The Messenger

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Anything I can do to help,” Clarice replied. She shook Hale’s hand, introduced Ariel, and allowed herself to be seated in the backseat.

  “If you don’t mind,” Leslie said, sliding in behind the wheel, “I’ll take you directly to the church. We have a regular church gathering this evening. It started as a small Bible study and prayer meeting, but my goodness, you would not believe how it has grown.”

  “Almost fills the nave,” Hale agreed. He had a voice as mild as his eyes, in direct contrast to the strength radiating from his face. “All in the space of three months.”

  “Hale and I take turns leading the service,” Leslie went on. “Oh, by the way, I don’t suppose you play a musical instrument.”

  Clarice laughed. “Oh, not me. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. When it comes to music, my job on earth is to be a good listener.” She looked at Ariel. “What about you, dear?”

  Ariel shrugged, her face turned to the window. So much to see, so much to take in, all of it new. “Just the harp.”

  “The harp!” Leslie and Hale exclaimed together. Leslie went on, “That is amazing.”

  “A miracle,” Hale agreed.

  “We like to have guest musicians at these evening get-togethers,” Leslie explained. “We had a harpist who was supposed to play tonight, but he’s come down with the flu. We just got the call as we were walking out the door to come pick you up.”

  “So now we’ve got this huge harp sitting in the middle of our nave, with nobody to play it.” Hale turned in his seat. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to help us out tonight, would you?”

  ****

  Manny stumbled up the stairs, not from fatigue, but rather from a sense that he should be doing something else. First this had made him mad, then it made him stubborn. Manny hated having someone tell him what to do. He hated it. He had spent a lifetime going his own way. He had always been a man of his own will, and proud of it. But now there was this strange sensation of being guided, being pulled along by feelings and forces he neither understood nor wanted. So he had headed home, resisting the urge to look within and see what else might be done.

  He entered his apartment building and caught a faint smell in the musty air. Something more than the usual scent of dirty halls and unwashed diapers and greasy cooking. Something weird.

  Manny froze when his foot touched the landing. He thought he had heard a growl. Not like one of the mangy watchdogs his neighbors kept in their apartments until management caught them. More like a hungry wild beast on the prowl. And big. Very big.

  Cautiously he moved along the corridor, intently searching the stairs, the hall, the other doors on his floor. Nothing. But the building was strangely quiet. Normally this time of evening there would be a dozen televisions blaring, kids yelling, adults screaming back, with a dozen stereos and boom boxes blaring in the background. But tonight was different. Not just quiet like sleeping-quiet. Quiet like empty. Quiet like the whole building was holding its breath.

  When he reached his own doorway, he stopped again, this time feeling as though a steel fist had just punched him in the chest.

  His door was not just broken open. It was mauled into matchwood. Manny’s mind instantly felt split in two. One side of his brain started a constant shrilling shout for him to run, get out, go anywhere, but not stay here. The other, the same old independently stubborn Manny, said to himself, yeah, sure, this is why it’s so quiet. Nobody, but nobody wants to admit they saw something. Whoever did this was strong enough to know nobody would talk. Wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to them. Or worse.

  Manny poked his head inside the door, the other voice too loud now to let him go further. His rooms had not just been searched and tossed. They had been mauled like the door. Chewed up and spit out and left in a heap of sodden carnage.

  Manny looked around and started seeing things from a different perspective, the perspective of this new voice. They had not been searching for something. Not really. They wanted him. They had done this to his apartment because they had not been able to do it to him.

  Then there was another new sensation, the feeling that something had been suddenly given to him. An insight so bizarre that he knew he could never have come up with it himself.

  The sudden insight told him that what he saw there in front of him was not just his things. It was his life. He had walked this independent path of anger and conceit with a self-absorbed swagger, so sure of his own power and abilities that he had never had time for anybody. Never needed anything but himself. And look where it had led him. To this. To danger and darkness and ruin.

  And with the realization came a choice. He could ignore what he faced and move on, replace his belongings and continue as he had up to now. But next time it would be him who was mauled and trashed and left heaped like garbage. Manny did not know how he could be so sure of this, but he was sure. This was what would happen unless he took the second choice, and followed a new path to the end. Come what may. No matter how the path drew him away from what was normal and comfortable. No matter how much control and independence he had to give up. Either he chose to bend and learn and grow, or he chose to die.

  The growl sounded then. Hungry. Hunting. So close it seemed to come from inside his own head. Manny turned and fled, his feet not hitting more than one step in five. He barreled through the door, searched the night, shouted at a passing taxi.

  Maybe, just maybe, he could still catch the last flight to Washington.

  ****

  “This is beautiful!”

  “Now, dear,” Clarice chided. “Don’t let your head be turned by these trappings. Remember, the greatest beauty resides in the hearts of believers.”

  But before Ariel could respond, Hale was up alongside her and saying, “Almost time, Ariel. Would you come up front with me, please?”

  “Yes,” she said, allowing herself to be led through the packed foyer and into the soaring sanctuary. She had wanted to tell Clarice that she had not been exclaiming over the building. What had touched her so deeply was the feeling inside the church, inside the people. Beneath the smiles and the eager chatter and the handshakes and the hugs she could feel a familiar Presence. “This is wonderful.”

  “Sure is,” Hale agreed. “Never thought I would wind up working in a church this grand. But Leslie has a way about him. You’ll see. He looks like a movie actor and talks like a diplomat. But his heart is straight for God.”

  The church was indeed grand, a great stone edifice built in the last century, with a ceiling of huge interlocking beams. Along both side walls rose a proud array of stained-glass windows. Yet Ariel found the place wondrous not for what it was, but rather for what it contained. Eyes turned their way, smiles greeting Hale and then showing Ariel a calm welcome. People were gathered for worship—old and young, of different races and colors, men and women and teens and children, some in suits and others in jeans, all joined by that which none could see yet all acknowledged. She said simply, “I love it here.”

  Hale gave a surprised laugh. “Why, thank you. I’ve only been here three months, but already I feel like this church and these people are my own.”

  He led her up and around to the side stairs leading past the pulpit and chairs. The empty choir rows faced down upon a curved dais, where a single spotlight shone on a gleaming golden harp. “Leslie and the deacons brought me in because they wanted to reach out to the local black community. Turn this place from an affluent, mostly white bastion into a church that ministers to the needs of all the surrounding neighborhoods. I was sort of nervous at first, but these folks have gone out of their way to greet me with the Lord’s gift of love.”

  Ariel seated herself behind the harp and looked up at him. “It shows.”

  “Yeah, I guess the Lord knew what He was doing when He planted me here.” He beamed at her. “You need anything?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and was.

  “Great.” He glanced at his watch. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go
back to my place.”

  The crowd settled and quieted. Reverend Townsend greeted everyone and led them in an opening prayer. Throughout, Ariel remained enclosed within the bubble of comfort, a sense that she was loved and guided and cared for and home. As she quietly tuned the strings, she wondered at the difference between the outside world and here.

  “We have a guest with us tonight,” Reverend Townsend said. “An unexpected special visitor. Our originally planned musician was unable to join us, but a wonderful replacement has literally just stepped off the bus from Philadelphia. Ariel here is accompanying Sister Clarice, of whom many of you have heard me speak. They are here to help us get our new projects up and running.” Leslie Townsend had a genuinely nice smile. “We had to hurry back from the station so fast that I did not even think to ask what Ariel wanted to play for us. Ariel?”

  What indeed? She found her question lofted upward, and the response granted to her upon a wave of the same peace that filled the hall. “A song of praise.”

  “How wonderful.” Another smile, then, “I am sure we will all want to stop by afterward and thank her for helping out at the last moment like this.”

  As the pastor seated himself Ariel adjusted the harp to her shoulder and ran through the strings. Then she closed her eyes. There waiting for her was that same peaceful Presence that had answered her question, a gentle guiding Spirit. Ariel fitted her fingers to the strings and let the still, small voice lead her into song.

  She played of her longing for what she had left behind, the constancy of all that her home possessed. Of love beyond measure, peace without end. A light so total that no sun was required. A city of crystal and gold. A place for all. For all.

  The song became a river, a flowing melody of praise and worship and prayerful longing, a tide of sound which in truth had neither beginning nor end. She simply joined with what always was, always will be, her strings chiming to the sound of unheard voices singing eternal praise to the King.

  The Spirit within the great hall began to move, flowing with the music, filling the chapel with voices that people heard not with their ears, but rather with their hearts. Singing in time to Ariel’s playing, a heavenly chorus that rose and soared on gossamer wings.

  The entire chamber moved beyond the borders of time and space, of earthly woe and worry. For all who came with open honest hearts there was a moment of joining, an instant of glimpsing beyond the veil, of hearing the voice of promise and fulfillment, and knowing it was there with them, filling them with a love that was theirs for all eternity.

  The message was given, the gift received. The song did not diminish, but rather soared ever higher, flying toward the unseen heavens, beyond the reach of human ears and hearts, higher and higher and higher until the final note was a chiming almost at the limit of awareness. Yet all knew that it was not the last. It was only the beginning. The first note of a song they would hear and carry with them always. Forever to be sung in praise of the One.

  ****

  Manny was being followed. He knew it. The sensation was stronger than it had been outside the pawnshop. Manny did his weaving dance through the evening crowds filling the airport terminal, his ticket clutched in one hand like a lifeline. He dodged one of the electric carts carrying old people, jogged alongside it, glanced back and forth and to both sides, saw nothing that raised the alarm. But somebody was there. He could feel it. Somebody was after him.

  Or something.

  Manny sighed with genuine relief as he heard his flight’s final boarding call. He raced down the concourse, feeling as though the breath of whatever had growled in his apartment was nipping at his heels. He slowed long enough for the attendant to snag his ticket, then fled down the boarding ramp and into the plane. His breath was loud in his ears as he walked down the aisle, his heart jumping more from the fright than the run.

  Then he was aware once more of the invisible guiding hand. Right when he least expected it, there between the crowded rows, the flight attendant already talking over the loudspeaker. Again there was a sense of an unseen force surrounding him, reaching down and gently directing him. Crazy.

  He checked his ticket for the seat number, slid into his place, breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to be leaving town for a while. His home turf was definitely getting to be a risky place to hang.

  He glanced over at the man seated beside him. Big, burly, barrel-chested. Biker’s T-shirt. Fists like human hammers, all gnarled and knotted. Holding a book and turning the flimsy little pages, his forehead creased in concentration. Not even acknowledging the outside world, oblivious as the plane started rolling away from the terminal. Manny leaned over, gave the book a casual glance, jerked back. The Bible. Just like he’d seen as a kid, when he had sought shelter from a heavy storm inside a street mission. Manny didn’t know any other book that had those double columns and fancy red printing here and there. He leaned back down again just to make sure, pretended to scratch his ankle while scanning the page, recognized the name Jesus. Yeah, had to be. The guy was sitting there on a plane reading the Bible. Amazing.

  This time the guy noticed him. “You want to read along with me?”

  Manny straightened up, did the casual stretch, no big deal. Palmed his ticket stub, read the seat number, no mistake, this was his place. “No, you go ahead.”

  “That’s okay.” The big guy slung this little ribbon across the page, closed the Book. “I can read anytime. What’s your name?”

  “Manny.” Sitting there next to the Hulk, and the guy wants to play polite. Manny didn’t argue, didn’t even lie about his name.

  “Mine’s John. John Roskovitz.” Offered his hand. “You a believer?”

  Manny watched his hand be swallowed, felt strength behind the grip, but no menace. Not in the hand, not in the eyes, not in the voice. Guy with a bruiser’s face, scar across his forehead and a nose broken so often it had been set at a permanent angle, but eyes that shone with a gentle light. Didn’t make sense. “Not really.”

  “Know what you mean,” the guy said agreeably. “Been there, done that. A lot.”

  “Yeah?” Manny glanced at his ticket stub again. Not because he thought maybe he had it wrong. No. Because he had that sense of being guided into this meeting and this contact. Crazy.

  “Years and years of it,” Roskovitz confirmed. “All those guys, they stand up there and tell you how it felt bad and they didn’t understand why they did it. Not me. I did it because I was having a ball.”

  Manny felt himself being invited to relax, let down his constant guards, talk to somebody who understood. Normally, a stranger this size, he’d be around the corner and out of sight and gone. Not this time. “So what happened?”

  “So I found something better.” The guy lifted his Book. “Couldn’t go both ways at the same time. Had to make a choice.”

  A choice. Manny recalled the moment in his apartment doorway, felt himself shiver.

  Roskovitz noticed the change. “Something the matter?”

  Manny started to deny it. But there was something about this stranger and this moment that invited him to open up. “I think maybe I got a problem.”

  The guy slid the Book into the pocket of the seat in front of him, crossed massive arms. “One thing I learned about problems,” he said. “They’re a lot easier to handle if two people carry the load.”

  There it was again, that sense of an invitation. Of comfort being offered, and not just from the guy. From the moment. Manny swallowed, felt the pressure of years of holding back, standing alone, being his own man. But somewhere deep inside a door was being opened, one he didn’t even know existed before that moment.

  He said, “I think I’m being followed.”

  “Yeah?” John showed only mild surprise. “You done something?”

  “You kidding?” Manny had to smile. “I’ve done it all.”

  “Know what you mean, know what you mean,” the guy murmured. Eyes still open and kindly. No judgment, no condemnation. Just sitting there, smiling
through the roar of the takeoff, nodding a continual invitation for Manny to open up, let it out.

  But still it was hard. Manny had never spoken to anybody like this before, not in his life. “See, I found this pigeon, talk about out of it. Picked her pockets, came up with this thing, I dunno, I thought it was some kinda credit card. But when I stuck it in the bank machine, wham, I was gone. I mean outta here.” Manny stopped, inspected the incongruous face with its hard angles of brutal power and eyes of luminous light. “That make any sense to you?”

  “Might do,” the guy said easily. “But you just keep on, I like the sound of your voice.”

  “Ever since then, I don’t know, there’s been one thing after another. It feels like,” Manny tried to shape the air in front of him as he went on, “like I’m being sorta guided. Not like, okay, here, take my hand and let’s go see what’s down the corner. More like, this is something I maybe oughta think about, even if it don’t make no sense at all.”

  “An opportunity,” the guy said, speaking more quietly now that the plane was leveling off.

  Manny had to stop and stare. The guy was not only listening. He was understanding so well it was almost like he was hearing what Manny did not know how to put into words.

  Roskovitz waited with him for a time, then urged gently, “So what did you do?”

  “Sometimes I took it, you know, whatever it was that I felt like was there for me,” Manny replied, his voice a little weak from the surprise that somebody cared enough to search out the deeper meaning. “But it’s hard. I mean, really hard. I feel like I’m fighting with myself.”

  Roskovitz nodded. “Hardest part of the struggle is at the turning. Up to then, you’re just moving with the flow. But you start to turn, then all the forces that held you tight start getting angry. Like they don’t want to let you go.”

  His pride pricked, Manny started to object, declare himself his own man. Then he thought about watching the shadows coalesce in the bar, about hearing that growl in his own apartment, and he kept still. All the forces that held him tight. Manny felt a chill burn like dry ice in his gut.