DUMB RELIGIOUS STORY

A Short Story

“My Father’s Eyes” Words and Music by Eric Clapton.
Copyright © 1992 by E.C. Music Ltd. International Copyright Secured.
All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

With a month’s worth of anticipation throwing its weight into these waning few moments, Jackie transferred some of the tension in her arms and legs to the challenge of making it to the restaurant in one piece. The saint was waiting there for her. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She lowered her foot on the accelerator. Her ’85 Ford Pickup coursed the turn-off onto Bear Path Way and thrummed, rattling muffler and all, up onto Old Yankee Girl Road.

“Mom, did you see that?” Leandro exclaimed, pointing. “A man at the top of the mountain just stuck his middle finger out at us.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “It’s called a mesa, mijo. I don’t think there was any man sticking his middle finger at us. Can you even see that far?”

“But I saw him, right as we took the turn-off. He was at the top of the mountain. I can’t see him now because of the trees and, like, we’re too close to the mountain.”

“More like, we’re on the mountain.”

Jackie said a prayer as the pickup approached the first turn. “Do you have your seatbelt on?” she asked her son. She looked over to check. “Good. I hate this part.”

Leandro bounced on his seat. “I can’t wait for the roller-coaster ride!”

Sputtering fumes, the pickup zigzagged up the face of the monolithic pseudo-mountain known as Baby Grand Mesa. It motored up the zigs and zags of Old Yankee Girl Road, back and forth, on and on, and up and up.

All strapped in to the passenger’s seat of his mom’s, of Jackie’s, once-bright-red-but-now-mostly-rust-red pickup as it maneuvered the hairpin turns and inclines of this switchback roadway configuration, Leandro gazed out of the passenger-side window. He traced with his eyes the ups and downs, the over and unders, the rounds and abouts, of this broad and eclectic swath of Western Colorado’s Plateau Country splayed out below. Leandro saw the sheer Book Cliffs; he saw the boulders of volcanic basalt strewn along the valley floor. Farther off to the west, he saw the bustling city of Grand Junction. Looking up, he saw the flat-topped Baby Grand Mesa itself which towered over them, over Grand Junction, over everything, like earth’s top shelf.

“Ma,” Leandro said, turning to her, “how come people think the Creator isn’t smart enough to like’ve made all the mountains an’ hills, an’ stuff?”

Jackie smiled. “I don’t think it’s that, mijo.” Gripping the steering wheel tighter still until her fingers became claws, Jackie weaved her way up Old Yankee Girl Road until it switch-backed over, and over yet again. With nary a hand free to wave or to honk, it was with a simple nod that she messaged her hello at the tourists standing aside their Winnebago at the viewing-area turnoff. “I think it’s, well, their imaginations aren’t, you know, big, bold, and adventurous enough to be able to balance out a creation story with modern-day science stuff. You know, like, the Big Bang, dinosaurs, five-billion-year-old Earth.” Jackie adjusted her rear-view mirror to escape the sunlight reflecting off of the snows of the distant mountain-peaks of Ouray.

“I saw a dinosaur bone when we went to Fruita last year, remember, Ma?”

“I do. Wasn’t that brontosaurus pinky-finger bone the coolest thing ever?”

“Uh-huh. So, how come then, how come—?”

“Well, mijo…” Jackie said, rolling her window down “…it’s like this…though, afterwards, we’re gonna have to hush up so Moms can focus on the road and not miss the restaurant, ‘kay?” Rolling up the window, Jackie said, “The story of creation…wasn’t firsthand account. It’s prophecy, a story told by the Creator, and which isn’t supposed to be interpreted literally. You know what that word means, right?” Leandro nodded. “Prophecy is spiritual code, a mystery. And what does it take to solve a mystery?” From her purse, Jackie extracted a breath mint whose wrapper she, in a single motion, shed and popped in her mouth.

“Well,” Jackie said, answering her own question. “For one thing, we’ve gotta get ourselves to the point where whenever He says something—we believe it, simply because He said it. Really, then, it’s all about perspective, and trust, and…” Jackie brightened “…which really is just another way of saying that we try and—” Jackie sucked on her breath mint

“--see through our Father’s eyes.”

Leandro exhaled, noisily. “I know, Ma, I know. You’ve said it like a zillion times.”

“Si. And now a zillion-and-one times, so that we don’t forget. We must see through our Father’s eyes.” Jackie winced as she spotted the sign that warned of falling rocks.

With the road careering this way and that, Jackie was jostled about in a driver’s seat whose upholstery had not been free of rips and tears since Bill Clinton was president. Finally, she found the opportunity to glance over at her son, who was still gazing out the window. She wondered if she had perhaps gotten carried away with all of the big-person words and references she kept throwing at him. Maybe he was not fully comprehending all of it.

So, Jackie was pleasantly surprised when Leandro turned to her, and said, “The dinosaur bones are proof the Creator made ‘em, They’re really old, and the Creator’s really old, too. So, He musta made ‘em! See…” Leandro pressed his thumbs and forefingers together to form finger-circles then raised his hands together to just above his nose to form finger spectacles.

“There you go, Leo. I see you got your glasses on, the ones that let you see through your Father’s eyes!” Jackie kept her own eyes peeled for that sign which advertised and hearkened the nearing of their destination, which, if memory served her correct, would be just beyond that cluster of pine trees then around that sandstone embankment. There it was, bolted into the vertical face of the wall of rock that kept on like a skyscraper to their right. The sign read:

​

Historic Tommyknocker Diner
1 mile
Servin’ up the Mud since 1891

Deciding that her breath was minty-freshened enough, Jackie flung her Altoid lozenge out the window.

“Ma,” Leandro pointed, “the road is down here, not way up there.” He exclaimed, “Ma, look out!”

All that Jackie heard was the scraping of metal; all that she felt was truck buckling then grinding to a halt. She had not seen the sheer wall of rock on their right that the truck had rammed itself into, a collision that would fold the metal of her right-front-end like an accordion up against the rock face. Steam rose from under the hood.

“Didn’t hurt. Didn’t hurt!” Leandro exclaimed, giggling.

Jackie exhaled. “It didn’t hurt you, thankfully. But the truck looks like it might’ve gotten injured.” Jackie levered the vehicle into park then opened the door. “Gonna go have a look.”

“It’s peeing, Mom. The truck is peeing. Can’t you hear?”

Jackie stepped outside to assess the damage. She looked underneath the chassis at the steady trickling of liquid onto the road’s rocky shoulder. She popped the hood. She put her hands on her hips. “That’s radiator fluid. It’s leaking radiator fluid.”

“Is that bad?”

Jackie hopped back into the truck then snapped closed the door. “It’s not good. It keeps leaking like that we won’t have enough coolant to make it back home.”

“Should we go back?”

Jackie pulled the gearshift lever into drive. “Not on your nose. We’ve got an invite to see the saint! We’re gettin’ there if we have to walk. Besides,” she said, gunning the ignition, “everything else looks fine, and I know a trick or two that’ll keep that engine cool enough to get us back. And once we do get home, your Uncle Carlos can fix it up like it was nothing.”

The truck pulled onto the road and resumed its ascent.

A half mile came and went, the truck held together, and Jackie and Leandro found themselves wheeling along a veritable plain, as flat as Nebraska—what a former Colorado governor had once dubbed “Rooftop Land.” A sky, as blue as a robin’s egg, colored the horizon in every direction. Straight ahead, the few spindly white aspens skirting the roadway gave way to the only man-made structure visible anywhere. A late-Victorian-style mansion rose like a beacon out of this mile-high tableland. After a century of on-and-off use, and weathering, it appeared not a whole lot different than any other grossly over-architectured and underfunded greasy spoon struggling to make ends meet in a no man’s land setting.

Leandro exulted, “I can see through my Father’s eyes as far as the eye can see!” He lowered his finger-spectacles. “Ma,” he proclaimed, “you musta had your glasses on too, ‘cause, look, we made it to the top. Ma, you’re the smartest ma in the whole world!”

And the world’s clumsiest driver, Jackie thought, darting glances at the dashboard to see when the engine warning-light was going to flash red. “Actually,” she said, “it was Pastor Ray who taught me all that. You know, about seeing through our Father’s eyes and all.”

Leandro knitted his brows. “Who’s Pastor Ray?”

Jackie felt a moment’s fluster as she once again wondered whether her firstborn’s memory was maybe not as keen as others his age.

Jackie answered, “Pastor Ray? Why, he’s the one we’ve driven all this way to see. The one I’ve been telling you about. And what’d’ya you know…” She nodded over. “We’re here.”

Her pulse quickening beneath the angora sweater she had purchased at the Clifton Goodwill for this special occasion, Jackie Gutierrez eased the brakes. She coasted for landing into the gravel parking lot of the lone food establishment this side of Silverton still in operation from Colorado’s turn-of-the-century mining days. Three old acquaintances—former Immaculate Temple members—clasped their hands and shouted in her direction benedictions like “Praise be!” and “Hallelujah!” and “Jackie made it!”

She saw, standing there: a man, a woman, and, a superman. A saint. A super saint! It was Pastor Ray Massey himself, back from the dead, as it were.

In joyous refrain, Jackie yammered at her son, “It’s him. It’s really him!”

Reddening, Jackie clapped a hand over her mouth. Revealing to her son that Moms had a superhero all her own was maybe not the best way to secure a continued influence over his youthful sensibilities.

Jackie killed the engine, her eyes never leaving the saint. Squinting, she could not help but notice the holes in his sneakers. She removed her driving glasses and wiped them clean with her sleeve, then put them back on. Yes, holey sneakers, to go along with hair that was every bit in a tussle, sunken cheeks, skin that looked chapped and wrinkled, brown—no, red—eyes that were glossed over and dullish-looking, bones jutting out of skin like sticks from under a tarp, his expression smeared by a sarcastic-looking frown. Pastor looked like something straight out of The Walking Dead!

Suddenly, all of Jackie’s old fears rose up within her. Where had Ray Massey been all of those years, she wondered? Why had Linda been so tight-lipped about shedding any light on the mystery of her husband Ray’s disappearance? Until Jackie reminded herself, even as she yanked the parking brake and waved a “hallelujah-hello” back at her fellows, that the “heart overflowings” and “hope arisings” of Oneness Experience always involved “jagged edges” and “clouds of tears.” Hard times and long hours spent looking “into our Father’s eyes” were necessary, then, to carry the soul to the “light shinings” of revelation. The whole sacrosanct spiel made Jackie wonder if Pastor’s holey shoes had been his awkward attempt at metaphor. A much less dour-looking Pastor Ray had of course run off that very spiel five years earlier as a means to teach her, to teach them, the wondrous cause-and-effects of looking at, and through, their Father’s eyes. Five years earlier, to the day. That day. His last. His end. Their beginning. That spiel. Those words.

Whinging shut the “it’s hella screechin’, Ma”—as Leandro again referred to it—door, Jackie, with Leandro tagging along behind after a little coaxing from Moms, strode a few steps towards her fellows, only to find herself rushed at then engulfed by soft yet resilient old arms that gave her the heartiest hug she had had since her preteen days when her father’s blackened, sweaty forearms were still shoveling coal in the San Juans.

Beatrice Cooper, more familiarly known as “Bea,” she of the hearty embraces, of the frumpy conventionality, of the polka-dot dresses, of the silly witticisms and endless list of bodily ailments; and Jackie, a much younger woman more inclined to things like health, hip hop, and eating cheese in contrast to dishing it out—were never what one would have referred to as “friends.” Indeed, the two had done scarce more than share casual acquaintance while participating in social and ceremonial functions as hosted by the now-defunct Immaculate Temple of the Beloveds. Yet their hug here at eight-thousand feet bespoke a familiarity on the level of long-lost best friends.

Jackie thought, “It’s not her, though. It’s him. It’s Pastor. It’s him we’re hugging right now, because of what he did, what he said: the holy spiel.” Jackie was overcome by the unexpected strength and vitality emanating out of this elderly sister who, if memory served Jackie correct, had been no more than a wet noodle of a thing, forever bound up by sickness. Ending the hug, taking a step back, it was then Jackie noticed the absence of respirator, of the oxygen tank, of the walker, of the neck brace. Also, Bea did not appear to have her prescription wooded shoes on.

“Holy Toledo,” Jackie exclaimed. “You’re walking!”

Bea reached to touch her toes. “Back’s healed, too,” she said, her smile broadening as she straightened. She looked over. “And praise be, ‘twas all thanks to Pastor Ray here, and his words that day—y’all know what words I’m talkin’ about, y’all know what day I mean.” Bea winked at Jackie’s child. “You is the spittin’ image of his momma as sure as the day is long,” she said to him. Bea cleared her throat. “Those words—‘bout the healing rain, and how we in gettin’ the healing rain in our lives, could get our bodies and souls restored.”

“Speaking of restored…” Pastor Ray said.

The others stilled. Pastor Ray was in the house, and was about to say something.

“…your front end, Jackie. It sure looks like it could use a savior.”

The way Pastor Ray was looking at her was borderline disturbing. Such intensity of gaze. He wasn’t looking at the car at all. It made Jackie tremble, and wonder all the more.

“Well, well, lookee what we got here,” Pastor said. “Last I remember of Miss Jackie she was a skinny lil’ thing fresh out of community college. Now, the Good Lord’s made her all blossomed.”

Jackie smiled, awkwardly. “It wasn’t just the Good Lord. Having a child might’ve had something to do with it, too.”

Pastor Ray stretched his arms toward Jackie. “I’d be more than happy to get these hands on that front end of yours,” he said, grinning at her.

Jackie’s expression darkened. Thinking about it, she brightened. “Yes, we had a little accident on our way up. I hate these switchback roadways. The road’s so narrow and swervy, and the mountain is so close.” Jackie raised an eyebrow. “You do front-end work?”

Pastor Ray’s grin widened. “Front-end work, rear-end work, I do it all. Swervy-curvy accidents are my specialty.” Pastor Ray winked. “Stop by sometime and the good pastor will show you what miracles he can perform. He gets his hands on that front-end of yours and you’ll be singing the Lord’s praises in no time. You bet your...” he exchanged glances with the others “...rear bumber, he will.” Rolling his eyes into his head, Pastor Ray moaned, “God, I need a hit.”

Smiling, awkwardly, Bea said to the others, “We all knew Pastor was a miracle worker. But an auto body expert?”

Silence reigned, as each tried to figure how their pastor could be an auto body expert when in certain of his sermons he had mentioned that he was “all thumbs” when it came to maintenance type stuff.

Jackie thought, I know the Lord works in mysterious ways, but this is weird. She said, weakly, “Um, OK, whatever.”

A gleam shone in Pastor’s Ray’s reddened eyes. “It’s a date, then?”

Jackie blinked. Swallowing, clearing her throat, she said, “To, er, get back to what Bea was sayin’…that part in your final sermon, Pastor, about the healing rain…I remember it!” Suddenly it occurred to Jackie that introductions had yet to be made, and wouldn’t it be nice if the others could be introduced to her son before getting right into it? Still, Jackie so wished Bea would continue with her testimony—this success story of hers blossoming from that seed which was Pastor’s final sermon.

More than anything, of course, she wanted to hear Pastor Ray’s story. His rendering was the big secret and main event, though, and so he would talk when he was ready. They hadn’t even made it into the restaurant yet!

Nor might we ever, Jackie thought, eyeing the way which Pastor Ray seemed to block their way with arms folded and feet spread as if in a defensive posture. All he needs is a spear, she thought.

Jackie reckoned that the others perceived this, too. She watched as Bea, after eyeing Pastor’s folded arms, proceeded to root around the faux-leather handbag that dangled from her elbow like ancient moss then pull out a piece of paper—further storytelling material, it looked like. They would bide their time by sharing their own stories then maybe Pastor would feel more comfortable sharing his. Yes, how clever we all are, Jackie thought. It’s a good plan. Praise the Creator, we’ll figure ‘er out!

Her paper in hand, Bea said, “’Course, I’d written down on a notepad I had with me that day every word of that final sermon of yours, Pastor—not only ‘cause of all the funny stuff you was sayin’ about how it’d be your last one and all, but because of the atmosphere in the chancel that day—which’d been electric, hadn’t it been? You’d spoke the Word with such gut-wrenchin’ emotion, ‘twas like the Dove of Peace come right down on you!”

Jackie, who had been employed also with pen and paper that day, nodded in earnest.

“I just had to write that sermon all down!” Jackie noticed that Bea’s hand was shaking as she unfolded the paper. Bea read aloud, “Wait for the healing rain…was what Pastor in his sermon had said.” She looked up. “I did wait. And waited some more. I waited until I felt like a dummy for waiting. And yet, nothin’ happened for the longest time.” Bea re-folded the paper, ushering it back into her purse.

Zippering, she said, “Then one day, my sister, Edna, who lives over in Loveland, invited me to come over and help her with a crochetin’ project.” Bea smirked. “That Edna, come to find out she was havin’ trouble too with gettin’ the loopstitches on her fox tail to fluff up properly, and we all know how difficult that can be!”

Leandro looked up at Jackie. “Ma, can we get a fox?”

Jackie sighed. “No, mijo. Now, let’s stop interrupting Ms. Bea so she can finish her story, how about?”

“It’s all right.” Bea smiled at the boy. She continued, in her energetic old lady tenor, “Anyway, so on the drive over, I passed by Glenwood Springs.”

Jackie lit up. “Where the famous hot springs are?”

“Semi-famous, depending on who you ask. The sign for the exit asked if I might be interested in taking a break in their healing waters. Goodness no, I was not! And gosh if I wouldn’t have kept right on down I-70 hadn’t Pastor’s words—about the healing rain—been in the mix of my thoughts at that very moment. As if moved by an invisible force, I turned off the exit.”

“The health benefits of hot-spring mineral waters have been well documented. Did it help? I mean, you went for a dip, right?”

“Lickety-split I was in those waters, Jackie Wackie. No bathing suit, but I did have with me my birthday suit!”

Pastor Ray glanced at Jackie; his large eyes sparkled.

The blush of cheer fading from her cheeks just as quickly as it had appeared, Bea with seriousness continued, “Soakin’ in those waters, all of a sudden I noticed that the pain in my legs didn’t feel quite so bad. And my psoriasis—the red patches on my arms, and waist—seemed to be fading before my very eyes.”

Jackie noticed that Pastor Ray was still looking at her, scanning her up and down, now. His grin broadened. Hesitating, Jackie tried to work up a smile.

Bea said, “Thought maybe I was on to something, and so I ended up returnin’ to Glenwood Springs again and again over the course of that summer.” Bea bent her arms, raised up on her tippy-toes, and jogged in place. “See here, y’all. Whether it be an out-and-out miracle that mineral waters heal up an ol’ girl like mines’ arthritis, crooked spine, shoddy legs, and psoriasis—I don’t know. What I do know is that all of that I had ‘afore, and I don’t seem to have it now, and that me turning offa that exit wouldn’t ever have happened hadn’t Pastor spoken so fine a Word that so-fine day five years ago, that so etched in my memory it would end up bein’.”

Her healed body bubbling over with enthusiasm not unlike the bubbling spring waters effecting that claimed healing, readying to burst, and with legs motoring, Bea yelped then tromped over to share with her former pastor a small token of her appreciation in the form of a big hug.

Jackie the whole while reaffirmed the agreement she had since made with her own self that she was going to hold off with over-the-top expressions of thanksgiving until she could get a better read on the narrowed glances at the others, the side-ward glances at her, the furrowed brow, the snarky, almost feral smirk which this languid-looking version of Ray Massey kept on his mug like some kind of Halloween mask.

Reminding herself that staring was impolite, Jackie removed her sights off of this living, jiggling portrait of “Pastor with Old Lady Attached.” Her scrutiny looking for a place to settle, it invariably landed upon the invisible man, the tallish, gangly-looking Millennial whom since the moment of her arrival Jackie had yet to hear a peep from, and whom she could see shifting nervously from one foot to the other, and whom Jackie knew to be—

“Brandon, right?” Jackie pounded pavement to extend a hand.

Only to be diverted in her course.

“What? No hug for Pastor?” Ray said with arms outstretched as he invaded the space between Jackie and Brandon. Ray tripped, and landed on the ground along with, and on top of, Jackie. Jackie wondered if Pastor may have gotten some dust in his eye because his hands were groping all over her, and the ground, in search of a position to be able to raise himself back up.

“Sorry about that.” Ray pulled Jackie up from the ground. He dusted himself off from top to bottom then tried to do the same for Jackie until she pulled back. “Shoelace must’ve been untied,” he said.

Jackie looked down. Pastor’s shoes were laced tight.

Pastor followed her gaze. “Or, I tripped over a rock, or something.”

Or something, was right. Jackie had felt that something. The wandering hands of Pastor Ray; but the Hand of God, maybe, too? She had a weird, sick, excited, almost guilty feeling.

With these feelings giving rise to sinful thoughts about this married man’s possible intentions, Jackie shifted her focus. “So, yeah, Brandon is your name. I remember now. You’re the young man who used to operate the sound system at temple services.”

Brandon furrowed his brow. “Young man? Why, we’re about the same age, Jackie.”

“About,” Jackie conceded. “But in the community where I live you have to grow up fast.” She stretched a smile. “I’m more mature, I’m thinking.” She snorted laughter.

Pastor Ray put in, “Mature in every way, shape and form. Amen, sister.”

Jackie shivered. Swallowing, she kept her sights on Brandon. “I mean, you were so quiet and shy back then we could hardly get you to sing the Lord’s praise during worship never mind do something like dance the aisles.” Jackie rolled her eyes. “Unlike Bea here, who could probably dance all the way to Salt Lake right now.”

Bea laughed loudly. Brandon grinned awkwardly. Leandro giggled. The pastor dusted off his pant-leg. “Sorry about that trip thing,” he told Jackie, gazing at her. “I love you, you know.” The pastor coughed. “In the Lord.”

Jackie felt better hearing that. She eased a smile. She knew that he loved her. Pastor Ray loved them all.

Brandon took a deep breath. A shake in his voice, he said, “Yeah, guess I was kinda quiet back then, wasn’t I, Jackie?” He swallowed. In the refrain of a recording, “Words are overrated, though. They’re just letters, all glued together,” he said, reciting the line he had referenced time and again on his months-long media tour whenever confronted with questions about his all-too-obvious shyness.

“Words,” he said, a bit less mechanically, his vocal chords starting to warm up, “are cheap. It’s actions that are the—”

“—currency of heroism,” Bea finished his sentence, smiling triumphantly. Everyone looked over. “I watch TV and read the newspaper, too,” Bea said, beaming.

The young man reached for Jackie’s hand, shook it. They shared a hug. “Brandon, yes. Brandon Marks. That’s me.”

“That’s not his name.” Bea winked. She padded over to place a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “Or at least not anymore.”

Chin up, Bea announced, “Y’all, allow me to introduce…Captain America.”

Bea sided a glance. “May I tell them?” she asked with eyebrow raised. “Although odds are they know already. Gosh, it was only in all the newspapers. On Hannity, even. Y’all haven’t heard?”

“No, Leandro and I have not,” Jackie exclaimed. “Tell us.”

“It happened what, two years ago, Cap’n?” Turning from Brandon to Jackie, Bea explained, “In a nutshell, our guy here, putting to use his sound-system-operatin’ know-how, and all by his lonesome, foiled a Taliban raid on his camp in Kabul. Kabul. That’s in Pakistan, Jackie Wack.”

Brandon coughed. “Afghanistan, actually.”

“Same rootin-tootin’ difference, Cap’n. There was rocks and sand and oil there, wasn’t there? So, what happened, Jackie Wack—and son of Jackie Wack, was that, the bad guys cut the lights at Cap’n’s compound, and so, using his IT know-how, Cap was able to finagle those lights back on again. Cap prevented a slaughter. He saved hundreds of lives.”

Jackie clasped her hands together. “You’re a hero!” She beckoned for her son. “Leo—get you over here and with Moms say hola to Captain America.”

But Leandro stayed put. The wary look on the youngster’s face didn’t budge, either. “Is he really Captain America, Mom? Where’s his shield?

Drawing again from his mental case-file of canned responses to media-tour inquiries, Brandon Marks explained he had “left his shield back at Wolverine’s place.” Why? Because “Wolverine’s roommate, The Hulk, insisted on using it as dinnerware. And I was a corporal, Ms. Cooper,” he clarified. “Not a captain.”

“Ah, horse apples! If Captain America is what the press be callin’ you, then that’s what ol’ Bea’s gonna call you too, hero man.” Bea whispered over at Jackie, “Hero. You said it!”

Nature presuming to make its protest against the deafening silence that followed, a westerly wind with ice on its breath whooshed in to sting cheeks, and redden noses. The huddled assemblers were awakened to the realization that, here they were, standing and chatting, and now, reposing in thoughtful silence, with the chill of mid-March grating against their exposed heads and hands, and in a parking lot, no less, and not instead burrowed into a cushy restaurant booth with their fingers curled around a hot cuppa Mesa Mud.

Why is that? Jackie wondered. Weakly, she proposed, “Why don’t we go inside?”

Pastor Ray frowned. “Um, OK, why don’t we not.” Raising his chin, he espied with what looked to be admiration the mountains and city in the distance, and the wide blue sky. “Ah, isn’t it lovely out here?”

Jackie exchanged glances with Bea and Brandon, then shrugged.

Shivering, Leandro asked Jackie if you could go to the car to get his wool gloves.

Jackie nodded; and Leandro was off.

Never minding the continued blasts of cold air that all but threatened to lift them off of their feet, Jackie listened as Brandon Marks raised his voice to set the record straight.

“That whole…” he said, his voice projecting satisfactorily over the whistle of winds, “rescue ordeal they afterwards awarded me the Medal of Honor for?” Brandon shifted his feet. “Welp, it wouldn’t even have happened had it not been for Pastor’s sermon, words of which I had—like Bea—written down on piece of paper had with me that day…on the back of the church bulletin, and that I now keep forever in my back pocket here—” which Brandon patted, and out of which he pulled out a laminated tab of yellow paper.

“The words from that sermon that spoke to me were…” Brandon read aloud “…as my soul slides down to die, how—” Brandon struggled to keep his voice steady “—how could I lose him, what did I try. Bit by bit, I realize, that he was there with me. I looked into my Father’s eyes…” Brandon cocked an eyebrow. “Remember, Pastor, how you used to suggest we take notes of all your inspired talks?”

“Inspired talks,” Pastor Ray grunted, shaking his head.

Jackie exclaimed, “I used to take notes of all of pastor’s sermons, too. Also, that last sermon of yours, Pastor…was like somethin’ come outta the very gates of heaven! So powerful. So moving. So full of spiritual energy. So short! You got up there, and spoke only, like, twenty sentences. It wasn’t any sermon we heard that day but poetry, divine inspiration, a Word from heaven. It even rhymed!”

“Hallelujah, Jackie,” Bea, clapping, jumped up and down. “You said it!”

“Hallelujah!” Jackie exclaimed, zippering her blazer up to the level of her nose.

“Amen!” Brandon yelped. Clearing his throat, he resumed his narrative, “Anyway, so there I was out on recon patrol in the Al-am-shir Wilderness, just outside of Kabul. I got separated from my company; and I’m afraid to say I got lost.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I didn’t get lost,” Leandro exulted, raising his wool-gloved hands for his mother to see. “Me and my gloves are back.”

Smiling, Jackie drew her son close then ruffled his hair.

Bea tittered. “Oh, Captain. Lost? Superheroes don’t get—”

“I know, right?” Brandon shook his head. “Anyway, after days of wandering in circles, finally I collapsed into the softest, sandiest-lookin’ ravine I could find and came to grips with the fact that, well, it was all gonna end for me soon.”

Brandon’s throat made a harsh clicking sound. “I made—” he forced the words out, “my peace with the Creator, and then, and then, lying there, waited for the darkness to overtake me. And wouldn’t you know it was as I lay there that I recalled Pastor’s farewell sermon…” Brandon raised his hand to showcase, again, the yellow paper “…about how, even when our soul’s about to slide down and die, that He is there with us.”

The man they called “Captain America” and “hero” turned to address the man who was his hero. “So I did, then, Pastor, what you had on that last day advised us to do. I looked into my Father’s eyes.” Brandon thought it over. “Actually, it was the desert sun I’d squinted up into, and yet a sun which for me, at that moment, wasn’t just big yellow ball in the sky, but the Creator’s face.” Brandon smirked. “Coulda burned out my retinas I stood starin’ up at that sun so long!” Brandon widened his eyes to assure the others his eyeballs were just fine. “And then—the thought dawned on me I wasn’t alone. That single thought gave me strength. Liftin’ myself off of those sands I started walking. Little did I realize that just over that next ridge was a settlement. I lived, Pastor. I survived, you guys! And all because of those words…those awesome…those…that you spoke that day, Pastor.”

Jackie wiped a tear. “Wow!” she said, accepting the tissue that Bea handed her from out her purse. Dabbing, Jackie said, “But so how does any of that have to do with you saving—”

“Well, about a month later, the Taliban surprised us. Somehow they gained access to our compound, cut the lights, and blocked access to our stash of night-vision goggles, which they now had. In the panic, with friends around me gettin’ picked off by sniper fire like they were bad guys in a video game, and amidst all the screaming and shootin’, suddenly I recalled my earlier experience in the desert, and how I’d made it through. Pastor, your words…” Brandon looked over, “about lookin’ into our Father’s eyes….”

Pastor Ray slanted a look over again at Jackie.

Brandon said, “Welp, a switch went off. Again it struck me that I wasn’t alone. I picked up my M16 and my courage, and against a hailstorm of bullets hightailed it, until finally—”

Brandon jumped.

They all jumped—upon hearing the sound of a gunshot blast, coming from inside of the restaurant.

Bea stood with wide eyes. “What in the sweet name of Jesus was that?” She took a slow, backwards step in the direction of her Hyundai Excel. “Did someone just get shot in there?”

Smiling, Pastor Ray did not ever bother to turn around to look at the restaurant. “Oh, that’s probably just Joe Rob again. Butterfinger Joe. Arthritis Joe. Hands get shaky. He blew away the jukebox last month. Sally’s installed some stereo surround-sound system in the meantime.”

Bea swallowed. “Well, I hope no one was in the path of that bullet. Should we go in and scour the premises for survivors?”

Pastor Ray guffawed. “Nah.” He stood listening. “I can’t hear anyone in there howling in pain, can you? Wait…” everyone listened “...nope, that’s just Sally yelling at people again.” Brightening, the pastor looked over. “So, you were saying, Benjamin?

Jackie corrected, “It’s Brandon.”

Pastor Ray sniffled. “Touché.”

Brandon stood blinking.

Pastor Ray yawned. “C’mon, Benji, your little yarn about M16s, night-vision goggles, and whatnot. I am just chomping at the bit to find out what happened next.”

“Are you?” Bea said, with unblinking gaze.

Running a hand through his tussle of brown hair, Pastor said, “Oh, but dear lady, I am altogether interested in the welfare of my former flock. And now, for the gut-wrenching conclusion of Captain America Blows to Smithereens Some Towel-headed Bad Guys…”

Brandon gulped. “Well, er, like I was saying, I picked up my M16—”

“And your courage. Yes, we got that part already.”

“—and I hightailed it all the way to the fuse box. I flipped some switches, unplugged the wrongly placed wires then re-plugged the rights ones in. The compound lights flitted, then came back on. The tide turned almost immediately. The enemy was overcome. Their leaders were captured. Ever since then, I’ve been like Bea was saying, a national hero.”

Brandon looked with moist eyes into the face of his hero. That face glowered back at him. The folded arms and tapping of the foot as if with impatience only added to the overall look of a man who seemed less than interested in the sharing of personal testimonies.

Brandon finished his thought, “Thank…thank you, Pastor. Your words, you…have changed my life.”

Pastor Ray grumbled something indiscernible about Mormons—or was it “morons”—then turned and hawked into the dusty gravel of the parking lot.

Only eight years old, Leo might have been less mindful than his adult counterparts of such things as ex-pastors making pissed-off faces then spitting in disgust into parking-lot groundworks, Jackie figured. Leandro’s eyes, Jackie noticed as she stole a glance over, remained fixed on the non-superhero-looking adult who everyone kept insisting was the one and only Captain America, and whom, Leo probably was thinking, was singlehandedly overshadowing the real superhero of his estimation.

Jackie was hardly surprised, then, when stretching himself every whit of his 4’3” stature, Leandro offered, “My mom always says that whenever I got a problem or am afraid that I need to look into my Father’s eyes. And so, that’s what I do! I look up at the big tall mountains and see His face, His eyes, hidin’ out in the rocks. And guess what? It works!” Leandro nodded with Bobbleheaded fervor. “My mom, she knows.”

Bea smiled at Jackie, who with motherly pride gleaming like starlight in her dark eyes, reached to lay a soft hand atop her son’s head. While mother and son exchanged winks, and watermelon grins, Bea’s own grin began to deflate into the solemnity of deep thought.

“That day,” Bea said, looking again at the restaurant. “It was the best of times, and the worst of times. In the space of a single half-hour—” Bea leveled her sights at the others “—we eye-witnessed, on the one hand, the end of our beloved Immaculate Temple of the Beloveds, and on the other, the most moving and awe-inspiring send-off since that final farewell episode of The Golden Girls. Here’s how I remember it…” Bea wet her lips. “Pastor,” she asked him, “may I?”

Pastor Ray narrowed his eyes. His sights were somewhere far off.

“Pastor?” Bea said, louder. “May I?”

Pastor Ray turned to Bea. “May you what?” he said, with steely eyes.

Bea gulped. “Here’s, er, how I remember it…” she said, picking nervously at the rhinestones affixed to the faux-leather purse that hung off her elbow. “Pastor rises, and makes his way to the pulpit. He’s, well, we all notice that he’s…shaking.”

Pastor Ray sighed, deeply.

“His normally bright and clear eyes are all red and puffy. We don’t know yet, and in fact would never know, if those tears that he’d wept up ‘til then--‘cause clearly he’d been weeping—were because of how moved he’d been by that so-inspired sermon he’d penned and was preparin’ to deliver, or if it was something else. So, instead of the usual formalities of weekly announcement or introduction, Pastor just gets right down to it. Only instead of a sermon it’s…”

“A poem,” Jackie proposed.

Bea nodded.

“They call it, I think,” Brandon said, “free verse poetry.” Everyone looked over. Brandon shrugged. “I took an English lit course once back when I was in school.” He darted a guilty glance at the kid. “This was back before I was enrolled at Superhero Academy.”

Bea rediscovered her grin, dimples and all. “Thank you, oh captain, my captain, for reminding us that—” she looked over at Jackie’s boy “—even superheroes need to go to school and keep good grades.

“Yeah-huh,” Bea said. “A smatterin’ of some top-notch, free verse poetry, chock full a’ divine inspiration and that packed a real Dove-of-Peace punch-a-roo! So anyway, Pastor, he, er, recites his limerick,” Bea said. “His sanctified soliloquy, his soul-savin’ rhyme, his Creator-inspired free verse poem, and then dropping your head, Pastor, and running your hand through your hair—you exhaled, and said, just like the Prophet once did: it is finished. You walked offstage and kept walking…out the door, never to be seen or heard from again.” Bea stilled. “Until now. Until recently. Until today.” Bea exchanged wary looks with Jackie. “When we returned for service that following Sunday, we, um, found a sign on the door that read ‘Gone Fishin’.” Bea flashed a smile. “Rumor had it, Pastor, you’d tromped off to Africa join the mission field. Another rumor claimed you’d hopped a plane to Mexico to assist a failing temple down that ways. Still another rumor had it—”

“That he’d got translated up into the heavens, just like Elijah!” Jackie slapped her thigh. “Though, I can’t say I ever really fell for that one, and obviously it wasn’t true because here you are standing right in front of us!” Jackie allowed mirth to subside as the snickerings in response to her truism ran their socially appropriate course.

“Still, Pastor,” Jackie went on, “and seriously, you—or should I say, the Shekinah Glory that had shone through you over the whole of that farewell service of our Immaculate Temple of the Beloveds, certainly has made an impact in my life.” Jackie reached again for her son’s hand. “In fact, that’s why Leandro and I came out here today. It’s to show our appreciation. Also we came—” Jackie widened her eyes “—to see whatever had become of our dear Pastor Ray!”

The puppy-dog glimmer in Jackie’s eye lost a bit of its puppy dog as she then beheld the vein in the pastor’s neck bulge like a banana under a wet blanket. She beheld the red-angry look on his face. But before Jackie could make a full registry of these things, she heard the words escape her lips, “Wherever it was, Pastor, you’ve been these past years, there’s one thing I know for sure. It's that you were all the while looking in, and through, your Father’s eyes!”

Pastor Ray stood with lips pressed into a tight, menacing line. The bulge in his neck, Jackie noticed, had begun to pulsate.

“Yessiree,” Bea sang, “figured there’d be others with stories to share and thanks to give. Fact of the matter, that’s why I invited y’all out here to celebrate that not-so-long-ago day when Pastor and his temple—our temple—said their farewells and offered their blessing.” Lifting her gaze, Bea directed attention to the spectacle of nature that surrounded them on all sides. “Of course, I chose here, Mesa County’s best hideaway lunch spot, because, well, this is where Linda works. She’s gotta be a part of the celebration too, wouldn’t y’all agree?” Stretching her arms toward him in beckoning call, Bea megaphoned, “We are here to commemorate you, Pastor Ray, for your time as our pastor. Also, we wish to thank you, oh so much, for that send-off sermon and those wonderful, wonderful words that—”

With darkened expression, the pastor winked at Jackie then put one foot in front of the other.

“—those wonderful words that you, er, left us with,” Bea finished her sentence. “Pardon all, but where might Pastor be goin’?”

“Into the restaurant, looks like,” Brandon said, a question on his face and a squint in his eyes as he fought back the sun to get a better look in the direction of the 122-year-old oaken front entryway to The Tommyknocker Diner. It opened then banged shut. “Yup. Restaurant.” Brandon scratched his head. “Wow. Musta really had something on his mind to without warning just up and take off on us like that!”

“Uncontrolled urination,” Bea said. The others looked at her. “Pee,” she said louder. “He had to go pee. My Elmer, the Creator rest his soul, used to suffer from that same ailment. And those adult diapers he would always insist on buying—goodness! They’d leak, well, like cheapo diapers that had a whole lotta pee in ‘em!”

Jackie narrowed her eyes at the restaurant. “You really think that’s it?”

Bea followed Jackie’s gaze as her own gaze, by degrees, began to harden. “Let’s hope so, dear,” Bea said, a stab of sarcasm in her voice. “Let’s hope it’s just his health that’s failing him and not instead his heart and his head.”

Brandon nodded. “He sure is acting weird.” He bit his lip. “Should we follow him, our Shepherd of old? Was that our cue, maybe?”

Jackie sighed. “Yeah, our cue to give him some space and not just rant on about ourselves, sure! He looked upset, didn’t he? Not himself. You think, guys, that maybe Pastor’s struggling with something? I mean besides having to go pee. Maybe he has an ingrown toenail, or some kinda virus he maybe caught down in Mexico while helping that temple down there, savin’ all them souls and whatever other good works he was up to. Maybe it’s a virus affecting his brain.” A shadow crossed Jackie’s face “Or, maybe he’s got a newfound problem with, like, lust. I mean, nobody’s perfect. If the Creator forgives then so can I. Even saints mess up. I think.”

Bea dug into her purse and pulled out a stick of lipstick. “I’m stayin’ right here,” she said, applying a coat of pink to her already pink lips. “He stormed in there like that for a reason, and I’m thinking it was not to confirm our reservation.”

Jackie shook her head. “I just refuse to believe that our Pastor Ray, minus a misstep, or two, or three—”

“Or ten,” Bea said, flatly.

“—could be anything other than that approved fellow-servant we all knew and loved, the good, the holy, the blessed in all heavenly places, the Right Beloved of the Creator, the Dove-of-Peace covered, agape-love manifesting—”

“Mom,” Leandro said, tugging at Jackie’s sweater. “I just remembered something I wanted to tell you. That guy who stuck his middle finger out at us?” Leandro pointed at the restaurant door. “It’s him.”

But Jackie wasn’t listening. “The Spirit-filled,” she went on, “holy-tongue talking, the altogether saintly…”