One Man's Calling : One Man's Calling, ch 21 by Wayne Fowler |
In the last part Ben spent his first Chicago night in a hotel and then walked to lake Michigan where he preached on a street corner. He met La Lama, The Blade, and Tony, a twelve-year-old boy, offering him a job as a helper. “Mrs. Bertelli, Tony will be safer with me than working anywhere else, I assure you,” Ben said after meeting Santina Bertelli, who would be working, herself, but for the six young ones under five years of age screaming around the house, four of them hers. As long as Ben paid her the four dollars a week. And since they did not attend Mass anywhere, seven days a week would be fine. She didn’t mind that Ben wasn’t Catholic. The main sell, though, was that Tony would be released from his duties with Ben in order to help her whenever she required his assistance. +++ “Ben, is it?” the woman asked with a European accent that Ben could not distinguish. “If you dón mind a room where a man died last night, it is yours. Seventy-five cents a day, or four dollars a week if you pay in advance. Ben asked her to please keep the change. Breakfast at six. Supper at six. If you miss, too bad for you. Nothing on Sunday. Maybe some bread, only. And no woman! “And find someone else to wash your clothes. I wash only bedding, and only bottom sheet once each week.” Ben accepted the terms and paid her in advance for a month, paying Mrs. Koska twenty dollars. +++ At half past six the next morning Ben and Tony were bound for the Harrison Street corner, first on the lookout for something for Ben to stand on. He figured that his audience would be on their way to work, but didn’t mind if all they could get were snippets as they traveled past. Snippets were seeds, too. Once the street emptied, Ben climbed off the rickety box, amazed that it had held up. He looked around for La Lama, but hadn’t seen him. He would search the crowd again at the lunch hour when he planned to return for another delivery. “Now, Tony, suppose you give me a tour of the area all around us, just these neighborhoods. Introduce me to everyone you know. We’ll also look for a better box. “And after the noon preaching and we find lunch somewhere, we’ll find a print shop. We need some flyers.” “Flyers?” Tony asked. “Birds?” “No, Tony. We want to hand out some gospel messages. That’s going to be one of your main jobs. We’ll also look for other corners where I can preach to more people. And corners where we don’t have only going-to-work people.” By the end of the first day, Ben had met three pastors, offering each one the same proposal: he would hand out as many tracts as they gave him, even with their church identification printed on them. He would announce every church near where he preached, advertising their service times. “I don’t need a flock,” he said. “People need the Lord.” +++ Then next day, it rained, so Ben and Tony rode the horse-drawn buses all over the city from the Harrison Street Bridge to the lake and all over what was called The Loop. The rain letting up, Ben sent Tony on home while he stayed at the Harrison Street Bridge to witness to people and rise to preach whenever anything resembling a crowd developed. “Ben, Il Fantasma. You are The Ghost.” It was La Lama and his two friends. Approaching Ben, causing the following day’s noon gathering to disperse, La Lama repeated himself. “Look.” He pulled his stiletto, showing the blood-stained knife to him. “It is not the knife. The knife loves the taste of blood. It is you. You must be a ghost or else you would be dead today.” “La Lama,” Ben began. “By what name did the Virgin call you when you first took the Holy Communion?” Ben pierced La Lama’s soul, glaring into his eyes. The two friends reached for their own knives as La Lama stood mesmerized. “You are Angelo. Angel. Your mother birthed you and christened you an angel. Are you an angel, Angelo. Are you your mother’s angel now?” Ben did not release his hold. Still locked onto Angelo’s eyes, Ben spoke to the two friends. “You two walk away. Now! Angelo wishes to speak to me alone.” The two scampered away as fast as they could without breaking into a coward’s run. “How do you know my name. No one alive knows my name.” “Except your mother,” Ben replied. “My mother no longer speaks. She just sits, dying day-by-day, eating when someone feeds her.” “But you won’t feed her, Angelo. Your mother’s angel refuses to feed his mother.” “How do you know these things? Are you a devil?” Ben gave Angelo a pinched expression. “What sense does that make, Angelo, angel. The devil does not do God’s work.” Angelo grimaced. “My mother talk to you?” “God talks to me, Angelo. He told me that he still loves you. He loves you and the blood on your knife will be your own if you do not turn to him… today. Today is your time, Angelo. Put La Lama in the middle of that river,” Ben nodded toward the Des Plaines River. “And take yourself to father Bianco. He will wait for you to hear your confession, but he will not wait for very long.” Ben turned to leave. After just two steps, Angelo screamed at him like a man drowning. “How do you know these things?” “Ask Father Bianco, Angelo. He will tell you that God has given you this great chance, this great opportunity.” Ben left Angelo frozen in place. Angelo slowly turned and walked toward the river where he cast his knife to its very center. Ben turned to Tony. “We’re finished for the day, Tony. Let’s go home. I want you to ask your mother if there is anything you can help her with this afternoon.” “What’re you gonna do?” Tony asked. “I need to pray, to thank the Lord for what he has done. Praying is where I get my strength.” Tony stopped. A couple steps further, Ben turned to look at him. “Are you an angel, or something?” Tony asked, incredulous. Ben smiled. “No Tony. This morning when I stepped up on the box ….” “You farted! I almost laughed. I had to cover up my mouth. I didn’t think you would like it much if I laughed right then.” “No, I wouldn’t have. Now, do you think an angel would do that?” Ben was grinning hugely. “C’mon, your momma.”
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Wayne Fowler
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