His voice was almost flat. Recounting the tale of woe, it was as if he were completely uninvolved, talking about someone else. What few times he raised the lids, he revealed bloodshot eyes, eyes long exhausted of tears. One glance into those haunted orbs disclosed a soul far sunk into the depths of misery. The pain was beyond words, but the story was one the teacher would never forget.
The man telling the tale lay on the battered couch. He was young, not yet thirty, but acted as if he had aged a century in a short time. His filthy clothing added to the stains which had long ago made the pattern in the fabric covering of the couch unrecognizable. His right hand trailed on the floor, pulling now and then at unraveled threads on the ragged bottom edge, while his left lay across his chest. Loosely cuddled in that hand was a large caliber pistol.
That it was pointed in his general direction caused the old teacher no fear. Not only had he faced his own death numerous times, but he knew the man was more likely to use it on himself. He had agreed to come here and listen in one last hope of preventing that. He was a Bible teacher, and he took seriously the idea every soul could be redeemed, that every life was precious in the sight of God. He also knew from personal experience a massive network of scars on the soul were painful, but would also not prevent the full commitment which made a man useful to the Kingdom. This story would be one more scar on his soul, regardless whether his prayers for the man were answered with a "yes."
Barry was fortunate. While he preferred to say he was blessed, and deserved none of it, it was obvious he had thought things through. Even after the recession hit, he managed to stay busy in his shop repairing things in exchange for enough to survive. Unlike most people he knew, his career changed before the economy took a dive. He had been fired from his position as an with the city precisely because he was so able and ethical. He wouldn't be bought, and demanded the city council fix the equipment properly. His experience and degree in mechanical engineering meant nothing in the face of petty corruption and politics, so they cut him loose.
That was fine, because it gave him the excuse he needed to open his own shop, something he'd dreamed of for a long time. In one of the last conversations he had with his wife as she lay dying in childbirth, she told him to follow his dream. He lost both his wife and child, but his faith didn't waiver. They were far better off than he. It was lonely, but with them gone, he really didn't need the high paying position with the city. So he bought the barn and small acerage a few miles out in the country from a town some distance away. He built a small living space inside, and went to work. With the severance pay, he had just about enough to purchase the tools and machines he wanted. In no time, he had a loyal customer base. It was in part because he didn't charge quite so much, but mainly because he took on the jobs no one else would touch.
The recession came on rather slowly. After praying about it, he began lowering the charges for his time. He invested more effort in reusing broken parts, scavenging the salvage yards and scrap dealers, and sometimes the private junk piles every farmer and rancher had. When the national currency became a joke, he was quick to accept barter. He never lacked for food and clothing, and heat was a simple matter of clearing the massive collection of deadfall already covering his land. Electricity was bit tougher, but he used the outages as a chance to review some of the tougher items to repair. Most of the jobs he did involved converting electrical gadgets into hand powered ones. He made similar conversions for the powertools he used most. Sometimes he just took a day off and went into town on his bicycle.
On one such trip, he was pulling the lightweight trailer he had built some years ago. It was more like a sulky, and someone could have ridden in it, facing the rear. Today he planned to gather some small scraps of metal and exchange a few items he'd repaired, but the owners abandoned. Maybe he could get some fresh bread or cereal. He got far more than he expected.
The man on the couch was quiet for a moment. "I should have expected it. Folks in town were having it really rough, and were scrounging for just about anything. I didn't find a single useful piece of scrapped anything. But I got some really good fresh bread for one of my hand-cranked mixers. I put it with some other stuff I had traded for and made a nice submarine sandwich. Oh, how I had missed those!"
A little more animated now, he licked his lips, and the teacher nodded with a knowing smile. What he wouldn't give for one now himself! He wasn't sure if it was his or the young man's stomach which growled. Perhaps both, since food had gotten pretty scarce around there lately.
"I thought I was pretty much alone behind the wall of the cemetery, but I spotted her there, peeking around a headstone, watching me eat."
His voice caught on the "her" just a bit, and his left hand twitched on the gun. While the finger was nowhere near the trigger, it was a dangerous moment in another way. Would he continue?
"Suddenly, my appetite just... fell off. I really wanted it, but I knew this was one of the moments when God was telling me to give something up, offer it to Him by offering it to someone in need. So I said just loud enough to hear, 'Are you hungry, muchacha?' It was just a glimpse of dark hair and a brown face. Whether she was actually Hispanic or not, everyone talked that way there, so I figured it wouldn't be insulting. Turned out she was Mexican, and illegal like most of the rest around there."
She had little to fear from Immigration. However, a lot of locals were quick to blame Hispanic immigrants for the recession. There had been riots here and there, with bloodshed on all sides. Everyone had pretty much withdrawn into their own ethnic communities, more tightly than ever. In many towns and cities, boundaries were marked by burned out buildings. The cemetery was a good distance outside the Hispanic neighborhood. But the general breakdown in maintenance was the same for the cemetery as in most other shared properties. It belonged to everybody, and therefore nobody, and nobody had much time to take care of it. She was pretty safe there.
She rose halfway from behind the headstone, looked around as if worried about being seen. Then she jogged in a half crouch to where the man sat with his back against the stone wall. On his right was the bicycle he had pulled into the decrepit cemetery, rather lightly loaded for the trip home. She managed to make it look graceful when she dropped into a cross-legged sitting position along the wall facing him. She was quite pretty, and obviously quite young, as well. As he handed her the uneaten half of his sandwich, her smile made him forget a lot of things. However, he remembered to reach across to the bicycle frame and grab his extra water bottle. He passed it to her, and she managed to thank him while chewing.
All her movements were graceful it seemed. She ate small bites, exhibiting good manners, yet was clearly starving. After the first raw edges of hunger had been staved, she slowed a bit and began chatting with him. Her enunciation held just the faintest Latin cadence. They joked a bit with each other to overcome the initial discomfort of strangers. Her laugh was natural, and captivating enough he kept trying to provoke more it. Young as she may have been, her sharp wit indicated she had been exposed to a good education, and had paid attention. That this made her so very different from the average teeny-boppers he'd met only made her that much more interesting.
The conversation turned to how she had come to live in the graveyard. The tale was hard to follow, involving vague memories of crossing the southern border of the state at night as a toddler, moving often as her parents worked at farming, cooking, freight handling, whatever they could find. Most places they stayed she was able to spend some time in school. A couple of times she managed to enroll in private Catholic schools, which she loved for their stimulating atmosphere, answering her natural curiosity about the world. She mentioned often the warm bonds she formed, only to have them broken by the next move. Something in the story indicated her parents weren't all that affectionate. He thought to himself perhaps it simply reflected the depth of her need. They died in the riots, and she was passed among a handful of relatives, but things were tense. She mentioned attempted rapes, and finally decided she was best on her own. After slipping out of one aunt's house before dawn, she managed to take some food and found her way to the main road. When a trailer load of brightly painted furniture passed, pulled by an ancient farm tractor, she ran up behind and stowed away.
At some point, she fell asleep. She awakened to find the sun high in the sky, and the trailer had stopped in this town. Slipping out, she was confronted by a gang of boys, dressed in the same bizarre fashion, the same colors. She ran blindly until her lungs were bursting, but lost them when she slipped between the narrow gap where two buildings came close together in a back alley. She told how she was briefly stuck, but steeled herself to exhale fully, and hold her breath out while squeezing through the gap. Crossing a burned out area of row houses, she wandered through a neighborhood of small houses, mostly abandoned, and found the cemetery. Pointing to the headstone where he first saw her, she said she had found an abandoned lean-to shelter. That was three days ago. Her food ran out, and she had been scavenging.
She thanked him again, then asked about his own situation. His outline was as organized as his engineer's mind. She made sympathetic faces at the mention of his wife's and child's death, the firing from the city, and how he was now living rather well. She expressed some fascination with his work, but didn't ask directly at that point. The conversation went back and forth, and he was stunned when he realized it was dinner time, and they had wasted the whole afternoon there against the back wall of the cemetery. Feeling generous, he broke out some more bread rolls and smoked sausage and they made sandwiches. They shared a rare bottle of strawberry soda he had found in a street vender's cart.
Somewhere he mentioned the winter weather approaching. In these parts winter wasn't too long, nor too hard, but it occurred to him she'd probably die if she didn't find shelter. Perhaps she sensed his thoughts, because near the last few bites of dinner, she asked if there was any way he could take her in for a short time. She didn't give him a chance to answer, pressing her case. Promising to be no trouble, she vowed she would carry her weight. She would cook and clean, and help around the shop. He could teach her to fix things. She loved talking to him, because he was one of the few adults who had ever taken her seriously.
She went on, worrying about being forced into prostitution like her cousins. Almost weeping, she noted one was younger than she was. He was vaguely aware child prostitution had risen dramatically when the economy crashed. Decent men didn't want to think about such things.
For the first time, the old teacher spoke. "Decent men don't want to believe the market for that is so large. They want to see it as something other people -- nasty people -- do. They fear seeing in the mirror a likely customer for that trade."
The younger man was silent awhile, then returned in the distant monotone he had at first.
"She reached out and put her hand on my arm, begging me, 'Please help me.' I should have run. I should have jumped on my bike and rode away. I couldn't. A piece of me died right then. And a hundred more little pieces over the next few weeks, one at a time."
He heaved a big sigh. "But I shifted my load around and made her a seat in the trailer. All the way back, the biggest load was not her, but what was in my heart. I was trapped. We were silent on the ride back to my shop. I almost passed by the gate; I'd have done anything -- anything -- ride over the mountains into the next state, all the way across the country, to keep from taking her home with me."
He had warned her the living space was tiny, that there was only one place to sleep which wasn't on the concrete floor. His bed was big enough for two, of course, but nowhere big enough to keep her... him safe. He voiced his concern, but she insisted it would be okay. The first night was easy. He was so tired from the ride he slept hard. When he awoke, he instantly forgot the stiff leg muscles because of the smell of breakfast.
She was a wonderful cook. Not that he was so bad at it, but he seldom bothered for just himself. He had eaten at the homes of a few customers, usually as part of the bartering. It was always a nice change. Now it was every meal, and it was always superb. She must have carried her own spices in her bag, because he tasted things he knew he had never gathered. She did the laundry too, insisting he show her how to operate the pedal-powered washing machine. He had rigged clothes drying lines which could be raised up into the rafters in sections. She swept and mopped the tiny living space, all with alacrity. It really did save him time and trouble.
Previously he would have appreciated a few extra moments now and then to contemplate life, to read his Bible, and take slow walks around the property. Now he dare not stop, dare not think because he didn't want to let his mind follow it's own path. When she began asking him to show her to run some of the machines, to explain his thinking on fixing and modifying various gadgets and appliances, he was scared. But she was all relaxed, and seemed to genuinely enjoy being around him. Several times she got all too close, and even hugged him once in celebration at something difficult she managed to do. Still, he enjoyed himself -- until bedtime. He rolled over to face away from her, but never fell asleep. He dozed lightly, but kept waking up as he found himself turning back toward her. The next morning, he only really slept when she got up and began making breakfast. If she knew anything of his turmoil, she showed no sign.
That third night, he was contemplating clearing off a work bench to sleep there, when she called to him from the door of the living space. He turned to see her leaning around the door with wet hair, one bare shoulder visible. He groaned inside. She was asking where to find soap for the shower, because the last bar was a mere sliver. He stepped to the door and saw she was wrapped in a towel. Heart pounding, he reached up on a high shelf in the cabinet over the sink and brought down a new bar. She thanked him, walked to the shower, and unwrapper herself before stepping inside. The world stopped spinning on its axis.
The conflict in his mind between what he felt and what he knew he should not have felt was too much. He never quite remembered the rest of that evening, nor the night. He awoke with a start and froze with fear. Then his nostrils filled with the scents of a glorious breakfast. He steeled himself, ready to grovel for anything he might have done wrong. As he sat up, she turned, smiled and set down the spatula in her hand, and reached to the counter. She handed him a steaming mug of tea. As he took it, watching her, she stepped close and brushed his hair playfully with her hand. Then she turned back to her cooking, humming a merry tune he didn't recognize.
He almost, very nearly, forget the question of how old she was. He dared not actually ask, but did his best to bury it in his mind. Her mannerisms made her seem almost his age, completely lacking in the childlike enthusiasm he would expect from an amorous youngster. It seemed so natural. Once he surrendered to it, he realized he was completely taken, owned by her affections. He never once acted the least bit fatherly, nor even avuncular, to her. She was more than his equal; she was his mistress in the sense of "female master." Yet she never seemed to take advantage of him.
As customers came and went over the winter weeks, she seemed to know instinctively how to stay out of the way. No one ever asked him about her, but a few times he traded for clothing and other things she seemed to need. He just assumed this situation was permanent, and wondered often aloud how he had stumbled into paradise. She beamed and playfully professed to have no idea. They did everything together, and he realized how lonely he had been until she came along. She said she loved him, too.
One morning he awoke as usual to the smell of her great cooking. She wasn't there, but his breakfast was on the table, covered and still warm. Somewhere far out on the edge of his consciousness, something was nibbling. He brushed it aside. After dropping his dishes in the sink, he stepped out into the shop. She was nowhere in sight. He stepped outside the barn. Again, she was nowhere in sight. Still, it was the first warm spring day, so maybe she took a walk. He was hoping to do so himself, and saw what he thought were the tracks of her little feet in the new boots he had gotten for her last week. Realizing he had the wrong shoes for hiking in the muddy roads and trails, he went back in to change. The closet had no door, and when he stepped in front of it, he froze. Her side was empty.
"I must have run all the roads around there, even though I knew better. Her tracks led to the main road, plain as day. I got my bike out and pedalled both ways, but never saw any trace of her."
The next line was so quiet, so far away, it was almost inaudible. "The last part of me died."
For the first time, he turned and sat up, the pistol still in his hands, still cradled gently. "She would have been welcome to anything I owned or could have gotten by any means. All she took was the stuff I got for her and one old knapsack I never used. Didn't matter," he shook his head. "She had my soul." He stared directly at the old teacher.
After a moment, he slumped, fell back onto the couch as before, and continued in the flat monotone. "I asked all around, but it seems like she was a ghost. Just disappeared into thin air. I stopped working and just rode up and down all the roads for miles around. Then I got a hint. Someone had seen a lone hiker on the east-bound road toward this city. I didn't even bother to go back and pack. Just rode off into the night. Got there before dawn, and was promptly robbed of my bike and my shoes. I'd have been glad to suffer worse if I just could have found her."
The old teacher had nothing to say. After a long pause, the younger man continued.
"It was like a drug, like I was some addict. I begged, stole and even came near to killing a few people. Nothing mattered, and the longer it dragged on, the worse it got. I can't even remember most of what happened after that."
Suddenly he sat up again. Gazing directly at the teacher he asked, "It wasn't love, was it? It never was genuine romance. Was it just the sex? Was it? Am I just a damned child molester?"
The teacher had an answer. "You aren't the first, nor the last. I've seen it before. Don't be so quick to damn yourself."
The young man jerked upright. "You mean it's not a sin?"
"Of course it's a sin, but it's not the sin you think it was. First of all, the Bible says absolutely nothing about the appropriate age for young ladies becoming wives. Since every marriage was arranged by the bride's family negotiating with the groom's family, it was nobody else's business. Our notions today are a relatively modern concept, born as recently as the Victorian Period. Even then it was mostly fake, a false veneer of propriety over the same old human behavior from centuries before. Now that our national culture, poor and shallow as it was, is fragmenting as each local community encloses upon itself, you'll see a lot such nonsense forgotten."
He let it sink in for a minute. "It wasn't a matter of her age, but her maturity, her ability to enter a covenant commitment."
The young man seemed to wilt. "A covenant..."
"Yes. It wouldn't have mattered a bit if she had been older than you. Without that commitment before the Lord, you were playing with fire. In her case, she wasn't committed to you. Maybe she did start out planning to stay, and maybe she was just a little hooker all along. In theory, it might well have worked just fine, but she manipulated you from the start. You gave yourself up as her slave."
His head jerked upright. "Got that right!"
"Worse, you gave yourself up as her worshipper. She was your goddess, a pagan idol with flesh and bones. Once you crawled inside the temple of her affections, you were branded for life. That she was so young only made it that much more powerful over you."
Gripping the gun a bit more firmly, the young man asked, "And now, are you gonna try to stop me from finishing this?"
"God's grace isn't like that. In your place, I would hardly have been any better off. I'm not better than you by any means, and maybe worse. I have no grounds for dictating your behavior. All I can do is tell you what I've experienced with God's grace."
The old teacher leaned forward in his chair, interlacing his fingers, resting his elbows on his knees. "All the harm I've done to myself and others in my sixty years of life weigh on me every waking hour. Even now I still weep over some memories from childhood. Yet these scars on my soul are my very strength. Each one is proof God isn't finished. If He were, I'd be dead. I'll tell you taking your own life is a sin, but I can't choose for you. If the Word of God can't change your mind, can't give you strength to go on, then nothing can."
The young man sat frozen. Finally, at long last, a tear came to one eye.
The teacher rose to his feet slowly, as much from age as from a concern not to startle the younger man. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper-backed book. It was a Bible, quite valuable, to the point of being used as currency in some places. Dropping it on the seat behind him, he stepped toward the door. "You can use that to pay for your trip home. You can use it pay for your funeral. Or you can read it and recover what you lost that day in the cemetery. It's between you and God. You know where to find me if you need anything else."
As the old man strode slowly away from the dilapidated building, he listened intently. The street was quiet, because this was one of the blocks abandoned as a boundary between communities. Far down the street, when he had heard nothing like a gunshot, he smiled and thanked God for the good sign.
By Ed Hurst
18 November 2007
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior -- "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)