I-YOUniverse

                September 11, 2001. Two weeks passed as if only seconds.

                Generalized anxiety was spooking bats from everywhere. Exhausted, Frank sat down to dinner. All he wanted was to enjoy Grandma’s meatloaf with the whipped baked potatoes and spinach soufflé, a quiet birthday celebration with Elizabeth. But, no sooner had they said grace than his cell phone vibrated against his thigh.

                Damn, he thought.

                “Hey, Preach, it’s Houston down at County Hospital. We sure need you.”

                Houston, an RN in his church, called only in bona fide emergencies.

                “It’s absolutely necessary? Today’s E’s birthday.”

                “I hate to call you, but you said to.”

                “Did I?” Frank groused. “I’ll be there.” Caught between kissing E and shoveling a forkful of creamy potato into his mouth, he opted for potato.

                “Sorry, hon.” He grabbed his keys.

                Houston had grown up on the streets and in the basement of the Green Street Methodist Church, where the Jesus Gang hung out. After a stint in the marines in the Gulf War, he got his GED and eventually his RN. Working the ER he didn’t get to church every Sunday, but he showed up more than most people who had no excuse. He worked every week with at risk kids in the Jesus Gang.

                His father was black, his mother Mexican. Some white people in their SUVs checked their door locks when he walked by. But, once he let you “in,” he greeted you with a broad smile, a friendly grip and loyalty without limit.

                Frank tried to catch him every now and then for coffee. Houston called him to come to the hospital last year: some locals shot up a house, killing everybody inside, including a five year old and a Bassett hound.

                Tonight two police cruisers parked outside the ER, blocking the entrance and exit. Security patrolled the halls. Rev. Frank Chandler showed his Volunteer Chaplain credential.

                “What’s the story? Feels like we’ve had a bomb threat or something.”

                Houston said, “The EMTs brought in this guy. Middle Eastern descent, could be Muslim, 20 something, maybe 30. If this is some kinda hate crime, we got ourselves a situation. He’s unconscious, head wounds, severely beaten. Two cracked ribs.”

                “What can I do?”

                “That’s the thing. Staff needs some TLC, and they know you.”

                “How come?”

                “Cause some of his injuries have been incurred after admission.”

                “You mean in the hospital…?”

                “Yep.” Houston’s matter of fact manner worried Frank more than an alarmed tone of voice would have.

                “The ER doc didn’t find no burns during the initial exam—I assisted. But an hour later, there was a new cigarette burn in the palm of his right hand.”

                “How could that happen, Houston? This is No Smoking. You can smell cigarette smoke right off.”

                “I don’t know. I swear he wasn’t alone long enough for anyone to get at him.”

                “Can I pray?”

                “Well, not with him. If he’s Muslim, hospital doesn’t want the appearance of proselytizing. But you just look me in the eye, and pray. They won’t know the difference.”

                Frank stumbled through some words like “out of the depths we cry to thee, O Lord,” until a man in a dark suit with a silk tie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket joined them.

                “Mr. Dickerson, you remember Rev. Chandler, our Chaplain?” Houston spoke softly.

                “Thank you for coming, reverend,” the man said, straightening his tie nervously. “You realize the sensitivities of the situation. If this patient turns out to be Muslim, and you a Christian—well, it might not look right.”

                “I was a hospital chaplain in New York City, before coming here, sir. I can actually run interference for you. The nearest mosque is a block from my church; I’ll be glad to call the Imam for you.”

                “No, no, won’t be necessary,” tutted Dickerson, “so long as we’re cognizant of how things look. We can’t keep this out of the media very long.”

                “Hope springs eternal, I guess,” Frank muttered.

                He checked with staff he knew in ICU. In contrast with ER, that unit was quiet. Nurses’ chatter had settled on Ground Zero, NYC.

                “They say Islam is a religion of peace,” one woman said. “I don’t buy it. Mark my words, the World Trade Center was only the start.”

                “My nephew was a fireman, went into the North Tower right before it crashed,” said a blonde nurse. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s ‘an eye for an eye,” pay back with a great big stick.”

                Frank said, “My little brother graduated with his MBA in June, started working in the North Tower. He always was a morning person, liked to get to work by 6:30 a.m., have his quiet time.”

                Frank pulled his thin line Bible from his pocket. “You ever read that whole thing about ‘an eye for an eye’?” he asked.

                The nurses shook their heads, No. He read slowly:

thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Exodus 21:23-25 (KJV)

                “Well, there you go—the Word o’ God, can’t be any plainer than that,” the blonde woman ended grimly.

                “I just wish we could nuke ‘em all,” another said.

                Frank had to admit, the thought had crossed his mind. He wondered, “What kinda world will we have?”

                When he returned to the ER, tension had ratcheted up. Houston explained, “Somebody’s putting their cigarettes out on the guy’s skin, right under our noses. New burns on his hands and feet.”

                “Can I see him?”

                “Yeah, I guess,” Houston shrugged.

                By now the man was isolated in a glass walled cubicle, hooked up to monitors and IVs; a nurse was recording the readings in his chart.

                A police officer stood guard at the door.

                Listening to the clicks and beeps, Frank gazed through the glass at the bandaged discolored face. He wondered what it would look like if the man opened his eyes, or smiled. Had he passed this man on the street yesterday, would he have even noticed him?

                His gentle features suggested nothing equal to the violence he had endured.

                Counter transference! Frank dismissed the fleeting similarity he imagined to his little brother’s face.

                “So he’s burned where?”

                “In the palm of each hand, and in the center of each foot.”

                Frank winced.

                The sheet was discolored. “What’s going on there?” Frank asked.

                “What the—!” Houston jumped as if jolted by a cattle prod. The duty nurse pulled back the sheet, revealing a puncture wound in the patient’s side, bleeding profusely.

                The nurse let out an involuntary cry, then began immediately tending the wound. The police officer with a jerk of his head ordered them to clear out.

                A few minutes later, a furious Administrator stormed into the ER. “Lock this place down, till we get whoever’s doing this!” he said in a low voice. “Send everybody elsewhere who’s not about to code!”

                Frank began quietly explaining to people waiting that the ER had to be evacuated; helping them gather up coats, pocketbooks, magazines, shoes; suggesting they try Memorial Hospital, a level one Trauma center, 7.9 miles away.

                At last, except for police and hospital staff on duty, the ER was empty and quiet. At 6 a.m. Houston went off shift. He normally rode the bus, but this morning Frank gave him a lift. As they drove past the church, Houston noticed something lying in the alley.

                Frank felt like he’d been kicked in the belly. There on the ground behind the church was a body. Middle Eastern descent, 20 something, maybe 30. Something had clawed his head; his face, battered, discolored; cigarette burns, drilled into each palm and the arch of each foot. A puncture wound to the side had bled out.

                The body was partially covered by a sheet of newsprint on which were scrawled the words PAY BACK.

                Houston flipped open his cell phone and called 911. He knelt beside the body. “Brother Frank,” he said, “this is the man that was in the ER all night.”

                Numb, Frank stared at that still, distorted face.

                Houston jabbed the ER number into the keypad of his cell. “Ginger, this is Houston,” he said. “What’s going on there, right now?”

                Then, he said, “Well, where he is now is here, in the alley behind Brother Frank’s church…. It’s the same guy, I’m telling you…. Only now he’s dead.”

                Frank’s hands struggled to free his Bible from his coat pocket, to read a psalm or something. His Bible opened to the verse that reads

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.

 Fiction is the only way to get at truth from a certain point of view. Don’t ask me what it is; I just know it when I read it. I love the Book of Revelation. Something in me wants to rescue it from all the pre-a-post-millennial puzzles that obscure the blazing light of its Truth. So I’m playing with some stories I hope smash the dingy panes of dogma through the stale light of which I’ve had to read the Apocalypse. Mostly, however, these are just for fun. I think. The first Tale was posted 12 July 2008. This is 2.

A Tale of Patmos

                “Hey, M & M, you gonna play me some b ball?”

                The red-headed kid dribbled down the hall toward the church office.

                “You mind your manners, mister!” shouted Rhonda, 210 pounds of rectitude, who ran the Church—Office.

                The redhead danced a circle just out of her reach.

                “Stop that, Maurice!” the preacher barked.

                “Aw, she knows I only do it cuz I love her.”

                “You do it cuz you don’t have no momma I can call down on you,” Rhonda snarled, but she couldn’t keep a chortle off the back of her palate.

                “Stop it!” the preacher said. The redhead kid stopped, just dribbling—he was a cyclotron of one.

                “Y’gonna play, or ain’t ya?”

                “It’s Thursday, isn’t it?”

                “Yep.”

                “Wouldn’t miss it!” the preacher said. He wondered where he stashed his sneaks after the last time.

                “No, you cain’t!” Rhonda said.

                “Rhonda! I told you nothing’ll keep me from playing a little one on one with one M every Thursday afternoon.”

                “Yeah, you said that, but you got that letter, remember? That letter from Patmose?”

                Actually, it only had the final e when Rhonda said it. The Patmos Serenity Center. “You promised you’d go see that old man this afternoon.”

                “Oh, damn, Maurice, I did!”

                A month ago, just before he went on mission trip and vacation, the crumpled letter came from the Patmos Serenity Center, addressed to MM, Laodicea Church. Scratched in red crayon across the back of the envelope were the words:

Repent! Lest I spue thee out of my mouth!

                “Who’d send hate mail to the Church?” she demanded.

                “It’s addressed to me,” M & M said.

                “Well, then I understand!” she said. He ignored her.

                Inside, in barely legible scribbling, was the message:

I am, old John, your brother and companion in tribulation, in the isle that is called Patmos for the testimony of Jesus. In the Spirit on the Lord’s day, he told me: The end is nigh!

                “Somebody’s meds need adjustment,” Rhonda said.

                The preacher showed one M the letter. “Old John knows his Bible, you gotta give him that.”

                “Yeah.” The kid scowled.

                M & M’s double scheduling got worse after Rhonda purchased him a Palm Pilot for Christmas. She was the only one who knew how to use it.

                “Want some M & M’s, Maurice?” the preacher said.

                “You a sweet, sweet man!” cooed Rhonda, making no attempt to swallow this snicker.

                He shot her his Gehenna gaze; she laughed out loud.

                The big bowl of M & M’s had appeared on his desk one Monday morning a few weeks after his first Sunday. The Youth group officially christened him M & M, in spite of his desperate pleas to be called Rev. Mike.

                Maurice said, “Rev. Mike—that sounds like a sound system.” M & M was it.

                “Miracle Emmett Emerson” was the name that marched out of his mother’s mouth. “Miracle” because she was 31, old for that part of the West to be giving birth to your first. She claimed she promised God that name, if he gave her a healthy baby.

                Aunt Bessie said, “It’s ‘Miracle’ because, at that age, skinny like she is, with glasses, she got herself a man, any man.”

                “Emmett” was for Grandpa Emmett, who raised her.

                “Emerson” was her husband’s name. Said so on the Marriage Certificate: Harlan Michael Emerson. All anybody ever saw of him was that Certificate. Turns out Grandpa Emmett raised baby M & M, too. With plenty of help from the church.

                He went to Scouts at church, summer camps, Bible drill competitions. The T.E.L. class of ladies kept him properly fed and clothed. The deacons paid for school supplies and fees.

                Since the church was the only building in town with a big enough hall to hold dances, he did all his dancing there as well. Anonymous from church bought him his first real suit of clothes, at age 17 after he surrendered to the ministry. And, a badly kept secret, it was Pastor Jorge Mercado who paid for his senior ring.

                He went to a church-related college on scholarship and, by the time he started seminary, he had five years of hardscrabble pastoring under his belt. His grades indicated a bright future in grad school, but his heart belonged to little churches like the one he grew up in.

                That’s how he ended up at Laodicea Church, “where the layman matters.” The other slogan that, thanks be to God, didn’t make it onto the letterhead was, “where we oughta see ya.” Nobody cared how corny it was, except the graduate fellows who filled in now and then, who knew just enough Bible to be dangerous.

                “Only one thing to do, one M,” the preacher said to Maurice. “You gotta come with me to the Patmos Serenity Center, ‘closest thing to Glory this side of the Pecos.’ We’ll meet Old John, have a nice chat, and then I’m gonna whup up on ya! How’s that?”

                “I don’t have to do anything religious, do I?” Maurice asked. He was Jewish.

                “Not a thing,” the pastor assured him.

                M & M parked in the clergy space, at the far end of the lot. One M dribbled up and back by the time he got to the front entrance.

                “May I help you?” asked the silver-haired woman behind the high counter labeled Welcome Center.

                “Yes, ma’am,” said the pastor. “I got a letter from somebody who lives here—old John? Could I speak to him?”

                “How’re you going to deal with him, I mean, this whole prisoner tribulation thing?”

                “Tell me why you ask.”

                “He’s mailed out 22 letters like that. We made up a fund to help him pay the postage. You’re the only minister who’s ever replied—no cards, no phone calls, even. You’re not going to preach at him, are you? I mean—we all know he’s got, problems. He can’t help it, he’s just like that. But he’s such a kind old man.”

                “Thank you, I won’t preach at him.” The lady winced at her choice of words. He patted her hand. “I know what you mean, I don’t like to be preached at, either.”

                “I’ll take you to him. He’s in our back meditation garden.”

                She led him to an asphalted parking lot, large pots of greenery placed here and there. His b ball tucked underarm, Maurice tagged along, taking in every detail; couldn’t wait to see an old man who “saw things,” as M & M described him.

                Beside the water-free fountain beneath the silent Gabriel, an old man sat, thin as a coat hanger, a wisp of white hair floating above his forehead.

                “Hello, I understand you call yourself ‘Old John,’” the preacher said.

                “Yep,” the old man replied, gripping his outstretched hand eagerly and staring at each detail of his face. “I knew you’d come.”

                “I’m—”

                “I know who you are,” the old man interrupted. “You’re MM, the Master’s Man.”

A Tale of Patmos

                “Old John’s nurse at Patmos called,” his wife Minnie said.

                “What about?” Nick asked.

                “They found him standing in Route 29 on the double yellow line, staring at the sun again.”

                “I keep telling that doctor his meds ain’t right,” Nick said. “Where’re them oatmeal raisin cookies y’made?”

                “Wrapped in foil, there on the end table by the door. Been a snake, they’d a bit ya-Elmo!”

                Daddy named him Elmo out of spite. Daddy hated Elmo Knickerbocker III, the state senator two generations removed, the family’s only claim to fame. “Near-sighted bilious old goat” is how Daddy described him under his breath. Nana, Elmo’s maternal grandmother, insisted he had old Knickerbocker’s distinguished dome-like forehead and elegant grey eyes.

                “Wouldn’t you rather take ‘em cookies yourself? He likes you,” Nick whimpered.

                “Oh, hush. It’s you he always asks about: “How’s Nick?”–y’d think there was no one else in this wide world.”

                So Nick backed the SUV out of the driveway. Every trip to Patmos cost $16.72 gas money they didn’t have. Before he got to the corner, he’d wrestled open the foil and begun munching on a cookie.

                Minnie wasn’t a looker. None too bright, neither (he told himself), though she could whiz Little Joe through his trig like it was soccer practice. However, he had to admit, nobody came that close to matching Minnie’s cookies. For rich buttery taste and soft crumbly texture, wasn’t a woman in the state could equal her oatmeal raisins.

                Alice (down the block, worked at Wal-Mart 32 hours a week, wore a blonde wig, said it made her look like Madonna) she made a passable snicker doodle. But Minnie never messed with the snicker doodle. She stuck to the tried and true: oatmeal raisin, or white chocolate chip, or caramel chocolate chip, or iced double fudge brownies.

                If the guys at work missed a batch of Minnie’s iced double fudges in a week, they thought she was goin’ through another one of her female spells. More than once, after work, a man stopped by with a sympathy card and a bunch of carnations in his fist.

                Patmos “closest thing to Glory this side of the Pecos” was Nick’s last choice of Nursing Homes for old John. It was decrepit, cramped; had so many coats of paint, the walls were an extra inch thick. But Nick didn’t catch on in time, that old John was going to choose whichever Home Nick hated most.

                His first day at Patmos, ignoring Nick and Minnie’s protests, the administrator moved him into Room 16, a frilly pink room overlooking the back parking lot and the garbage, dumped behind a bright green wall. Large clay pots full of blooming pansies prettied up the view. And in the center a small fountain featured the angel Gabriel blowing his trumpet, out of which a stream of water flowed on Family Days. The rest of the time, they shut it off to save money.

                It always brought to Nick’s mind a chubby angeling pissing in a pond.

                Nick tried to explain to old John the difference between 16 and 666. Of course, no other suitable room was available. (Translation: you’ll pay more for a room with a better view.) Nick thought of asking for a demon discount. But the administrator was not religious, except when introduced to prospective residents; old John had already signed.

                What they did, after repeated exorcisms failed to scare Satan away, is this: Nick found a decorative spray bottle at the dollar store, Minnie painted a cross with gold sequins on it, they filled it with water, and the volunteer chaplain blessed it. They sprayed the door and windows of the Room, and when Satan or his minions appeared, old John was to give ‘em a direct hit. To Nick’s and the chaplain’s disbelief, it worked.

                That afternoon, by the time Nick nosed his truck into the narrow parking place at the Home, there’re only three oatmeal raisins left. Pity to take the old man only three. So Nick left them in the truck to eat on the trek home. Next trip he’d make it up to old John.

                Anyway, Minnie never asked John how he liked the cookies, because he never remembered them, and he got upset.

                “Hey, Snickerdoodle,” old John said, when Nick walked into his room, “you bring me some o’ Minnie’s white chocolate chips?”

                “The name’s Knickerbocker, Nick Knickerbocker,” Nick said, as always. “You can call me Nick. No cookies this afternoon. Things get so jammed up in the summer, she just don’t have time.”

                “Ate ‘em all on the way, eh?”

                “No, “Nick said in perfect honesty. He couldn’t figure a tactful way to mention the old man standing in the middle of the highway.

                “Too bad,” old John sighed. “Before the End comes, I crave one more o’ her oatmeal raisins, but now there’s no time.”

                “No time?” protested Nick. “I’ll get her to bake you some next week for sure.”

                “Too late,” the old man shook his head. A single wisp of white hair floated at the top of his forehead, oscillating gently back and forth.

                “Aren’t sick, are you?”

                “Nope, I’m in tip top condition.”

                “Well, what do you mean, no time?” The second he said it, Nick wanted to suck the syllables out of the air right back between his lips.

                The old man gathered Nick by the shoulders into a conspiratorial clinch. “Snickerdoodle,” he whispered loudly, “I’ve had me a visitor!”

                “Has that gorgeous 79-year-old doll from Room 19 been checking you out?”

                “No, I mean a heavenly visitor! I saw the Lord!”

                Nick tried to be patient. “I’m going to talk to Dr. Valentine about your meds. I think they’re out of whack.”

                “You don’t believe me, do you, Snickerdoodle?”

                Nick took a deep breath. “No, old John, I don’t. I don’t believe in angels, or demons, or 666, or that obsolete old Bible you got on your laptop. I don’t believe a thee or thou of it, not one.”

                “Somebody sure addled your eggs today.”

                Words tumbling out of his mouth, Nick backed out the door. “Y’know, come to think of it, I forgot, I do have some oatmeal raisins in the truck for you. Minnie baked ‘em up this morning special. Don’t know why they slipped my mind.”

                He fled from the room.

                Old John’s reputation for a Seer spanned the whole state. Like others read the morning newspaper, he delved into End Times; every now and then he had a vision. Angels streaked across the heavens. Locusts plagued. A huge neon 666 appeared in the heavens.

                When he got back to Room 16, he found old John at his laptop, reading the book of Revelation, King James Version, red letter edition.

                “Y’see! Y’see!” old John said. Out loud he read, “I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day!”

                “Oh, you crazy old coot!” Nick shouted. “You’re living in a Nursing Home some marketing guru called “Patmos closest thing to Glory this side of the Pecos.” You ain’t seen no angels, no Jesus!”

                 ”I saw the Lord, high and lifted up. His head and his hairs were like wool, white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength!”

                Nick reached down to pull the foil wrapping off the oatmeal raisins. Old John snatched the spray bottle of holy water off his dresser, shouted “Get thee behind me, Satan!” and spritzed him right in the kisser.