The Messenger (7 page)

The message was given, the gift received. The song did not diminish, but rather soared ever higher, flying toward the unseen heavens, beyond the reach of human ears and hearts, higher and higher and higher until the final note was a chiming almost at the limit of awareness. Yet all knew that it was not the last. It was only the beginning. The first note of a song they would hear and carry with them always. Forever to be sung in praise of the One.

****

Manny was being followed. He knew it. The sensation was stronger than it had been outside the pawnshop. Manny did his weaving dance through the evening crowds filling the airport terminal, his ticket clutched in one hand like a lifeline. He dodged one of the electric carts carrying old people, jogged alongside it, glanced back and forth and to both sides, saw nothing that raised the alarm. But somebody was there. He could feel it. Somebody was after him.

Or something.

Manny sighed with genuine relief as he heard his flight's final boarding call. He raced down the concourse, feeling as though the breath of whatever had growled in his apartment was nipping at his heels. He slowed long enough for the attendant to snag his ticket, then fled down the boarding ramp and into the plane. His breath was loud in his ears as he walked down the aisle, his heart jumping more from the fright than the run.

Then he was aware once more of the invisible guiding hand. Right when he least expected it, there between the crowded rows, the flight attendant already talking over the loudspeaker. Again there was a sense of an unseen force surrounding him, reaching down and gently directing him. Crazy.

He checked his ticket for the seat number, slid into his place, breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to be leaving town for a while. His home turf was definitely getting to be a risky place to hang.

He glanced over at the man seated beside him. Big, burly, barrel-chested. Biker's T-shirt. Fists like human hammers, all gnarled and knotted. Holding a book and turning the flimsy little pages, his forehead creased in concentration. Not even acknowledging the outside world, oblivious as the plane started rolling away from the terminal. Manny leaned over, gave the book a casual glance, jerked back. The Bible. Just like he'd seen as a kid, when he had sought shelter from a heavy storm inside a street mission. Manny didn't know any other book that had those double columns and fancy red printing here and there. He leaned back down again just to make sure, pretended to scratch his ankle while scanning the page, recognized the name Jesus. Yeah, had to be. The guy was sitting there on a plane reading the Bible. Amazing.

This time the guy noticed him. “You want to read along with me?”

Manny straightened up, did the casual stretch, no big deal. Palmed his ticket stub, read the seat number, no mistake, this was his place. “No, you go ahead.”

“That's okay.” The big guy slung this little ribbon across the page, closed the Book. “I can read anytime. What's your name?”

“Manny.” Sitting there next to the Hulk, and the guy wants to play polite. Manny didn't argue, didn't even lie about his name.

“Mine's John. John Roskovitz.” Offered his hand. “You a believer?”

Manny watched his hand be swallowed, felt strength behind the grip, but no menace. Not in the hand, not in the eyes, not in the voice. Guy with a bruiser's face, scar across his forehead and a nose broken so often it had been set at a permanent angle, but eyes that shone with a gentle light. Didn't make sense. “Not really.”

“Know what you mean,” the guy said agreeably. “Been there, done that. A lot.”

“Yeah?” Manny glanced at his ticket stub again. Not because he thought maybe he had it wrong. No. Because he had that sense of being guided into this meeting and this contact. Crazy.

“Years and years of it,” Roskovitz confirmed. “All those guys, they stand up there and tell you how it felt bad and they didn't understand why they did it. Not me. I did it because I was having a ball.”

Manny felt himself being invited to relax, let down his constant guards, talk to somebody who
understood
. Normally, a stranger this size, he'd be around the corner and out of sight and gone. Not this time. “So what happened?”

“So I found something better.” The guy lifted his Book. “Couldn't go both ways at the same time. Had to make a choice.”

A
choice
. Manny recalled the moment in his apartment doorway, felt himself shiver.

Roskovitz noticed the change. “Something the matter?”

Manny started to deny it. But there was something about this stranger and this moment that invited him to open up. “I think maybe I got a problem.”

The guy slid the Book into the pocket of the seat in front of him, crossed massive arms. “One thing I learned about problems,” he said. “They're a lot easier to handle if two people carry the load.”

There it was again, that sense of an invitation. Of comfort being offered, and not just from the guy. From the moment. Manny swallowed, felt the pressure of years of holding back, standing alone, being his own man. But somewhere deep inside a door was being opened, one he didn't even know existed before that moment.

He said, “I think I'm being followed.”

“Yeah?” John showed only mild surprise. “You done something?”

“You kidding?” Manny had to smile. “I've done it all.”

“Know what you mean, know what you mean,” the guy murmured. Eyes still open and kindly. No judgment, no condemnation. Just sitting there, smiling through the roar of the takeoff, nodding a continual invitation for Manny to open up, let it out.

But still it was hard. Manny had never spoken to anybody like this before, not in his life. “See, I found this pigeon, talk about out of it. Picked her pockets, came up with this thing, I dunno, I thought it was some kinda credit card. But when I stuck it in the bank machine, wham, I was
gone
. I mean outta here.” Manny stopped, inspected the incongruous face with its hard angles of brutal power and eyes of luminous light. “That make any sense to you?”

“Might do,” the guy said easily. “But you just keep on, I like the sound of your voice.”

“Ever since then, I don't know, there's been one thing after another. It feels like,” Manny tried to shape the air in front of him as he went on, “like I'm being sorta
guided
. Not like, okay, here, take my hand and let's go see what's down the corner. More like, this is something I maybe oughta think about, even if it don't make no sense at all.”

“An opportunity,” the guy said, speaking more quietly now that the plane was leveling off.

Manny had to stop and stare. The guy was not only listening. He was understanding so well it was almost like he was hearing what Manny did not know how to put into words.

Roskovitz waited with him for a time, then urged gently, “So what did you do?”

“Sometimes I took it, you know, whatever it was that I felt like was there for me,” Manny replied, his voice a little weak from the surprise that somebody cared enough to search out the deeper meaning. “But it's hard. I mean, really hard. I feel like I'm fighting with myself.”

Roskovitz nodded. “Hardest part of the struggle is at the turning. Up to then, you're just moving with the flow. But you start to turn, then all the forces that held you tight start getting angry. Like they don't want to let you go.”

His pride pricked, Manny started to object, declare himself his own man. Then he thought about watching the shadows coalesce in the bar, about hearing that growl in his own apartment, and he kept still. All the forces that held him tight. Manny felt a chill burn like dry ice in his gut.

“Long as you're going the way
they
want you to,” Roskovitz went on, “everything's fine. They let you think you're on your own. Strong and powerful enough to face whatever comes. King of all you survey, like that.”

Manny gave a tiny nod, a single jerk, almost against his will. This guy was reading him like a book, showing him things he sort of felt, but never thought about before. It left him uncomfortable. And scared. But wanting to hear more just the same.

“Then something happens, and all of a sudden there's this fork in the road. And you think maybe you ought to take the other way, but soon as you do, all these forces are up in arms. You're no longer part of them, see. You're joining the opposition.”

“I'm not joining nothing,” Manny denied.

The guy just looked at him, the gentle gaze now piercing. “You can't stand in the middle of the road,” he said. “You gotta keep moving, gotta make that choice. And once you choose, you've got to
commit
. You don't, they'll keep after you, those forces. When you're weak or not looking, they'll drag you back. And once they do, you're lost.”

The truth of the guy's words resounded through Manny like the tolling of a great bell. Like the time had come, and the bell of his life was sounding.
Bong, bong, bong
, like that, pealing in great thunderous power that caused his whole being to shake until he could scarcely get out the words. “So what do I do?”

Roskovitz leaned forward and plucked the Bible from the seat pocket in front of him. “Let me tell you what it says in here.”

****

The night had a physical presence, soft and vibrant and full of mystery. Ariel lay in her bed, separated from Clarice by a nightstand and her churning thoughts. So much to take in. So much to learn.

She recalled scenes she had witnessed and sighed quietly, “I just don't understand.”

Clarice shifted in her bed, said sleepily, “Understand what, dear?”

They were in the upstairs guest room of Reverend Townsend's home, a nice red-brick house on a quiet side street not far from the church. Outside their window a car passed along the silent street, a dog barked, a nightbird sounded its lonely cry. Inside all was warmth and comfort.

“Everywhere I look,” Ariel said quietly, “I see God's blessed creation overlaid with, well . . .”

“Darkness,” Clarice said for her. “Darkness and unseen shadows.”

Ariel looked over, searching the night. “How can you
stand
it here?”

“You are truly the strangest girl I have ever come across in all my days. The Spirit moves in you. After what I've seen at the bus station and hearing you play the harp, there's no doubt in my mind about that. But, Lord, your questions.” Clarice chuckled softly. “Where were you raised, on a lofty mountaintop up above the clouds?”

Ariel struggled with how to reply, settled on, “Yes.”

“Well, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.” The bed creaked as Clarice raised herself up to a sitting position. “Now listen here. We live in a fallen world. Our job is not to worry over that, because doing so won't get us anywhere. Our job is to be servants of the Holy One and make little openings for His grace to come through and touch the world around us. And our strongest tool is prayer. We must pray and pray and pray without ceasing, filling ourselves and our surroundings with His gracious love.”

Ariel listened and heard more than just the woman's words. She heard the strength, the simple conviction, the years of struggle and giving and living for more than just herself. “You are a very special woman, Clarice.”

“I'm tired is what I am. A woman my age needs her rest. Now you close your eyes and we'll have us a time of prayer. Then I want you to turn your worries over to the One who can handle them and get some sleep.”

****

“So what brings you down here, anyway?”

“Hard to say,” Manny replied weakly, and pushed his breakfast plate to one side. They were seated in the restaurant of a cheap motel not far from the Washington bus station. The night before, Manny had said he needed to go straight there, he needed to find somebody. John Roskovitz had shrugged those massive shoulders and said that was fine with him, he'd be working down in that area the next day, anyway. Taking it easy, not pushing, just along for the ride.

But the bus station had been a nonstarter. Manny had searched the place from top to bottom, talked to some homeboys hanging out, found no sign of the girl and no one who had seen her.

Unable to think of anything else he could do, Manny had agreed to John's suggestion and walked with the big man to the motel. He had gone to bed tired and frustrated and angry, feeling both used and confused.

And had woken up feeling exactly the same way.

Manny shook his head when the waitress came by offering hot coffee, then asked Roskovitz, “So what about you?”

“There's a church not far from here,” Roskovitz replied. “They're setting up a relief center for local kids. Rich crowd, big church, you know how it is, don't have any idea what they're up against. They see these kids hanging around every day and never talked to one of them in their lives. But the Spirit works where it will, and from what I hear these folks have been hit hard. So they heard about some work I've done in Philadelphia, bringing kids off the street and getting them started with life. Asked me to come down and help them get set up.”

“Great,” Manny said dully. The Spirit. Guy just tosses it out like he's on a personal first-name basis with something or someone he's never even seen. This was another thing that had really messed with his head the night before, all the stuff Roskovitz had laid on him, pointing to place after place in the Bible, laying it all out, saying this was what he had to do.
Had
to do. Not like, okay, this is something maybe he should think about. No, it was, okay, you want to get a life, you've got to do this and this and this.

Crazy.

Manny felt the old urges building. Pushing him up and away and out of there. Back to the street. Back to where he was his own man, not having some former biker trying to scare him with stuff out of a book two thousand years dead. No, this whole scene wasn't for him.