Excellent Following God one day at a time One Man's Calling : One Man's Calling, Ch 28 by Wayne Fowler

In the last part Ben rescued eight black women, the entire bordello full, from a Diamond Jim facility. Ben also met Al Spalding, an owner and the President of the White Stockings, and founder of Spalding Sporting Goods. Ben got a good report from Angelo regarding his police work, but a warning that everyone was watching for the person snatching women. “Ben! What are you doing down here? Downtown? Come with me! Hurry!” Somewhat reluctantly, but honoring, as well as humoring, Angelo, Ben went along. Though he did take the time to move his soap box to the edge of a building. Angelo led Ben into the first alley they came to, across the next street and into a strip that separated the business district from lake Michigan. “Ben, I wanted to come to your place last night but I think I’m being watched. That’s why I was on Michigan Avenue. I was followed to lunch. I got mad and went out the back door and then made sure I lost him. Ben, there’s a contract out on you – five hundred bucks.” “Well, all my time in the wild west I never had that!” “It’s not funny, Ben. They have a description. It isn’t very good, but someone could make a guess. And there aren’t that many street preachers.” “Diamond Jim’s upset, is he?” Angelo looked at his friend and laughed. “What I want to know. I know your powers can stop a knife. But can they stop a bullet?” Angelo stared into Ben’s eyes. “No, I can’t say it does, since I was shot out in Colorado. Angelo, all I can say is that I have a calling to follow God’s leading … one day at a time.” “Can’t you follow him, I don’t know, someplace where Diamond Jim ain’t?” Ben smiled at his friend. “He really hated losing an entire house full, didn’t he?” Angelo laughed like he'd been tickled. Finally settling, he turned serious. “Ben, there are guards inside and outside of every bordello. All the taxi drivers know they’ll get a large tip for reporting when they see you out preaching. You’re wanted by the police, too. I think my captain is all right, but the Commissioner is dirty. He’s been around to all the precincts saying he wants you caught. Even the coppers are eligible for the reward.” “There’s an idea. You take me in and get the reward. And I’ll prea…” Angelo interrupted him. “You won’t leave a cell alive, Ben. Someone will hang you inside the jail cell.” Succumbing to Angelo’s concern, Ben grew contrite. “Well, we wouldn’t want that. And I don’t exactly see that as God’s plan; though it might be, mind ya,” he was quick to add. “Maybe I’ll mosey down the beach a bit and do some praying. Then maybe preach to some cattle and hogs at the Back of the Yards.” “Thank you, Ben. I’ll get you a new soap box this evening.” “Oh, don’t bother with that. I have a spare.” Ben’s smile and eye twinkle was infectious, causing Angelo to snort and chuckle. +++ “What’re you so grim about, Tony?” Ben asked that next morning, meeting Tony in the street halfway between the homes. Tony kicked at the dirt. After a silent moment, he blurted out, “You don’t take me half the time anymore, and school starts next week and …” Ben saved him from his voice breaking into a cry. “Tony, I don’t know what I would have done without you this summer. I really don’t. And neither one of us will ever know how many people we’ve influenced for the Lord. But I know in my heart that we have. “Some of my work has been dangerous. That’s all I can say. And some of it has kept me out late into the night. You know that.” Tony nodded. Striking a new thought, Ben asked, “Does your school have counselors?” “What’s that?” “Someone to talk to kids who are troubled, before they actually get into trouble?” “The principal does all that … with a paddle.” He looked at Ben through his brow, grinning. “Tasted that paddle, have you, Tony?” “A time or two,” he confessed. Ben nodded. “Well, maybe he’d like to not have to do so much paddling. And since we learned so much about baseball, maybe they’d let me coach a team after school. You could be my assistant. I’m thinking I could preach all morning, go to the school, maybe two or three schools, in the afternoon, and then preach at Lakefront Park.” “So I still have a job?” Tony asked, his glee obvious. “Course you do. We’ll have to negotiate your part time status, but I would never fire you. I need you.” The two headed for the Harrison Street Bridge, Tony considerably taller than he’d been walking from his house to Ben’s, his self-esteem and confidenced having grown. +++  Ben waited until the first day of school, his destination The Emporium Saloon on State Street, a gambling joint run by John Mushmouth Johnson. Johnson was a kingpin of Chicago crime. God had told Ben that his enemies were not large enough. “What’s that yellin’ outside,” Johnson asked his assistant. The assistant jumped up from the table to find out.  “Street preacher,” the assistant named Tally said. "I stayed long enough to hear what he was after. Just peace and love and all that.” “Humph. He ain’t the same one Diamond Jim wants dead, is he?” “Could be, John. Looks like he could be.” “Humph. He bothered any a’ Jim’s gamblin’ joints?” “No, John. Only the bordellos.” “Any of ours?” “None reported any problems.” “Well, when he takes a break, bring him in here.” Tally got back up. “Hey! Ask him nicely.” “Sure John.” +++ “Heard you upset Diamond Jim some,” Johnson said, not bothering to make acquaintance. Ben said nothing. “What? You got nothin’ ta say?” “God hasn’t given me anything to say,” Ben replied. He’d yet to set his gaze. “Diamond Jim got ahead of hisself. He don’t make contracts.” Ben understood that this was the man who determined life and death in Chicago. “That ain’t to say you make it home alive, though. Takes time for word to get around, you understand.” Ben offered a minute nod. “Ain’t to say, too, you don’t have an accident, fall off a roof, if you get my drift. Cost a’ workin’ yer flappers. Guess you know that, bein’ a street preacher.” The street preacher he spat as he might gutter rat. “Why’d you pick my corner, Preacher?” “Everybody on your corner already saved?” Ben asked. “You?” Finally, Ben locked his eyes on John Mushmouth Johnson’s. “Everybody out! Gimme some privacy!” Their eyes remained locked as the room cleared. “I was properly dunked in a horse trough,” Johnson declared, blinking, but not wiping the tear that welled in his eyes. “You died to yourself, burying the old man, or boy, I should say, and rose up a new creature in Christ Jesus? You know it takes blood to wash away sins, not water, right?” After a moment, John quickly smeared at his eyes before tears fell down his cheeks. “What do you want with my town?” “I want every soul I see to find Jesus, and then to make their way to heaven, John. How about you?” John didn’t know whether Ben was asking if he was going to heaven, or what he wanted with Chicago. “I know all about the scam, Preacher. My old man marched me to that horse trough and ordered the preacher to baptize me right then, ahead of a line of people at my mother’s church, Bethesda Baptist.” John let out a nervous laugh. “We walked away from there, me drippin’ wet. Jake Adams had followed us to the church, clubbed my pa a good one with a hick’ry hunk. Said he was takin’ back the horse that my pa never paid fer. My pa beat him near to death. The man wasn’t never right again. So much fer turnin’ the other cheek, hey Preacher?” Ben took a moment to reply. “Where I was before coming to your town, your father would be swinging from a rope. And that preacher should have listened to God. He would have declined to dunk you. “To answer your unasked question, I have no interest in your gambling houses, or how Chicago is administrated. God has not called me to such. But let me ask you a business question.” John perked himself up. “Why would a good manager wish to employ a woman of pleasure who is not pleased to provide her best, but indeed, is repulsed and disdainful of her customers?” John picked up a half-smoked cigar from a bowl, taking his time to light it. “Doesn’t sound like good business sense, does it, Preacher?” Ben remained silent, staring at John. “You might aim that part of your ministry at the alleys where the homeless sleep,” John said, blowing a cloud of foul smoke at Ben. Ben rose and left without waiting to be dismissed, clearly understanding that the women he would rescue would be set free, booted out without a cent. Immediately, God showed Ben a vision of a homeless shelter that would offer a cot, a meal, and help getting a job. As he studied the vision, he saw a group of churches financing the project. He simply needed to find the church that would operate it. Home missionaries, Ben imagined. As for John, Ben was all too familiar with uncommitted Christians, those who trusted in a one time ritual to be a lifetime pass for wrongness, those who knew the Christian language enough to respond to ministers, walking away unchanged in their hearts. +++ “There’s a new movement," Ben said to the Methodist minister. "Started in London several years ago. Taking off like wildfire. Booth, his name is, Booth, William Booth.” The pastor of the Methodist Church on Washington Street bought in completely. “He calls it the Salvation Army. I’ll organize and recruit from the city churches, the Catholics will help. We’ll sweep the alleys looking especially for women recently expelled from bordellos." Ben went home satisfied in his soul. Author Notes Ben Persons: a man following God's call Tony: a twelve-year-old boy, Ben's helper Angelo: a young, tough guy that Ben converted and then convinced to be a policeman Diamond Jim: Vincenzo Colosimo, Chicago precursor to Al Capone's Chicago Outfit John Mushmouth Johnson: kingpin of Chicago, African-American, owner of gambling joints, bars, and bordellos (nickname earned by his extreme foul language)

© Copyright 2024. Wayne Fowler All rights reserved. Wayne Fowler has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.