes. "I'm truly grateful to God and I will repay Him if it takes the rest of my days."
Quickly the night fell. Condo Don went to sleep on
the park bench and dreamed of Christ fighting the Evil One for possession of his soul. When he awoke the next morning, Jesus was gone.
Condo Don's transformation did not go unnoticed.
His friends marveled at his new found health and vitality. They were amazed by his ability to go "cold turkey" without any noticeable side effects. Besides looking ten years younger, he claimed to have been "reborn" while waiting at the threshold of death. But most of all, they were astounded by his story of the teenage "miracle worker" who had saved his life. Condo Don had a reputation for telling tall tales, but no one could refute that something strange and wonderful had changed him for the better. Overnight the
dark cynicism and suspicion that had pervaded his personality departed, replaced by optimism and a new appreciation for life. It was as if an ugly outer layer had been stripped from the aging derelict, revealing a totally unexpected inner wholesomeness and freshness.
The following week when Jesus went to the park after
Sunday School, He had little opportunity to play with His brothers and the other children. Several of Condo Don's skeptical friends
had come to meet the young "miracle worker." They bombarded Him with questions. He chose His words carefully and tried to answer each to the best of His ability. But hardly had He finished one,
when He was asked another. Finally, His brothers rescued Him by
saying it was time to go.
Every Sunday thereafter Jesus returned to the park to
discover the number of people waiting to see Him had grown. Condo Don tried hard to control his buddies, but with little success.
They often reached out to touch Jesus without asking His permission as if He were a freak on display in a sideshow. But Jesus seemed
to thrive on harsh treatment and was never offended by irrelevant or irreverent questions.
To the public it appeared that the park had been taken
over by vagrants. The police swept the park one night, confiscating shopping carts and throwing the belongings of the homeless in a dumpster. They were all forced to empty their pockets and lean against a chain link fence while the cops frisked for drugs. As of the following week, the police warned, anyone found loitering in the park without visible means of support would be arrested and taken to jail.
Condo Don related the story of the police raid to Jesus
the following Sunday. He also reported that many of the people
coming to listen to Jesus in the park were hungry.
"Where have you been getting food?," asked Jesus.
"By panhandling and from the fruit trees that border the
park, but all the fruit was picked long ago."
"Look again," said Jesus, "God's abundance is not
easily depleted. I will come an hour earlier next Sunday and arrange
to get you some help from the Crystal Cathedral."
After Jesus left, Condo Don and his homeless friends
scoured the trees for any fruit they might have missed. Just when they thought it had all been harvested, a vigilant search would find more. Nobody went hungry all week.
Instead of attending Sunday School with His brothers the
following Sunday, Jesus slipped across the street to the park. He and Condo Don set to work assembling the twenty-some bag ladies, disabled veterans, and other homeless people who were living in the park. It took the better part of an hour to get them in some sort of order. With Jesus taking the point position and Condo Don
halting traffic they crossed the street to the Crystal Cathedral. Caked with dirt, dressed in rags, with pockets stuffed to overflowing with possessions, they looked like an Army of Salvation marching on a fabled temple.
Since the services had already begun, the great double
doors were closed. Condo Don flung one open and held it while the others filed inside.
The congregation turned to watch as Jesus led His motley
flock down the richly carpeted center aisle. With his attention
focused on the television cameras, the Reverend Schiller was not initially aware of their presence. He was finishing an appeal to the congregation and his television audience for donations to help starving African children when he caught sight of the intruders. Switching off the microphone and motioning for the camera to stop, he stepped in front of the altar.
"What is the nature of this disturbance?," he
demanded.
"We come to hear the word of God and beseech your
charity. Please grant sanctuary to these poor unfortunates who are in need of food and shelter," said Jesus.
"We give only to those who deserve," announced the
Reverend Schiller in a calm, clear voice that carried unaided throughout the cathedral. "These people are obviously shiftless rabble. Unwilling to work, contemptuous of all that is holy, and lacking in self-discipline, they are prisoners of their own degradation.
"I will not waste our church's slim resources on the likes of them."
"Neither your own personal resources nor those of the
Crystal Cathedral are meager," retorted Jesus. "You make millions from your televised ministries. How can you express concern for
people you have never met while ignoring those who are starving before your very eyes?"
"I cannot permit you to continue to disrupt these
services with impunity," declared the Reverend Schiller as he signaled three beefy security guards to come out from behind a curtained backdrop. "Kindly escort these people from the Cathedral."
The cleric's curt command was answered by a rumbling
noise centered directly below, miles beneath the earth's surface.
From high overhead there came the sound of tinkling glass, like the rustle of the wind through chimes. As the guards moved forward, their path was suddenly blocked by falling panes of glass which exploded into myriad shards upon impacting the undulating floor.
As the quake gathered momentum and more and more panes fell, the congregation panicked and pushed towards the exits.
Condo Don and his friends were jostled by the stampede.
"Fear not!," shouted Jesus above the pandemonium.
"No one will be hurt. God seeks your assistance, not your destruction."
"Leave this place!," screamed the Reverend
Schiller. "God is objecting to your foul presence in His house!"
"It is you who have desecrated God's house with your
avarice," admonished Jesus. "The impure shall not glimpse my Father, though they peer through the clearest of glass."
"Blasphemer!," yelled Reverend Schille