Soulshine (10 page)

Michael Westbrook was silent through Eustace Tewksbury"s lengthy explanation. As he listened to Eustace"s fantastic account of his life, a myriad of thoughts flowed in and out of his head.He first considered Eustace"s mindset, and determined that he had known him long enough to attest to his sanity. Secondly, he wondered if Eustace could possibly be spinning a yarn, but dismissed the notion due to Eustace"s earnestness when it came to his service in the Church. Lastly, he thought about the young ladies who all had their eyes on Eustace seven years ago when he first arrived at this quaint stone temple nestled in the picturesque Cotswolds, and how they are all now in their thirties while Eustace still looks like the same enthusiastic youth he has known all those years. When Eustace was finally finished, there was an awkward silence.

“So… you"re of Greek ancestry then .” Michael said it as a statement of fact, though he really said it for confirmation.
Eustace nodded. He trusted the vicar implicitly. He felt he had nothing to fear.
“And you knew Paul…
the
Paul,” continued Michael as he smoothed his face with his hand.
“Somewhat. He… asked me to join him in his mission to set up churches in Greece. I… turned him down.”
“And Jesus... did you… know
Him
?”
“I wish I did. A lot of open questions would certainly be answered, but… I never ventured to the Middle East. Jesus" ministry was relatively short and He stayed in that part of the world.”
“Open questions? You met Paul, for crying out loud. He must have had some influence on you. You became involved in the Church.”
“Once I came to England for the third time, I became involved in the Church. I"ve lived in many different places in between. But recall… Paul started his ministry many years after Jesus" ministry. Even Paul admitted that he saw things as through glass darkly. Yet he was quite judgmental and… as I saw it… hard to deal with… especially concerning something he did not witness first-hand. I preferred to philosophize as I still do today. Take Jesus" words, though… at face value through the gospels… which is all we have of Him to hold onto. The simple truth conveyed through those words are what rounded out my philosophy to the point where I believe I can effectively teach that philosophy in a church thatproclaims His words today.”
“So you consider yourself Christian then.” Again, Michael made a statement while looking for confirmation from Eustace.
“Of course. I"ve met Aristotle and Plato. They were eloquent. Jesus empowered. That was the difference. All three men gave wise advice for living. Jesus… and keep in mind that I can know Him only through the words attributed to Him… gave clear direction. That"s what makes Him more than just a philosopher. And yet He was so simple.
Love God
and
love your neighbors as yourself.
What better way to sum up humankind"s responsibility in this world? Why… if everyone followed those two simple rules, we would have no wars, no angst and no want.”
Michael fidgeted in his chair. “Yet you won"t admit to the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures?”
“Why must we take the giant leap of faith to believe that, after a few centuries of councils debating over which writings contained God"s words, we came to a point in time where we could say „this is it… God"s sanctioned texts"? Do we even
need
to accept everything in the gospels? What if Jesus never turned the water into wine, but it was a folklore handed down for a few decades and later included in John"s gospel? What if even the resurrection of Jesus was also a legend? Does it make His
words
any less valid?”
“Now you"re suggesting things that enter the realm of blasphemy,” interrupted the vicar.
“Which is precisely the sort of doctrinal intolerance I wish the young minds in the church to overcome, Vicar Westbrook.”
“Look, Eustace, you simply cannot… even though you have had centuries to formulate your philosophy… you cannot include the doctrine of the divine inspiration of Scripture as intolerance.”
“That"s only scratching the surface, Vicar. From that proclamation, the Church feels the need to establish all sorts of restrictions apart from the basic teachings of Jesus to simply love one"s maker and one"s fellow human beings. Why, just a few weeks ago a young couple… who truly loved each other and were never heard to utter one single derisive or scandalous word against another member of our congregation… were sent away from the fellowship of believers because they dared to conceive a child out of wedlock. Which of Jesus" two commandments did they break?“
Michael straightened in his chair. “Obviously the first of the two. They did not consider God in their choice to defile their bed outside the sanctity of holy matrimony.”
“And you know this offends God because… of some chapter and verse penned by someone other than the One we proclaim as Lord?”
Michael grew visibly tired of the conversation and now started to even doubt Eustace"s account of his own life. “Eustace, the issues here are obviously deeper than what I first knew to be so. I regret to inform you that I must remove you from any position of authority, especially as it pertains to teaching the highly impressionable youth.”
Eustace bowed his head, drew a deep breath, and raised his headhigh again. “I only hope that whatever you do to erase the truth I have given them will fail to sway them. As of this moment, they all see that it was wrong to send that young couple away from the communion table, as well as the fellowship. I sincerely hope that they remain followers of the non-judgmental love that their Lord has taught them.”
“You must not talk to them about your…
philosophies…
going forth, Eustace. Your influence must end so the Church may go on as God intended.”
“So God intended being Christian to be more than following the teachings of Christ? Vicar… if someday proof is discovered that the resurrection never took place… I would still keep my faith in what Jesus
said
. Your faith would be destroyed because of your focus on who He
is…
or
was
.”
“I do not begrudge your beliefs, Eustace. I just cannot approve of them in the Church.”
Eustace shook his head in dismay. “I had hoped to make a positive difference, Vicar. The first time I ever came to England, I involved myself solely as a thespian… living my philosophy while influencing only a small inner circle of acquaintances. I met Shakespeare… a fascinating fellow… and so enjoyed the theater… but I felt there was something more for me to contribute. You are close to driving me back to the theater, Vicar. I suppose that would please you. I pray that I never lose my ideals and that I never lose focus on what is important in life. Perhaps I can best exemplify Christ through the arts. Isn"t it ironic that another of Jesus" sayings… which the Church considers God"s inerrant Word… is
‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’
? May we always remember that, Vicar.”
“I"ve always liked you, Eustace.”
“I still
love
you, Vicar. Goodbye… and I thank you for your confidence regarding what I just divulged of my chance association with Gerasimos.”
“On my word… I will utter nothing concerning that. Your teachings to the youth regarding your philosophy, however, I must correct.”
“Understood, Vicar. It"s been seven years in one place… about as long as I should stay in any oneplace. I"ve spent practically the last century moving around England. I"ve never been to the New World. Perhaps it"s time. Their Civil War has been over for years now. I try to avoid times and places of war, you know. It will be good to reach another continent with the simple joy that I have found in the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps I will discover that one kindred spirit I seek in the form of a woman.” From his pocket, he pulled out the tiny flask of elixir. “America is brimming with diverse people. Perhaps she is waiting there for me.”
Michael extended his hand. “I suppose I shall be on to my eternal reward the next time you return to England.”
Eustacegrasped Michael"s hand firmly. “I suppose you shall, Vicar. Hopefully you will not have succeeded in having me blacklisted in future generations.”
Michael sighed. “You
know
that I have a duty to uphold for the Church of England, as well as the universal church.”
“I know that you
believe
that you are doing your duty. I can only take solace in knowing that if I
do
return, my message will remain the same though the name behind the message will be different.”

“Thanks so much for letting m e have as much time as I needed, Evan. I know you wanted to move on quickly,” said Michelle as the train pulled out of Providence Station.

“I didn"t really want to move on, Michelle. I like Riverside. I wish I had been born just a few years before you… right in Riverside. Life would be so much simpler. We wouldn"t have had to tell your parents that we were just taking a short vacation.” Evan paused. “You know they will probably think we"re dead after so much time goes by, don"t you?”

Wouldn"t that be rather suspicious?”
Michelle sighed. “I suppose it would be.”
“I"m not against sending them anonymous gifts. It would

Michelle nodded thoughtfully. “Do you really wish you were born around 1950? That would make you four years older than me.”

Evan smiled. “Yeah, I would have liked that. I wouldn"t be taking you away from your family and we would all be living a normal life.”

“So you mean without the elixir?”
“Had I been born in 1950 in the town of Riverside, I would have
had
no elixir, unless you know of any eccentric alchemists trying to preserve youth on the East Bay?”
“No,” Michelle giggled. “I do not.”
“Yes, Michelle. I would gladly give up my… our… for lack of a better word… immortality… to just settle down with you. I never desired it, you know. Even when the old man asked me to be the tester for it, I didn"t think it would work. I thought I was helping a scientist try to perfect something. At most, I hoped it would maybe benefit me somewhat… but certainly not do what it did.”
“That"s sweet. You wished we could be normal, yet you gave me the elixir so we could always be together.”
“The ironic thing is that had I not taken the elixir, we would have never met. I call that fate. I was meant to meet you, and you were meant to show me the kindness that you did. Because I am forever in the physical state that first attracted you, I knew it was somehow right to keep you in the physical state that you were in when we fell in love. Otherwise, if we could have aged together, that would have been fine,too.” Michelle looked out the train window. A tear streamed down her face. “That"s a tear of happiness, I hope?”
“Both happiness and sadness. It"s kind of a sweet combination. I wish we were normal, but I"m also glad that we have forever to be young.”
“As long as we take care of each other, it looks like the old alchemist fixed us up pretty good,” smiled Evan.
“Where are we going?”
“Well, this train will make several stops in Connecticut on its way to Grand Central Station in New York.” Evan thought about the possibilities of running into Bryan or Jean. “We should probably think of a direction we will want to go from there. New York City is rather busy… nothing like Riverside or even Providence. What do you say? South to Florida? Or all the way westward to California?”
“It"s all so much for me to take in. I don"t know if I can just pick a place to go and live.”
“Well… live for the next few years anyway.”
“You should get a car whenever we get where we"re going. That way we can travel easier.”
“I can"t get a license without proper identification, Michelle. I wish I could buy a car
and
a house for us both, but I can"t.
You
can buy a car though. I can teach you how to drive. I took some chances driving short trips to do errands for some of the people I have worked for, including the Cacharellis.”
“That sounds good. I hope my legs reach the pedals.”
“You"re not
that
short. We"ll get you a small car and move the seat as far forward as it will go. There are people who are just as tall as you are and
they
drive. The trick will be getting the people at the registry of motor vehicles to believe you are the person on your birth certificate. Maybe we can try to pull that off this year, but I don"t know about ten years from now. I guess they"ll have to believe it since you have the documentation to back it up, but sooner or later you may need to give up driving. I"ll have to find a good forger someday.”
“I wish we could buy a house.”
“Well, I could give you the cash and
you
could buy a house… but there"s not much sense in buying a house if we keep having tomove… butwait a minute… the way real estate keeps rising in value, it may be a good idea to keep buying and selling to make a profit.We can spend up to ten years or so in each house.” Evan put his arm around Michelle. “You know… maybe we
can
have thehouse you always wanted.”
“House-
s
,” said Michelle as she looked up at him with a twinkle in her pretty green eyes.

The phone rang on the desk of Fletcher University Hospital administrator Stuart Williams. “Hello, this is Stu Williams.”
“Mr. Williams, this is Linda Sherman, administrator at Ottawa General Hospital. How are you?”
“Quite well, Linda. You must be calling about the patient we will be receiving tomorrow.”
“Yes. That would be Evan Troy. However, the doctors here would like to run one more series of tests. They think they may be onto something… a breakthrough in the case. We would like to delay the transfer for a couple of days… say Friday?”
“Hmm,” pondered Stuart. “If your doctors are on the verge of a breakthrough, then why do you want us to get him at all?”
“We just want to ensure that we have a plan to fall back on if it doesn"t work. After a few days of not being able to properly diagnose the Troy case, we are leery of putting all our marbles on our doctors" latest hopes for successful treatment.”
“Well… your people
do
have the advantage of having been working on the case. I will inform the ambulatory service to schedule a Fridaymorning patient transfer… unless you prefer afternoon?”
“No, Friday morning is fine. Tomorrow is Wednesday. If everything goes well and we determine to let the patient remain here, I will call you late Thursdayafternoon.”
“Best of luck to you.”
“Thank you, Stuart. We"ll be talking soon.”
“No, we will not,” said a voice from behind as the phone was returned to its base. “Good job,
Mrs. Sherman
. Now we only have one more call to make, and then our transport team will do the rest.”