By Wayne Fowler
This is a Christian, multi-part story.
It was a beautiful day, weather-wise. Five troubled students, each with his own issues and justifications walked into the high school, their guns concealed. May 15th promised to be a very bad day, despite the sunshine.
The story began some months earlier at the start of the school year.
+++
“Hey Kail,” John said into his cell phone.
“Hi, John. Hey, you know who the first tennis player was?”
“Okay, I give up,” John said, accustomed to Kailey’s humor.
“Joseph. He served in Pharaoh’s court.”
Kailey and John had been friends their entire educational lives, from pre-school all through to their senior year at high school. Even though Kailey’s family moved during her junior year, the districts allowed her to continue at her old school, to graduate with her friends. Studies had proven this can bring not only higher graduation rates, but also better college successes. Kailey represented such an example.
“Noah found Grace yesterday.”
“Hah! Good one,” Kailey returned. “It was even better the first thousand times I heard it.” By their names, Noah and Grace, their youth group friends were destined to couple-hood. Fortunately, they got along well.
“I was…”
“Hold on, I gotta go outside.” Kailey’s cell phone reception never lasted more than a few seconds in the mobile home situated in the epi-center of the trailer park with the reputation of sin city. She proudly defended her modest home – “At least we aren’t mooching off Grandma, or farmed out to relatives, or camped out in the woods.” Between them, her folks worked five part time jobs, and allowed Kailey to work no more than twelve to fifteen hours a week at her Sonic car-hop gig.
“Anyway,” John continued once Kailey re-established her connection. “Friday youth meeting is the last before school starts back up and it just came to me that…”
“That we should start a school Bible Club,” Kailey finished. “I thought the exact same thing just this afternoon. Not just me, either. I was on the phone with Grace just before you called. She said she felt led the same way.”
“You think we can?” John asked.
“Sure! Nobody can stop us.”
“How ‘bout the church and state stuff? Did you hear they were gonna take all the Bibles out of the library, even?”
John could hear Kailey’s exaggerated sigh.
“That came from that extreme radio dude. It’s not true.” Kailey was keyed. “I looked online. As long as the club isn’t sponsored by the school or led by a teacher we can do it.”
“But Mr. Kline can lead the Science Club?” John replied. Stephen Kline was the school’s most popular science teacher.
“We can do it. I think we should appoint a committee and set our curriculum and everything at Friday’s meeting, and call Dr. Westman for an appointment right away.” Kailey’s excitement was contagious.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” John offered.
“And we’ll both call everyone we know…”
“And we can work up posters and fliers and be ready to go.”
“Mondays after school—3:15. It’s not a church night.”
“Or a sports day,” John added.
Their connection ended, both John and Kailey assumed that the other had something to add as their phones immediately rang. Rodney and Hannah Jumper, their church youth pastors, were calling John and Kailey, respectively, to tell them of conversations they’d had with others of the youth group, those who attended the same public high school.
“We both sensed the same thing,” Rodney related to John. “But since it has to be student led, we wanted the motivation to be real, really yours. We’ll help with all the materials you need. And… we can make sure everybody has rides home after your meetings.”
John was pumped. He shut his phone off for a few moments of quiet solitude, smiling to himself as he recalled his mother’s oft stated advice to do so with his phone.
It was a perfect time to pray. (If they only knew what was coming to their school.)
+++
“I’ve been hoping someone would step up,” Dr. Westman said. “Me being the principal, as well as being an associate pastor, well, I couldn’t even suggest a Bible Club. You can have your pick of rooms. Where would you like?”
“As near the center of the complex as we can,” Kailey answered for the four-member delegation. They’d chosen four as not too large a group, but enough to demonstrate strength. Though John was the designated spokesman, Kailey’s exuberance nearly overwhelmed them.
“Room 412,” John clarified. “Right by the library. A lot of traffic. Maybe some will impulse their way in.”
“You’ll make a super retailer one day,” Dr. Westman quipped. “You got it. And you can have guest speakers, hand out fliers, and even have notices in the school paper. It’s all legal. And by-the-way, Mr. Kline has a great talk on grand design. I know he’d be happy to share.”
“And that’s okay?” Jennifer was astounded. “He teaches evolution!”
“Theoretical,” Dr. Westman said. “He has a responsibility to educate.” Dr. Westman grimaced. Wanting to continue, he held his tongue, always careful of being misquoted. Young minds, even more than older ones, often heard what they imagined hearing, frequently adding and subtracting from actual, spoken words. They tended to switch off hearing as their minds played havoc with rabbit trails and attitudes.
“So, from 3:15 until… 4?” Dr. Westman asked.
“No,” John said, turning the flier toward the principal of 1500 students and pointing to the time entry, much as a Kindergarten teacher might the pictures in a book being read aloud. “3:45. We don’t want to intimidate. And we want it to be easy to attend and still get on to whatever kids want to do afterward.”
“But we’d like the room ‘til 4 or 4:30,” Kailey added. “In case anyone would like to talk afterwards.”
Dr. Westman smiled. “Great! Get me the details and contact numbers and it’s done.”
Kailey handed him a completed sheet of paper from a folder she’d been holding. Rodney Jumper, her youth pastor provided a template from other successful Bible clubs.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) - senior John - senior Grace - junior Jennifer - senior Noah - senior Others: Dr. Westman - school principal Steven Kline - science teacher Rodney and Hannah Jumper - youth pastors at John's church The story plot is the emphasis, not necessarily the characters. That is the reason they are less developed than some readers may wish them to be. |
By Wayne Fowler
T.J. Adams was a senior at the same school, and in many of the same classes as John, Kailey, and others of the Bible Club members. T.J.’s parents, his father mainly, thought it clever to name their firstborn, and as it turned out, their only child Thomas Jefferson Adams as an irony. No one got it, but fearing historical witticisms, the boy’s mother insisted on T.J. from early on.
T.J.’s father, George, had been a policeman, lasting just under a year in the force. He considered the Fire Department fortunate to have him as a transferee. Had his unauthorized-use-of-weapons charge been ten or fifteen years later, his outright removal would have been swift and sure – no transfer options offered. Responding to a domestic dispute – at a church, no less – he entered the fellowship hall. Hearing raised voices, he had his sidearm at the ready. An accidentally dropped plate signaled the death of the church refrigerator, assassinated by deputy Fife/Adams. Reluctantly, the Fire Marshal accepted the young man based mostly on his perfect attendance record. And as long as no guns were involved, his aggressiveness was touted an asset. The Police Department was grateful to be shed of their top ranked excessive-use-of-force officer.
Guns were involved at home, however. Handguns were loaded and available at each of the two entry doors, as well as in the drawer of his night stand.
As insisted upon by Mrs. Adams, JeanAnne, the weapons near the doors were secured with trigger locks.
George, though, demanded the keys be zip-tied to the trigger guards. “What good is a locked gun?” George decried. “Uh, excuse me. Mr. Home-invader, would you give me a minute to go find a key to unlock my gun?”
JeanAnne placated her husband by tolerating sufficient training to demonstrate she could unlock the trigger, cock the piece, and shoot it – once, one time, one shot. She refused to practice further.
“But the gun at the back door is different,” George lamented.
“Too bad. Replace it with one that’s the same.”
George knew better than to push the point, satisfying himself with the victory to teach their son marksmanship proficiency.
By the time he was sixteen, the boy could hit more bull’s eyes than the father. T.J. figured it was easy, just imagine his bullying father’s face in the center of the target.
As good a shot as T.J. was, he physically took after his mother: shorter than average, small-boned and angular. His hair was fine and naturally curly when allowed to grow long, unlike his father’s dark brown and coarse hair. George sported a five o’clock shadow by noon.
“Buzz-cut the little wimp,” George told the barber as the eleven-year-old climbed onto the barber chair. “Even if he won’t man-up at least he’ll look the part. Long’s I have any say so,” George half shouted loud enough to be heard by everyone in the four-seat shop. George threw back his shoulders and strutted to a seat after attempting to make eye contact with every man in the building.
“Git tough or die, huh George,” the barber replied, snapping the drape in T.J.’s ear hard enough to make him flinch.
“Damn straight! If it wadn’t for the old lady shootin’ me, I’d set fire to the boy’s head and slap the fire out with a wet towel every month, or so. Her box of rags come out and torch the kid. Every month.” George chuckled to himself, looking around hard enough to force every man to smile or fight.
Outside the barber shop, George addressed T.J. “You better wipe that whiney look off right now. You embarrassed me in there. Small as you are you need your tough look all the time. Might keep you from getting’ your ass kicked. That might help, though.”
T.J. looked at his father, trying to decide whether to shoot him between the eyes or right in his mouth – with his own gun.
“That’s more like it,” George said, approving of T’J.s hateful glare.
Bullying of T.J. at school continued unabated day-after-day, year-after-year. Had it been stereotypical, someone would have certainly stepped in, but it was fairly common throughout humanity. T.J. was the brunt of most every joke even among friends, and the first to be tripped up, or jostled about, among unknowns. T.J. was bullied beyond anyone’s definition of normal, but not quite to the point of intervention. No one watched the everyday goings-on of a school as large as T.J.’s. And T.J. hated himself for his timidity.
+++
Jimmy Orr was new to the school. He was new to every school he’d ever attended. Normally moving in the summer, between school terms, they once moved in September, a month after school started. The single exception to their frequent family moves was between sixth and seventh grades. For sixth he attended Ramona Lane Elementary, but the next year, he was assigned North Junior High – a new school for him with nearly all new kids in his classes. The few he recognized, he didn’t like: a teacher’s pet, a freaky looking kid more shy than himself, a cocky, loud-mouth know-it-all, kids he wouldn’t have willingly befriended even if they were his first cousins.
His motto in high school had become If one kid would ask me my name without following it with a snarky, sneering “Where you from,” he would buy him a Coke. Though he was mistaken in his recall, some teachers had called him by name in class settings, he would have sworn that none had – ever.
Jimmy lived in an apartment building across the highway from Sin City Trailer Park and would have been assigned the same bus as Kailey except he preferred to ride the two-and-a-half miles on his bicycle, dashing his way through intersections, daring motorists to hit him. He didn’t care whether he lived, or died. And if only injured, he’d wage that at least nurses would call him by name.
Jimmy’s mother travelled a lot – obviously. She was an RN, a Registered Nurse who accepted temporary positions through a Professional Temporary Agency. She was excited by the thrills of new experiences, eager to carry her collected knowledge and skills from setting to setting. And her more-than-substantial pay allowed her to be generous with her family, her seventeen-year-old scholar who’d skipped third grade and was the youngest freshman at State College, her middle child, Jimmy, and her surprise daughter, four-year-old Chassidy. She wore out the joke about her baby being named after how she should have been with her third husband, the father who’d skipped upon learning of his eighteen-year commitment as a parent.
Jimmy thought he liked his new Dad, his mother’s San Antonio trophy, a hospital maintenance man and weekend rodeo enthusiast. She’d literally stumbled into him at the OKC General Hospital. Tired of the doctor types, the care-free, macho-manner that Rodeo Bob exuded was energizing, his raw advances hypnotically spell-binding.
“Secret’s stayin’ in the saddle,” Bob said to Julie. “Myself, I prefer bareback.” He winked at her with an Elvis conspiratorial smile. Bob saw Julie enter the hospital cafeteria and waited for her to choose a table before slipping into the seat beside her, edging it a bit closer as he settled in. He felt certain his approach would be welcomed – her Hollywood make-up, and her sized-too-small scrubs. Julie’s noticeable high-beams and absence of a wedding ring spelled rodeo time for Bob.
Julie leaned back far enough to give him the once-over, noting his worn cowboy boots and rodeo belt buckle. “They let you wear those in here?” Julie asked, ignoring his blatant innuendo.
“We’re in Oklahoma, darlin’,” Bob replied. “And you got buck wrote all over you.” Bob displayed a toothy grin.
Despite telling herself not to, Julie’s blush was obvious.
“Now, me, I’d as soon they throw those buzzers out. I’d ride ‘til that beast rolled over, lit a cigarette, and screamed whoa!”
Julie slapped a hand to her mouth a second too late, snorting from her nose as she stifled a guffawing laugh. Finally controlling herself, she spoke. “No dime store sequins on you, are there?”
“Honey, I don’t just order my steak rare, I’d eat it raw if they’d serve it.” Bob winked as he grinned wide enough to show all his teeth.
“Tomorrow. Somebody already asked if I’d switch days off with her. I’ll take her up on it and meet you…”
“Give me your address and I’ll be ready to ride.”
Marriage was inevitable.
Jimmy’s older brother Steve was hardly ever home, spending many nights and most weekends with friends, before going off to college.
Back in eighth grade Jimmy tried out for football. He’d always felt he was athletic and could excel. He had passed on Little League a few years back after watching his brother sit on the bench, game-after-game. He knew that he was faster and stronger than Steve, but he refused to suffer the humiliation of hearing his mother bawl out the coach in front of all the other kids. No way. At football try-outs he learned his name was “Next”. Even if he could win a spot on the team, his heart wasn’t in it. Every other kid had a supporting fan club. And then, to top it off, Julie, his mother, wasn’t there to pick him up that day. The walk home was excruciating with what he learned later was a hemorrhoid. His dream, his last hope at acceptance, was over.
Jimmy tried harder to adopt Bob as a father figure than he had the last one, unsure whether to “Sir” him, or “Buddy” him. What he was sure of, though, was that Bob was there for the ride, not the job. “Saddles seat only one,” Bob responded to Jimmy’s solitary request to go to the arena with Bob one Saturday.
Within weeks of the marriage, rodeo season started. Bob was home on some weekdays, but not many. And none for Jimmy, only for Julie and her bed ’n beer as he joked. Within a year of their marriage, he was gone for good, and they were yet in a new city and a new school.
Baby sister Chassidy was a Day Care child from her one-month birthday. Mom’s little surprise devoured all her adventurous spirit and energy. Jimmy, no longer the sharer of explorations that their various moves offered, had been on his own since she was born. Rodeo Bob offered not even a glimmer of hope, or acceptance.
In his senior year, along with his quest for one soul to speak to him without scorn, the top agenda item was to locate a train track, train stop, or train yard where box cars travelled slowly enough to hop. It became a challenge, that if he were to find one, he’d be compelled to take it that very moment, as though an omen.
He knew he could hitchhike, but figured cops would get him quick. He also figured it’d be easy to get a homeless man to buy a bus ticket for him, a large enough tip as payment. But the train would be his sign, his starting gun, his signal to go.
In his search for just the right train, he saw how easy and certain it would be to jump in front of a train. Watching from an ancient arch overpass, he wondered if he could time it to land midair in front of a locomotive, if it would feel like being fly-swatted. From the same overpass, he saw what struck him with awe – a boy not much older than himself obviously buying a handgun from another youth. Both as black as the gun, he was quite sure that the gun didn’t care about race or age.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) - senior John - senior Grace - sophomore Jennifer - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, junior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Unfortunately, due to limiting the size of the post, this part lacks action or plot movement. My apologies. I felt it important to attempt to convince readers of characters capable of atrocity. Others: Dr. Westman - school principal Rodney and Hannah Jumper - youth pastors at John's church |
By Wayne Fowler
Anthony Prescott, the man in black, was a high school junior. As much as Anthony, definitely not Tony, liked his black attire, he did not care for the Country and Western handle. He was not Johnny Cash and did not like his songs. True, some of them were honest, like maybe his prison songs, or the love songs, but most were not much more than light-hearted trivia. Life was too cruel to be taken like a Man in the Middle or A Boy named Sue – “How do you do?”
Anthony’s father didn’t mind the black wardrobe. Piercings, though, would get the boy some bruising, Anthony thought. Watching his father, listening to his comments about TV personalities, it didn’t take a genius to know what he’d do if Anthony came home with a nose ring, or tongue post. There would be blood. And probably a lot of it. But Anthony’s father was not a bully. In fact, he rarely even spoke to the boy.
Anthony had black head bands, scarves, collars, and hats. He also applied (moderately, of course) black eye shadow, but nothing that couldn’t be removed before returning home, or at least before his father got home. It wasn’t Wicca or Goth that attracted him as much as a simple appeal to the darkness, darkness and the shock value toward others. Anthony felt repelled by light, as if in the light he was translucent, that people could see through his flesh to the blackness of his heart and soul. Dressing in black was his shield, his protection. A trained psychologist would find him easy pickings, low hanging fruit. A recent budgetary decision eliminated the position from the school system in favor of two assistant athletic coaches.
His mother didn’t like any of it, but shielded him from his father, afraid the man’s blatant disapproval would be upsetting. Anthony’s two sisters treated him like he was weird, avoiding him at every opportunity – except when they needed him.
Party girls, his older sisters did tolerate Anthony enough to use him as a substitute babysitter. They could sit every weekend and many afternoons. Anthony took a huge portion of their jobs, squirreling away his money. He made even more money loaning to his sisters at the rate of five for eight. Their wardrobe and music spending guaranteed him his Christmas gun – an MP5. With Christmas money that he always got in place of gifts, he would have more than enough.
In the family car (pick-up truck, actually) the Sirius XM radio was always tuned to the oldies station, 60s on 6. Except when it was on 50s on 5. Anthony opted for his own, more modern music on ear buds from his I-phone. On one trip, his phone forgotten and his father refusing to return for it, he caught the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black – I wanna see it painted, painted, painted black. Black as night… Anthony was hooked. It went on his MP3 where he could hear it over-and-over – all day and most of the night, he liked to think.
A year past, one of Anthony’s friends dropped out of school, just ahead of being expelled for threatening to kill everybody. They no longer hung out together, but Anthony knew the element that he ganged with, and that the dude had rough-type contacts. A gun from him would be a snap.
+++
James Pentecost was a true believer. Life was good. His parents were fair, his younger brother easy to like, his mom’s cooking good, and his girlfriend pretty. Better yet, his mother loved his girlfriend, Amy. James’ mother treated her like a daughter. He often overheard her on phone conversations to relatives talking about Amy as if the couple were already married.
“Oh, you two will have the most beautiful babies,” she often exclaimed, especially when someone else could hear her.
Dad was maybe a little too flirty with Amy, but it was cool. He once thought that if only he could sing, his life would be a sitcom.
Only twice in his entire life had James dated anyone but Amy. Once, taking a neighbor girl roller skating when he was twelve, and once, escorting a girl who’d invited him to a church pie social. Since the ninth grade, he’d been exclusive to Amy dating her at least twice a week, spending time at one another’s homes, known throughout the school as a couple. Life was good.
+++
The class valedictorian would not be Philip Andrews. Mononucleosis saw to that. The class queen, this year’s valedictorian was responsible for his scotched dream, or so felt Philip Andrews. He and Emily Tannenbaum had been the class brainy rivals all through high school, jockeying for top billing. The friendly competition grew serious as they learned of the limited college scholarship offerings, and the benefits of being titled as the best. They remained friends, but the closeness of their junior year was history. Emily would be going to Emory on a full ride. He was going to hell.
Ever since he could remember, his parents urged him to excellence, encouraging him in his studies, exposing him to learning experiences, providing tutoring in his weaknesses, which were few. They pulled strings in their civic clubs to get social activity resumé entries, a record for philanthropy and service sufficient to impress the purple-est of the blue-bloods on any selection committee. Country Club associates were twice tapped for summer internships. Money better spent for college savings was spent hobnobbing with those who knew someone who might know someone. The Andrews would not see their only child saddled with school debt, debt to drown a swimmer. With the surety of a scholarship, the Andrews could live bigly: Club membership dues, a home in the right neighborhood, expensive clothes and parties, exotic travel. The certainty of a scholarship promoted guilt-free spending.
Emily was a cute child, and had served well as challenging rivalry for their son. The Andrews were delighted to have her in Philip’s class, even as his friend. She pushed him to excel. But even in a tie, which the school carried only to one decimal place, Philip’s extracurricular activities dwarfed Emily’s Candy Striping volunteer work. And when Philip’s parents heard that Emily had contracted mono over the summer, their inappropriate grins could not be contained.
Philip’s glee matched his parents’.
“Hey, Em. How are you?” Philip asked the first day of school, knowing that the disease took many weeks, or even months to fully overcome.
“Fine,” she replied weakly.
Philip had his doubts about how fine she really was.
“You going to the Labor Day Back to School Dance?” Emily asked.
“Probably. At least to make an appearance.” Philip understood class politics as well as any suck-up on any level.
“Yeah, me too.”
“See ya there.” Philip wasn’t about to invite her as a partner. And no one else could hold a conversation. He’d rather go stag.
+++
“Hey Philip.”
“Hey, Saul,” Phillip replied to his longtime friend.
Saul was the class clown, as apt to cut up as behave intelligently. As smart as they come, Saul learned early that a comfortable 3.2 to 3.5 grade point average kept his parents off his back and he could have all the party time he wanted. He could get those grades without doing homework.
“You see Emily?” Saul asked at the dance, believing she was as close to a girlfriend as Philip had.
“Yeah. She seem weak to you?”
“Nah. Dancing fine. You oughta go out there and butt in, make ol’ Hammerhead mad.” Hammerhead was the senior class hot shot jock, lettering in two sports: football and baseball.
“Well, would you look at that,” Saul exclaimed, watching Emily and Hammerhead kiss. “That kiss might cost him a few touchdowns.”
Philip had seen, smiling as their kiss was broken only by a chaperoning teacher prying them apart.
Sometime later Saul again met up with Philip. “Did I see you coming out from under the bleachers with Jill Anderson a little bit ago?”
Philip smiled.
“You know she was under there with Hammerhead about thirty minutes ago.
Philip didn’t smile. He’d done the math, applying mathematical axioms, relating Emily to Hammerhead to Jill, and then to himself.
A week later Philip was diagnosed with the flu, missing more than a week of school. It wasn’t mono, but Philip was as mad as if it had been. As smart as he was, he could not repress the certain belief that Emily was responsible. The closer it came to graduation, the more he realized that his 4.2 would not top her 4.3, and the surer he became that Emily had sabotaged his rightful claim, the life he planned.
Everyone in the Andrews’ neighborhood had at least one home protection weapon, usually a Glock of one variety or another. Many also had a shotgun. The racking of a 12-gauge pump ranked as one of the most intimidating of sounds, close to that of a lion’s roar.
The Andrews had both, a Glock 19 and a 12-gauge pump.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) - senior John - senior Grace - sophomore Jennifer - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Amy - James' girlfriend Emily Tannenbaum - senior, vying for class valedictorian Saul - senior, class clown, Philip's friend Hammerhead - (nickname) senior, athlete Jill Anderson - junior |
By Wayne Fowler
So far, John, Kailey, and others felt impressed to begin a Bible Club at their high school. Dr. Westman, one of the vice principals of the 1500 student school, was fully supportive. In the last part, Anthony Prescott, James Pentecost, and Philip Andrews were introduced – totaling five troubled kids.
Given half a chance, most adults would stop, call a halt, and take every one of the five troubled boys in their arms. Actually, four troubled boys and James. They would call a halt to teasing and at the same time look T.J. in the eye and tell him to buck up, man up. Adults would encourage the kids to give it back to them, or explain to them why they hurt. James would be encouraged to seek counseling from a respected adult, to make new friends, to laugh it off… to join the Bible Club. Parents, if given a second chance, would be careful to teach self-worth and esteem.
At least ninety percent of the class would introduce themselves to Jimmy Orr. Many of them would find him fun, and become good friends, given a second chance. If only they would. Every one of the Bible Club members were looking for him. They just didn’t know it. None of them found him soon enough.
Anthony needed a father that cared. He needed anti-depressants. He needed the Bible Club to pray – and to be open to him.
James Pentecost’s father missed his cue. He had a role to play, despite James’ perfect life. James’ mother’s errors were obvious. Catastrophe was brewing, and no one saw the dozens of hints Amy had subconsciously scattered throughout the early spring. Earthquake Day was on its way to James’ door. Each of James’ family members saw what they’d wished to see – a perfect young man with a perfect girlfriend, living a perfect life.
Philip Andrews was pressured beyond his training. He learned that George Washington won the war of Independence. He didn’t grasp that the General had lost every battle. Philip learned science. What he didn’t comprehend was as simple as an earthly metaphor: the earth is not first but third closest to the sun. Neither is it the biggest, but actually among the smallest of the planets. Any scientist, or cook even, knows that pressure must be managed. Any astronomer knew that the universe does not circle around the earth – or Philip Andrews.
Even as youths we are taught not to put every egg in one basket – a simple misstep and every egg becomes so much goo. Diversification, the experts teach.
Philip’s parents share much blame.
Twice Philip was invited to the Bible Club. He thought briefly each time how membership would play on his scholarship application, deciding both times in the negative.
+++
John, Jennifer, Abigail (B), Chelsea, Kailey, Justin, Markus, Jennifer, Corey, Jackson, Brett and Chloe were the strength and backbone of the Bible Club. Kailey, John, Grace, and B were from the same church. The others, including the forty or so that were members with varying degrees of participation, were from churches scattered around town. Several were churched nowhere, but joined the club for a variety of reasons, most of which were because they’d been invited.
John Campbell, the officially acknowledged leader, happily acceded to any who expressed an urge to share, or to lead a session. He would have conceded authority to anyone so inclined, but none would have him step down. Kailey, as club secretary, masterfully engaged many others in necessary but mundane tasks. Neither leader pushed, but encouraged others to lead out, with either Bible study comment or in prayer.
John was gifted with charisma. He was larger than his 5’10” but-growing frame. His penetrating blue-gray eyes saw through to the soul, laughing with the happy, crying with the fallen, and encouraging with the hopeful. He was a natural leader without feeling driven. Unassuming, John was considered a friend by every member. He was blessed and humble. None but the few from his church even knew his was the finest, purest singing voice in the community.
Kailey Bonafort appreciated John’s leadership and had learned from him. Though only friends, they complimented one another in the club as if a couple. Both were comfortable, neither wanting a relationship to interfere with the project.
Unlike John, Kailey had been a Christian for only two years, becoming a believer at a summer camp, her tuition paid for from a special collection for kids without the funds.
Though Kailey’s parents called her beautiful, she considered herself plain. Kailey’s friends sided with her parents.
+++
Jennifer was definitely plain, but she had more date invitations than any girl in school. She was fun – fun loving and fun giving – in ways honest and true. Jennifer saw the humor in most everything and could make even the sullen smile. If forced upon threat of water-boarding to name a fault, it would be Jennifer’s compunction to embellish to the absurd: “Oh, you have a fabulous singing voice. You should do specials!” When the poor soul should actually consider volunteering for the sound board. Jennifer’s plain-ness shined special.
Her parents had gone to church when they were kids, and encouraged her enthusiasm, just short of accompanying her to church, though she continued to hold hope that they would.
+++
Abigail preferred to be called “B”, short for Abby which was too often preceded by Dear. B played volleyball, the only one of the inner group to get a scholarship to college, virtually assured by her coach. B could be depended on to think from the oddest angles. On her own she considered that the Biblical Innkeeper should be believer’s aspirations – The Good Samaritan about the injured man, “take care of him. And when I come back…” or the more famous Innkeeper – “I have no room, but…” B’s pledge became “you do what you can in life”. “Maybe I can’t do that, but I can do something. “No, but…” Always looking to the optimistic.
+++
Grace and Chloe were sisters, fifteen months apart. Grace the older and Chloe one year behind in school, but only by the grace of God. Parental efforts to space their birthdays by twelve months failed. The New Year’s Day after Grace’s birth, the girls’ mother sadly informed their father that she’d evidently not conceived her next year’s Christmas present. By Valentine’s Day, she was certain that she had. Unfortunately, delivery date was projected to October 4, beyond the school year age cutoff by four days. The children would be two years apart in school.
Chloe, though, always the more assertive of the two, had a different agenda. Born at 11:59 on September 30, she would start school one year after Grace, not two.
“Can I join the Bible Club even though I’m only a freshman?” Chloe asked Kailey, Grace smiling beside her sister.
“Of course! You’ll be our freshman star.”
+++
Chelsea, Justin, Brett and Corey were good kids. All four faithful in their churches, none related to church leaders. Simply faithful, devout, motivated Christians. Their energy was instrumental in recruiting many of the un-churched into the club.
+++
The other club members were typical kids, adding novel outlooks and varying degrees of intensity. Being at a neutral setting offered many of them the freedom to ask questions that would have raised eyebrows at their home churches: Why did God have to send his Son? Why not his top angel? Why not a daughter? Why not change the rules and sacrifice no one? Some questions were a challenge. Some sought no answer but their expected laughs. John was careful to follow his youth pastor’s counsel to recognize and avoid strictly denominational tenets – stick to the ABCs of salvation and faith. And by all means avoid discussing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin!
+++
“Hey Grace.”
“Hey, Em.”
It was nearly Christmas break, still early December. Grace entered one of her classes where raucous chaos rose from unsupervised teens. The girls both had to raise the volume to be heard.
“Hey, you wanna come to the Bible Club meeting next Monday?” Grace nearly shouted.
Emma didn’t notice the room’s decibel level dropping significantly before responding with a bit more ridicule in her voice than she intended. “Bible Class? I outgrew that when they said I was too old for Vacation Bible School.”
“Do you have flannel boards in there?” a girl named Ashlynne teased.
By then the class attention was drawn to Grace, most of them laughing.
“No,” Grace answered, smiling at Ashlynne. “You should come check it out. See for yourself.”
Grace made her way to her seat, ignoring the chuckles around the room. But her smile could not survive the laughter coming from Tyler, a boy who, until recently, had attended her Sunday School class at her church.
Grace had thought that that kind of chiding was nearly over with, being so late into the year.
+++
“You’re kidding, right?” Caleb’s reply to Jackson’s invitation to the Bible Club was dismissive. “I’d rather drink paint. You do know that a whale can’t actually swallow a man whole, don’t you?” A pointed slam to Bible believers.
Jackson smiled. He wasn’t going to argue, but thought it odd that Caleb’s parents named him for a Hebrew hero, but he had no better Bible learning than that.
+++
“The B-I-B-L-E, yes, that’s the book for me!” Samuel stood across from Room 412 singing the adolescent Sunday school song at nearly the top of his lungs, wanting to be heard over the bustle of the busy hallway.
“Samuel?” An approaching teacher began. Nearing the tenth grader, the teacher continued, “Do you think your parents would be proud of you right now?”
Samuel nearly ran, exceeding the flow of traffic toward the buses.
+++
“Nah, I’m goin’ to the Bible Club,” Brett said, turning down an offer to be driven home by his friend Mark.
“You’re not one of them, are you?”
Uncertain how to respond, Brett shrugged. His “guess so” missed his departing friend by twenty seconds and a million miles.
+++
“Okay,” John was loud enough to quiet the club, bringing the group to order. “We just have thirty minutes and I don’t want to waste any of them, but how many of you were ragged on for coming here today?”
Hands and laughter punctuated the air.
“Good! Hey, at least they’re aware of us! Let’s look at John Chapter 4, verse 14. It’s on your handout.”
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) Bonafort - senior, club secretary John Campbell - senior, club leader Grace - sophomore Jennifer - senior Abigail ('B') - junior Chelsea - junior Justin - junior Markus - junior Corey - junior Jackson - junior Brett - junior Chloe - freshman Emma - sophomore Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Ashlynne - sophomore Caleb - junior Samuel - sophomore Mark - junior Tyler - junior |
By Wayne Fowler
So far, John, Kailey, and others felt impressed to begin a Bible Club at their high school. Dr. Westman, the principal of the 1500 student school, was fully supportive. In the last part many of the Bible club members were introduced and a typical club day offered.
“Christmas break, everybody,” John unnecessarily announced to the 39 attendees of the last Monday meeting before their recess. He didn’t expect to have so many in attendance with all the church and family events of the season.
“Everyone be sure to take a copy of Really Real? by Elliott Smith. It’s some great reading. Takes about an hour the first time through, and about three hours the second time.” John chuckled aloud, knowing how dumb but true his comment was. “Give it to an unsaved relative and we’ll get you another copy when we come back on… January 9. We love you guys. Be safe.”
+++
On New Year’s Day John couldn’t focus on the football college bowl game his family was gathered to watch. Fitful dreams, nearly nightmares had troubled his sleep. He woke with a start, not sure that he’d rested at all. Too embarrassed to say it aloud, he felt as if his spirit had been in battle the whole night long.
The next night was a repeat.
He got up and stared at his phone, hesitant to call anyone that early – not quite 5:30 A.M. Suddenly it rang. Only one of his favorites, which was nearly everyone he knew, would have rung through.
“Hi Kailey.”
“Hi. Sorry about so early, but I knew you were wanting to call me… right?”
“Yeah. You too?”
“Yeah. We have to meet.”
+++
The informal meeting at 10:00 at the school flagpole on January 2 resulted in a gathering of thirty-one kids, more than either John or Kailey hoped.
“Hey guys. Thanks for coming,” John began. “It’s cold out here so this won’t take long. God’s been talking to us, probably all of you too. I feel like we have to change our focus and I hope I’m not disappointing you all. Justin is still going to lead on his study and stuff on the book of Timothy, but after that, let’s… let’s turn this to a weekly prayer meeting. I don’t want to sound…”
“We’re with you,” Brett interrupted. “We’ve had the same thoughts.” He nodded toward Corey. “Corey even said he thought we might go to more than only Mondays.”
Others nodded assent.
John continued, “I hate to, but we need to scale back our plans to recruit. New members are welcome, of course, but…”
“You’re right,” several said, more or less in unison.
“We should ask our churches to pray for us,” Chelsea added. “I know they already are, but…”
Everyone agreed.
+++
--T.J. Adams’ fun Christmas break had ended on the morning of January 1 with the realization that the recess was mostly over and the hassling would start back up in a matter of days. He grew sullen, disdaining the idea of school, not bothering to even look for the school books he still had homework in.
--Jimmy Orr didn’t get the dog he’d hinted about for Christmas. Though he could have talked his mother into allowing him to get one from the pound, he imagined only the worst for the animal after he was gone – dead and gone.
--Anthony Prescott made a count of his encouraging words, words of praise or even acceptance from the nearly three-week recess. Zero. Adding them up was easy. Every day was worse than the last. His only pleasure was darkening his face for trips to the mall, Gothically grossing out women and children.
--Life was still good for James Pentecost. When Amy wasn’t at his house, he was at hers. Every day was a holiday, every meal a banquet. Life was good.
--Philip Andrews dove deeper into his books.
+++
The first day back at school, T.J. heard the expected words as he entered his home room class: “Here comes Dipstick. Everybody pretends you don’t see him. Talk like he ain’t even here.”
What was he to do? “Teacher! They called me Dipstick. They’re pretending they don’t even see me! Make them stop.” T.J. imagined the reaction. He controlled the ridiculous urge.
At his next class: “Hey, faggot.” This from the only varsity ballplayer in any of his classes. In this class, English Lit, all the girls swooned around the name-caller, practically slobbering. Who he liked, they liked. Who he dissed…. Well, they didn’t abuse him, but their expressions were sufficient. T.J. was not gay, but it was true that he would probably be thirty before he needed to shave. What was he going to do? “Teacher! He called me gay!” “Well, are you?” No, he would not offer himself on a platter to anybody – kid or teacher. Another stupid idea that he stifled. Such was T.J.’s life, that and worse every day. Not all were jerks and he did have friends, but all his friends had A list friends, and little time for the B list that included his name.
+++
Jimmy Orr thought briefly that the streak might be broken and he’d be out one Coke. Someone was about to actually greet him. The bell had rung to signal the end of the first day back. Not one kid had made eye contact all day – the day he’d resolved to initiate and ask their name. Not one. Then, passing the library on his way to the buses, a girl turned in front of him as she was going into Room 412.
She looked him square in the eye and said, “Oh, sorry. Hi.” Jimmy anticipated her follow-up; certain she would be the first that entire year. By her smile, there was no way she would sneer or smirk. Her cheeks couldn’t make such a face. Then her attention snapped to another student that bumped into Jimmy as he stalled in traffic. “Hi, Corey. How was Seattle?”
“Cold,” the girl called Corey responded.
As Jimmy angled past, he mentally finished Corey’s description, morphing Seattle to himself – “and bleak, and rotten, and ugly, and take your sorry and stick it.”
+++
Anthony Prescott skipped school the first scheduled day back. “So what. Who cares.” The last thing he wanted to hear was a bunch of 90210’s, all the pretty people describing their Christmas presents to each other.
+++
Life was still good in James Pentecost’s world. Amy was on his arm. His ring was on a chain around her neck. They’d already decided to go to McD’s with their crowd after school. This senior year was shaping up just as good as he’d imagined.
“James,” Amy said one evening later in the year in early May, nearly an entire gestational period since the advent of the Bible Club. Her long pause finally got his attention. “Since we’re going to different colleges next year, uh, um, why don’t we go, you know, fresh, clean? So we can, you know, not be all guilty talking to other people.”
“You mean like parties… and dating?”
“Well, I suppose, you know, whatever.” Unspoken, were Amy’s thoughts that once out of High School and turned eighteen, and at their stage of coupledom, sex was the next logical progression. She did not want that hook to burden their separate social lives. Childhood and grade school would be behind them.
James didn’t ask her to spell it out. He silently accepted his class ring. Without a kiss or another word, he walked from Amy’s door to his car, not returning home until certain his mother would be asleep. He spent the night determining not to confess anything, that Amy might change her mind before he had to tell his mother anything. He wondered why she had to break up even before summer started. They both turned eighteen during the summer. He’d even considered that she would hint toward their marriage, despite the college separation in order to cement their bond.
“Where’s Amy?” James’ mother asked several days later. “I haven’t seen her and she hasn’t returned my calls. I wanted to know what she was wearing to the graduation party.”
James had yet to tell her that there would be no Amy at the party his mother was throwing for the extended family.
All through the school year, up until that fateful day in May, life for James had been good.
James was heartbroken. As the case with many youngsters, he was unprepared for such a blow. James’ mother may be a story of a similar color. She married Amy prematurely. In his mind, James played out a conversation with his mother: “What do you mean, you’re not together anymore? What did you do? What did you say to her? You must’ve done something! You didn’t… You get over there right now! Take flowers, she likes carnations best. Get on your knees.” James’ mother’s sense of abandonment mirrored, and fed, James’.
Uncle Earl had guns. Among them an AR15. When his uncle went on vacation, James took care of the lawn, sometimes even dog and house sitting. He knew the door security code and where the spare key was hidden. And the dogs liked him. The gun would be no problem. The surveillance system wouldn’t even be looked at until everything was over.
Amy would be spared, allowed to live with the reality of her choices. Everyone she knew would not fare as well. James focus on life changed dramatically. James imagined his mother dissolving before his eyes. He would lose his life, and so would his mother… at least that was the way his juvenile thinking moved him.
But that was all yet to come. Earthquake Day was months off. On this January day, life was good.
+++
Philip Andrews was prepared. Unfortunately, it appeared Emily was as equally prepared. From overheard conversations he surmised she’d not skipped a beat, not lost a step in their competition quest for top grades, mononucleosis notwithstanding.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) Bonafort - senior, club secretary John Campbell - senior, club leader Grace - sophomore Jennifer - senior Abigail ('B') - junior Chelsea - junior Justin - junior Markus - junior Corey - junior Jackson - junior Brett - junior Chloe - freshman Emma - sophomore Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Earl - James' uncle Amy - James' girlfriend Emily Tannenbaum - senior, vying for class valedictorian Saul - senior, class clown, Philip's friend |
By Wayne Fowler
“John, a word?” Dr. Westman was waiting outside Room 412. They stepped into the Bible Club room.
“John, what’s up? How’s it going?” He waited, giving John the time to determine what Dr. Westman was really asking.
John wasn’t sure how to relate that God had spoken to him. Remembering that Dr. Westman was an associate pastor, he decided to simply put it out there. “Um, several of us felt that God wanted us to change things up.”
“Uh-huh.”
Had John been a seasoned pastor, or possessed the confidence of an experienced man of God, he would have spoken the words that immediately came to mind – “God told me to change the club.” Instead, slightly intimidated by Dr. Westman and realizing the ramifications of changing the club with respect to their charter, he appealed to the authority of the mass. “Several of us felt the same thing at the same time. We, uh, well…” Finally, he saw no better option. “Many of us feel that God spoke to us over the Christmas break, telling us to make it a prayer meeting for the school… intercessory prayer for the kids.” There. He’d said it. Sighing deeply, he waited for the principal to declare the end of the club or, at least demand his removal as the leader.
“John,” Dr. Westman began solemnly. “The men and women groups at my church… churches around the community, your church, pray for the safety of our students regularly. I honor your attention to God’s voice and I don’t doubt your sincerity, but…”
“Dr. Westman, we feel like we have to do this. When it’s time for Club, nothing will even come out of my mouth but… something, something from deep in my gut pleading, begging… no, demanding God’s intervention here, now.” John was near tears, his voice cracking. “I don’t really know why, but the direction seems very clear.”
Dr. Westman felt the same, sensed the same. While John figured he was composing his decision, Dr. Westman was actually composing his soul. He sighed before continuing, “Now I know why I was so burdened to pray for you and the other club leaders during the break. I hear you, John, and I agree with you. I feel like there are things that only you students may be able to accomplish. No policing, no policies, no regulation can produce the results that you students may be able to pull off.
“But we can’t just… we have to be mindful of certain reactions. You have a charter and people are watching. Believe me on that. I can’t allow the Bible Club to become a church service.”
John began to speak but held his peace at Dr. Westman’s raised hand.
“I want you to follow God. We all need you to. So, here’s how we’ll do it. You can have the room every day of the week, if you want. But do your homework and have an appropriate scripture to lead each session. It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive study, or even a devotion, but we’re still a Bible Club, under the same charter. Okay?”
John was ecstatic. Choked for words. Lips quivering, he managed a heartfelt “Thank you.” He stood firm, waiting for Dr. Westman to leave first so that he could have a personal moment with God.
+++
T.J. bought his ammo from an online site using his father’s debit card. He’d done his homework. And when his dad asked him to gas up his truck, since he was going to the store for Mom anyway, he put it into high gear. A quick trip to his room with the debit card, the website saved to a favorites, zip-zap-zip and the full metal jacketed bullets were on their way by UPS. Knowing that UPS didn’t deliver on weekends and that delivery required a signature, he’d get the attempted delivery card and hotfoot it to the pick-up point on his bike the day after the notice.
Full metal jackets were not as devastating as hollow points, but he figured with his first magazines, he wanted the bullets to pass through the front victims, getting multiple hits each. The subsequent reloads would be Dad’s hollow point rounds, made to wreak physical havoc and mayhem. And any would-be heroes would be stopped dead in their tracks – literally.
There was a landfill eight miles out of town where no one worked on Sundays, he was certain. Already trained with his right hand, it would be quick work to blast through thirty practice shots with a gun in his left.
Reloading practice, he could do in his room.
+++
Jimmy’s gun was a Brazilian-made 380. An exact replica of a James Bond 007 pistol, the bullet was nearly the same size as a 9mm. Hollow points all the way for Jimmy. His holes would bleed bad. From the Weaver stance that he saw on YouTube, he could take out ten at a time, forty with the extra magazines in his shirt pocket. The guy he bought the gun from said that Jimmy could test fire the weapon under the train overpass if he was quick about it, no more than two or three minutes. Jimmy proved him correct, twice. In less than two minutes he could empty four magazines.
+++
Anthony Prescott’s dream MP5 9 was going to be a $700 Romanian Draco AK47 pistol with a thirty-round magazine. But the kid that promised it couldn’t deliver, offering a variety of handguns, but nothing of the nature of a machine pistol. Anthony settled on making a pipe bomb. Stuffed with 16 penny nails, it would have the devastating effect of a very large hand grenade. Better than a gun that required aiming, actually pointing it at kids.
+++
James Pentecost’s Uncle Earl hadn’t seen his AR15 in many weeks – no reason to check on it. He never even thought about it. In the summertime he took his grandkids, nephews and nieces out for target practice. The day after Amy’s talk with James that next May, Earl should have checked his weapons and ammo, though he would have had no idea to do so.
James would need no practice.
Earl thought it cool to own a sixty round drum magazine.
James agreed. But Earthquake Day for James was still months off.
+++
Philip Andrews’ father’s Glock 19, the most popular hand gun in America, had been in the back of Philip’s mind since mid-terms. It remained there as an image of his father’s Remington 12-gauge pump took dominance. An angle grinder rid him of the barrel that was too long for concealment. A hand saw took enough off the stock for the weapon to fit in his backpack.
First the shotgun, then the Glock, then the second magazine. That ought to keep Emily from the podium, and then some. He’d just make sure he planned the shooting when his friend Saul was at P.E., or somewhere safe. Maybe suggest he stay home once he’d picked a date.
+++
The first prayer session of the reformatted club was tough. John, Kailey, and B talked afterward about how hard it was to stay focused, being distracted by every slightest noise, or someone’s wiggle.
At the second prayer meeting, a few began to quietly sing worship choruses.
“Uh, guys?” John interrupted. “How about we pray out loud. You know, like the Bible says they did in the Upper Room. It doesn’t matter how well we say anything, or how many times we repeat stuff. It would even be okay if we echo each other. God knows our hearts. And maybe we can stay on track better if we’re out loud. You don’t have to, of course, and whispers are okay too. Let’s try it, ‘kay?”
Some in the group nodded, others shuffled uncomfortably but waited silently.
John began. “Jesus, you know why we’re here – you called us here. You know our hearts and that we are willing to do what you want us to, but we need your presence and direction. Show us how to help our school, our friends, our classmates. We feel the burden you’ve given us. Help us to see our way… your way.
“We pray now for all the seniors, especially for those experiencing troubles, those who are lost, those who are depressed, the ones that are suicidal, or just can’t see their way. Lord, we’re asking You to touch their hearts. Lord, put someone in their path that can help them find You.
“Jesus, we pray also for the seniors’ teachers. Guide them, Lord, help them to minister to the kids. Help them to counsel, or refer troubled kids to where they can get help. Help us to be their friends in their time of need.”
John went on to pray the same prayer for each of the grade levels.
Kailey was next. “Father God, help us to do your work at our school. Show us who needs you the most and give us the words we need.” Her prayer focused on various groups: band members, theater students, athletes. But mostly those not connected anywhere. Some of the kids prayed aloud simultaneously.
Three more very brief prayers were offered up, followed by a silence of meditation. Maybe they were on the right track.
After most of the kids left, John, Kailey and B hung out. B suggested, “How about writing some topics on the board?”
“I know,” Kailey offered, “Kinda like we do at church. We’ll make up sets of papers with four or five topics on each, some slightly different, but covering things like, uh, I don’t know…”
The three bantered about until they had more than twenty prayer suggestions, all related to students’ safety as well as prayers for troubled kids in general, not mentioning any names. B offered to type the list in random sets for card-sized handouts.
+++
“John,” Kailey said after club members had all left. “What’s your thinking about us losing half our members?”
It was mid-March and after several prayer meetings. The attendees began to dwindle. At first some left early, praying only fifteen or twenty minutes. Then they began to skip the meetings all together.
“I’m kinda okay with it. As long as there’s some of us here. I’m sure the others are praying, just not comfortable about it here, in a group.”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe if we put it out that kids are welcome to spend five or ten minutes with us… still make it to their buses?” Kailey thought out loud.
“Great idea. Would you text and message all of them? And be sure to add that somebody will be here Monday through Thursday.”
+++
By the end of April the club numbered twelve members, though many popped in for few minutes. Every one of the twelve considered their efforts a rousing success. The next moment, the same ones felt burdened as never before, that God had not answered their prayers. It wasn’t that He had not heard, they felt, but that whatever they sought was not yet delivered. They persevered all the greater.
They found themselves reducing their pleas to two: protection for the students and help for those disturbed.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) Bonafort - senior, club secretary John Campbell - senior, club leader Abigail ('B') - junior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Dr. Westman - school principal Earl - James' uncle Emily Tannenbaum - senior, vying for class valedictorian Saul - senior, class clown, Philip's friend |
By Wayne Fowler
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Kailey (Kail) Bonafort - senior, club secretary John Campbell - senior, club leader Grace - sophomore Jennifer - senior Abigail ('B') - junior Chelsea - junior Justin - junior Markus - junior Corey - junior Jackson - junior Brett - junior Chloe - freshman Emma - sophomore Jackson - junior Corey - junior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and Jeananne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Earl - James' uncle Amy - James' girlfriend Emily Tannenbaum - senior, vying for class valedictorian Saul - senior, class clown, Philip's friend |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part the troubled kids individually settled on May 15 as their day of destruction. The Bible club members were also led to May 15th, a fine spring day. (Reviewers who missed it are encouraged to go back and catch up.)
Earl Pentecost answered the doorbell, his wife busy preparing supper. “Hey James! What brings you here? Bet you smelled Debbie’s lasagna all the way from your house. Come in. Come in.”
“Uncle Earl, can we talk?” Tears involuntarily streamed down James’ cheeks. He hacked a throat-clearing cough as he wiped at his cheeks with his hands.
Earl studied him, a million thoughts flooding his mind, none, though, near the mark. “Why sure, Son. You know we can talk. Come in.”
“But you have to promise not to tell Dad.” James’ voice cracked to barely discernible. “At least not right away. You have to promise.”
Earl studied him some more. After a considered pause, he agreed. “Okay, James. Between you and me until you give me the go-ahead. You have my word.”
James walked back to his car where he retrieved the AR15 from the trunk.
Earl’s heart sunk. A sadness overwhelmed his soul. He dabbed at his own tears as he felt his throat constrict.
“Come in,” he said, knowing that James would answer questions in his own way, sensing that this was probably the hardest day of the young man’s life.
“Honey, James and I will be in the den,” he told his wife, his head around the corner.
Debbie had never seen, or heard, this expression before. She knew to allow them privacy.
+++
Jimmy Orr had ridden his bike to school that fateful, clear spring Tuesday morning, May 15. Riding it back home, he deviated nearly two miles to pass by the Victory Life Church. Without planning to, he tried the front door, finding it unlocked. Inside and to the left was a locked office door with an old-fashioned mail slot. His Brazilian 380 barely fit into the slot after he was certain that it was unloaded.
+++
That evening Philip Andrews laid aside his Calculus notebook and found a Bible app for his iPad. He remembered somewhere, somehow, hearing that a person should read the book of St. John if he read any Bible at all.
+++
Anthony Prescott did not change into light-colored clothes, none of which he owned, not even a gray or brown-colored T-shirt, but he did remove all his accessories and washed his eyes. He spent his review day mowing the lawn that barely required mowing. And reviewing his life – after dismantling his bomb.
+++
T.J. spent the day beating himself up, chastising himself for not fighting back the bullies, hardly hearing any of his teachers’ reviewing. At the last bell, he retrieved his backpack, once again greeted by well-wishers, telling him that God loved him.
Outside, he squinted at the sun, marveling at how beautiful was this clear, spring day.
+++
John called the other eleven, texting those he couldn’t reach. He felt such a release by the Holy Spirit that he was advising everyone take their finals and leave the day to God.
May 15th, students arrived home to their parents.
“How was your day?” LaVonne Reed asked her daughter, Donna, called Kitten by her family and friends. “Anything interesting happen today?”
“No. Fine. Nothing happened today.”
End of the first section
| Author Notes |
The story continues on to a second section.
Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - senior, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and Jeananne Jimmy Orr - shy, loner, senior, son of Julie (traveling RN), a single parent Anthony Prescott - goth-like, junior James Pentecost - senior, respected athlete Philip Andrews - senior, vying for class valedictorian Others: Earl - James' uncle Debbie - Earl's wife (James' aunt) Donna Reed - student LaVonne Reed - Donna's mother |
By Wayne Fowler
Previously, the Bible club members saved the school from catastrophe, greeting every student as they entered the school that fateful May 15th.
Though the handguns had been replaced, they remained available. T.J. Adams would amend the wrong of May 15. He had a fresh target in mind.
+++
James Pentecost, grateful for his uncle’s patience, finally managed to connect more than two words on his fifth attempt. The AR15 he’d thrust into his uncle’s arms at the front door lay on the floor beside James Earl Pentecost, James’ namesake uncle. Earl was more of a father to James’ dad, Dennis, than the man who’d sired them and left to join the Army without as much as a ‘How do you do.’ Earl, the elder by only 18 months, led James’ father through to adolescence, when their mother finally remarried. Their birth father never returned from the war, believed to have perished at Guadalcanal.
Noticing the rifle’s distracting claim on James’ attention, Earl interrupted, “Let me just put this away.” His gentle smile and non-confrontational manner eased James’ spirit. He reflectively sighed, taking several deep breaths, unaware he’d been holding his breath, attempting to speak from the uppermost of his diaphragm. “Take your time, Son,” Earl said, casually easing back into a chair beside James, and not the seat of authority behind the desk at the head of the room.
James Pentecost, Earl’s devoted and trusted nephew had stolen Earl’s AR15 and its 60 round drum magazine with every intention of killing 60 or more fellow students at Mulberry River High. To his mind his perfect life was destroyed by careless words and reckless dumping by his life-long love. The girl who would be the queen of every boy’s dreams suddenly and unexpectedly dropped him. In James’ imagination his girlfriend was planning to date every man in her new school, it being filled with men taller, stronger, smarter, funnier, and better looking than himself. The concept of playing the field probably wasn’t even her own, but her mother’s, interested in her daughter’s fullest college experience, as well as her learning whether or not the youthful cling to her childhood sweetheart was true. James’ heart exploded, filling the voided cavity with poisonous bile, the flumes of the havoc saturating his skull. It didn’t help that his own mother had emotionally married the girl, accepting the traitorous witch as her daughter-in-law before either child had even reached puberty. So went the story, as James saw things.
Were Amy questioned, she might make note of the many hints she’d dropped during their senior year: about campus safety required pairing up, about the many co-ed activities, about not wanting to miss out on parties or events just because James was a million miles away doing, or at least wanting to do, the same things at his college. Amy would say that her intent wasn’t a break-up at all, but merely a change to a more open relationship, as opposed to the exclusive-of-all-others that carried them through high school.
James watched as his deliciously cute girlfriend flowered into the beautiful dream of every boy in school. Marilyn Monroe would have been vying for second place as Home Coming Queen against his Amy. Amy had been planning this breakup from the first day of High School, he’d convinced himself, allowing his disturbed mind to dive feverishly into despair’s depths. Confusion and embarrassment quickly gave way to despondency and depression. He felt diminished, reduced to waste, and exposed as an inadequate failure. He couldn’t stand the idea of being either pitied or scorned as the would-be suitor. He would not allow for either.
Certain Amy had already fed every gossiping telephone chain in school the news of his being skewered; he couldn’t look anyone in the face. There was no one he could talk to – most definitely not his mother who doted on the girl, or his father who probably fantasized her. He doubted he could speak of the affair in any case … not without breaking down into a slobbering child. He chose anger as depravity’s voice.
Now, brought to his senses, awakened to what he’d been prepared to do, he was mortified.
“Uncle Earl, I …” James choked up, his heart where his Adam’s apple was supposed to be. His eyes glazed over with tears that began to stream down his face. Earl gave him both time and space, knowing that the moment was James’, his growing from child to man, his opportunity to mature into responsibility. “I almost destroyed our family, Uncle Earl.” James’ gutted out his confession, his voice a gravelly, guttural pitch, the best he could muster. Somewhat calmed, he continued. “I’m more sorry than I could ever say. I stoled your gun. I was gonna …” James began, but stifled an emotion-wrought sob. “I was going to use it in school.”
Involuntarily, Earl choked back a sob of his own. Still, he allowed James his declaration. He nodded to his nephew. “Do you want to talk about it? What brought you to it?” Knowing that the boy did, his words reflected more the question of whether James could talk about his trauma.
“I don’t know what got a hold of me, Uncle Earl.”
Knowing that it wasn’t an attempt to transfer the guilt to some other entity, nor a failure to accept personal responsibility, Earl withheld judgment.
“Amy broke up with me and I just, I don’t even know. I just couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel anything. Mom, she … I don’t know what happened.”
After a moment, giving James the time he needed and sensing that the boy required some nudging, Earl asked, “What turned you around?”
“That’s it, Uncle. I don’t even know. I went to school with the gun in my camping pack. In my mind I was not even going to school; I was staying home. But I saw myself just goin’. Every step up the walk and up the steps I fought to stop and go back, but … I don’t know. Don’t laugh, but it was like even after Amy told me to stop, my hand kept trying to reach under her shirt. Like I couldn’t stop it.”
Earl managed to squelch his response, keeping a straight face in front an exact understanding of involuntary responses. His silence begged James to continue, letting him talk out his feelings. And allowing himself time to think through his reaction.
“I went into the building like always, except without Amy. I didn’t see anybody’s faces. They were all just … kinda like figures, walkin’ to class. Then there was somebody in front of me, in my way. She said something or other to me, I don’t even know what. She wasn’t even pretty, not like Amy, but… I don’t know… she glowed. You know what I mean? Her eyes saw me. She saw me. You know what I mean, Uncle?”
Earl didn’t for sure, but felt that the girl’s gaze somehow pierced James’ soul. He nodded understanding.
“Anyway, somehow she made me understand what it was that I was about to do, really understand. She made me think that I was not the person I’d become, that I was, I don’t know, kinda worth something.” James quickly followed up the thought, not wanting his uncle to misunderstand. “I know I’m not. I know that what I was going to do would have proven that, but she …” James bowed his head, signaling an end.
After a moment, Earl spoke. “James, I won’t pretend that everything is fine now that you … woke up. But thank you. Thank you for waking up in time. Thank God for that girl.” Earl wasn’t a religious man. He hadn’t gone to church since adolescence. The expression merely seemed the thing to say. “And thank you for coming to me. I’m honored and humbled. And I deeply respect your courage. You could have just snuck the rifle back and no one would have known.
“You know that we’re going to have to talk with your dad. First, you’ll go take your finals with as clear a mind as you can. Put this aside for the moment. When are finals over?” he asked.
James told him.
“Okay, Friday morning you and I and your dad will go hike Mulberry Park Trail. I’ll tell your dad he has to take off work. It’s supposed to rain, but we’ll go anyway. When we get to the river overlook, we’ll go to the pavilion and sit down to talk and decide where to go from here. I won’t tell him anything but that it’s important. Might tell him it’s life or death.” Earl’s eyes gave away a smile.
Standing simultaneously, James fell into Earl’s embrace, his tears soaking Earl’s shirt, James whispered his heart-felt gratitude as he nearly bolted from the room. Fast behind him, without wanting to appear to be in a chase, Earl’s words caught James at the front door, “You’ll be alright, Son. You’re a man now. You’ll act like one.”
James turned to his uncle and forced a smile of agreement.
Earl’s wife looked from his eyes to his stained shirt and back, blinking back tears of her own. “It was bad?”
“Yes,” was all Earl allowed himself for the moment, hugging his wife with all the love and support he could draw. “It was gonna be bad.”
+++
“James, I haven’t told your dad anything except what I told you that I would. He needs to hear it from you.”
Seated at a picnic table, none of them cared that a hand-holding couple sought cover from the drizzling rain at the other end of the pavilion. The three men at the downhill side were not there to experience the overlook sights.
“Dad, I …” After a hesitating start, James released the emotions he’d held in check at his uncle’s. Weeping uncontrollably, James fell sideways to his father’s shoulder.
Dennis, his mouth agape, studied his brother across the table for explanation. Earl merely nodded toward James. “Go ahead, James, it’s time to tell him. Don’t hold anything back.”
The young couple quietly continued their hand-in-hand stroll, somewhat more briskly than the first half of their hike.
“Son, we can’t just go on like nothin’ happened.” James’ father Dennis bore into James’ eyes.
Earl produced a business card from his shirt pocket, handing it to his brother.
Recognizing the nature of the card, Dennis continued. “You’re going to have to meet with …” He read the card more closely. “Dr. Kilpatrick.”
James nodded assent. “Dad, I don’t want to sound, I don’t know, all churchy, or nothin’, but can we? Can we all, you, me, and Mom … go to church Sunday? I think that tall girl, I remember a little more all the time, I think she said something that …”
“Sure, Son. I’ve seen people in and out of the one right down the road from the house wearing blue jeans … we’d feel comfortable there – unless you want to go somewhere else.”
James shook his head.
“James, you know I trust you,” Earl said. And, well, it’s nothing but good horse sense, but I’ve changed the code and removed the house key from the hide.”
James understood, understanding that he had actually broken the bond of trust.
“Well, let’s all get soaking wet,” Earl suggested as he stood.
| Author Notes |
Troubled kids:
T.J. Adams - graduated, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - goth-like, senior Others: James - previously troubled kid, college freshman Dennis - James' father Amy - James' ex-girlfriend Dr. Kilpatrick - James' psychologist |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part, T.J., though thwarted on May 15th, remained unchanged, still hostile toward everyone. James confessed to his uncle and to his father, agreeing to counseling and getting his family to agree to go to church.
“Hey, John.”
“Hey Grace. Thanks for calling. I’ve been thinking about our Bible group ever since graduation. It doesn’t seem like it’s been a month. I tried to call you a couple times this past week.”
Grace didn’t respond immediately.
“Grace? You there?”
“Yeah,” she replied after a slight pause. “Kinda down, I guess.”
“That’s exactly when you should get with people who care about you.”
“I know. I saw you’d called. I’m just … I don’t know … bummed, I guess. How’s Kailey?”
“She’s good. We talk about every day. Look, can you get away?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess. When are you thinking?”
“Now? I could pick you up in … like … fifteen minutes? Go to the mall. Get a Coke, or something?”
Reluctantly, Grace agreed to be ready for him to pick her up.
“Can I be brutal?” Grace asked. “I mean so honest that you won’t utter a word, and … and you won’t think bad of me?”
John did his best to assure her, though she clammed up, regardless.
“You ever read Jonah?” John asked.
“Well, yeah, I guess. Remember, we read the Bible through last year?”
“You probably forgot about him wishing he was dead right after saving 120,000 people. He even said as much, that he wished Nineveh had been destroyed with everybody in it.”
Grace sat upright, jerking her hair from her face with a snap of her head. Her eyes begged more.
“Remember the one about Elijah? He had a competition with Baal’s prophets, soaked and drenched his stuff three times and God lit it up anyway. Then he outran Ahab’s chariot to town.” John paused until Grace’s eyes pleaded for the rest of the story. “You guessed it. Elijah was suicidal right after that.”
“Well, I’m not exactly suicidal, just really bummed out. And I can’t explain it.” John waited out her hesitation. “I mean I don’t wish anything bad had happened that day at school, but …. Well, we don’t even know if we did any good at all.”
“We did, Grace. We did. God did through us. A gun was dropped in my church office that same day. I’m pretty sure I know where it came from. And the gothic dude asked Dr. Westman to take him home from school right after the doors opened. And I got a call after graduation saying that the school was unbombed, bomb-free. It was weird, I know. But I think it was him. And my gut tells me that there was more. And so does yours.
“Grace, what you feel is not just, just nothing. It’s real. I don’t know why. Maybe doing the miraculous is draining. I know you don’t wish there had been a shooting, or worse. If you think about it, nothing happened to take credit for preventing is the best that could happen, in a convoluted non-happening way. Nothing happened because God used us to stop it. Red lights are a nuisance, but they save lives every day – without credit or fanfare.”
“You learn to talk that way in your senior year?” Grace chided, smiling for the first time in weeks.
John laughed with her. “Why don’t you call everybody and let’s do something together? Go to the beach, or something?”
Grace agreed, promising to call with details.
“Oh, I’m gonna bring a friend, Jimmy Orr,” John said as Grace opened the Jeep Wrangler door in front of her home.
+++
The Mulberry River, with largely privately owned access, offered a gravelly beach on the side opposite town. The playground and picnic area, a community favorite summer draw for families, was patrolled often enough to be safe. The gravel gave way to sand at the river’s bank for a distance of several hundred yards along the shallow interior of the mile-long horseshoe bend. A dozen or more yards from the beach was a perpetual gravel bar, which never disappeared, but shifted with every serious flooding. Though it required a chest deep wade, it was the perfect meeting place.
Lunch finished, Kailey watched as the last of the group to eat brushed chip crumbs from his hairless chest. She challenged the group to a race to the gravel bar island, the last one aboard to be a rotten egg. Rodney and Hannah Jumper, John’s youth pastors at his church shook their heads, recognizing the baby boomer reference. Sensing the Holy Spirit’s leading, and also wishing to recognize the Jumpers’ involvement in the group’s success, John had invited them. After Rodney’s offer to bring three buckets of fried chicken and the saltiest chips they could find, John knew he’d done the right thing. The thirty-something elders allowed the group their privacy.
Barely squeezed onto the island, John looked to Jimmy Orr with as friendly a wink as ever passed between friends anywhere. “Guys, Jimmy here has something to say.”
Jimmy’s heart stopped. He’d said nothing to John about wanting to say anything. Not the first word had he said to a solitary soul about his James Bond knock-off 380. John, seeing a bicycle parked at his church the first Sunday after graduation, sought out Jimmy, breaking from his other friends in order to sit by him. They’d hung out together a couple times a week since. John didn’t pry; Jimmy didn’t offer any comment about a handgun or May 15th.
“Go ahead, Jimmy. You’re among friends.”
Everyone chuckled.
Rising at the water’s edge, Jimmy stepped into the water about a foot. Quickly losing his footing, the gravel washing from beneath his feet, both Chelsea and Justin grabbed for him, clutching his arms, not releasing until he’d steadied himself.
“My name’s Jimmy Orr. I’ve been alive for … I don’t know …” He paused in obvious calculation. “Forty-one days.”
Everyone shouted and laughed hysterically, applauding and congratulating him, knowing what he meant. Several wiped tears from their eyes.
“On May 15th, I took a semi-automatic 380 to school.” The silence became overwhelming. Jimmy’s hiccupping breath dominated even the beach noise across the water. “I was going to hurt as many people as I could, maybe even some of you.” Jimmy recounted the day, starting with John’s speech to him that fateful morning, word for word. He briefly recounted his mantra of buying someone a Coke. Nodding to the girl who’d bumped into him and almost won the Coke, but instead asked Corey about Seattle’s climate. Jimmy easily convinced them of the painful loneliness a person can have among a thousand who were not alone. Every one of them felt the sting of un-loving behavior and attitudes.
Several suggested something should be done – a new kid’s club in every school, some sort of outreach, something.
“You can’t cure everybody, everywhere,” Jimmy said, his voice raised. “You … you …”
John came to his aid. “We just have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, not losing a single opportunity. Everywhere we go is a new mission field.”
“So,” Jimmy nearly shouted, embarrassed by his accidental volume level. “I, uh, I want to be baptized.” He looked to John.
John looked to the beach where Rodney and Hannah were somewhere, but couldn’t be quickly picked out.
“You do it, John,” Kailey said.
“Would you?” Jimmy asked, looking to John.
He did. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
+++
“Hah!” Anthony Prescott said aloud, alone in his home’s detached garage. He’d assembled a new pipe bomb roughly triple the size of the one he’d made for school. May 15, the day he was to have lit up Mulberry High was over. Inside the four-inch, schedule 40 PVC was enough explosive gunpowder and odd screws and nails to disintegrate a house, or a wad of people a hundred thick.
That dreadful, terrible day, May 15, after for whatever reason he could not now recall, he asked the principal to take him home where he washed his face of his black make-up and then mowed the lawn like a dutiful son. His parents arriving home from work in the same car, both working at the same plant with close enough shifts to share a ride, were quick to acknowledge Anthony’s work.
“Now get off your butt and mow the back,” his father said. “And wash your face.” The face washing add-on was reflexive, a nearly every-day recitation, this time without even looking. “Weren’t you going to get a haircut this week?” his mother chimed.
Anthony’s cloud reappeared over and around him. With a deep breath, he sucked in its familiar stench, comfortable with its disgust.
The school opportunity past, his access now forever denied, his mind raced across possible venues: the movie theater, the mall, a church. It would be simple. Attach a leather carry strap handle as if it was a case of some sort. Drill holes in one end to hold the tips of fishing rods. Hah! It’d fool anybody. Hah! Wash his face, get a regular shirt, and no one would stop him. Even if they thought to, it would be too late. Heroes would be the first to die.
“Could he detonate two?” he wondered.
| Author Notes |
Bible club members:
Grace - junior Chelsea - senior Justin - senior Corey - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduated, son of George (fireman, ex policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - goth-like, senior Others: John - graduate, past club leader Kailey - graduate, past club secretary Jimmy Orr - graduate, previously troubled kid Rodney and Hannah Jumper - church youth pastors |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part the Bible club members met for a summer celebration where Jimmy Orr confessed to his May 15th intentions and then asked to be baptized. Anthony Prescott quickly devolved to his former condition of bleakness, and designed even greater destruction.
“I speak English,” T.J. reminded God. T.J. completely discounted God’s using Markus to speak to him. “You want me, you know where I am,” he thought in what he considered a prayer as he watched the meaningless sitcom his mother had tuned into on TV.
Within days of May 15, the familiar heaviness weighed down onto T.J. Though graduated from the abusive students, everywhere he went he found the same: condescending sneers, bone-crushing handshakes of would-be employers – even the women, for pity’s sake – his mother’s saying.
“Get a job!” his father scoffed on a daily basis as if it was as easy as that without a car. “The bass boat plant is always hiring. Flip hamburgers, for cryin’-out-loud! It's been two months since you graduated!”
“Honey, you have to either sign up for Community College, or … I don’t know. I don’t think your father will let you live here,” T.J.’s mother told him.
T.J.’s spineless mother was not helpful. T.J. respected them about as much as his past school-mates had him. He continued his silent prayer: “Am I invisible, God? Can’t you see me? That black kid knows my name, but you don’t? I should’ve gone ahead and done it,” he said to himself. Then he heard his father ridicule the sitcom actors, and by transference, his mother, who liked the characters. He imagined himself walking to the front door, ever so casually extracting the Glock from the end table drawer, and then filling the room with pistol smoke – and his parents with lead. Only the thought of his father’s beating him to the draw prevented his following through, his father smashing his face with his fists. A clear enough vision of the scene: his father whipping out a gun of his own, and somehow beating him with it and his fists, completely disavowed him of any notion of shooting him while he was awake.
“In their sleep,” he thought, seeing himself in his father’s recliner, plugging every cop that entered the home until they had to climb over the corpses to get in. “Is that what it takes to get any respect?” T.J. thought. A single target, though, thinking of his father … that would be different from spraying bullets in a crowded hallway. A single target like his father would be problematic. The man could get up and kill him with a chest full of bullets. Get close enough to put a couple in his brain, and he could still awaken and snatch the gun from him. He would have to think about it.
“Maybe he could bicycle to McD’s and flip burgers. At least he could eat all the fries he wanted,” he thought. “That is, if somebody didn’t think it would be funny to dip his head into the vat of boiling grease.”
“Where are you, God, ‘cause I’m bumpin’ up against a time table here,” he lamented. “Either you talk to me, or I explode.”
+++
Emily did, indeed, win valedictorian. Her speech, though well received, was lackluster, hitting not a single point that Philip Andrews would have accented: self-reliance, independence, Washingtonian non-foreign entanglements reduced to the personal level. His would have railed against social welfare issues and government interference of any nature, though he never considered the state-offered scholarship as anything but earned and deserved. But it was not his speech to give. In fact, the only reason he attended the ceremony at all was the pressure applied by his parents. “If you expect graduation gifts, you have to wear the gown. And attend the party wearing your wool double-breasted suit.”
Two years at State, he told himself, and then he would bite the bullet and borrow enough to add to his parents’ home refinancing to afford a real school. He would get his letters in Political Science and return to change the evaluation of this podunk school to better reflect value to legacy students, students who come from founding families, the important families of the community. His changes would guarantee that the atrocity of this year would never be repeated. He would exact his revenge. The very first would be the removal of Dr. Westman, the joke of an administrator. And there wouldn’t be any illegal merging of Church and State with Bible clubs or prayers, even if student-led.
His friend Saul, going to the same state college on the same state scholarship was too pedestrian. Philip quickly brushed him aside as he would dandruff from his shoulder. Associations at this level would not enhance, but only detract from his standing and goals. These next two years, actually eighteen months with an accelerated schedule, would be like time spent in purgatory, a jail sentence, time out from his real life. He wouldn’t be bothered with anything short of entry into the University.
+++
“Oh, Man! Do you feel that?” Jimmy asked John. It was early August. John and Jimmy were double dating with Kailey and Grace. Neither certain who was with whom, both boys in the front seat and the girls in the back. No one held hands entering the movie theater. Only by happenstance the girls sat together between the two boys, Kailey near John, Grace by Jimmy. With two buckets of popcorn to share between the four of them, Jimmy and Grace accidentally touched fingers all the way to the bottom, producing bashful smiles with each touch.
“Look, there’s Goth,” Jimmy said. John was already locked onto the young man who casually walked across the front of the theater. The trailers were yet to begin. Jimmy had just sat down with the two tubs of corn. John bought the drinks from a faster clerk and was already seated with the girls.
“What’s he doing?” Grace asked.
“It ain’t good,” Jimmy answered.
John’s jawed clenched repeatedly, watching Anthony Prescott cross the room, his face turned to the mass in the center of the auditorium.
Kailey pinched her eyes shut, lost in prayer.
There to see Heaven Is For Real, John watched Anthony walk the outside aisle all the way out of the theater. This night was the last showing of this movie, but a much-anticipated God’s Not Dead movie was due to be released in the fall. Christian kids all over town had been talking about it. Though outwardly enjoying the movie as well as the company, each felt an ominous foreboding with respect to Anthony.
“I think that was a scouting trip,” John said to Jimmy the next day. “Nobody’s going to challenge a briefcase or backpack. People carry them all the time.”
“Do we go to the law?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. But if Anthony waits until the next Christian movie.…”
“But who says it has to be a Christian movie. It could be anything. Last night might have been a coincidence, or something. That he just happened to be there.”
The two reached no conclusion except to report what they knew, which was little to nothing.
+++
Anthony made a second PVC bomb. He also made a look-alike in which he placed three fold-up fishing poles, carrying it all around town, even into the movie theater when he went to see a superhero film.
+++
“I don’t know what to do,” Chloe said to her sister, Grace. “I want to keep the Bible Club going, but I’m not getting very much support from the kids. Certainly not the enthusiasm from last year.”
“I don’t know, Sis. I guess most of the leaders were seniors. But mostly, don’t you think that the real crisis was last year. And, you know, it’s past, behind us?”
“It isn’t over, Grace. I feel it in my heart. Don’t you… feel it? It’s like there’s evil in the air. I feel it, I smell it, I can nearly see it. But even if it is over, shouldn’t we still have a Bible club?”
Grace loved her sister too much to accuse her of nursing a hero obsession, a desire for the limelight. “Well, you know I’m in. Let’s go see Rodney and Hannah and see what we can do. Then we’ll go see Dr. Westman again, just like last year.”
+++
“Hey, Girls!” Rodney beamed as the two entered his office. His demeanor became confused, one girl’s aura cheerful while the other more somber. “Bible Club, Chapter Two. It just came to me. That way it won’t be easily confused with last year. You can sell it as Bible study and not the prayer meetings that… well, you know.”
“Great idea!” Grace returned. Chloe agreed.
“But we need a leader,” Chloe demurred.
“You have one.”
The girls stared at him blankly.
“Grace, I think you’ll agree that Chloe is the obvious option. Chloe, you don’t have to be the teacher to be the leader. Delegate.”
“Great idea, Pastor Rod. That’s a great idea.” Grace hugged her sister’s shoulder.
“Now, that’s settled. The same as last year: transportation, materials, snacks?”
“And prayer support from here and every other church in town?” Chloe added.
Smiling brightly, Rodney said, “See what I mean?”
+++
Dr. Westman was as positive as Rodney had been.
“Dr. Westman,” Chloe said with an exaggerated up-lift to her voice.
His eyes implied she go ahead and ask.
“Would you see if Mr. Kline would give his talk on grand design? Before the kids have the chapter on evolution? We didn’t get to have him last year because of, you know, and …”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “How about week two, your second meeting?”
“How about the third,” Grace countered. “We’ll have more time to advertise it, and get more people. Some might even come thinking they’ll get extra credit.”
“Won’t hurt to let them think that,” Dr. Westman said with a grin. “But girls…” Dr. Westman then thought better of admonishing the two to be wary of visions of grandeur, or any sense of superior standing with respect to their heroic acts of the previous year, knowing that not to be the case. “Oh, nothing. You’ll be fine.”
+++
“Guys and girls.” Chloe addressed the Bible club attendees, waiting for the talking to subside. “Our church has bought a hundred tickets for God’s Not Dead for us.” She waited for the cheers to diminish. “Let’s call all our past members and invite them first. Then whoever has an un-saved friend that will come. Okay? And if there are more friends than tickets we can take up a collection. Agreed?” she asked. Assents could be heard from every quarter.
“The date on the tickets is November tenth,” she added.
“The Marine Corps Birthday, hoorah!” Brett yelled. His father had been a Marine.
+++
“You gonna be here, John?” Kailey asked, receiving an assurance that he’d be home that weekend. Kailey heard about the November event and called John, hoping he would make the date with her.
| Author Notes |
Club members:
Grace - junior, club leader Chloe - sophomore, Grace's sister Brett - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduate, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - senior, goth-like Others: Jimmy Orr - graduate, previously troubled kid Philip Andrews - graduate Dr. Westman - school principal Emily - graduate, Valedictorian Saul - friend of Philip, class clown John - graduate, past leader of the Bible club Kailey - graduate, past club secretary Markus - graduate, past club member Rodney and Hannah Jumper - church youth pastors |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part T.J. and Anthony both plotted to commit mayhem. Some of the Bible club members saw T.J. apparently casing the movie theater. Christian kids of the community were planning to attend the showing of a film on Nevember 10th. They didn’t see Anthony case the same theater.
T.J. Adams was leaving the Sonic Drive-In to take a smoke break in his car just as Anthony opened his car door into him. Not expecting doors to open at the drive-up stall, T.J. was caught off guard and knocked to the ground.
“Sorry, Dude. I like to sit at the table.” Anthony helped T.J. up. “Make everybody look at me.”
Sensing a kindred spirit, T.J. responded. “I know you from school. I mean I don’t know you, but …”
“Yeah. I’ve seen you there. Got picked on a lot. I remember.”
“Never by you, though,” T.J. said.
“Nah, man. I’m not into that.”
“I heard a rumor about you,” T.J. said. His father asked about the Gothic kid a couple weeks earlier, asking if T.J. knew him. His father, working City Fire and Rescue, had heard from one of the city policemen that the kid might be a potential bomber.
Not bothering to ask the nature of the rumor, Anthony replied, “Yeah, well you can believe some rumors.” His winking smirk confirmed T.J.’s affinity.
“May fifteenth,” T.J. said.
Anthony broke into a full smile, his first in memory. “We need to talk, Dude. Soon.”
“I’m here, man. Get off at about two every afternoon but Monday and Wednesday, my off days.”
“I’ll be here later, then … at two,” Anthony replied.
+++
Once certain of their similar interests and goals, Anthony laid out his plan. “I can detonate them with my phone. It’s simple. The internet shows you how to do it like it’s remotely turning on the TV. Hah! A moron could switch the door lock for a detonator. We put one bomb a third of the way back, and one two thirds. I can see over a hundred dead or maimed. We sit in the very front and duck real low. With the rise in the floor, it’ll be the safest place. Then we wait for the first responders, especially the cops. Then it’s heads and kneecaps. We shoot ‘til we’re out of shells. Might even get out alive through the fire exits toward the stage.”
T’J.’s nod didn’t quit, calculating how he could ensure his father would be a responder. “It don’t matter about getting out,” T.J. said.
They would later settle on November tenth, knowing what movie would be playing, unaware of the Bible Club’s date.
+++
“Look I know you said it’ll work, but before I sit in front of 500 people and only bullets enough for a handful, I wanna see it blow up, at least a small sampler one.”
They agreed to build a small, one inch PVC bomb with thumb tacks as shrapnel. Set under a plastic storage tub, they should be able to see every surface blown to smithereens.
They did, blowing on command of Anthony’s cell phone virtually the same way as ISIS IEDs blew up American troops.
The only modification to Anthony’s plan was to rebuild the devices into backpack containable lengths, four backpacks instead of two, multiplying the casualties by at least half again. To fool the public, both young men began wearing backpacks about town with 2-liter soda bottles in each.
“The first thing we do, once in the actual theater room,” Anthony said, “is check my phone. Make sure I have signal inside and I can actually make a call. I had one bar when I went in last time, but I wanna check it again.”
T.J. nodded agreement.
+++
James Pentecost was going to college a hundred miles away from home. In early August he began preparing. His budget allowing for the one meal per day option at the dorm, he experimented with healthy and fast choices for his evening meal, figuring his main meal to be midday. He wasn’t aware that B worked in the store he frequented. On this day he decided to try store brand tortilla chips, Delcheata cheese and potted meat. The checker, not finding a tag on the cheese box called over the intercom, “Price check on aisle nine, Delcheata cheese, twelve-ounce, please.”
Within a moment B approached, stopping short as she recognized James.
“Oh, hi B,” James said as she reached around him to give the checker a box that she could scan.
Taking a second too long to respond, B finally acknowledged James with as friendly a smile as she could muster. Very well she remembered May fifteenth, the way she felt seeing him about-face and leave the school after she greeted him. She remembered every word she’d said, and the very inflections to her words: Jesus loves you, James. God loves you. And your family loves you. And I love you. Why did she say all that? She’d never figured it out. Of course, she’d learned that he and Amy had broken up. That was all over the entire school and the whole town. So why say that she loved him. Especially since she’d not said the same to anyone else. She’d known James since grade school, but no more than anyone else that didn’t live on her street, or go to her church, or play women’s volleyball or basketball. Some years he was in her class, some not. In the higher grades they’d shared some classes, but not very many. Normally, passing in the hallway resulted in nothing more than a nod. And then she announced undying love! Well, in her hyperbolic mind, anyway.
“So, are you?” she heard James ask.
Her head and eye movement told him that she’d missed something.
“Going with anyone?”
B blushed, thinking that they were within a half an inch of one another’s height, the height issue always foremost whenever she considered whether a boy was cute. She being just short of six feet tall made the matter important to her.
“Uh, no. UC Tech is all.” She blushed the redder, realizing that she hadn’t really answered the question properly. Glancing about, her eyes refusing to land on James’, she noticed that the checker, a lady nearly old enough to be her grandmother was grinning like Curious George.
“So am I,” James replied with an air of excitement, like he’d just discovered a lost twenty-dollar bill. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could share rides back home once or twice a month!”
“Uh, no. I mean yes. Uh, no. I’m not seeing anyone, and yes, whenever we don’t have weekend games, or practices. It’d be great.”
“So, you’ll go to dinner this Friday night?”
“Not if we’re having that,” she said, pointing at the Delcheata. With a smiling flip of her pony tail, she wheeled around to hurry back to work, letting James figure out how to contact her and set up the date.
+++
“Hello, John?” B asked, calling him as soon as she got off work.
“Of course it’s okay to date him. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Well, you know I told you he turned and left school after I greeted him … on May 15th.”
“Yeah, I remember. Wasn’t that right after the breakup?”
“Not right after. But what I’ve never said to anyone was what I saw sticking out of his backpack. I didn’t really put it together until I looked on the internet later on.”
“Uh, oh. Do I know where this is going?”
“Probably.”
“Guess you have some praying to do,” John offered. “I’ll help.” And he did, there on the phone as well as that evening.
+++
“Hello, James?” B got James’ number from Amy, who she’d had the temerity to call. Amy belabored the point that she hadn’t meant to break up, at least until after the summer, and that they might get back together next year and that James was a gentleman. B thought of the snooze and loose maxim. After a quick greeting, B got to the point of her call to James. “Look, the big Baptist church opens their gym every afternoon all summer. How about tomorrow at one?”
After James’ enthusiastic acceptance of the offer, and B’s admonition to wear shorts and be ready for a workout, B thanked Jesus for the peace she felt in her spirit.
James spent the next several minutes wondering what church kids did for fun, how different church ball might be from regular basketball. He shook his head at the reality that in all the years he’d been with Amy, they hadn’t once done anything to raise a sweat, but here he was prepared to open every sweat gland and possibly offend the world on a first date. He again shook his head in wonder.
| Author Notes |
Club members:
Grace - junior, club leader Chloe - sophomore, Grace's sister Brett - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduate, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - senior, goth-like Others: Jimmy Orr - graduate, previously troubled kid Philip Andrews - graduate Dr. Westman - school principal Emily - graduate, Valedictorian Saul - friend of Philip, class clown John - graduate, past leader of the Bible club Kailey - graduate, past club secretary Markus - graduate, past club member |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part Chloe and Grace planned to renew the Bible club. T.J. and Anthony met and plotted to blow up a theater full of people. James and B connected.
“Hello, Markus? B. Yeah. You? Hey are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
Markus’ mother was the daughter of one of the local car dealership owners. She’d gone to college in Capitol City and returned after her freshman year with a mixed-race child. None of her friends had ever asked her story. She’d never spoken of it, whether Markus was a child borne of a relationship, or anything short of that. Markus, to anyone’s knowledge, never considered himself anything but one of the guys, just like everyone else.
“I know… you’re getting up a game of roundball and I’m the first person you thought of. The DNA thing,” Markus said, applying what he considered to be self-deprecating humor over the phone, meaning nothing serious about it.
“Actually, you’re eighteenth on my list. Everybody else was busy,” B storied, playing back.
He was available. He worked nights and didn’t go in until four. B explained her first date situation. “I don’t need protection. It isn’t like that. I don’t know…”
“You want to see his character,” Markus offered.
“Yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“Yeah, I’m cool with that. I mean, I won’t go an’ foul him or stuff like that, but, well, we’ll see if he has the love.”
B laughed. “The other thing is that if we get the chance to witness to him…”
“You don’t want to be all touchy and stuff,” Markus interrupted. “Not on no first date. You don’t wanna get him distracted.” He laughed.
+++
“No wonder you got a scholarship,” James said to B, breathing hard, exposing a flat stomach as he wiped his sweating face with the front of his shirt.
The three had met at the church gymnasium. Arriving early, B deliberately dismissed the notion of waiting inside and greeting him in the same posture as on May 15th, choosing instead to wait in the outdoor heat. Going inside together, it wasn’t long until they’d joined a game and worked up a sweat.
“I can’t keep up with her,” Markus said, sitting on the other side of the bleacher seat, James between them.
“The scholarship’s in volleyball,” B said, hardly perspiring.
“I should’ve played half court.”
“Like me,” Markus injected. “I quit tryin’ to impress B the first time out.”
“The secret’s in gliding, not trying to pound the court,” B offered.
“Floating would be more like what I saw,” James replied, finishing off the last half of a water bottle in one pull. “My therapist suggested that,” James said, his eyes darting sideways in an effort to catch B’s reaction.
“You have a therapist?” B asked.
Markus held back every inclination to comment on girlfriends causing the need for therapy.
“She says to float with the flow.” James made a phuuh sound, shaking his head.
“I know a counselor that recommends active resistance,” B replied. “More like chasing evil thoughts away than sitting back and hoping they’ll go away on their own.” She sipped at her bottle of water.
At just that time a procession of other kids came by to greet and speak with the three, leaving only seconds between for conversation. Markus declined another game, excusing himself to get ready for work.
“The Gandhi approach, huh?” James said, taking advantage of a gap in well-wishers.
“No, that’s passive resistance. I’d say more like the French Resistance.” B exaggerated the last syllable, attempted to sound French. “More aggressive, but careful not to hurt people, busting out the actual evil instead.”
James stared at her in amazement.
“They’re starting up another game,” B said. “You up for it?”
“If they’ll let me play sixth man,” James said apologetically.
They didn’t, encouraging him to play forward, complementing B. B laughed hysterically at James’ over-the-top play-acting of floating as he ran down court in a skiing motion, his arms extended downward with his hands splayed like tiny wings.
Parting in the parking lot, B having declined an offer to go for refreshments, they agreed to meet the next evening at a local steak house, no movie or anything else, just a long dinner. James was good with the plan that they would be joined by another couple.
+++
“Jimmy and I were going to go frog-gigging,” John said. “But I want to. Only thing is … I’m a little short right now, and I know Jimmy’s broke.”
“No problem,” B said. “That’s a problem I can handle. The full ride, remember? I’m just working for extra spending money. I’ll slip you a twenty. James’ll be buying mine anyway. It’ll be fun.”
“Well, okay. And we can still go froggin’,” John replied.
“Winner-winner…”
“Chicken dinner,” John returned before B could get it in.
+++
“The Navy?” James exclaimed. “What a great idea!”
“Yeah, I thought so too. It was tough deciding between the Navy or the Air Force, but I figured that in the Air Force, odds would be against me being able to get in the air very much, but in the Navy, I could definitely count on boating.” Jimmy smiled like a school boy.
The group: B, John, and James all laughed with Jimmy.
“My mom’s taking off on another of her adventures, and well, I decided that if it’s travelin’, it might as well be on my terms.”
“Sort of,” John added with a wink.
“More like the Navy’s terms,” B said.
“I like it,” James said. “Electronics, propulsion engines, pumps, communications…”
“Swabbin’ the deck,” Jimmy filled in to communal laughter.
The waitress arriving to take their orders triggered a change in conversation. James felt attention drawn to himself, as if okay mister, open up.
“Well, B probably told you all that I’m in psychiatric treatment, being fitted as we speak for the Cuckoo’s Nest.” James’ eyes skitted from one to the other.
“No,” they all said or signaled.
“I should have,” Jimmy said solemnly. “After last May. John introduced me to a different counselor instead.”
“The same one that B uses?” James asked.
The three all smiled.
“Last May?” James asked Jimmy, staring at him.
Jimmy stared back. His eyes slowly altered to hard scrutiny. Everyone else studied the room’s decorations.
James broke first. His eyes glistened, then leaked. Before the first tear reached the table top, he begged excuse. Stumbling from his seat, he nearly ran to the entry.
“Guess you’d better box ours up,” John said, hurrying after James. “Enjoy. I’ll call.”
+++
John caught up with James, at first not finding him, afraid James might have taken off on foot. James rose from picking up his dropped keys where John spotted him, yelling for him to wait. Without waiting to be asked, John got into the passenger side of James’ pick-up truck.
“May fifteenth,” James said, wiping his face with his sleeve.
“Jimmy, too,” John said. “We think there were several of you with plans for the same day.”
“Oh, Jesus. Oh God.” James was not praying, merely expressing as profane an utterance as he knew as he choked back guttural sobs.
“Exactly,” John replied.
“Huh?” James asked. “Oh,” he said, realizing. He suddenly choked back another outburst. “I thought I was done crying.”
“Probably not by a long shot,” John said. “Imagine the tears had you guys succeeded.”
James shook his head, followed by his whole-body wracking. John wondered, without much caring, what the truck looked like to walkers-by.
“James, you can be forgiven,” John said.
Bent over the steering wheel, James let loose, his hands and arms covering his head and face.
John spoke calmly and evenly, trusting James to comprehend. “There is a God, James. And there is a Jesus. God sent his son, Jesus, from heaven to earth to suffer every temptation we have. God allowed Jesus to suffer and die for our sins so that we can be forgiven. He did that for you, James. Whether you hurt anybody or not, it doesn’t matter. Jesus loves you. He died for you. He wants you to love him back. And James …” John paused a half a moment. “Jesus don’t break up with people.”
“What, what do I have to do?” James stammered.
“You’ve already done it. You believe what I said is true?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sorry?”
James forcefully exhaled an ‘Are you kidding’! Phuuh!
“Do you accept his forgiveness?”
“Yes,” James said in amazement. “I do.”
“You hungry?” John asked. “Our steaks are waiting for us.”
James followed John back inside. The conversation was about frog-gigging, basketball, and bowling, which James had never done, but he and B were planning to go after their meal.
| Author Notes |
Club members:
Grace - junior, club leader Chloe - sophomore, Grace's sister Markus - senior Abigail ('B') - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduate, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - senior, goth-like Others: James Pentecost - college freshman, previously troubled kid Amy - James' ex-girlfriend Jimmy Orr - graduate, previously troubled kid John - college freshman, past Bible club leader |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part James and B get acquainted playing basketball with some others. John, James, Jimmy, and B go out to eat. James accepts Christ.
Chloe brought the Bible Club to order. Averaging about thirty members, they seemed to enjoy taking turns leading the discussion. Though a couple had cheated, simply declaring Bible verse search games instead of study. Still, they all had fun. “Guys. The Saturday after our next meeting is the weekend before Halloween.”
A groaning rumbled throughout the room.
“Rodney and Hannah want to host a Costume Party. Most of you know them, the youth pastors at Victory Life Church. Hold it down. Hold it down.” Excitement was clear. “Dr. Westman will think we’re having a Pentecostal prayer meeting.”
Chuckles and muted laughter filled the room.
“Okay. The theme is cartoon characters, super heroes, stuff like that. But no devils or demons!” Chloe added playfully.
“Oh, Casper is so cu-ute,” Chelsea feigned.
+++
The very next Sunday, the Sunday before the party, a variety of sermons were preached around the community. In the services attended by the Bible Club members, within the context of each sermon, every one expounded a different spiritual truism or theme. Each club member, though, heard the same message: pray without ceasing.
At their next meeting, October 25, Chloe pre-empted the designated speaker. She had the words Pray without ceasing on the chalk board.
“Guys.” Chloe turned to the board. The group quickly silenced. She wrote her name below the words she’d written on the board. “I’d like everyone who heard this expressed in one way or another this week to come up and put your name by mine.”
To a person, everyone rose from their seats simultaneously. Chloe wondered whether she had issued an order, a military command, rather than a simple request.
“What do we do about it?” Chloe asked once they’d returned to their seats. “Can somebody find the scripture?” she asked, knowing it was 1st Thessalonians 5:17. She asked Justin to read it, asking him to back up to catch the entire paragraph, knowing he preferred the New International Version.
Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.
“Mine says Pray without ceasing,” Corey said. But I can’t get past the part that says to examine everything carefully.”
“The Message says to pray all the time, and to check out everything,” Grace said.
“Somebody give us the Cliffs Notes bullets,” Chloe asked, prepared to write them on the board. “Our takeaway from this.”
“Now what’s God telling us? Anybody …”
Brett answered for everyone. “Pray continually. Do the right thing. And keep our eyes peeled.”
Everyone agreed.
“Guys, God’s talking to us. This is heart attack, liver cancer serious. I’m going to my room right after supper to pray. I’m setting my alarm for four o’clock in the morning to pray. If I wake in the night, I’m going to pray. I’m going to pray when I brush my teeth, as I eat, even while I’m talking to my mother. And I’m going to do it until God tells me to stop.
“If I seem to ignore you, I’m sorry. I’m praying. I’m going to ask Dr. Westman if we can have the room every day of the week. We’ll have our regular Thursday meeting, but I’m hoping we can have it every day so we can pop in for ten or fifteen minutes of just checking in with each other, and a short, group prayer.
“All in?” she asked.
“All in,” they chorused.
+++
“I know what you kids did last year, Chloe. Believe me. My heart tells me what you did. But there were detractors. Someone went to the Board. I couldn’t tell them what was happening because, well, we’d still be smelling the stink. And some people, instead of God dealing with them, would be in prison. We can’t begin to guess whether or not if we’d gone to the police that we wouldn’t be right where we are today – where we are with what you’re telling me.
“My spirit tells me that we did the right thing.” Dr. Westman paused, expecting Chloe to compromise, to back off her request for the room for every day.
She didn’t.
“All right,” he said. “If I have to go to the Board again, then I’ll just have to go to the Board.”
“Thank you Dr. Westman.” Chloe turned to leave. Turning back, she exclaimed louder than she’d intended, “I hope you know that we respect and love you!” Chloe then fairly fled from the room, leaving Dr. Westman flabbergasted. Shaking his head, he had no idea the breadth of his smile.
+++
Thursday, November 8th.
“Okay,” Chloe began. “Everybody have the tickets you need? For yourself and your guests?” She waited for the chatter to stop. “Rodney and Hannah want us there 45 minutes early. That way we can have time to get our snacks and be out of the general public’s way before they start getting there. We don’t want people being mad at Christians when they go to see a Christian movie.”
+++
Saturday, November 10th.
People paid attention, but paid no serious mind to Anthony Prescott and T.J. Adams as they bought their tickets for a horror film playing in one of the complex’s smaller rooms. No one noticed them leave the theater during their film. No one paid any attention to them entering the theater showing God’s Not Dead after the cleaning crew finished. And no one paid any mind as they left the complex without their backpacks.
People noticed, but paid them no attention as they bought second tickets to the same horror film that they’d already seen. Or that they each donned back packs, only this time, they wore jackets with something heavy in the pockets. No one cared about them.
No one paid them any mind as they entered the theater showing God’s Not Dead, their tickets purchased days ahead. Or when they left the room without their backpacks. They spent the next several minutes in the horror film theater, waiting for the time for the lights to dim on the Christians. They’d saved the very front row, left end and right end seats with their jackets. Their semi-automatic pistols neatly tucked into waistbands concealed by shirttails. Extra magazines could be easily extracted from their hip pockets. They’d practiced.
“Remember, Anthony. And I’m dead serious on this. We don’t do anything until at least 7:30. My dad starts his shift at 7 sharp. We gotta be sure the leaving shift is all outta there. 7:30. No matter how much you hate the movie.”
“7:30,” Anthony agreed, wishing that it was going to be his own father running into his line of fire. “At 7:29 we tuck ourselves into the corners up front. At 7:30 I call the number. At 7:31 hell visits God’s Not Dead. We watch the real horror show. As soon as we get clear shots at the first responders, the ones in uniform, we open up – headshots and groins.
The film was scheduled to begin at 7.
| Author Notes |
Club members:
Grace - junior, club leader Chloe - sophomore, Grace's sister Justin - senior Corey - senior Brett - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduate, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - senior, goth-like Others: Dr. Westman - school principal Rodney and Hannah jumper - church youth pastors |
By Wayne Fowler
In the last part Chloe leads the club to pray without ceasing. Anthony and T.J. are prepared to destroy the community. It is November 10 at the movies.
Chloe stood at the end of the hallway inside the theater like a school teacher, greeting and herding pupils on a field trip. She warmly greeted all the club members’ guests, thanking them for coming. Her coat held her place on the aisle, the front corner of where her group would be sitting. John, James, B and Jimmy ended up sitting a few rows behind and several seats in from her, Rodney and Hannah took their places up high at the opposite side of the group’s area.
It wasn’t until the movie previews had begun that Anthony and T.J. entered, walking just beside Chloe. She wondered who would chance coming so late to a sold-out event. She wanted to be aggravated at them, but instead tried to think nice thoughts. Watching them proceed all the way down in front of her to the stage, she thought it extremely odd that one would sit down immediately and the other proceed all the way across the front to a seat at the opposite end. Odd that the two end seats were the empty ones. She moved her attention to the video action.
The film began, all eyes were on the screen, people settling back to relax and enjoy. All except Corey, who couldn’t quite stretch out as much as he thought he should be able to. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he thought. “Examine all things carefully.” He reached down to see what blocked his feet, pulling a backpack from beneath the chair in front of him. Recognizing that it might belong to the person sitting in the seat, he snagged it out anyway, figuring he could always simply replace it. To the annoyance of his neighbors, he unzipped it far enough to see four-inch PVC pipes. “What?” he said too loud, loud enough to catch the attention of a circle around him.
James, seated directly behind Corey, looked over Corey’s shoulder at what was clearly a bomb. In a heartbeat’s time he scanned the room left and right, spotting Anthony stand up in the front row, his cell phone lit up in his hand. In a bound, James leaped to the top of the seat back ahead of him, even though the seats in that complex were rocking chairs. Without even reaching a balance, James floated toward the front, hitting every seat back with his toes, springing from each before it even began to rock backward. People behind stood and squirmed about. Those in front were oblivious to his flight. B noticed his arms at a downward angle, his hands splayed like little wings.
Hearing the commotion Corey had started, Chloe stood into the aisle, trying to figure things out. Seeing James’ apparent focus on the left front of the room, she instantly turned to the right, where she’d seen the second person sit. He, too, like the left side person, was standing. She felt herself drifting toward that person, unaware of any particular action. She purposed to run to the person on the right, who was standing where no one should be standing.
Everyone watched as James bounded to Anthony, who was feverishly pressing keys on his phone. Crashing onto him, James struggled for the phone, intent on its capture, whatever the cost.
T.J. yanked the 9-millimeter weapon from his belt, having to jerk at it twice. A round already chambered, all that was needed to fire was to release the safety, something he’d practice a thousand times. By the time he had it cocked, James was at the front row, one more bound to his goal. T.J. took careful aim at James, factoring in his motion of flight. He began the trigger squeeze emphasized on YouTube. In his left peripheral vision, he saw someone in his designated target area, a girl, in the aisle where his father was to have been charging. He saw bodies where his father ought to have been and within range, he fired as fast as he could, jerking the trigger and barrel as might a scared child. He suddenly found himself on his back. The man who’d been sitting beside him in the front row bashing him with T.J.’s own gun.
+++
Hours later, the dust finally settled, Rodney, Hannah, and a slew of the club members, both past and present, joined Chloe’s family in the surgery waiting room. The surgeon’s beckon for quiet was unnecessary. “Folks, Chloe has lost her right lung, and one rib will need reconstructed. And she’s going to have one heck of a scar on her back. But she’ll be fine.”
Everyone gasped, finally breathing: talking, shouting, whooping, thanking God and everybody within reach.
“Is our hero here?” the doctor asked.
Everyone turned to James, opening a path for the doctor. “Let me shake your hand, Son. They told me what you’d done while I was working on our friend.” Instead of a shake of the hand, the doctor bear hugged him. “You have just saved more people than I have in my entire life as a surgeon.”
None of the Bible club members gave a thought to glory avoiding them.
+++
Dr. Westman was not called before the Board of Directors, though they had received a complaint.
Mr. William Tabler claimed he’d just taken a gun from a punk and declined any fanfare. The through-and-through of his slight spare tire was truly just a flesh wound.
T.J. confessed to the May 15th plans he and Anthony had failed to accomplish. He couldn’t explain why they hadn’t been carried out. What they'd planned for that November 10th was made plain.
Anthony remained mute throughout all legal proceedings.
The Bible Club members, to a person, visited Chloe, standing at her bedside to pray for her.
Uncle Earl saluted his nephew, James and B stood at his side, holding his hand.
James always considered May 15 to be the most significant date in his life.
Jimmy joined the United States Navy, the best friends of his life eagerly waiting for his return, anxious to hear travel tales.
John applied for entry to a Bible College. His Bible Club co-hort, Kailey was easily convinced to join him.
Chloe healed completely. After plastic surgery, even the scar on her back faded away. Between on-line study, and Grace’s help, she was able to rejoin her class after spring break. She was also ready to lead the Bible club the next year.
| Author Notes |
Certain liberties have been taken with respect to U.S. HIPAA laws.
Club members: Grace - junior, club leader Chloe - sophomore, Grace's sister Abigail ('B') - senior Corey - senior Troubled kids: T.J. Adams - graduate, son of George (fireman, ex-policeman, bully) and JeanAnne Anthony Prescott - senior, goth-like Others: Dr. Westman - school principal William Tabler - movie goer James Pentecost - college freshman, previously troubled kid Earl - James' uncle Rodney and Hannah Jumper - church youth pastors Kailey - college freshman, past club member Jimmy Orr - graduate, previously troubled kid John - college freshman, past Bible club leader My efforts here was two-fold. Just about any one can fall to the evil forces of this life. Any any one can believe to be part of the answers to the evils of this world. I once read that the most common response to the question of what brought a person to visit a church was that they were invited. Find a church that you believe espouses the kind of faith that could help someone like one of these troubled kids; and then invite them (or their parents). And as a Christian fisherman once said: You catch 'em and let God clean 'em. |
By Wayne Fowler
While Pay Day was a work of fiction, every one of the characters represents someone, somewhere. My hopes and prayers are that the troubled kids of America (and the world) would have someone concerned enough to pray for them with an effective fervency. I also pray that Christian kids would gain the courage to act on their convictions. But I don’t pray only for the kids, I would that somehow the parents of troubled kids become aware of the possible results of their attitudes and behavior toward the ones that most deserve their love. Even the good parents of good kids need affection and adult counsel.
James stands for many whose parents set him up for devastation when their plans for him don’t work out. In this case, James’ mother virtually adopted his girlfriend, Amy. She emotionally married her. I’m no psychologist, but this type of heartbreak might be more than a teenage spirit can handle.
John Campbell, the leader of the Christian group, was a good guy, a true disciple of Christ, but the others did not lean on his spirituality. They supported him, and then picked up the slack when he was overwhelmed. In the same vein, Chloe did not allow her junior status to interfere with her convictions, or purpose.
It might be a stretch to accept that the scholarly disappointment Philip Andrews experienced would drive him to murder, but a kid under pressure can break, whether it’s scholastics, or sports, or in the arts, or simple social acceptance. Parents should know what’s going on in their kids’ minds and worlds. Generally, I’m not a fan of participation trophies, but finishing second is not losing. Coming in last after trying your very best is not losing, either. The slowest in the race beat every single one who sat in the stands. Some parents need help accepting that.
And take Earl, James’ uncle with the AR15. How many friends and relatives assume that their upstanding young loved ones would never, ever, take advantage of their trust? You just don’t know. And it is never worth the risk. Lock your weapons!
T.J.’s dad … come on, Dad … You’ve seen the movies, and read enough to know that your kid will some day be big enough, and strong enough to bust your chops. If not out of common decency, then out of self-preservation, stop being a bully to your kids! They either learn how to be a bully from you, or determine to pay you back, even if it’s only abandoning you in a nursing home.
I have been all of the bad kids, in one fashion or another. Believe me, anyone can behave hideously evil. But why make it easy for them? My dad left the family (5 kids) for three years when I was 12. I was registered into seven different schools by the eleventh grade where I quit to join the Marines the summer before my senior year. (One correspondence course and I had enough credits to graduate, though a year after my class). I was college prep, but was trapped with a James Dean/Jimmy Orr attitude. And yes, I took a gun to school.
Thankfully, my mother was a praying woman. The convictions of her prayers hounded me. During those years I had just enough religion to make me miserable. (Thankfully)
Preachers and ministers – be there for your students. Be ready to offer them your full support. School officials, know the law. Know what students can lawfully do, and what you can and cannot do. Be firm, and support your Christian students.
I have no interest in describing how troubled kids can gain entry into schools, but with an accomplice, and/or determination, they can. We have to do what we can to prevent catastrophe. We must do everything in our power to make it as hard as possible to keep guns out of the hands of kids and others who should not have them. When a six-year-old can take his parents’ gun to school and shoot a teacher … Or a toddler shoot a sibling … Or a hostile person is reported to the law, but can still buy … We must do what we know to do.
I own firearms, but I do not want to have to answer to the authorities, or to God Almighty, why I made it easy for anyone, especially a child, to take one of them and hurt somebody, to destroy a family. It would be as if I pulled the trigger myself.
Finally, for you troubled kids, there are those out there who want to love you, who want to help you. And there is a Savior who loves you already. Confess with your mouth your crimes. Believe in your heart that Jesus, the Son of God, exists and wants to forgive you. And accept Him into your heart and life. Then comes the easy part that Satan wants you to believe is hard – tell someone. Walk up to someone you trust, someone you know is a Christian who lives an overcoming life. Walk into a church, one that the Holy Spirit guides you to and tell the first person you see that you have just accepted Jesus. And tell your old friends, “Nah, man. I don’t wanna do that anymore. I got saved.”
Jesus will help you. Start reading the Bible in the New Testament book of John. Find a church that will teach you how to be friends with Jesus. Surround yourself with new friends who love Jesus and want God’s best for you. They are out there looking for you.
| Author Notes |
James 4:17 (NIV) If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn�?�¢??t do it, it is sin for them.
James 5:16b (NIV) �?�¢?�?�¦ The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Revelation 3:20 (NIV) Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Galations 6:9 (NIV) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. |
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