Welcome back for this next installment. For those of you just joining us who wish to catch up on backstory, here is a link to the Table of Contents.
Chapter Four
The Pharoah examined the row of statues he had commissioned, each one larger than life and elegantly carved of dark black rock. They were identical: a seated woman with a lion’s head topped with a disk. Her eyes looked serene, yet the black rock emanated ferocity -- like charcoal concealing embers underneath. Pharoah reached his hand toward a statue, not touching it. A man in a headdress quietly slipped beside him. “Over three hundred more, just like these, have been ordered.” he said “They are fine works; a glorious offering for Sekhmet.”
“Double it,” came Pharoah’s curt reply, “We must honor her lest she visit us again.” Pharoah’s belly fluttered. The stories told that Sekhmet had almost devoured all the inhabitants of Earth … and she was the expression of the wrath of Ra. The horrors unleashed upon the land could only have been expressions of her displeasure. He had to restore ma’at, the balance of harmony, to the land. It was his destiny.
The man in the headdress held his silence. Pharoah turned to face him “What else have you to show me, Amenhotep?”
Amenhotep led Pharaoh to his work table, scattered with scrolls, writing instruments, measuring tools, and inkpots. He gently moved the inkpots to the side and unrolled one great papyrus scrolls. “The plans for your great temple, my lord. See, this will be greater than the temples of your predecessors. The entrance is flanked by two colossal statues of you enthroned as king of the united kingdoms. We shall call it ‘The House of Millions of Years.’” He paused to let the flattering title sink in. “We’ll work gold all throughout the complex. Here is the sanctuary. We’ll purify the floors with silver – for here you will be worshipped in perpetuity. We will build it on the other side of the river, near the tombs of the kings.” Pharoah examined the plans and nodded “Well done… Well done, Amenhotep. You surpass my greatest expectations. How long will it take to complete.”
“I’m not sure, my lord. The master craftsmen are working on estimates for supplies – We will need timber, and our supplies are low due to the rebuilding work in the lower kingdom. The repairs there are costly, my lord.”
Pharoah’s face was a blank mask – the official face that he used when receiving dignitaries in court or in negotiating the complex agendas of his courtiers and officers. Finally he spoke “Can we ever recover our glory?”
Amenhotep nodded, “Yes, my lord, you will only be remembered for glory – glory and your dedication to the gods.” Pharoah stood unmoving. Amenhotep broke the prolonged silence, “You were tutored in the secrets just as I have been. Your great-grandfather, Thutmosis Menkheperre, erased the memory of the greatest shame the two kingdoms has ever seen – the witch Hatshepsut is remembered only by a few who must know, lest we repeat the errors of history. The past is as fluid as the future – no shame cannot be undone. By your decree, you will erase this shame.”
Pharoah had turned back to look at the statues in the middle of Amenhotep’s speech. “Hatshepsut…” he mused aloud, “Yes, you are right, we can learn from the past.” Pharaoh seemed lost in thought when a linen dressed man with a shaved head came into the room. He stood by the door quietly for a long time. Amenhotep coughed quietly. Pharoah broke from his thoughts. Amenhotep slightly inclined his head in the direction of the waiting messenger. “Come…speak” Said pharaoh in his official voice.
“My lord,” said the messenger, “Ramose is here, and he is prepared to present the reports for the day.”
“Send for him.” The messenger turned to depart, but already, the entourage had arrived. Led first by a man dressed in linen, head shaved and eyes decorated. He strode with purpose, a man accustomed to command. He was escorted by a retinue of clerks carrying scrolls, writing instruments, and papyri.
“Ramose, I read your proposal for a second Heb Sed festival – it has great merit.”
Amenhotep’s eyebrows arched slightly, a sign of great surprise for him. “My lord, it is quite unusual to have a festival of rejuvenation so soon after your last one. It is against custom.”
“’The past is fluid’, you said. Ramose has proposed an entirely different festival – an aquatic festival.” A smile flickered across Ramose’s face. “We live in times that defy custom, so let us have a second Heb Sed, even a third if must be – we must restore the confidence of the people.” Amenhotep bowed his head slightly in acceptance of Pharoah’s wishes. “Ramose, see to it that Amenhotep has a full report on our timber supplies and funds available for construction.”
Ramose gestured to one of the clerks who began to write on a scroll. “Also, search the records of Hatshepsut. I remember in my studies reading of a festival of Sekhmet – there was much drink and dancing and feasting among the people. See if we can include such celebrations as part of this aquatic Heb Sed.”
Ramose gestured to a second scribe, who left the room immediately. “My lord, such measures will be very expensive.”
Pharoah turned to his two advisors “By my decree, I will erase this shame.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Calvin awoke to the sound of the telephone. It was mid morning. “Calvin, I didn’t wake you, did I?” came the voice from the other end – Judge Hamilton, an old family friend and Federal Judge on the Atlanta circuit court.
“No, not at all” Calvin replied, with the raspy just awakened voice that made him sound like Elmer Fudd.
“Son, I just thought you needed to know this. I’m not sure what it means, but whatever it is, it’s not good.”
“OK, what is it?”
“Calvin, I was talking with your mother about your conversation with the Sheriff’s deputies. She was upset; it sounds like this Parrish fellow really was hostile toward you. I thought I’d give a call to the Sheriff just to check in. Ethically, I can’t interfere, mind you, but I thought I could reassure him about your character….” His voice dropped off.
“Thank you, sir. Was there something the matter?”
“There is no deputy Parrish nor is there a deputy Collins. There’s no investigation. This was the first that Sheriff Hollister had heard that John Carter was missing.”
Calvin and Judge Hamilton talked for a few minutes. Judge Hamilton reassured Calvin that he was going to talk to John’s parents. Calvin was befuddled. He drove to Biscuit Barn to get a fried chicken biscuit for breakfast. Sitting in the front seat of his car, he chewed mindlessly. His head felt light, as though the insides were filled with sticky helium that clouded his thinking. He turned the ignition and drove without aim, turning thoughts over in his brain, hiking the same paths, unable to leave worn spots that his mind had thoroughly covered. He became aware of his surroundings, realizing that on instinct, he had driven half-way to John’s house. Perhaps I can get some clarity of mind there. He continued on.
Pulling in the driveway, he saw no other cars. He got out, walked the steps, crossed the wide wooden porch, and tried the handle. Not locked. The door creaked as he opened the door. Stale air met him, begging him to throw open the windows. His fingers tingled, a slight whine rang in his ears, and his heart thumped as though he were entering a mausoleum at midnight. Try as he might, he couldn’t control his breathing. He gulped deep breaths, making more noise than he intended.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Nothing to be afraid of – he thought -- it’s the middle of the day. This calmed him somewhat.
A glance about the foyer showed no change. On a hunch, Calvin ascended the stairs, drawn to the upstairs library. The banister felt cool to his palm as he gently ascended up the center carpet runner. At the top of the landing he turned the corner and stood in the doorway to the library.
Books lay scattered across the room. The totem pole that had seemed so solemn before had been knocked over and cracked open to reveal a hollow chamber – fifty-dollar bills scattered all around, and a portfolio file with all the papers dumped out. The cushions of all the couches had been torn open. The desk drawers were emptied out onto the floor. The only thing untouched was the green plaster face of the leaf man, his lips pursed as though ready to bellow forth “There is no deputy Parrish”. Calvin stood still. His mouth dried. He was in way over his head.
Slowly he stooped down and gathered the scattered papers: copies of John’s passport, copies of newspaper articles from the New York World dated in the 1870s, a diagram of what looked to be a tunnel network underneath a building, a printout of an old photograph of a portly serious looking man in a suit. Underneath the papers lay a small green book, small enough to slip into a coat pocket. In gold lettering on the cover was the title “The Circle of the Green Man” and beneath these words, a small image of a man’s face emerging from leaves. Calvin looked to the plaster face on the wall. They were identical. The hair on his arms and back tingled. He’s mixed up with these nut-jobs? He’s in deep. He folded the papers inside the cover of the book and stuffed them in the back pocket of his jeans.
A car door slammed.
Calvin’s heart lurched. For one moment he stood unsure what to do. By instinct, he ducked through to the front hallway and into the guest bedroom. Struggling to control his breath, Calvin peeked through the shade of the window looking out over the front yard, taking care not to cause it to move. A nondescript maroon car had pulled up next to his. A man knelt down behind his car, while another man was coming out of the driver’s side of this new vehicle. Calvin recognized the driver as deputy-who-wasn’t-deputy Collins. The man behind his car stood up – it was Parrish, holding a wicked looking bowie knife. Calvin could see that the visible rear tire on his car was deflated. Parrish pointed two fingers toward the house; Collins reached behind his back, pulling something from what appeared to be his beltloop. He brought it around front quickly and jerked his hand back and forth once over top of it. Parrish walked in front of Calvin’s car, knife still in hand while Collins slowly moved up the steps to the front porch. A quiet Clomp….. Clomp sounded from the front porch.
Calvin pulled back from the window. He gulped air over his dry tongue…Are they looking for me? Or just back to tear up more of the house? Whatever the answer, Collins and Parrish looked to be in no mood for answering questions. Quick as he could, He went back into the upstairs hallway, plastered his back against the wall, and peered around the corner of the landing to see the entrance foyer. The front door creaked open. He saw the nose of Collins’ pistol come through the door, followed by his arm. Calvin pulled back two steps out of view. He took a quick look at the four doors behind him: the guest bedroom, John’s bedroom, the bathroom, and the library. Only one had an exit to the back stairs down to the kitchen – the library.
Calvin reached around and locked the handle of the guest bedroom from within. He quietly pulled that door shut. He did the same on John’s bedroom. All the while his ears were tuned to the slightest sound coming from the foyer. Collins’ cowboy boots made a gentle tap tap tap on the tile. He was moving slowly and deliberately down there. He hadn’t made it to the carpeted staircase. What if he doesn’t come up the stairs? – if Collins went to the kitchen and came up the back stairs, Calvin would be trapped. Calvin went back to the edge of the landing and peered down. Collins was almost immediately below him looking into the dining room. Calvin’s mind raced – out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Windsor chair and lampstand sitting in the middle of the landing. I sure hope this works.
As Collins poked his way into the dining room, Calvin picked up the Windsor chair, lifted it aloft, and hurtled it flying down at Collin’s back. He didn’t know if he hit his mark, for Calvin was back up the hallway when he heard it crash and Collins cry out with a string of expletives. Calvin heard Collins’ boots clap clapping across the tile and the first thump of him hitting the stairs. Calvin pulled the library door shut and locked it. I hope those other closed doors throw him for a second. Calvin was at the far end of the library when he heard a sound like muffled thunder once, and then a second time with a bang. Collins had just burst into one of the upstairs bedrooms. Calvin flew down the stairs to the kitchen. He searched for anything he could use to defend himself. The kitchen mocked him with it’s sterility: steel appliances, unused copper plated kettles hanging from a rack from the ceiling, the all too neat countertop, sporting a few empty flour and sugar jars and a butcher block with kitchen knives. He grabbed the big center chopping knife.
A muffled bang sounded upstairs.
Heart pounding, he took a deep breath, ready to run out the back door and take his chances with Parrish. Suddenly his eyes caught a wooden billholder and keychain rack – truck keys still hanging from the pegs.
A thunderclap came from the library upstairs, as Collins burst through the locked door.
Calvin grabbed the keys and flung open the garage door. Dashing down the steps, he knocked over a shovel. He fumbled with the keys of John Carter’s heavy pickup for a moment, panicking as he heard boots clattering down the stairs to the kitchen. He got the door open and vaulted in, slamming the key in the ignition, turning it and throwing the truck into drive all in one neat seamless motion. As he crushed his right foot down as far as he could, he heard the deafening squeal of tires. Collins appeared in the doorway and leveled his gun.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Parrish waited in the sun, unmoving. The crash from within the house set all his senses on high alert. He heard Collins cussing and smashing about the house. For a moment, he wondered if he should go in. No, that idiot’ll drive whoever’s in there straight to me. He walked to the center of the yard, eyes cutting from right to left to see if a figure came around the corner. He heard more crashes within the house. Parrish rolled his eyes. He startled when he heard a roar from the garage, followed closely by a high squeal. Before he could move, the door blew outward, splintering as an oversize mud splattered pickup truck came barreling toward him. Shots fired from inside the garage. Behind the wheel of the truck he saw the adrenaline crazed face of the driver. Poteat! Parrish dove to the side just as Calvin swerved to avoid him. He hit the ground with a hard thud, knocking the wind out of him, while the truck swerved around the parked cars to head for the main road. Within a few seconds, the truck was gone.
Collins was beside Parrish, and kneeling down to help him up. “C’mon, we can catch him.”
Parrish coughed as he stood. “No. We know that he’s got to go home. We’ll catch him there sooner or later. You drive, I’ll check in.”
“He’s not going to be happy.”
“I know, we didn’t find the diary or anything we didn’t already know. And now Poteat knows more than he ought to.”
Collins looked worried. “This is getting complicated – I wonder why they didn’t hire professionals to do this?”
Parrish burned. “They don’t need professionals!” he snapped, “I can handle this better than any of your so-called professionals.” He glowered for a moment, and then, getting hold of himself, he began to lecture: “The Green Man teaches that when your mind is cleansed, you have more insight than the unenlightened,” Collins looked like a child being chastised by a teacher. “Don’t ever forget that we’re smarter and better because we’re initiated into the mysteries of the natural rhythms of the universe.”
Collins didn’t say it, but he thought that Poteat had an easy time escaping for someone who wasn’t initiated into the mysteries of the natural rhythms of the universe. He also began to suspect that this adventure might take more vacation time than he’d allotted for. He’d have to call his secretary and get her to cancel some appointments, after he had a clearer idea of how long this would take.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Prophet of the Sun Chapter 3
Here is the long awaited chapter 3 ... sorry, the Christmas rush got in the way.
For those of you just joining us, you might want to read earlier chapters, available through the Table of Contents
Chapter 3
The interview had the sterility of all the expected questions: what they had done that night, the last time Calvin remembered seeing John. Deputy Collins asked most of the questions. He was stiff with an awkward formality, as though he was auditioning for the role without ever having prepared for the part. Parrish, meanwhile, remained quiet. Only once did his leopard-like eyes betray a hint of predatory readiness: when Calvin described the conversation about Hurlburt’s diary. Then Parrish cocked his head, and interrupted smoothly.
“What did he say he was going to do with this diary?”
Calvin shrugged. “Some kind of treasure hunting – an old lost tomb of Egypt.” A swell of guilt grew as Calvin recalled his inattention to his friend’s plans. “I really wasn’t following the story too closely.”
Parrish pursued, “Did he tell you about any plans?”
Calvin shook his head. “No, he just said that he had a few associates involved – never mentioned who they were.” Parrish’s upper lip bulged where underneath he ran his tongue over his teeth, sucking them. He sat back, again turning his attention to the rest of the room, surveying every corner. Collins resumed his monotone questioning straight from a bad 1950’s tv cop drama. After what seemed to be an eternity, Collins concluded. As the deputies stood to leave, Collins gave Calvin his business card. “If you think of anything else that might be of help, please give me a call.”
“Yessir. I certainly will.” Calvin said, ushering them to the door and opening it for them.
“Thank you for your time, Rev. Poteat.” said Collins mechanically as he turned and walked out the door, putting his hat back on in one smooth motion. Parrish looked Calvin in the eye for a moment longer than comfortable. “We’ll be in touch” he said flatly. He nodded and left.
Calvin closed the door and returned to the couch. He stared at his now closed laptop, replaying the interview in his mind. The shock of John’s disappearance only now settled in. Calvin picked up the telephone, intending to call John’s parents. Three numbers into dialing, he stopped. His shock gave way to understanding, and he closed his eyes, letting out a long slow breath in an attempt to release the grip that had encased his chest. Calvin hung up the phone, went to the kitchen, found the telephone book and searched the yellow pages, continuing to exhale long and slow to keep fear at bay. He found the number he was looking for and dialed – it rang one, two, three “Law offices of Artemus Jordan, may I help you.” Came the bored sounding voice.
“Yes, I need to speak to AC immediately – tell him that Calvin Poteat is calling.”
“Sir, he’s in a meeting. May I take a message?”
“Just tell him that Calvin Poteat is calling and that I need to speak to him immediately.” Calvin said forcefully.
“Yes sir” came the frosty reply. Calvin heard the click of being put on hold. It was no more than ten seconds that he was on hold. But all during it, Calvin bounced on his heels, as though that would make AC pick up sooner. The phone clicked again.
“Cal, good Lord, what’s so important? I’m here with another client.”
“AC – I just had two Sherriff’s deputies here in my apartment. They were asking me questions about John Carter – John has disappeared, and they didn’t say so, but I think they suspect I did something to him.”
A moment of silence. “OK – here’s what we do. I’ve got to finish this up – it’ll take me another twenty minutes. In the meantime, you come on down here and be ready to tell me everything that happened, got it?”
Calvin felt relieved “I’ll be there before you know it.”
Calvin sat in the office lobby of Artemus Cleanth Jordan, attorney at law, thumbing through the year-old magazines: Fish and Line, Wilderness Treks, Backwoods, Newsreport, North Carolina Legal Review. On the wood paneled wall hung two oversize prints framed with a grassmat backing – one a scene of hunters shooting at a covey of quail, dogs on point, and the quail bursting from beneath an old shrub. The other was a pair of mallards soaring over a lake at sunset. The secretary, a surly twenty something with teased bleach-blonde hair and a permanent tan, did her best job of ignoring Calvin. Her telephone buzzed. She answered, nodded, and said “You may go in now” with all the emotion of a zoo bred cat, bored in a cage.
Calvin stepped into the back office. AC was behind an elegantly styled mahogany desk. On the walls were his diplomas and photos of AC in the jungle, AC on top of a mountain, AC whitewater rafting. He stood up to greet Cal, his 6 foot 2 inches packed with a little more girth than Calvin’s shorter yet leaner body. He took Cal’s hand in his own, squeezing it with just the right pressure – firm but not bone crushing. One of the keys to AC’s success was his capacity to read people, and then lead them through instinctive body language. He could have been a gifted salesman or personal counselor, but he had opted to use his gift for reading people in the legal profession. Within a millisecond, he knew that this was no time for the customary half hour of pleasantries demanded by southern protocol.
“Cal, it’s good to see you – tell me what happened to John.”
They sat, and Calvin told his story while AC leaned back, bringing his fingertips together in a steeple just touching his lips. From time to time, AC nodded to encourage a continued flow of words. He mentally noted Calvin’s every twitch, eye movement, and tremor. He gently pressed leading questions: “Did you tell the deputies everything?” “Tell me more about what John was planning.” “What did he say about these associates?” Finally, AC brought the interview to a close: “You’ve told me everything?”
Calvin felt spent. Telling his story had relieved anxiety, but the catharsis had drained him. “Yes, everything.”
AC stood and returned behind his desk. “Sounds like just some routine questioning. Based on what you’ve told me, I can’t think of anything they’ve got against you. If they call you again, make sure to not answer any questions until I get there.” He jotted notes on a legal pad. Not taking his eyes from the paper, he continued “Strange about John though –You have no idea where he might’ve gone?”
“I’ve said before that I don’t know.” Calvin spat with desperation and frustration – he felt like cursed king Midas or that comic book heroine Rogue –his touch bringing disaster to those he loved. “I just don’t know.” He said quietly, with a faint plea for help in his voice.
AC bit the inside of his cheek, pursing his lips to one side. “Do Mr. and Mrs. Carter know yet?”
Calvin felt a blanket of failure settle upon him. “I don’t know, I meant to call them, but …. well, I didn’t.” Some friend…Some minister I’ve turned out to be.
AC nodded. “I’d better give her a call, then.” He made another note on his legal pad. “Tell you what. Let me buy you lunch – you look like you’ve been through it today. I’ll give the Carters a call and check in with them. You run on down to Biltmore village and get us a seat at that tex-mex place that just opened up there by the church. I’ll meet you there in about half an hour. OK?”
Calvin agreed. AC had always had the aura of command about him. He had felt that back in high school, when he was three years ahead of John and Cal and captain of the track team. Even now, twenty years later or so, he still breathed authority. Calvin felt that with AC looking into it, he could rest from his worry about John’s disappearance.
It was three days later when Calvin returned to John’s house. Deputy Parrish had called and asked to meet him there – he had a few more questions and thought that being on the property might help jog Calvin’s memory. Calvin immediately called AC and asked him to meet them there. When he arrived, he saw that AC had beaten him, and was standing on the front porch conversing with Parrish, who held in his hand a stuffed manila folder. Calvin smirked at the sight of AC’s height and power towering over the slender and small Parrish. Yet Parrish seemed ready to spring, like a mongrel dog pouncing at the neck of the bear.
Calvin swallowed what spit he had and got out of the car. Walking up to the porch, he said “AC, I see you’ve met deputy Parrish.”
AC chuckled “Yes, it turns out we know some people in common.” Parrish snorted.
“Do you mind if we go inside?” Parrish barked. AC glanced at Calvin and then back to Parrish with a grin. He gestured with an open palm. Parrish opened the door and all three went into the main foyer.
“Why don’t you tell me again what happened the last time you and Mr. Carter saw each other?” Parrish said.
“Yessir. I had driven up here to stay the night – John and I are old high school friends and we had some catching up to do. So we stayed up late into the night talking. When I woke up the next day, John was gone. I checked the garage and his truck was gone. I thought that he’d gone to buy donuts. After about an hour, I figured that he wasn’t coming back, so I left him a note and told him I’d be in touch. I called a couple of times later in the week and left messages, but no answer.”
Parrish reached into his folder and flipped through a few pages. He pulled out a page from a yellow legal pad. “Is this the note you left?”
“Yessir”
Parrish looked it over. “What kind of epiphanies were you looking for?”
Calvin’s jaw tightened. He swallowed. AC frowned for a moment, and took the initiative to respond for Calvin: “His wife and son were killed in an auto accident about two months ago. My client came back home to recover from his tragic loss.”
The deputy looked up at AC with an unflinching face. His voice lowered just the slightest bit as he said “I’m sorry,” only moving his eyes to Calvin as he said “for your loss.”
Calvin said quietly “I called up John because I needed to talk – we’ve been friends since the fifth grade. He knows me better than anyone else – or at least longer than anyone else. For the most part, he spent most of the night listening to me talk. I guess the epiphanies I was looking for were breakthroughs in how to move on.”
Parrish bobbed his head curtly. “Would you step upstairs and show me just where you stayed?” Calvin nodded and led them upstairs. He showed them the room in which he stayed – the bed still unmade, his towel still hanging over the back of the chair. He led them down the hall into the library, giving a play by play of the evening, conveniently omitting the amount of alcohol consumed. He then walked over to the bookshelf, running his hands along the titles. A puzzled look went across his face.
“That’s funny. I thought I put it right back here.”
Parrish’s blue eyes bored down on Calvin as he said “Put what there?”
“The book …. This diary that he’d gotten hold of. He was talking about it being a kind of pirate treasure map to some kind of archeological find under a monument in New York. It sounded like a childish fantasy – in the morning as I came my way back through here, I remember picking up the diary and putting it back on the shelf right here.”
Parrish’s eyes scanned the walls, coming to rest on the face of the man emerging from the leaves. He focused on the green-painted plaster eyes, as though searching them for answers to his questions.
“Rev. Poteat – how much did you and Mr. Carter have to drink that night?”
“To drink? I….”
“We found several empty wine bottles down in the recycling bin in the kitchen.”
“well, yes we did have a lot to drink….”
“and perhaps things got a little out of hand?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Deputy Parrish took his eyes from the leaf-man and turned them upon Poteat. He pressed on, panzer-like. “I’m not sure I mean anything. Rev. Poteat. It just seems odd that you two spent the night here by yourselves drinking heavily and then Mr. Carter is never seen from or heard from again. That’s kind of strange, don’t you think.”
“Listen, if you want affidavits from my neighbors that I was where I said I’ve been all this week, that’s fine. I haven’t been around here at all.”
“No, I reckon that would be a bit too dangerous if you had somehow disposed of Mr. Carter’s body. Likely he passed out and you piled him in his own truck and disposed of him and the truck. I just can’t figure out why.”
Calvin felt tingles over his body. A slight high pitched whine rang in his ear. He had that familiar sensation of being an observer to events going on around his own body. I’m in deep – way over my head. AC interrupted at this point “Deputy, don’t you think you’re going a bit too far?”
Parrish grinned mirthlessly back at AC. “Sorry, counselor, I’m just trying to figure out why one of the richest men in North Carolina would suddenly disappear without any word to his associates.”
A flash went off in Calvin’s mind “Associates… John said that he had a few associates involved with him in this treasure hunt scheme.”
“And did he mention any of the associates by name?” asked AC, “anyone helping him look under this obelisk? Anyone he might be staying with?”
Calvin shook his head, “No, no names. I’m sure if you could find his address book, their names might be in there. But he didn’t say anything to me.”
AC nodded. “It seems like you have all the information you need, deputy. I think you can leave my client alone and concentrate your search on the property. You can refer any more of your questions through me.” With that, AC steered Calvin downstairs and out of the house.
For those of you just joining us, you might want to read earlier chapters, available through the Table of Contents
Chapter 3
The interview had the sterility of all the expected questions: what they had done that night, the last time Calvin remembered seeing John. Deputy Collins asked most of the questions. He was stiff with an awkward formality, as though he was auditioning for the role without ever having prepared for the part. Parrish, meanwhile, remained quiet. Only once did his leopard-like eyes betray a hint of predatory readiness: when Calvin described the conversation about Hurlburt’s diary. Then Parrish cocked his head, and interrupted smoothly.
“What did he say he was going to do with this diary?”
Calvin shrugged. “Some kind of treasure hunting – an old lost tomb of Egypt.” A swell of guilt grew as Calvin recalled his inattention to his friend’s plans. “I really wasn’t following the story too closely.”
Parrish pursued, “Did he tell you about any plans?”
Calvin shook his head. “No, he just said that he had a few associates involved – never mentioned who they were.” Parrish’s upper lip bulged where underneath he ran his tongue over his teeth, sucking them. He sat back, again turning his attention to the rest of the room, surveying every corner. Collins resumed his monotone questioning straight from a bad 1950’s tv cop drama. After what seemed to be an eternity, Collins concluded. As the deputies stood to leave, Collins gave Calvin his business card. “If you think of anything else that might be of help, please give me a call.”
“Yessir. I certainly will.” Calvin said, ushering them to the door and opening it for them.
“Thank you for your time, Rev. Poteat.” said Collins mechanically as he turned and walked out the door, putting his hat back on in one smooth motion. Parrish looked Calvin in the eye for a moment longer than comfortable. “We’ll be in touch” he said flatly. He nodded and left.
Calvin closed the door and returned to the couch. He stared at his now closed laptop, replaying the interview in his mind. The shock of John’s disappearance only now settled in. Calvin picked up the telephone, intending to call John’s parents. Three numbers into dialing, he stopped. His shock gave way to understanding, and he closed his eyes, letting out a long slow breath in an attempt to release the grip that had encased his chest. Calvin hung up the phone, went to the kitchen, found the telephone book and searched the yellow pages, continuing to exhale long and slow to keep fear at bay. He found the number he was looking for and dialed – it rang one, two, three “Law offices of Artemus Jordan, may I help you.” Came the bored sounding voice.
“Yes, I need to speak to AC immediately – tell him that Calvin Poteat is calling.”
“Sir, he’s in a meeting. May I take a message?”
“Just tell him that Calvin Poteat is calling and that I need to speak to him immediately.” Calvin said forcefully.
“Yes sir” came the frosty reply. Calvin heard the click of being put on hold. It was no more than ten seconds that he was on hold. But all during it, Calvin bounced on his heels, as though that would make AC pick up sooner. The phone clicked again.
“Cal, good Lord, what’s so important? I’m here with another client.”
“AC – I just had two Sherriff’s deputies here in my apartment. They were asking me questions about John Carter – John has disappeared, and they didn’t say so, but I think they suspect I did something to him.”
A moment of silence. “OK – here’s what we do. I’ve got to finish this up – it’ll take me another twenty minutes. In the meantime, you come on down here and be ready to tell me everything that happened, got it?”
Calvin felt relieved “I’ll be there before you know it.”
Calvin sat in the office lobby of Artemus Cleanth Jordan, attorney at law, thumbing through the year-old magazines: Fish and Line, Wilderness Treks, Backwoods, Newsreport, North Carolina Legal Review. On the wood paneled wall hung two oversize prints framed with a grassmat backing – one a scene of hunters shooting at a covey of quail, dogs on point, and the quail bursting from beneath an old shrub. The other was a pair of mallards soaring over a lake at sunset. The secretary, a surly twenty something with teased bleach-blonde hair and a permanent tan, did her best job of ignoring Calvin. Her telephone buzzed. She answered, nodded, and said “You may go in now” with all the emotion of a zoo bred cat, bored in a cage.
Calvin stepped into the back office. AC was behind an elegantly styled mahogany desk. On the walls were his diplomas and photos of AC in the jungle, AC on top of a mountain, AC whitewater rafting. He stood up to greet Cal, his 6 foot 2 inches packed with a little more girth than Calvin’s shorter yet leaner body. He took Cal’s hand in his own, squeezing it with just the right pressure – firm but not bone crushing. One of the keys to AC’s success was his capacity to read people, and then lead them through instinctive body language. He could have been a gifted salesman or personal counselor, but he had opted to use his gift for reading people in the legal profession. Within a millisecond, he knew that this was no time for the customary half hour of pleasantries demanded by southern protocol.
“Cal, it’s good to see you – tell me what happened to John.”
They sat, and Calvin told his story while AC leaned back, bringing his fingertips together in a steeple just touching his lips. From time to time, AC nodded to encourage a continued flow of words. He mentally noted Calvin’s every twitch, eye movement, and tremor. He gently pressed leading questions: “Did you tell the deputies everything?” “Tell me more about what John was planning.” “What did he say about these associates?” Finally, AC brought the interview to a close: “You’ve told me everything?”
Calvin felt spent. Telling his story had relieved anxiety, but the catharsis had drained him. “Yes, everything.”
AC stood and returned behind his desk. “Sounds like just some routine questioning. Based on what you’ve told me, I can’t think of anything they’ve got against you. If they call you again, make sure to not answer any questions until I get there.” He jotted notes on a legal pad. Not taking his eyes from the paper, he continued “Strange about John though –You have no idea where he might’ve gone?”
“I’ve said before that I don’t know.” Calvin spat with desperation and frustration – he felt like cursed king Midas or that comic book heroine Rogue –his touch bringing disaster to those he loved. “I just don’t know.” He said quietly, with a faint plea for help in his voice.
AC bit the inside of his cheek, pursing his lips to one side. “Do Mr. and Mrs. Carter know yet?”
Calvin felt a blanket of failure settle upon him. “I don’t know, I meant to call them, but …. well, I didn’t.” Some friend…Some minister I’ve turned out to be.
AC nodded. “I’d better give her a call, then.” He made another note on his legal pad. “Tell you what. Let me buy you lunch – you look like you’ve been through it today. I’ll give the Carters a call and check in with them. You run on down to Biltmore village and get us a seat at that tex-mex place that just opened up there by the church. I’ll meet you there in about half an hour. OK?”
Calvin agreed. AC had always had the aura of command about him. He had felt that back in high school, when he was three years ahead of John and Cal and captain of the track team. Even now, twenty years later or so, he still breathed authority. Calvin felt that with AC looking into it, he could rest from his worry about John’s disappearance.
It was three days later when Calvin returned to John’s house. Deputy Parrish had called and asked to meet him there – he had a few more questions and thought that being on the property might help jog Calvin’s memory. Calvin immediately called AC and asked him to meet them there. When he arrived, he saw that AC had beaten him, and was standing on the front porch conversing with Parrish, who held in his hand a stuffed manila folder. Calvin smirked at the sight of AC’s height and power towering over the slender and small Parrish. Yet Parrish seemed ready to spring, like a mongrel dog pouncing at the neck of the bear.
Calvin swallowed what spit he had and got out of the car. Walking up to the porch, he said “AC, I see you’ve met deputy Parrish.”
AC chuckled “Yes, it turns out we know some people in common.” Parrish snorted.
“Do you mind if we go inside?” Parrish barked. AC glanced at Calvin and then back to Parrish with a grin. He gestured with an open palm. Parrish opened the door and all three went into the main foyer.
“Why don’t you tell me again what happened the last time you and Mr. Carter saw each other?” Parrish said.
“Yessir. I had driven up here to stay the night – John and I are old high school friends and we had some catching up to do. So we stayed up late into the night talking. When I woke up the next day, John was gone. I checked the garage and his truck was gone. I thought that he’d gone to buy donuts. After about an hour, I figured that he wasn’t coming back, so I left him a note and told him I’d be in touch. I called a couple of times later in the week and left messages, but no answer.”
Parrish reached into his folder and flipped through a few pages. He pulled out a page from a yellow legal pad. “Is this the note you left?”
“Yessir”
Parrish looked it over. “What kind of epiphanies were you looking for?”
Calvin’s jaw tightened. He swallowed. AC frowned for a moment, and took the initiative to respond for Calvin: “His wife and son were killed in an auto accident about two months ago. My client came back home to recover from his tragic loss.”
The deputy looked up at AC with an unflinching face. His voice lowered just the slightest bit as he said “I’m sorry,” only moving his eyes to Calvin as he said “for your loss.”
Calvin said quietly “I called up John because I needed to talk – we’ve been friends since the fifth grade. He knows me better than anyone else – or at least longer than anyone else. For the most part, he spent most of the night listening to me talk. I guess the epiphanies I was looking for were breakthroughs in how to move on.”
Parrish bobbed his head curtly. “Would you step upstairs and show me just where you stayed?” Calvin nodded and led them upstairs. He showed them the room in which he stayed – the bed still unmade, his towel still hanging over the back of the chair. He led them down the hall into the library, giving a play by play of the evening, conveniently omitting the amount of alcohol consumed. He then walked over to the bookshelf, running his hands along the titles. A puzzled look went across his face.
“That’s funny. I thought I put it right back here.”
Parrish’s blue eyes bored down on Calvin as he said “Put what there?”
“The book …. This diary that he’d gotten hold of. He was talking about it being a kind of pirate treasure map to some kind of archeological find under a monument in New York. It sounded like a childish fantasy – in the morning as I came my way back through here, I remember picking up the diary and putting it back on the shelf right here.”
Parrish’s eyes scanned the walls, coming to rest on the face of the man emerging from the leaves. He focused on the green-painted plaster eyes, as though searching them for answers to his questions.
“Rev. Poteat – how much did you and Mr. Carter have to drink that night?”
“To drink? I….”
“We found several empty wine bottles down in the recycling bin in the kitchen.”
“well, yes we did have a lot to drink….”
“and perhaps things got a little out of hand?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Deputy Parrish took his eyes from the leaf-man and turned them upon Poteat. He pressed on, panzer-like. “I’m not sure I mean anything. Rev. Poteat. It just seems odd that you two spent the night here by yourselves drinking heavily and then Mr. Carter is never seen from or heard from again. That’s kind of strange, don’t you think.”
“Listen, if you want affidavits from my neighbors that I was where I said I’ve been all this week, that’s fine. I haven’t been around here at all.”
“No, I reckon that would be a bit too dangerous if you had somehow disposed of Mr. Carter’s body. Likely he passed out and you piled him in his own truck and disposed of him and the truck. I just can’t figure out why.”
Calvin felt tingles over his body. A slight high pitched whine rang in his ear. He had that familiar sensation of being an observer to events going on around his own body. I’m in deep – way over my head. AC interrupted at this point “Deputy, don’t you think you’re going a bit too far?”
Parrish grinned mirthlessly back at AC. “Sorry, counselor, I’m just trying to figure out why one of the richest men in North Carolina would suddenly disappear without any word to his associates.”
A flash went off in Calvin’s mind “Associates… John said that he had a few associates involved with him in this treasure hunt scheme.”
“And did he mention any of the associates by name?” asked AC, “anyone helping him look under this obelisk? Anyone he might be staying with?”
Calvin shook his head, “No, no names. I’m sure if you could find his address book, their names might be in there. But he didn’t say anything to me.”
AC nodded. “It seems like you have all the information you need, deputy. I think you can leave my client alone and concentrate your search on the property. You can refer any more of your questions through me.” With that, AC steered Calvin downstairs and out of the house.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Prophet of the Sun Ch 2
Link: Chapter Index for Prophet of the Sun
Hope ya'll are enjoying Prophet of the Sun. Leave a comment and let me know what a good interval between chapter posts might be .... I like to have at least a few days to give people a chance to read (and to build some suspense), but I don't want it to be so long as to lose people.
Chapter 2
A black line snaked from the river below. The line doubled and tripled and quadrupled in width, growing into a phalanx of frogs, pitiless in their advance through the city. They poured over the walls, splashed in the basins, knocked over his mother’s perfume bottles and jars of ointments. They crowded through the hallways, and when he walked, they squished wet and jelly like under his feet. His enraged father, kicked them about, jabbing at larger ones with his spear – impaling them one two three four. His brother, the senior by far, dressed in leopardskin robes, chanted while holding a basin of libation above his head.
And darkness came over the household and the steps and down the street and across the land. No natural darkness, it chilled beyond the skin to muscle and bone and even the marrow– an enduring chill. His pulse throbbing in his ears, the boy looked to his father’s eyes for some sign that this horror might end. He saw only floating disembodied circles, straining to open wide enough to capture the hint of glow that emanated from the slave ghetto. He saw nothing of his brother – only hearing murmuring of prayer from where he stood.
A slice of air, sounding like an exhaled breath, whipped past the boy. He saw his father kneel before a crumpled form cradling its figure head, – its leopardskin robe stretched by the contortion of its body. “My son, O Thutmosis my son!”
Calvin woke in confusion -- his heart thumping against his ribs. Am I that far gone? Have I become as hard as pharaoh? Calvin, feeling the drilling pain behind his eyes, blinked four times, as though he could dispel the nightmare and the pain both. He rolled over to look at the bedside clock, an old fashioned radio alarm with the numbers that flipped. Half past noon. He ran a dry tongue over his lips -- he needed asprin, Tylenol, a replacement head – anything.
Stumbling out of bed, he scratched his chest and rubbed his scalp as he walked to the guest bathroom. He pulled the little metal tab on the side of the mirror only to find empty metal shelves. “Hey John,” he shouted, immediately regretting that he had done so, “you got any painkillers?” This time he spoke a little softer so as not to jar the pain too much. “My head feels like it’s declared war!” He turned on the faucet. Cupping a hand, he scooped cold water on his face once, twice, then sipping some on the third time around. He turned off the faucet and unfolded a washcloth, lying atop a step-pyramid of symmetrically folded oversize bath and hand towels.
Calvin had a natural propensity for remorse – he felt guilt about his anger; guilt about his rudeness to his friend; guilt about his out of control drinking the night before. He held the sides of the sink, staring down at the drain. He wished that he could re-do the previous night – wished he could re-weave the strands of the last three months of his life. His mind stuck on this wish, circling around it like a dog leashed for so long he’s worn the grass down. Calvin felt disembodied, as though his life were a movie and the credits were ready to roll and the popcorn would be swept up and discarded. His body had no reality for him as his own – it was a prop, a thing to be discarded.
He had no idea how long he stood there, holding the sink wishing his wish, lost in his movie, but the pain in his head stabbed with clarity. He closed his eyes, exhaled long and slow through pursed lips, opened his eyes again, and released his grip.
Calvin walked to the back staircase and called “John, you down there?” No answer. He descended the stair to the kitchen. In the center of the breakfast table sat a bowl of fruit – oranges and apples hinting at dietary redemption for the previous night’s foolishness. Wine bottles were arrayed on the counter, empty and hollow -- their best contents spent. The kitchen, decorated in a country yellow that made Calvin’s head hurt all the worse, looked otherwise undisturbed. No empty glasses in the sink. No cereal bowl. No note indicating that John had left. Calvin bit his lower lip, not wanting to delay in making amends for his sour behavior, but his headache compelling him to seek food and some painkillers.
Calvin opened the fridge, took out milk and Ducky Dawdle Orange Juice (“I’ve loved it since I was a kid” John had always said). He poured a glass of juice and a fixed a bowl of the most sugary cereal he could find. Following instinct, he opened the cabinet right above the microwave – there he found a neatly arranged row of plastic containers: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Ginko Bilboa, Ginseng Extract, Multivitamin, Asprin. He gulped down two asprin with a large glass of water. Then, after finishing his hasty breakfast, he peeked into the garage – John’s truck was gone.
Calvin ascended the stairs and detoured back to the library. Hurlburt’s diary still lay on the couch where John had left it. Calvin picked it up and thumbed the pages, breathing the aged-paper smell that was released. He held it reverently, as though he could capture John’s enthusiasm simply by osmosis. Then he gently replaced it on the shelf from which John had taken it.
Calvin returned to his room, stripped his pajamas, and walked naked to the bathroom. He turned the tub’s handle for hot water and held his hand under the stream, the temperature changing almost imperceptibly, until the water was warm enough. He stepped into the tub, pulled the curtain and bent down to pull the shower knob. Steamy water wet his hair and ran down his body. He stood still for a time, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth like an embrace. The Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words to express. His mind lingered on groans too deep – as though he might sink into the words and wallow there for a time.
Following instinct once again, Calvin opened a kitchen drawer – neatly ordered boxes of tin foil, wax paper, plastic wrap, and sandwich bags all stared up at him. He tried the next drawer beside it – a phone book, yellow legal pad, and a long thin container of ballpoint pens. Not even junk in his paper drawers – how does he do it? He tore off a sheet from the pad, accidentally leaving a small tear where the paper did not separate at the perforation just right. Sitting at the table, he wrote:
John,
Thanks for your time – a good one as always. I’m sorry I was a bit of a jerk there at the end of the evening. Your Egyptian treasure hunt sounds like a great adventure. I’ll give you a call this week, and I promise I’ll listen better. I’ll let you know if I’ve had any epiphanies on my end.
Cal
He let himself out of the house, locking the door behind him. After fumbling with his keys, he got the car door open, hefted the duffel bag in. One last look up at the house before he closed the car door. He turned the ignition and drove home.
“Mike, I promise – I really didn’t mean to drink that much.”
“Cal, it’s OK” the voice on the receiver reassured, “given what you’ve been through, I think I’d have tied one on weeks ago. You’re not planning on making it a habit, are you?”
“No.” Calvin said, still embarrassed.
“Then don’t worry about it. Jesus is still pretty fond of you.”
“I know – but I still feel guilty.”
“Fine.” Said Mike with resignation, “You are guilty – guilty as sin. Confess, repent, move on.” A pause as Calvin switched the phone from one ear to another, “How’re you doing otherwise?” Mike continued.
Calvin paused again – he felt the need to report progress, but didn’t know what to say. Though it was not a trait natural to him, he opted for bluntness. “Awful.” He paused for a moment, “I don’t know how to be with myself – when I’m sitting in the apartment, I ache because they’re gone. When I jog, I make it about a mile, and then run out of steam – I just want to come back to the apartment and sleep. Three days ago, I found myself walking the aisles of Buy-Mart – just puttering about, picking up a magazine here, a DVD there. When I turned down the toys aisle – there was this Spider-Man action figure – it was what we got Calvin for Christmas this past year. It was all before me, fresh as if it were happening. He tore open the present – shouted “Wow, thanks Dad!” He ripped open the box and began to run around the house, pretending that Spider-Man was web slinging from the chandelier.” Tears burned behind Calvin’s eyes, and he struggled to keep them in. “I almost broke down in the store.” He said with a quiver, “I’m a mess.”
Mike’s voice reassured. “It’s OK to be a mess. You’ve lost your wife and your child – no-one expects you to keep it together. You yourself have said many times that everyone grieves in their own way – some folks take longer than others.”
“Yeah – well now I say ‘doctor, heal thyself.’”
Another pause. “Cal, what are you doing to take care of yourself?” Mike said, concerned.
“Oh, I still jog every day – just not very far. I talk to momma at least once a week – and my sister tells me she’s coming up for a visit soon. I’m hardly eating, but when I do eat, it’s mostly vegetables.”
“You able to pray yet?”
Calvin paused for a long time and then said quietly “No – no, I’m not on speaking terms with Him. Not yet.”
Calvin asked Mike how the church was doing in his absence. Mike reassured him that things were improving: the temporary supply minister was good, but not nearly as good a preacher as Calvin. On his end, Calvin smirked. He had tried to bear up nobly after the funerals. Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks, but then crises slipped from whatever dark recesses in which they had been fermenting: The chairs of building committee and the worship committee began to openly undermine one another; complaints were whispered in coffee hour that the youth director was too “flippant”; once enthusiastic supporters whispered that Calvin’s preaching was “not what it used to be.” Mike, one of Calvin’s best friends in the congregation, had astutely observed the strain that was building during what should have been a time of mourning. He suggested to the elders that a sabbatical was in order. On the surface, Calvin was going away to heal. But he wondered if he would ever return…would he drift to a new line of work and lay the vocation of ministry into soft earth as he’d laid down his wife and child?
“And tell the elders – tell them I really appreciate their giving me the time off.”
Calvin smiled, “Sure will.”
After hanging up, Calvin tried calling John again. No answer. It had been four days, and still no answer, no return call. He didn’t bother leaving a message this time. He hung up and busied himself about the small kitchen. Half empty coffee cups sprung up across the apartment like mushrooms. He collected them all on the countertop beside the sink, pots piled up, crusted with spaghetti sauce from last night. A few dishrags lay on the counter, damp and crumpled. A roll of paper towels stood in the corner, the bottom end swollen with absorbed water that had rebounded off the pots in the sink and spread across the countertop. Calvin emptied the dishwasher, put a few coffee cups in, then walked into the living room.
Instead of an office, Calvin had set up his laptop on a cheap coffee table made out of light white pine slats attached with thin tacks to a frame with legs. Every so often, one of the boards would rebel and pop out of place. Cal would have to get the hammer from the basket under the counter and bang it back into place. The table was big enough for him to spread out his Bible and a couple of commentaries. He had a stack of books on the corner: The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery; Exegetical Dictionary of the Gospels; Manners and Customs of Bible Times; Intermediate Greek Grammar. A disordered pile of CD-ROMs lay beside the laptop – on top of The Anchor Bible Dictionary: complete on 1 Volume.
He had bought a used couch from the Salvation Army – it was just wide enough for two to sit on: terrible for napping. He did this by design, for he was afraid that if he’d bought a long couch, the temptation to lie down and sleep would be overwhelming. Already it was hard enough to fight against the gravitational pull to stay in his bedroom and sleep. He still tried to lie down on the couch every now and again, and for that reason, one arm had become loose and wiggly, threatening to break off altogether.
On the floor, Calvin had a small TV, but no cable. He could only receive 3 channels well – one of them PBS, so he was satisfied. The circular dining room table was on the other end of the great room that doubled as living room and dining room. It was covered with mail, little flyers that kept getting stuck in his doorframe, newspapers, both from Asheville and from Cincinnati, and bags from the most convenient fast food restaurants near his apartment: Taco Casa, Burger Barn, and Hot and Fried.
Calvin returned to the couch, and picked up a book: Commentary on the Gospel of Mark by RS Blanchard:
Church tradition, dating back to Eusebuis, tells us that the apostle Mark brought the gospel to Egypt. Mark supposedly wrote his gospel in Rome as a summary of Peter’s teaching. Legend has it that when Mark arrived in Alexandria, his sandals broke – he went immediately to a cobbler to have the sandal repaired. The cobbler, named Ananias, drove an awl into his hand and cried out “God is one!” Mark was startled by such an unusual exclamation; he had not expected to find monotheism in Egypt. He healed Ananias and began to talk with him. He went home with him that night, and soon Ananias and his family were the first converts of Egypt. Most scholars believe this story is apocryphal at best.
Calvin looked up from the book, letting it dangle in his hands. He had been away from his church for two months, but he still felt a compulsion to write sermons. If he didn’t have it done by Friday night, he was fidgety all weekend. He could no more break the habit than a pack a day smoker. He used to enjoy feeling the thrill of knowledge coming together with insights on application of the Biblical text. He had once delighted in weaving jokes, anecdotes, historical and grammatical tidbits, and sprinklings of Greek or Hebrew into a presentation and then delivering that sermon. He remembered feeling connected with his congregants as he told stories and presented truth – as though for a brief moment in the midst of the sermon there was a union - time was lost for a little while and hearts were melded to one. But since Bethan and little Cal’s deaths, it all had gone stale and wearisome. There was no joy in the task. Now, it had degraded to nothing but a compulsion and he wished it would let him go.
The doorbell rang. Calvin rose and peeked through the eye-hole. Two men in uniform, round hats signifying they were either highway patrol or sheriff deputies. Calvin unlocked the bolt lock, and opened the door.
“Hello, officers, can I help you.”
“Rev. Poteat?” said the larger of the two – a thickset linebacker type. His hazel eyes set in a recruiting poster face.
“Yessir.”
“Rev. Poteat, I’m Deputy Collins and this is Deputy Parrish. May we come in? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Certainly, officers,” said Calvin, stepping back and extending his arm toward the couch, “come in and have a seat.”
Deputy Collins went straight to the couch and stood waiting. Deputy Parrish, a slender man with a hungry look, took off his thick mirrored sunglasses to reveal sharp blue eyes and a bridge of freckles across his nose. He scanned the room, sized up Calvin, and moved to stand beside Deputy Collins while Calvin brought a chair from the dining room table. As he sat, both the deputies took their seats, Collins taking his hat off and holding it in his lap – Parrish leaving his on his head.
“Is there something wrong, officers?”
Collins begin “Rev. Poteat – you’re a good friend of John Carter’s aren’t you?”
“Yessir, I am – at least I like to think I am.”
“And you were at his house on Sunday night?” Collins continued.
“Yessir, I was. We were catching up on old times.” Deputy Parrish’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
“No sir. I’ve tried calling and left several messages, but no answer and no return calls.” Calvin had the feel of being a chess piece, so he broke in with a question, “Is there something wrong? Is John OK?”
“Rev Poteat,” Deputy Collins said, “John Carter has been missing for four days – and it seems that you were the last person to have seen him.”
Hope ya'll are enjoying Prophet of the Sun. Leave a comment and let me know what a good interval between chapter posts might be .... I like to have at least a few days to give people a chance to read (and to build some suspense), but I don't want it to be so long as to lose people.
Chapter 2
A boy, scalp-shaven save for a braided tassel of hair dangling from the left side of his head, looked upon a crimson sky. Swirling black clouds spit cinders that grew into skull sized balls of flame. Between the explosions the boy heard cries and shrieks arising from the city. His eyes widened, his soft skinned jaw grew slack.
A black line snaked from the river below. The line doubled and tripled and quadrupled in width, growing into a phalanx of frogs, pitiless in their advance through the city. They poured over the walls, splashed in the basins, knocked over his mother’s perfume bottles and jars of ointments. They crowded through the hallways, and when he walked, they squished wet and jelly like under his feet. His enraged father, kicked them about, jabbing at larger ones with his spear – impaling them one two three four. His brother, the senior by far, dressed in leopardskin robes, chanted while holding a basin of libation above his head.
And darkness came over the household and the steps and down the street and across the land. No natural darkness, it chilled beyond the skin to muscle and bone and even the marrow– an enduring chill. His pulse throbbing in his ears, the boy looked to his father’s eyes for some sign that this horror might end. He saw only floating disembodied circles, straining to open wide enough to capture the hint of glow that emanated from the slave ghetto. He saw nothing of his brother – only hearing murmuring of prayer from where he stood.
A slice of air, sounding like an exhaled breath, whipped past the boy. He saw his father kneel before a crumpled form cradling its figure head, – its leopardskin robe stretched by the contortion of its body. “My son, O Thutmosis my son!”
Calvin woke in confusion -- his heart thumping against his ribs. Am I that far gone? Have I become as hard as pharaoh? Calvin, feeling the drilling pain behind his eyes, blinked four times, as though he could dispel the nightmare and the pain both. He rolled over to look at the bedside clock, an old fashioned radio alarm with the numbers that flipped. Half past noon. He ran a dry tongue over his lips -- he needed asprin, Tylenol, a replacement head – anything.
Stumbling out of bed, he scratched his chest and rubbed his scalp as he walked to the guest bathroom. He pulled the little metal tab on the side of the mirror only to find empty metal shelves. “Hey John,” he shouted, immediately regretting that he had done so, “you got any painkillers?” This time he spoke a little softer so as not to jar the pain too much. “My head feels like it’s declared war!” He turned on the faucet. Cupping a hand, he scooped cold water on his face once, twice, then sipping some on the third time around. He turned off the faucet and unfolded a washcloth, lying atop a step-pyramid of symmetrically folded oversize bath and hand towels.
Calvin had a natural propensity for remorse – he felt guilt about his anger; guilt about his rudeness to his friend; guilt about his out of control drinking the night before. He held the sides of the sink, staring down at the drain. He wished that he could re-do the previous night – wished he could re-weave the strands of the last three months of his life. His mind stuck on this wish, circling around it like a dog leashed for so long he’s worn the grass down. Calvin felt disembodied, as though his life were a movie and the credits were ready to roll and the popcorn would be swept up and discarded. His body had no reality for him as his own – it was a prop, a thing to be discarded.
He had no idea how long he stood there, holding the sink wishing his wish, lost in his movie, but the pain in his head stabbed with clarity. He closed his eyes, exhaled long and slow through pursed lips, opened his eyes again, and released his grip.
Calvin walked to the back staircase and called “John, you down there?” No answer. He descended the stair to the kitchen. In the center of the breakfast table sat a bowl of fruit – oranges and apples hinting at dietary redemption for the previous night’s foolishness. Wine bottles were arrayed on the counter, empty and hollow -- their best contents spent. The kitchen, decorated in a country yellow that made Calvin’s head hurt all the worse, looked otherwise undisturbed. No empty glasses in the sink. No cereal bowl. No note indicating that John had left. Calvin bit his lower lip, not wanting to delay in making amends for his sour behavior, but his headache compelling him to seek food and some painkillers.
Calvin opened the fridge, took out milk and Ducky Dawdle Orange Juice (“I’ve loved it since I was a kid” John had always said). He poured a glass of juice and a fixed a bowl of the most sugary cereal he could find. Following instinct, he opened the cabinet right above the microwave – there he found a neatly arranged row of plastic containers: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Ginko Bilboa, Ginseng Extract, Multivitamin, Asprin. He gulped down two asprin with a large glass of water. Then, after finishing his hasty breakfast, he peeked into the garage – John’s truck was gone.
Calvin ascended the stairs and detoured back to the library. Hurlburt’s diary still lay on the couch where John had left it. Calvin picked it up and thumbed the pages, breathing the aged-paper smell that was released. He held it reverently, as though he could capture John’s enthusiasm simply by osmosis. Then he gently replaced it on the shelf from which John had taken it.
Calvin returned to his room, stripped his pajamas, and walked naked to the bathroom. He turned the tub’s handle for hot water and held his hand under the stream, the temperature changing almost imperceptibly, until the water was warm enough. He stepped into the tub, pulled the curtain and bent down to pull the shower knob. Steamy water wet his hair and ran down his body. He stood still for a time, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth like an embrace. The Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words to express. His mind lingered on groans too deep – as though he might sink into the words and wallow there for a time.
After finishing his shower and grooming, he dressed and packed his duffel bag. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he went back downstairs to the kitchen where he poured another tall glass of water. Still no sign of John. Calvin felt out of joint – like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces had been forced. He didn’t want to leave with the unfinished business of apology; he wanted to assure his friend that he truly was interested in crazy Allan Quartermain schemes.
Following instinct once again, Calvin opened a kitchen drawer – neatly ordered boxes of tin foil, wax paper, plastic wrap, and sandwich bags all stared up at him. He tried the next drawer beside it – a phone book, yellow legal pad, and a long thin container of ballpoint pens. Not even junk in his paper drawers – how does he do it? He tore off a sheet from the pad, accidentally leaving a small tear where the paper did not separate at the perforation just right. Sitting at the table, he wrote:
John,
Thanks for your time – a good one as always. I’m sorry I was a bit of a jerk there at the end of the evening. Your Egyptian treasure hunt sounds like a great adventure. I’ll give you a call this week, and I promise I’ll listen better. I’ll let you know if I’ve had any epiphanies on my end.
Cal
He let himself out of the house, locking the door behind him. After fumbling with his keys, he got the car door open, hefted the duffel bag in. One last look up at the house before he closed the car door. He turned the ignition and drove home.
“Mike, I promise – I really didn’t mean to drink that much.”
“Cal, it’s OK” the voice on the receiver reassured, “given what you’ve been through, I think I’d have tied one on weeks ago. You’re not planning on making it a habit, are you?”
“No.” Calvin said, still embarrassed.
“Then don’t worry about it. Jesus is still pretty fond of you.”
“I know – but I still feel guilty.”
“Fine.” Said Mike with resignation, “You are guilty – guilty as sin. Confess, repent, move on.” A pause as Calvin switched the phone from one ear to another, “How’re you doing otherwise?” Mike continued.
Calvin paused again – he felt the need to report progress, but didn’t know what to say. Though it was not a trait natural to him, he opted for bluntness. “Awful.” He paused for a moment, “I don’t know how to be with myself – when I’m sitting in the apartment, I ache because they’re gone. When I jog, I make it about a mile, and then run out of steam – I just want to come back to the apartment and sleep. Three days ago, I found myself walking the aisles of Buy-Mart – just puttering about, picking up a magazine here, a DVD there. When I turned down the toys aisle – there was this Spider-Man action figure – it was what we got Calvin for Christmas this past year. It was all before me, fresh as if it were happening. He tore open the present – shouted “Wow, thanks Dad!” He ripped open the box and began to run around the house, pretending that Spider-Man was web slinging from the chandelier.” Tears burned behind Calvin’s eyes, and he struggled to keep them in. “I almost broke down in the store.” He said with a quiver, “I’m a mess.”
Mike’s voice reassured. “It’s OK to be a mess. You’ve lost your wife and your child – no-one expects you to keep it together. You yourself have said many times that everyone grieves in their own way – some folks take longer than others.”
“Yeah – well now I say ‘doctor, heal thyself.’”
Another pause. “Cal, what are you doing to take care of yourself?” Mike said, concerned.
“Oh, I still jog every day – just not very far. I talk to momma at least once a week – and my sister tells me she’s coming up for a visit soon. I’m hardly eating, but when I do eat, it’s mostly vegetables.”
“You able to pray yet?”
Calvin paused for a long time and then said quietly “No – no, I’m not on speaking terms with Him. Not yet.”
Calvin asked Mike how the church was doing in his absence. Mike reassured him that things were improving: the temporary supply minister was good, but not nearly as good a preacher as Calvin. On his end, Calvin smirked. He had tried to bear up nobly after the funerals. Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks, but then crises slipped from whatever dark recesses in which they had been fermenting: The chairs of building committee and the worship committee began to openly undermine one another; complaints were whispered in coffee hour that the youth director was too “flippant”; once enthusiastic supporters whispered that Calvin’s preaching was “not what it used to be.” Mike, one of Calvin’s best friends in the congregation, had astutely observed the strain that was building during what should have been a time of mourning. He suggested to the elders that a sabbatical was in order. On the surface, Calvin was going away to heal. But he wondered if he would ever return…would he drift to a new line of work and lay the vocation of ministry into soft earth as he’d laid down his wife and child?
“And tell the elders – tell them I really appreciate their giving me the time off.”
“Wish we could do more. You call me if you need anything, OK?”
Calvin smiled, “Sure will.”
After hanging up, Calvin tried calling John again. No answer. It had been four days, and still no answer, no return call. He didn’t bother leaving a message this time. He hung up and busied himself about the small kitchen. Half empty coffee cups sprung up across the apartment like mushrooms. He collected them all on the countertop beside the sink, pots piled up, crusted with spaghetti sauce from last night. A few dishrags lay on the counter, damp and crumpled. A roll of paper towels stood in the corner, the bottom end swollen with absorbed water that had rebounded off the pots in the sink and spread across the countertop. Calvin emptied the dishwasher, put a few coffee cups in, then walked into the living room.
Instead of an office, Calvin had set up his laptop on a cheap coffee table made out of light white pine slats attached with thin tacks to a frame with legs. Every so often, one of the boards would rebel and pop out of place. Cal would have to get the hammer from the basket under the counter and bang it back into place. The table was big enough for him to spread out his Bible and a couple of commentaries. He had a stack of books on the corner: The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery; Exegetical Dictionary of the Gospels; Manners and Customs of Bible Times; Intermediate Greek Grammar. A disordered pile of CD-ROMs lay beside the laptop – on top of The Anchor Bible Dictionary: complete on 1 Volume.
He had bought a used couch from the Salvation Army – it was just wide enough for two to sit on: terrible for napping. He did this by design, for he was afraid that if he’d bought a long couch, the temptation to lie down and sleep would be overwhelming. Already it was hard enough to fight against the gravitational pull to stay in his bedroom and sleep. He still tried to lie down on the couch every now and again, and for that reason, one arm had become loose and wiggly, threatening to break off altogether.
On the floor, Calvin had a small TV, but no cable. He could only receive 3 channels well – one of them PBS, so he was satisfied. The circular dining room table was on the other end of the great room that doubled as living room and dining room. It was covered with mail, little flyers that kept getting stuck in his doorframe, newspapers, both from Asheville and from Cincinnati, and bags from the most convenient fast food restaurants near his apartment: Taco Casa, Burger Barn, and Hot and Fried.
Calvin returned to the couch, and picked up a book: Commentary on the Gospel of Mark by RS Blanchard:
Church tradition, dating back to Eusebuis, tells us that the apostle Mark brought the gospel to Egypt. Mark supposedly wrote his gospel in Rome as a summary of Peter’s teaching. Legend has it that when Mark arrived in Alexandria, his sandals broke – he went immediately to a cobbler to have the sandal repaired. The cobbler, named Ananias, drove an awl into his hand and cried out “God is one!” Mark was startled by such an unusual exclamation; he had not expected to find monotheism in Egypt. He healed Ananias and began to talk with him. He went home with him that night, and soon Ananias and his family were the first converts of Egypt. Most scholars believe this story is apocryphal at best.
Calvin looked up from the book, letting it dangle in his hands. He had been away from his church for two months, but he still felt a compulsion to write sermons. If he didn’t have it done by Friday night, he was fidgety all weekend. He could no more break the habit than a pack a day smoker. He used to enjoy feeling the thrill of knowledge coming together with insights on application of the Biblical text. He had once delighted in weaving jokes, anecdotes, historical and grammatical tidbits, and sprinklings of Greek or Hebrew into a presentation and then delivering that sermon. He remembered feeling connected with his congregants as he told stories and presented truth – as though for a brief moment in the midst of the sermon there was a union - time was lost for a little while and hearts were melded to one. But since Bethan and little Cal’s deaths, it all had gone stale and wearisome. There was no joy in the task. Now, it had degraded to nothing but a compulsion and he wished it would let him go.
The doorbell rang. Calvin rose and peeked through the eye-hole. Two men in uniform, round hats signifying they were either highway patrol or sheriff deputies. Calvin unlocked the bolt lock, and opened the door.
“Hello, officers, can I help you.”
“Rev. Poteat?” said the larger of the two – a thickset linebacker type. His hazel eyes set in a recruiting poster face.
“Yessir.”
“Rev. Poteat, I’m Deputy Collins and this is Deputy Parrish. May we come in? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Certainly, officers,” said Calvin, stepping back and extending his arm toward the couch, “come in and have a seat.”
Deputy Collins went straight to the couch and stood waiting. Deputy Parrish, a slender man with a hungry look, took off his thick mirrored sunglasses to reveal sharp blue eyes and a bridge of freckles across his nose. He scanned the room, sized up Calvin, and moved to stand beside Deputy Collins while Calvin brought a chair from the dining room table. As he sat, both the deputies took their seats, Collins taking his hat off and holding it in his lap – Parrish leaving his on his head.
“Is there something wrong, officers?”
Collins begin “Rev. Poteat – you’re a good friend of John Carter’s aren’t you?”
“Yessir, I am – at least I like to think I am.”
“And you were at his house on Sunday night?” Collins continued.
“Yessir, I was. We were catching up on old times.” Deputy Parrish’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
“Have you talked with him since?” Collins continued.
“No sir. I’ve tried calling and left several messages, but no answer and no return calls.” Calvin had the feel of being a chess piece, so he broke in with a question, “Is there something wrong? Is John OK?”
“Rev Poteat,” Deputy Collins said, “John Carter has been missing for four days – and it seems that you were the last person to have seen him.”
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Prophet of the Sun Chapter 1
Back a few years ago, I started writing a novel .... a spiritual action-adventure of sorts. I've shared it with some friends. And now it's my pleasure to make it available online, one chapter a week. I look forward to hearing what you think. My friends, enjoy.... Prophet of the Sun.
Chapter 1
Common sense says that alcohol makes you more of what you are. In some cases it makes you akin to what you once were: like some spectral impression, hanging on at a crossroads haunt, hoping the past is more than memory. Calvin had hoped for twenty years to melt away so he and John could recapture the easy cadences of years gone by… nights spent on Calvin’s rooftop trading thoughts not as profound as they imagined; hours wasted driving the mountain roads faster than their parents would allow. On this night, Calvin hoped to numb his pain by retreating to a time before it. The treasures of John Carter’s wine cellar were but vehicles to that end. For the moment, the strategy was working.
Chapter 1
Common sense says that alcohol makes you more of what you are. In some cases it makes you akin to what you once were: like some spectral impression, hanging on at a crossroads haunt, hoping the past is more than memory. Calvin had hoped for twenty years to melt away so he and John could recapture the easy cadences of years gone by… nights spent on Calvin’s rooftop trading thoughts not as profound as they imagined; hours wasted driving the mountain roads faster than their parents would allow. On this night, Calvin hoped to numb his pain by retreating to a time before it. The treasures of John Carter’s wine cellar were but vehicles to that end. For the moment, the strategy was working.
“John,” said Calvin, “ – you have corrupted the morals of an honest and upright man.”
“I can hear your mother now.” John affected a lowcountry drawl, accentuated by alcohol borne slurring “John Canarvon Carter, what have you done to my boy!” They crumbled into breathless laughter.
“She’d – she’d be horrified if we broke into Monty Python,” Calvin wheezed. He began singing, John quickly joining in, a half measure behind:
“Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidigger Heidigger was a boozy beggar
Who could drink you under the table
David Hume David Hume
Was a hmmmm hmmm hmmm (for here neither could remember the words)
Hmm hmmm hmmm hmm hmmm hm
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
I drink therefore I am.”
They collapsed in laughter again – “I think Graham Chapman would have been proud,” Calvin said between gasps.
“Oh no, the ratings are plummeting – viewers are tuning out in droves!” exclaimed John in mock horror. They enjoyed the easy comfort of old rehearsed banter, relishing inside jokes that had baffled their parents and annoyed their friends. They needed no new material.
Catching their breath, each collapsed into his seat, John reclined on an overstuffed brown leather couch facing a cold fireplace, Calvin in the matching chair. Photos of John’s family were neatly arranged atop the mantelpiece, bracketed at one end by an old Colt revolver in a box and at the other, a framed two cent bill from the State of South Carolina dated 1845, discolored in the lower right hand corner with a smudge that might be blood. Across an open space at the other end of the room was another couch and wingback chair, stiff with formality, before a stern antique mahogany desk, topped with a green shaded banker’s lamp. A neat stack of manila folders lay to one side of the darkened flat screen monitor, to the other side was a glass mug filled with pens, rulers, pencils, bits of glass, half used erasers, paper clips, and commemorative pocket tokens. The desktop was otherwise spotless and dust-free. Even the wires for the computer and lamp were bundled and tucked away under the desk, their chaos hidden from sight. No disorder was evident. The room was clean and bright.
Spanning the length of the room was a wall of built in bookshelves, filled with volumes from different eras – some still bearing the glossy dustjackets of contemporary thrillers, others having the worn binding and dusty sweet smell of books past their prime. It was a wall filled with portals of escape: stories of love, loss, and pain – all the great stories that call to you to fall forward into the page and be absorbed into the world, emerging again hours later refreshed and clean and good.
The other wall was a row of windows that looked out on darkness –hints of tall sentinel straight pine trees just visible from the interior light spilling out onto the lawn. On the walls above the desk hung a neat arrangement of black and white photos of jungle-hidden pyramids, crumbling classic ruins, and megalithic stone circles. In the center of this arrangement there hung a green-painted plaster bas relief sculpture. It’s wild masculine face emerged from a background of greenery – the leaves forming hair, moustaches and beard – looking vaguely like an arboreal Mark Twain. In the windowside corner by the fireplace stood a replica Pacific Northwest Indian totem pole, faces mysterious, the wings of the eagle at the top jutting out, stuck in an uncomfortable wooden pose.
Calvin blew a long exhale between pursed lips – then in quiet contrast to the preceding hilarity, he said “Thanks for letting me vent. It’s been a …. a hellish couple of months.”
John averted his eyes. “I’m glad you came. I wish there was something more I could do.” A few moments passed, longer than either felt comfortable.
“Well….. Enough about me,” Calvin said to break the silence, “what are you doing to pass the time in early retirement?”
“It’s not easy when you’re a self-made millionaire,” John said with mock arrogance. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, “But I’ve got a project that will help me do it.” He would have seemed much more serious had his right elbow not slipped as he said “project”. He caught himself and fixed his eyes on Calvin, silently begging him to ask for more.
“Yes?” Said Calvin, only half curious.
John thrust himself off the couch, lurching for a moment until he was steady. He walked to the far end of the bookshelves. “I can’t believe I found this. I was browsing the sale rack at the Captain’s Bookshelf when on a whim, I looked over in that old glass case where they keep the expensive rare books. The binding on this caught my eye.” He pulled an old leather book, tied round the middle with a strap “I paid more than I ever thought I’d pay for a book, but it was worth every penny.” He walked back to Calvin, and held out the book to him, a little too close to the eyes, making Calvin lean back uncomfortably in the chair. John’s eyebrows danced for a moment “See if you can tell me what this is,” his tone suggesting that Calvin would fail.
Calvin cautiously took the book, as though it might crumble to dust or perhaps come alive and snap at him. He fumbled at the leather strap, but finally got it open. Within were yellowed pages filled with the compact cursive of another era – cursive that took effort for his modern eyes to decipher.
After reviewing the precursors to disaster that were the other submissions for the contract, I have commissioned Lieutenant Commander Gorringe to retrieve my obelisk. His proposal clearly marks him as the man for the job. I have the utmost confidence in his resourcefulness….
Calvin, regretting that he’d started this conversation, quickly gave up reading, “You’ve got me – what is it?”
Retaking his seat and leaning forward, John replied: “That, sir, is the diary of Henry Hurlburt.” Then, breaking out with a Christmas day grin, John said, “Now, ask me who Henry Hurlburt is.”
Calvin sighed, “All right, who is Henry Hurlburt?”
John’s eyebrows continued to dance as he talked, “Henry Hurlburt was the editor of the New York World in the late 19th century, and a friend of William H. Vanderbilt.”
“And this is important because?”
“He would be completely forgotten to history but for one thing…while having a conversation with the Khedive of Egypt about improving relations with our country, Hurlburt suggested that one way would be to present America with an Egyptian obelisk.”
“An obelisk.” Calvin said flatly.
“A tall thin spire carved out of solid rock ….” Replied John.
“Yes, I know what an obelisk is,” interrupted Calvin, “Ancient Egypt – pharaohs and Cleopatra’s Needle and all that.” He was annoyed, unprepared for this burst of earnestness; he had been enjoying the pity of his friend, and was not prepared to release John from the hold that pity had. Perhaps if he had not drank so much, he would have been better prepared to politely go along – he might even have been intrigued by his friend’s plans. But now, Calvin was simply annoyed.
John, oblivious to Calvin’s body language, clapped his hands together, pointing them at Calvin’s chest. “Exactly! Cleopatra’s Needle! In Central Park – right behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art! That’s the obelisk that Hurlburt is talking about!”
“Mmm Hmm” murmured Calvin, wondering how long this was going to take.
“It was a marvel of diplomacy – the Khedive was Isma’il Pasha – he was working to modernize Egypt. He built railroads, made deals with all kinds of European powers. Queen Victoria even made him a knight!” John leaned back in his chair, having the look of a college professor absorbed in his subject, forgetting the student in his office. “But his modernization schemes bankrupted his country and he was forced to abdicate his rule to his son.”
“… and the obelisk?” Calvin asked weakly, trying to move the story forward.
John, stoked by the question, extended a finger in the air. “Ahah,” he said with triumph, sitting forward again. “Pasha didn’t really want to give up the obelisk, but Hurlburt and Vanderbilt pressured their connections in the state department to force the issue. Pasha agreed. But the sly devil knew that the French had taken 50 years to figure out how to move an obelisk from Egypt to Paris – these things are huge you know – hundreds of tons of solid granite. And half a football field in length or more. It took the British almost 75 years to work out a plan for moving the obelisk they took to Trafalgar Square. Pasha was confident that the Americans would never move the obelisk in his lifetime.”
John leaned forward again, narrowing his eyes. His voice took on a dramatic hush, like a campfire storyteller weaving a spell about his young charges; Calvin, despite himself, felt pulled back from the slumber he had been slipping into. “Pasha didn’t count on Henry Honeychurch Gorringe.” His eyes pursued Calvin’s attention – his head jutted forward at the end of his sentences. “Gorringe was unstoppable. The Italians tried to stop him with lawsuits – and failed. The Egyptian crowds met him with hisses and insults, and he moved in like a conquering Ceasar. French creditors tried to seize the obelisk as collateral for loans to Egypt. Gorringe hung an American flag from the top and declared he’d shoot the first man who tried to take it down.” Admiration radiated from John as he became lost in the story, his own enthusiasm overcoming his intoxication. “When his team had assembled the mechanism to lift the obelisk from its platform, a huge Egyptian crowd surrounded the worksite, as though to disrupt the proceedings. But Gorringe was too clever – he’d spent years as a navy officer in the Mediterranean. The night before he’d called upon an admiral in the Russian navy he’d befriended years before. As the Egyptian crowds circled about, in burst hundreds of burly Russian Marines, encircling the entire worksite, not letting anyone in or out without Gorringe’s say so.”
Calvin, wearied of the story, switched from polite tolerance to sarcasm “So you’re going to bronze the diary and embed it in a monument to his memory.”
“I don’t have to.” Replied John, “there’s already a monument – it’s on Graywacke knoll in Central Park. The obelisk he brought back.”
“So you’re going to impale this very expensive diary on top of said obelisk.”
“No,” John continued unflappably, “but the diary tells us what’s inside the obelisk – or rather its pedestal. Before Gorringe could erect the obelisk in New York, he had to reassemble the pedestal that it stood on. The pedestal is made up of giant blocks encased by steps – and between the blocks were gaps that had to be filled. Gorringe and Hurlburt issued a call for people to send items to be sealed in lead boxes which would then be used to fill the gaps. Stuff came from all over the country – bibles, tools, medals, instruments of trade, catalogs. But Hurlburt also contributed a single lead box – the contents known only to himself!”
Calvin smirked, “Probably copies of his newspaper.”
“Very funny – maybe I didn’t make myself clear” John said, beginning to sense that his audience lacked enthusiasm, “Hurlburt put some secret in the pedestal, and then Gorringe erected a 200 ton obelisk over top of it, and now nobody knows what was inside that lead box.” John punctuated those last words, jabbing his finger on each syllable.
Calvin made their tennis match conversation as a kind of game: “So your task is going to be to sneak in by night and blow up the obelisk” he came back with mock excitement, “Then you’ll remove the lead box, bring it back to your secret laboratory and open it to discover ….” He paused dramatically, “that Hurlburt had packed his teddy bear in the time capsule.” Calvin threw himself backward in the chair with a hard laugh “I’ll bet he even said ‘rosebud’ on his deathbead.”
“This was before the teddy bear had been invented, ” John said with a surly tone, trying to regain his momentum. Calvin felt he had scored a point. “Now stop interrupting – this is where Hurlburt’s diary comes in. He tells us that Gorringe was shown the remains of an old Egyptian tomb.” John snatched the diary from where Calvin had laid it. Flipping through pages, he said. “Listen to this.” He found the page he was looking for and read:
Gorringe described to me what could only be a tomb of such antiquity that it predates the historical record. Apparently his guide showed great discretion, wanting to keep the location a secret. Why he led Gorringe to this spot was known only to himself, I’m afraid. Gorringe spoke of rooms filled with wooden chests. He hadn’t opened the chests for fear of damaging the contents, but he was told legends that they contained a great treasure. Strangely, Gorringe seemed unconcerned about the chests – he said that the inscriptions on the walls were what interested him. He wouldn’t reveal much, only that he hoped to return with scholars and experts to more scientifically explore the find and record his findings. He predicted that his find would be more important to our understanding of antiquity than the Rosetta stone….
John flipped pages. “Now get this…” He read again:
What great tragedy – Gorringe’s accident has robbed us all. To memorialize his great achievements, I have taken his notes and drawings for his planned expedition and have bound them and sealed them beneath Gorringe’s obelisk. I do not think it right that any man of this generation follow through on his quest of discovery. May Gorringe rest in peace knowing that this undiscovered tomb will always be his.
“Did you get that – Gorringe died before he could go back to Egypt. I found out that it happened while he was hopping on board a train in Philadelphia – possibly on a trip to raise funds for his expedition. Hurlburt took all his writings about the lost tomb and put them under the obelisk – likely in that very same mysterious lead box that he’d placed earlier.”
Calvin saw another opportunity to score again: “So you’re going to blow up this 200 ton historic artifact to retrieve another dusty old diary.”
“Stop it… I’m serious.” Another point scored. “Hurlburt says he placed it under the obelisk after Gorringe died – that was three years after it had been erected.”
“Oh, so you’ll just get irradiated with gamma rays and become a gigantic green monster and lift the obelisk up?”
Frustration edged into John’s voice. “That’s not funny. I’m really serious about this.” Yet another point. “If Hurlburt was able to hide Gorringe’s papers under that thing, then there must be an easy access beneath the pedestals. If I can find that access, I can find Gorringe’s papers – don’t you get it – Gorringe describes a lost tomb filled with treasure that hasn’t yet been found. If I can get hold of the papers, I can find a treasure trove of Ancient Egypt!”
“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Calvin said brusquely. “I’m sure your investment banker thinks you’re insane. Who else have you brought into this little Allan Quartermain scheme of yours?”
John hesitated for a moment. His eyes drifted left; and he said with a smile “Just a few associates….” His gaze lingered upon his desk.
“Goody for them – I’m sure they’ll love digging up King Solomon’s mines. Well, this has been wonderfully entertaining – I think we should have Tom Cruise play you in the movie. But I’m going to bed before I get the spins. Think you should too.” At this, Calvin headed up to the guest room, angry that John had something to fill his life – angry at himself for his drunkenness and poor manners – angry at Bethan – angry at God – angry at anger.
John, meanwhile, stayed slouched in his chair for some time, nursing his bemused hurt and cradling the diary in his hand. That’s not the way it was supposed to go. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Half an hour. He stood up and looked out the window, seeing nothing, his mind still flooded by the confusing ending of the evening – muddled up with thoughts about his plans. What am I doing? Am I this much a fool?
Friday, August 08, 2008
On Thuggery, trolldom, and the Joker ethos
I've seen a strange, dare I say providential, convergence of articles and themes in the past week or two, all centering on what I am loosely dubbing the "Joker ethos". The Joker, for those not in the know, is the pasty faced amoral sociopathic villan of this summer's Dark Knight film.
In the film (forgetting for a moment the background we assemble from the comic book franchise), the Joker appears out of no-where. The police can trace no background on him, all his clothes are hand stitched. He gives different stories about how his face became horribly scarred. He uses terrorist plays directly out of Al-Jazeera's book. His interest is entirely in watching the world burn. As Batman/Bruce Wayne and his butler/advisor Alfred talk about dealing with the Joker, we get this very telling exchange that I believe is the most important in the film:
Les nails it....the Joker ethos lies in destruction, not just for kicks, but as a prophetic statement that belief in anything is an illusion. The Joker ethos aims to make us all jokers....it aims to reshape us all in its own image: "what which doesn't kill you only makes you.....stranger"
The troubling truth is that there are plenty of people out there who subscribe to their own version of this Joker ethos. I've been following for a while the efforts of Anonymous to take down Scientology. Anonymous is a nameless, faceless, and pretty amorphous group of hackers who play pranks, sabotage websites, and operate on the fringes of civility (and sometimes the law). However, someone in this group has decided to take down the church of Scientology. They have anonymously put together worldwide protests (with hordes of people showing up wearking Guy Fawkes masks), they have flooded YouTube with anti-Scientology propaganda. And they're scaring Scientology.
The question is 'who are these people?'. The New York Times Magazine ran this very telling article showing how these people (called internet trolls) harrass mock and ruin lives. They do it for the "lulz" ... a satirical way of saying there into it just for the fun of watching overly sensitive people get upset at them. The article gives an explanation of how this works "Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”"
The author meets with one of these people and we get a telling reply to the whys of it all:
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Joker, live and in person. The abused who is so horribly scarred that he decides that he must remake the world in his own image....not because of some vengance thing, but simply because it is. There is no right and wrong, bad or good, there just is. Deal with it and quit your whining. That my friends is the essence of the Joker ethos. Beat you until you quit your whining and become a Joker yourself.
The full article is a must read....the stories are sobering. I could go on with stories about Chineese Hackers, Jihadists....all of whom, in some shape and form, are fascinated with watching the world burn....only to reshape it in their own image.
Thoughts
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
See other posts on the theme of builders vs. destroyers
In the film (forgetting for a moment the background we assemble from the comic book franchise), the Joker appears out of no-where. The police can trace no background on him, all his clothes are hand stitched. He gives different stories about how his face became horribly scarred. He uses terrorist plays directly out of Al-Jazeera's book. His interest is entirely in watching the world burn. As Batman/Bruce Wayne and his butler/advisor Alfred talk about dealing with the Joker, we get this very telling exchange that I believe is the most important in the film:
Fair enough that the villan of a summer fantasy movie should be terrifying, glorying not in rational theivery, but simply in the thrills of destruction. However, Les Newsome has some interesting thoughts over on Common Grounds Online. He relates sitting in the theater watching the film as four teenage girls behind him talk about how awesome the Joker is. Les writes:Alfred Pennyworth: When I was in Burma, a long time ago, my friends and I were working for the local Government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders, bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. We were asked to take care of the problem, so we started looking for the stones. But after six months, we couldn't find anyone who had traded with him. One day I found a child playing with a ruby as big as a
tangerine. The bandit had been throwing the stones away.Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
[later in the film] Bruce Wayne: Did you ever catch that bandit in Burma?
Alfred Pennyworth: Eventually, yes.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Alfred Pennyworth: ...we burned the forest down.
It would be wrong, however, to say that the Joker represents this culture’s fear of terrorists. That’s too shallow. No, the Joker is what we fear about terrorists. A terrorist comes without warning, without consideration, like a dishonorable kamikaze, set on nothing other than upsetting the plans of those who think they have a plan. They destroy hope and safety and the idea that your life will go well in pursuit of “the good.” Harvey Dent is driven to madness as Gotham’s “White Knight,” a crusader who must feel the futility of his best-laid plans and live in the insanity that flows from the knowledge that we are helpless before the darkness of fate.
Remember how the line goes, “Madness is like gravity.” The terror is in the inability to stop the evil that will come upon you if you believe in something, anything, to save you. (emphasis mine)
Les nails it....the Joker ethos lies in destruction, not just for kicks, but as a prophetic statement that belief in anything is an illusion. The Joker ethos aims to make us all jokers....it aims to reshape us all in its own image: "what which doesn't kill you only makes you.....stranger"
The troubling truth is that there are plenty of people out there who subscribe to their own version of this Joker ethos. I've been following for a while the efforts of Anonymous to take down Scientology. Anonymous is a nameless, faceless, and pretty amorphous group of hackers who play pranks, sabotage websites, and operate on the fringes of civility (and sometimes the law). However, someone in this group has decided to take down the church of Scientology. They have anonymously put together worldwide protests (with hordes of people showing up wearking Guy Fawkes masks), they have flooded YouTube with anti-Scientology propaganda. And they're scaring Scientology.
The question is 'who are these people?'. The New York Times Magazine ran this very telling article showing how these people (called internet trolls) harrass mock and ruin lives. They do it for the "lulz" ... a satirical way of saying there into it just for the fun of watching overly sensitive people get upset at them. The article gives an explanation of how this works "Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”"
The author meets with one of these people and we get a telling reply to the whys of it all:
As [he] picked up his cat and settled into an Eames-style chair, I asked whether trolling hurt people. “I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Oh, God, please forgive me!’ so someone can feel better,” [he] said, his calm voice momentarily rising. The cat lay purring in his lap. “Am I the bad guy? Am I the big horrible person who shattered someone’s life with some information? No! This is life. Welcome to life. Everyone goes through it. I’ve been through horrible stuff, too.”
“Like what?” I asked. Sexual abuse, [he] said. When [he] was 5, he said, he was molested by his grandfather and three other relatives. [his] mother later told me, too, that he was molested by his grandfather. The last she heard from [him] was a letter telling her to kill herself.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Joker, live and in person. The abused who is so horribly scarred that he decides that he must remake the world in his own image....not because of some vengance thing, but simply because it is. There is no right and wrong, bad or good, there just is. Deal with it and quit your whining. That my friends is the essence of the Joker ethos. Beat you until you quit your whining and become a Joker yourself.
The full article is a must read....the stories are sobering. I could go on with stories about Chineese Hackers, Jihadists....all of whom, in some shape and form, are fascinated with watching the world burn....only to reshape it in their own image.
Thoughts
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
See other posts on the theme of builders vs. destroyers
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Off The Shelf: A City Upon a Hill
I've been reading Larry Witham's A City Upon a Hill, a history of how the sermon has shaped public life in America. I picked it up because it was one of Al Mohler's top 10 books for preachers for 2007. I've not been disappointed.
Beginning in Puritan times, Witham's work functions as a snapshot of Christian history in the United States all the way up to modern times. He covers his history through the lens of various preachers and their famous sermons that shaped a given era. Some major overarching themes jump out after reading the book:
1) Religion has always had a voice in public affairs in the United States....always.
2) Pastors have struggled with defining the sermon. Is it a crafted work of oratory, or is it a supernatural event (I tend to think both).
3) The themes of providence, the special design for America, and judgment for faithlessness has run throughout all eras of American history.
Witham also gives some lovely historical tidbits that caught my attention....for instance
* In colonial America, the published sermon was the most popular form of rhetoric. Indeed, the average person would hear 7000 sermons in their lifetime during this era. Even those who weren't members of churches regularly attended.
* Cotton Mather, famed for preaching persecution of witches, was actually a little liberal...he advocated liberty of conscience in preaching style, a "generic" public religion, and scientific exploration and advancement (he was one of the early proponents of vaccination using inert forms of viruses).
* In the early 1800s, Cincinnati was the place for religious oratory: “If preachers wanted to dispute America’s fate, Cincinnati was the place.” (101)
* In the early 1900s, many ministers jumped onto the eugenics bandwagon (but fundamentalists like William Jennings Bryan opposed eugenics from the start)
* TV Preacher Fulton Sheen had higher ratings than the opposing shows on the other major networks: Milton Bearle and Frank Sinatra
Overall, it's an interesting read. Of course, there are reviewers who differ. Allen Guezlo writes in the Wall Street Journal that the book is a bland disappointment, not really addressing the essence of what a sermon actually is:
My my... I wouldn't quite say the book is so much tapioca. Perhaps for those who are well versed in the broad sweep of american religious history, it is a bit of a bore, but I found it quite interesting to follow the development of the sermon in the United States.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Beginning in Puritan times, Witham's work functions as a snapshot of Christian history in the United States all the way up to modern times. He covers his history through the lens of various preachers and their famous sermons that shaped a given era. Some major overarching themes jump out after reading the book:
1) Religion has always had a voice in public affairs in the United States....always.
2) Pastors have struggled with defining the sermon. Is it a crafted work of oratory, or is it a supernatural event (I tend to think both).
3) The themes of providence, the special design for America, and judgment for faithlessness has run throughout all eras of American history.
Witham also gives some lovely historical tidbits that caught my attention....for instance
* In colonial America, the published sermon was the most popular form of rhetoric. Indeed, the average person would hear 7000 sermons in their lifetime during this era. Even those who weren't members of churches regularly attended.
* Cotton Mather, famed for preaching persecution of witches, was actually a little liberal...he advocated liberty of conscience in preaching style, a "generic" public religion, and scientific exploration and advancement (he was one of the early proponents of vaccination using inert forms of viruses).
* In the early 1800s, Cincinnati was the place for religious oratory: “If preachers wanted to dispute America’s fate, Cincinnati was the place.” (101)
* In the early 1900s, many ministers jumped onto the eugenics bandwagon (but fundamentalists like William Jennings Bryan opposed eugenics from the start)
* TV Preacher Fulton Sheen had higher ratings than the opposing shows on the other major networks: Milton Bearle and Frank Sinatra
Overall, it's an interesting read. Of course, there are reviewers who differ. Allen Guezlo writes in the Wall Street Journal that the book is a bland disappointment, not really addressing the essence of what a sermon actually is:
Mr. Witham does not, so to speak, preach. In fact, he tells the story in a carefully bland tone that damps down even the fiery energies that drove sermons
about slavery and the civil-rights movement. He yokes together all this preaching, across four centuries, by arguing that the principal task of the American sermon has been to articulate the country's "civil religion." Having given his book the subtitle "How Sermons Changed the Course of American History," Mr. Witham asserts that the pulpit has been the point of origin for a host of what he considers particularly American traits and values. These include: "America as a chosen people," "manifest destiny" and even "the battle between good and evil." Which is strange--I always understood the task of the sermon as the exposition of the Sacred Word. Over five decades of sermon-listening, I have never once heard anything that sounded like a rallying cry for Mr. Witham's "American civil religion." Perhaps his experience is
different.
My my... I wouldn't quite say the book is so much tapioca. Perhaps for those who are well versed in the broad sweep of american religious history, it is a bit of a bore, but I found it quite interesting to follow the development of the sermon in the United States.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Bodies:The Exhibition ... trying to think through this thing
I confess, the idea of going to see Bodies: The Exhibition creeps me out. This is, after all, an exhibit of real human bodies, cut open and displayed for all to see. For that reason alone, I've made the personal decision not to go. We all must know our limits, after all....
I keep thinking about that episode from Tales from the Crypt (Hey, I had to have some downtime in college...and Star Trek wasn't on 24/7). It's the one where Mimi Rogers plays an aging model named Helen who longs to hit the big time. Her roommate gets an invite to a certain beauty pageant, with a note "guaranteeing" that she'll win. In her jealous rage, Helen slips her roommate some sleeping pills so she'll oversleep on the day of the pagent...and accidently gives her too many (thus offing the roommate). When Helen arrives to take her place, she meets a beautiful contestant who is likely to be the real winner; not wanting to take chances, Helen offs the contestant as well...and she goes on to win the contest. Now, here's the Tales from the Crypt twisteroo....the contest was for Miss Autopsy. And so the closing scene shows a now deceased Helen, in gown and tiara, pinned to a giant rotating disc, and her body dissected like some 8th grade formaldehyde soaked frog.
Yeah....that's the mental image that stuck with me. See why I'm creeped out?
Beyond the macabre factor, this exhibt has stirred up some passionate discussion here in Cincy. Thus, I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.
The controversey centers on two issues: human rights and the dignity of the human body.
Human Rights
The bodies used in the exhibit were obtained from the Chinese government, and all the dissection performed at the Dalian University in Laoning, China. The promotial literature from Premier Exhibitions (a publicly traded exhibition company) reassures that the bodies were obtained legally and that the individuals had died natural deaths. However they were unclaimed bodies...meaning that no next of kin had been there to take the remains of the deceased.
The main concern is that we have no way of knowing the origin of these corpses...China is not well known for their human rights record. From the Amnesty International 2007 report on China:
We're working through Isaiah right now on Sundays...the themes of justice come out clear in the first few chapters "Your hands ar efull of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." (1:16-17)...these challenges should lead us to examine our own society. But, since it is an American company staging these exhibitions and going to China and bringing them here to profit from ticket sales to us, then suddenly the problem of injustices in China don't seem so far away anymore.
Of course, the good that might come of this is attention for China's gross human rights violations. According to Voice of the Martyrs, China has jailed more Christian prisoners of conscience than any other country in the world. As the Beijing Olympics draws closer, we have an opportunity to offer more scrutiny to the operations of the Chinese government and to encourage them that it is indeed good business to be a more just society.
Dignity of the Human Body
The Local Catholic Bishop issued a statement that Catholic schools shouldn't be organizing trips to this exhibit, though the choice to attend was certainly in the hands of the parents. A primary concern is how the exhibit dehumanizes the human body. The idea is that such an exhibit treats us like lumps of meat...fit for taxidermy or fit for consumption, just like the Bass fish on our wall. And there's certainly a sense to this....though this is an educational event, it is also a showbiz spectacle put together to make money. Nothing wrong with making money, but when you treat human remains as yet another commodity that has to be factored into supply costs, then we seem to have crossed a line.
This even more so when we read about the next plans from the Dr. Gunther von Hagens, who pioneered this type of exhibition. Germany's Der Spiegel reports that he is offering private individuals the opportunities to purchase sliced cross sections of human remains:
However, there is a contrary perspective. I can very easily see how such an exhibit would lead us to cry out with David "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mothers' womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Ps 139:13-14). This could well be an opportunity for us to gape in awe and wonder at the complexity, the lovliness, the simply amazing workings of the human body...and to praise God for his design.
Interestingly, this seems to be exactly what the Cincinnati Museum Center wants us to ponder, for they have on their website an article by Josh Brahm of Georgia Right to Life. Brahm comments on one section of the exhibit that shows fetal development (from the preserved remains of miscarried children). You can see that a 10 week old fetus is really and truly a little child with little fingers and a little beating heart. This isn't some lump of protoplasm that can be readily disposed of because it is inconvenient. At 10 weeks, what is in the womb is clearly a child. Brahm comments on some of the Notes left at the customary "tell us what you think" notebook that is at the end of every special museum exhibit now:
Even so.....I'm still creeped out.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Related topics:
Amnesty International calls for end to executions in China
Wikipedia article on Bodies: The Exhibition (useful for the links to articles covering the controversies)
Georgia Right To Life homepage.
Premier Exhibitions homepage (they brought us Titanic: the Artifacts, as well as the Bodies exhibition)
The Oak Leaves blog post on the new plan to sell slices of plasticized humans to private individuals.
Russ note...it's interesting that a quick search on the great evangelical leaders' websites reveals no commentary on this kind of thing whatsoever...I looked to Al Mohler, Chuck Colson, and Focus on the Family. Nothing.
I keep thinking about that episode from Tales from the Crypt (Hey, I had to have some downtime in college...and Star Trek wasn't on 24/7). It's the one where Mimi Rogers plays an aging model named Helen who longs to hit the big time. Her roommate gets an invite to a certain beauty pageant, with a note "guaranteeing" that she'll win. In her jealous rage, Helen slips her roommate some sleeping pills so she'll oversleep on the day of the pagent...and accidently gives her too many (thus offing the roommate). When Helen arrives to take her place, she meets a beautiful contestant who is likely to be the real winner; not wanting to take chances, Helen offs the contestant as well...and she goes on to win the contest. Now, here's the Tales from the Crypt twisteroo....the contest was for Miss Autopsy. And so the closing scene shows a now deceased Helen, in gown and tiara, pinned to a giant rotating disc, and her body dissected like some 8th grade formaldehyde soaked frog.
Yeah....that's the mental image that stuck with me. See why I'm creeped out?
Beyond the macabre factor, this exhibt has stirred up some passionate discussion here in Cincy. Thus, I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.
The controversey centers on two issues: human rights and the dignity of the human body.
Human Rights
The bodies used in the exhibit were obtained from the Chinese government, and all the dissection performed at the Dalian University in Laoning, China. The promotial literature from Premier Exhibitions (a publicly traded exhibition company) reassures that the bodies were obtained legally and that the individuals had died natural deaths. However they were unclaimed bodies...meaning that no next of kin had been there to take the remains of the deceased.
The main concern is that we have no way of knowing the origin of these corpses...China is not well known for their human rights record. From the Amnesty International 2007 report on China:
While the Amnesty Report does mention some laudible progress, they still report chilling statistics....over 1000 executions.....an industry of organ harvesting from executed prisoners. Given the Chinese government's reputation for transparency and honesty, the reassurances regarding the Bodies Exhibition amount to squat. (see this New York Times Article going into greater depths on the "body harvesting" industry in China)The death penalty continued to be used extensively to punish around 68 crimes, including economic and non-violent crimes. Based on public reports, AI estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed and 2,790 sentenced to death during 2006, although the true figures were believed to be much higher.
The National People's Congress passed a law reinstating a final review of all death penalty cases by the Supreme People's Court from 2007. Commentators believed this would lead to a reduction in miscarriages of justice and use of the death penalty.
Executions by lethal injection rose, facilitating the extraction of organs from executed prisoners, a lucrative business. In November a deputy minister announced that the majority of transplanted organs came from executed prisoners. In July new regulations banned the buying and selling of organs and required written consent from donors for organ removal.
• Xu Shuangfu, the leader of an unofficial Protestant group called "Three Grades of Servants", was executed along with 11 others in November after being convicted of murdering 20 members of another group, "Eastern Lightning", in 2003-4. Xu Shuangfu reportedly claimed that he had confessed under torture during police interrogation and that the torture had included beatings with heavy chains and sticks, electric shocks to the toes, fingers and genitals and forced injection of hot pepper, gasoline and ginger into the nose. Both the first instance and appeal courts reportedly refused to allow his lawyers to introduce these allegations as evidence in his defence.
We're working through Isaiah right now on Sundays...the themes of justice come out clear in the first few chapters "Your hands ar efull of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." (1:16-17)...these challenges should lead us to examine our own society. But, since it is an American company staging these exhibitions and going to China and bringing them here to profit from ticket sales to us, then suddenly the problem of injustices in China don't seem so far away anymore.
Of course, the good that might come of this is attention for China's gross human rights violations. According to Voice of the Martyrs, China has jailed more Christian prisoners of conscience than any other country in the world. As the Beijing Olympics draws closer, we have an opportunity to offer more scrutiny to the operations of the Chinese government and to encourage them that it is indeed good business to be a more just society.
Dignity of the Human Body
The Local Catholic Bishop issued a statement that Catholic schools shouldn't be organizing trips to this exhibit, though the choice to attend was certainly in the hands of the parents. A primary concern is how the exhibit dehumanizes the human body. The idea is that such an exhibit treats us like lumps of meat...fit for taxidermy or fit for consumption, just like the Bass fish on our wall. And there's certainly a sense to this....though this is an educational event, it is also a showbiz spectacle put together to make money. Nothing wrong with making money, but when you treat human remains as yet another commodity that has to be factored into supply costs, then we seem to have crossed a line.
This even more so when we read about the next plans from the Dr. Gunther von Hagens, who pioneered this type of exhibition. Germany's Der Spiegel reports that he is offering private individuals the opportunities to purchase sliced cross sections of human remains:
Honestly, that is way over the top. It's beyond the scope of the exhibition, but it seems to be a natural kind of merchandising of the concept.Until now, he has only sold cross-sections, where plastinated organs are clearly visible, to universities as teaching materials. But now private individuals will be able to buy slices of corpses too. Von Hagens' assistant Nadine Diwersi told the newspaper: "We are able to quickly produce large quantities with high quality and for a good price."
A cross-section down the length of the body will cost €12,000 ($17,800), while a cross-section across the body will be priced at €250, or €1,600 for a 16-slice set. A typical corpse can produce eight vertical cross-sections or 230 horizontal cross-sections.
However, there is a contrary perspective. I can very easily see how such an exhibit would lead us to cry out with David "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mothers' womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Ps 139:13-14). This could well be an opportunity for us to gape in awe and wonder at the complexity, the lovliness, the simply amazing workings of the human body...and to praise God for his design.
Interestingly, this seems to be exactly what the Cincinnati Museum Center wants us to ponder, for they have on their website an article by Josh Brahm of Georgia Right to Life. Brahm comments on one section of the exhibit that shows fetal development (from the preserved remains of miscarried children). You can see that a 10 week old fetus is really and truly a little child with little fingers and a little beating heart. This isn't some lump of protoplasm that can be readily disposed of because it is inconvenient. At 10 weeks, what is in the womb is clearly a child. Brahm comments on some of the Notes left at the customary "tell us what you think" notebook that is at the end of every special museum exhibit now:
"A strong case for the anti-abortion position.”Perhaps it's not so dehumanizing after all. Maybe, just maybe, this might be a teaching opportunity to help people wonder about the human body and our responsibility to care for it (the exhibit also shows a smoker's lung and a healthy lung). And that wondering may lead us ever more to praise our Father in heaven, and to seek forgiveness through our Redeemer Jesus Christ for the way we disregard God's wonderful creation.
“I know life begins at conception.”
“…I don’t understand how someone could have an abortion after seeing all the embryos.”
“…I’m convinced that life begins far earlier than our society believes.”
“I really liked the part about the babies.” ~A young girl
“We truly are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
“I don’t know how you could not believe in God after seeing this exhibit.”
“I was fascinated with the fetuses – I did not know they were so well formed even at
seven weeks – who could ever abort a child?”
“There is no way I’m going to have an abortion…” ~A 12-year-old girl
Even so.....I'm still creeped out.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Related topics:
Amnesty International calls for end to executions in China
Wikipedia article on Bodies: The Exhibition (useful for the links to articles covering the controversies)
Georgia Right To Life homepage.
Premier Exhibitions homepage (they brought us Titanic: the Artifacts, as well as the Bodies exhibition)
The Oak Leaves blog post on the new plan to sell slices of plasticized humans to private individuals.
Russ note...it's interesting that a quick search on the great evangelical leaders' websites reveals no commentary on this kind of thing whatsoever...I looked to Al Mohler, Chuck Colson, and Focus on the Family. Nothing.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Ongoing Training: Leadership and Anxiety
Steve Brown used to tell me that I needed to develop a mean streak. For those of you who don't know Steve, he's a radio preacher. He thinks he's "got a voice like it came from on Sinai", but that's not really true. He's got the voice of a cranky old tarheel who smokes a lot, has sinned his share, and has experienced forgiveness beyond his wildest expectations. He's got the voice that communicates "sit down son, and listen up, and you just might learn something." So when Steve spoke, I generally listened.
But mean streaks don't come easy to me. I'm something of a people pleaser...I like being liked after all.
Now I take this one day training seminar on Leadership and Anxiety in the Church. It's all about how to apply Bowen Systems Theory in the church context. Too much to fully explain in one post, but the general thesis is this -- every organization constitutes an emotional system (family, church, workplace, etc). Each of us gets cast in a role in the system. Now here's the rub....in a system, all the parts influence each other. In other words, in a dysfunctional system (say a codependent relationship) the "problem person" is not the only one contributing to the dysfunction....so does the "enabler" (envision the spouse who continually makes excuses for her husband's drinking.....the rich parent who is always bailing out the delinquent child.... you get the idea how the bad behavior and the enabling behavior reinforce each other).
Now the interesting thing about systems theory is this. The goal for pastors is not to learn the theory so they can diagnose where all the problems are in a congregation or in their familiy. I've known colleagues that were well versed in systems theory...they'd read all the books and they could tell you right where all the systemic problems were in their congregations. But there wasn't any improvement there.
That's because the goal in studying systems theory is to encourage pastors that by working on themselves, they can improve the functionality of the system as a whole. If a congregation is an emotional system in which all the parts exert influence...then any one part that is functioning in a better more balanced way will influence the whole towards balance. Part of the challenge is that when a leader starts functioning better (say for instance, setting boundaries so that he has a healthy balance of family time and church time.... or perhaps exerting a little more self discipline in time management, which decreases the kind of "available at the drop of the hat" time that was there before.... ), there's always pushback because the change affects other people. It may challenge them to take more responsibility for their role in the system. It may force them to deal with some of their own anxieties that they didn't want to deal with. But in the long run, somebody is going to have their feathers ruffled...and they're going to take it back to the leader.
Hence the mean streak (and that's a bit of an exaggeration). The leader then has the challenge of not owning the ruffled feathers. When someone comes to the leader with anxiety, the leader can listen with empathy ... but as soon as he owns the anxiety, he's lost. The leader has to have the inner self-control to live a little bit with other people's pain. Because sometimes that pain is God's way of dealing with them. Because sometimes that pain is just redirected from some other real issue that needs to be addressed (for instance...my husband is diagnosed with cancer, but I haven't dealt with the anxiety from that...but the anxiety comes out in other areas of life).
The idea here is to stay focused on goals, the big picture. The practicioners talk a lot about using playfulness and paradox to defuse anxiety and invite people into creative engagement with it. My mind is still reeling with everything we covered in the one day seminar. But the big idea I got from it is an old one and a good one: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?" Work on yourself....deal with your own sin and avoidance and issues....and likely, God will use that process of sanctification of yourself to bring blessing to the family, the church, the workplace as a whole.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
But mean streaks don't come easy to me. I'm something of a people pleaser...I like being liked after all.
Now I take this one day training seminar on Leadership and Anxiety in the Church. It's all about how to apply Bowen Systems Theory in the church context. Too much to fully explain in one post, but the general thesis is this -- every organization constitutes an emotional system (family, church, workplace, etc). Each of us gets cast in a role in the system. Now here's the rub....in a system, all the parts influence each other. In other words, in a dysfunctional system (say a codependent relationship) the "problem person" is not the only one contributing to the dysfunction....so does the "enabler" (envision the spouse who continually makes excuses for her husband's drinking.....the rich parent who is always bailing out the delinquent child.... you get the idea how the bad behavior and the enabling behavior reinforce each other).
Now the interesting thing about systems theory is this. The goal for pastors is not to learn the theory so they can diagnose where all the problems are in a congregation or in their familiy. I've known colleagues that were well versed in systems theory...they'd read all the books and they could tell you right where all the systemic problems were in their congregations. But there wasn't any improvement there.
That's because the goal in studying systems theory is to encourage pastors that by working on themselves, they can improve the functionality of the system as a whole. If a congregation is an emotional system in which all the parts exert influence...then any one part that is functioning in a better more balanced way will influence the whole towards balance. Part of the challenge is that when a leader starts functioning better (say for instance, setting boundaries so that he has a healthy balance of family time and church time.... or perhaps exerting a little more self discipline in time management, which decreases the kind of "available at the drop of the hat" time that was there before.... ), there's always pushback because the change affects other people. It may challenge them to take more responsibility for their role in the system. It may force them to deal with some of their own anxieties that they didn't want to deal with. But in the long run, somebody is going to have their feathers ruffled...and they're going to take it back to the leader.
Hence the mean streak (and that's a bit of an exaggeration). The leader then has the challenge of not owning the ruffled feathers. When someone comes to the leader with anxiety, the leader can listen with empathy ... but as soon as he owns the anxiety, he's lost. The leader has to have the inner self-control to live a little bit with other people's pain. Because sometimes that pain is God's way of dealing with them. Because sometimes that pain is just redirected from some other real issue that needs to be addressed (for instance...my husband is diagnosed with cancer, but I haven't dealt with the anxiety from that...but the anxiety comes out in other areas of life).
The idea here is to stay focused on goals, the big picture. The practicioners talk a lot about using playfulness and paradox to defuse anxiety and invite people into creative engagement with it. My mind is still reeling with everything we covered in the one day seminar. But the big idea I got from it is an old one and a good one: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?" Work on yourself....deal with your own sin and avoidance and issues....and likely, God will use that process of sanctification of yourself to bring blessing to the family, the church, the workplace as a whole.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace -- chapter 1
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About James Torrance
Last year, I started into Reggie Kidd's With One Voice, in which Reggie makes biblical case for Christ as leader of our worship -- not Christ as example for our worship, but Christ leading our worship. He started his book with this wonderful quote from Ed Clowney “Our worship on earth is a participation in a gorgeous liturgy that Jesus Christ himself leads from heaven.”
James Torrance makes the theological case for that statement in his work Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace. I'll be honest.....I much prefer Reggie's book. Torrance writes like a scholar giving a lecture. He gives us valuable background and contrast to help sharpen our minds as to why Christ as Liturgist is important. Reggie, on the other hand, is a scholar who writes like a poet -- giving us stories and pictures that help us live the truths he talks about. I would suggest that after you're done with Torrance, you immediately pick up Reggie's book and see what I'm talking about.
That said.... Torrance offers some valuable insights.
First, he addresses boldly a deficiency in much contemporary worship today -- a deficiency which he labels as "Unitarian Worship". This is the emphasis on the transactional -- the me and God. I show up with my faith, and I encounter God in worship. The problem with such worship is that it leads to radically impoverished spiritual life. We hear people saying "I didn't get anything out of it" or we place undue worry on the externals of worship. It often leads to people viewing worship leaders as performers on stage, and the congregation as the audience in the position of evaluation.
In contrast, he advocates a "Trinitarian Worship." that recognizes that we are not an audience, but rather a body. But that the body isn't led by the people on the platform. The body is led by Christ. Christ, serving as our prophet, priest, and king, leads worship before the Father. We, joined to him by the power of the Holy Spirit, are along for the ride.
This is where Torrance gives us wonderful stuff. He reminds us of the language that Luther and Calvin use for the atonement - the "wonderful exchange" -- we bring our raglike offerings, our small toys, our widow's mite, and Christ exchanges them for his spotless perfection and then offers that to the Father. Christian worship is “…our participation through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the father, in his vicarious life of worship and intercession.” (15) Where our faith is klutzy and klunky and kitschy, Christ offers lovliness and pure fellowship. Where our voices ring like tin in the ears, Christ's voice boldly proclaims harmonious praise that is sweet to the Father's ear.
And in the exchange what Christ offers is what we offer.
Simply put, we're not acceptable to God because of the rightness of the worship we offer. We're acceptable to God solely on the basis of Christ. And it is Christ's good pleasure to take what we bring and breathe life into it by the power of the Holy Spirit. The very fact that we worship at all is a function of the grace of Christ.
And that helps us understand that worship is not just an event that occurs at the regularly scheduled gathering of the assembly. Rather, worship is something that is lived on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, Torrance bombards us with theological diagrams and dozens of names of theologians. This is fine for the theology-heads, but it is quite intimidating for other folks (I've had several people remark to me that this book made them "feel stupid").
That said, let me further apply the truth that Torrance hits on -- God doesn't accept us based off the breadth of our knowledge of the history of theology. But as we make stumbling efforts to understand, the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth and Christ brings the humble offerings of our desire to understand to the father.
More to Come on this one.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
About James Torrance
Last year, I started into Reggie Kidd's With One Voice, in which Reggie makes biblical case for Christ as leader of our worship -- not Christ as example for our worship, but Christ leading our worship. He started his book with this wonderful quote from Ed Clowney “Our worship on earth is a participation in a gorgeous liturgy that Jesus Christ himself leads from heaven.”
James Torrance makes the theological case for that statement in his work Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace. I'll be honest.....I much prefer Reggie's book. Torrance writes like a scholar giving a lecture. He gives us valuable background and contrast to help sharpen our minds as to why Christ as Liturgist is important. Reggie, on the other hand, is a scholar who writes like a poet -- giving us stories and pictures that help us live the truths he talks about. I would suggest that after you're done with Torrance, you immediately pick up Reggie's book and see what I'm talking about.
That said.... Torrance offers some valuable insights.
First, he addresses boldly a deficiency in much contemporary worship today -- a deficiency which he labels as "Unitarian Worship". This is the emphasis on the transactional -- the me and God. I show up with my faith, and I encounter God in worship. The problem with such worship is that it leads to radically impoverished spiritual life. We hear people saying "I didn't get anything out of it" or we place undue worry on the externals of worship. It often leads to people viewing worship leaders as performers on stage, and the congregation as the audience in the position of evaluation.
In contrast, he advocates a "Trinitarian Worship." that recognizes that we are not an audience, but rather a body. But that the body isn't led by the people on the platform. The body is led by Christ. Christ, serving as our prophet, priest, and king, leads worship before the Father. We, joined to him by the power of the Holy Spirit, are along for the ride.
This is where Torrance gives us wonderful stuff. He reminds us of the language that Luther and Calvin use for the atonement - the "wonderful exchange" -- we bring our raglike offerings, our small toys, our widow's mite, and Christ exchanges them for his spotless perfection and then offers that to the Father. Christian worship is “…our participation through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the father, in his vicarious life of worship and intercession.” (15) Where our faith is klutzy and klunky and kitschy, Christ offers lovliness and pure fellowship. Where our voices ring like tin in the ears, Christ's voice boldly proclaims harmonious praise that is sweet to the Father's ear.
And in the exchange what Christ offers is what we offer.
Simply put, we're not acceptable to God because of the rightness of the worship we offer. We're acceptable to God solely on the basis of Christ. And it is Christ's good pleasure to take what we bring and breathe life into it by the power of the Holy Spirit. The very fact that we worship at all is a function of the grace of Christ.
And that helps us understand that worship is not just an event that occurs at the regularly scheduled gathering of the assembly. Rather, worship is something that is lived on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, Torrance bombards us with theological diagrams and dozens of names of theologians. This is fine for the theology-heads, but it is quite intimidating for other folks (I've had several people remark to me that this book made them "feel stupid").
That said, let me further apply the truth that Torrance hits on -- God doesn't accept us based off the breadth of our knowledge of the history of theology. But as we make stumbling efforts to understand, the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth and Christ brings the humble offerings of our desire to understand to the father.
More to Come on this one.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
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