Lessons on Destroying the World

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Lessons on Destroying the World Page 8

by Gant, Gene


  Titus and his wife, Elizabeth, were in Los Angeles on Monday, June 19, along with eighty-five of their church members. The homosexual community had planned a rally in the city’s Belvedere Park on Saturday to support proposed legislation that would have the state of California officially sanctioning a so-called bill of rights for “transgender” youth. Titus was organizing a rally to oppose it. He and his followers were staying at the Holiday Inn on Olympic Boulevard.

  Titus rose at six that morning and, after prayer, worked out on one of the treadmills in the hotel’s fitness center. He had planned a busy day and wanted to keep his breakfast light. Elizabeth ordered cereal, skim milk, and orange juice for them while he showered. Once dressed, he sat down in one of the commodious chairs gracing the table at the front of the room and opened the Los Angeles Times.

  Elizabeth was fifty and a foot shorter than her husband. While not overweight, her body tended toward a dough-like roundness, which had the advantage of taking five years off her appearance by plumping out the wrinkles in her face and neck. Her graying brown hair had a natural luster, and she wore very little makeup.

  While waiting for breakfast to arrive, Elizabeth dialed the room of their church treasurer to arrange the purchase of supplies they would need to make signs for their rally. They had purchased airtime on local Christian radio stations to promote the function, and they were expecting the large turnout Titus always drew. In the middle of her conversation with the treasurer, Elizabeth’s voice rose suddenly. Titus pushed the paper aside and looked at her.

  “My word, Kate,” she said, pressing the receiver to her ear with one hand while motioning Titus to the television with the other. “Are you certain? What channel is this?”

  Titus went to the television, which sat on the dresser in front of the two queen-size beds, and fumbled with the unfamiliar switches until he managed to turn the thing on. He looked back at his wife for further instructions.

  “Kate, I’ll call you back,” Elizabeth said in a rush and slapped down the receiver. To her husband, she said, “Turn to channel six.”

  “What is it?” Titus asked as he switched channels. Elizabeth did not answer. They stared at the television screen, where a news story was in progress. The reporter, a good-looking young man of Asian descent, was grim.

  “Monday morning before daybreak, in the remote Adfer zone of drought-stricken Ethiopia, over fifteen hundred starving people found their emaciation had reversed itself. Wells that had been dry for years are now brimming with water, and fields long since swallowed by the advancing desert are lush with crops.” The reporter’s image cut away to an aerial shot of those fields. Corn, rice, soybeans, potatoes, melons, okra, and tomatoes thrived under a bright morning sun on the outskirts of a crumbling village. The plants grew not in orderly rows but in haphazard profusion, forming a thick, rolling carpet.

  This was followed by a panning shot of the crops as excited Ethiopians swarmed through the greenery, piling fruits and vegetables on blankets, in baskets, and in sacks. These were not the skeletal, hollowed-eyed victims of famine. They were strong; their dark bodies as full and robust as the plants they ran among. “The people here say these changes occurred in less than an hour.”

  “Less than an hour?” Titus said, and he exchanged a brief, skeptical look with his wife before turning back to the television.

  The reporter was back on the screen. “Two hours later, in the Somali region, the phenomenon repeated itself. Water began flowing in long-dry creek beds. Wasteland was discovered overgrown with crops. Thousands of starving people were restored to good health. But here in our own country, there have been reports of even more astounding events.”

  The reporter’s image gave way to a shot of a shining white stone facade. The reporter, still in voiceover, continued. “This is the Greater Blessing Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Here, on Sunday afternoon, a funeral erupted in panic when the deceased’s body reportedly came back to life. The decedent was William James Freeman. CBS News has obtained a copy of his death certificate, confirming that the thirty-three-year-old car salesman died of an accidental gunshot wound to the chest on June 11. We have no proof of Mr. Freeman’s resurrection, and none of the people attending the funeral were willing to speak to us on camera. But we have verified that William Freeman’s body, as well as his widow and mother, disappeared following the disturbance at the church.”

  Elizabeth laughed, a quick huff filled with derision. “Sounds like CBS has teamed with the National Enquirer—”

  Titus silenced her with a wave of his hand. His entire body was rigid with excitement and fear. They watched as the reporter went on to detail the story of a Memphis woman, Dr. Anita Cullin, a gynecologist and obstetrician who claimed to have been healed of cancer by the touch of a man.

  The woman’s face filled the screen. She was in her fifties, her green eyes dancing as she described her encounter with the healer. “He was standing in the parking lot of Taco Bell, talking to a young lady. When I looked at him, I felt this… this….” She began to gesture with both hands, as if trying to coax the words out of herself. She smiled, giddy with emotion. “He was divine. I don’t know how else to describe it.” A tear rolled down her cheek. Her smile trembled. “I couldn’t even speak to him. Just three days before, my doctor told me I had ovarian cancer. I was facing surgery and chemotherapy, and here was this little guy all of a sudden, the answer to my prayers. I knew this the moment I saw him. I touched his shirt and… this power filled my body.” Tears began pouring freely from both eyes now. “That touch cured me.”

  The reporter reappeared on the screen. “Dr. Cullin consented to a review of her medical records and a physical examination by an independent team of doctors hired by CBS News. Those doctors confirmed that, on June 15, Dr. Cullin was diagnosed with cancer and had several cancerous growths on both ovaries. Their own tests, conducted yesterday, found no tumors, and they pronounced her cured.”

  Elizabeth was dumbfounded. “What in the world…?”

  The reporter went on to explain there was a single common factor in the various miraculous events that have been noted in Africa and the United States—the presence of a particular person. The Ethiopians who saw him said he raised his hands and called water from the ground, filling dry lake beds. They heard him command food from the earth, and lush vegetables erupted instantly out of dry, cracked dirt. There were those like Dr. Cullin, who were cured of injury and illness by this person. He was also seen at the funeral where the corpse was allegedly brought back to life. Hearing this, Titus sank to his knees, tears spilling from his own eyes.

  “Vaughn!” His wife knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  He could not answer her. His soul was filling with the glory and the goodness of God. The disgraceful and immoral actions of the abortionists, the sinful, hedonistic agenda of the homosexuals—all the world’s iniquities were no longer his concern. He was on the verge of rushing into the streets to proclaim the second coming of the Lord.

  The reporter remained professionally dispassionate as he continued with the story. “Although this young man has been seen in various locations around the United States and Africa, the majority of these sightings have been in Memphis. Based on the descriptions of eyewitnesses, a CBS artist has completed a composite drawing. This is the face of the person said to have worked miracles.”

  Titus closed his eyes and held his breath, overcome with reverence. Beside him, Elizabeth gasped, and he felt her arms slip away. After a prayerful moment, he opened his eyes to look upon the face of the Lord.

  On the screen was a charcoal rendering of a narrow-faced, attractive, almost pretty boy with curly, somewhat long hair. He had wide, round eyes, high cheekbones, and plump, pouty lips. A pretty boy, yes… a bit too pretty to be heterosexual.

  Titus shot out his hand and slapped the television’s off switch. Startled by the sharp motion, Elizabeth gasped. Titus got to his feet and turned to he
r. “Whoever hatched this sacrilege will suffer for it,” he said. “Liz, call our travel agent. I’m going to Memphis.”

  ON MONDAY morning, Antonio Reyes was one of seven young people from his church who were holding an impromptu Bible study on the patio of his parents’ home.

  Antonio was startled when his mother anxiously slid the glass door open. “Come here. You’ve got to see this,” she said.

  Antonio and his friends crowded into the den just in time to see the last half of the CBS report about the sudden rash of miracles. When the drawing of the miracle worker appeared on the television screen, Antonio gasped so sharply his mother thought he had taken ill.

  “What is it, son?” his mother said fretfully.

  Antonio could only manage a single word in response. “Micah?”

  14

  MONDAY MORNING, my bladder woke me. (I was unaware at that point of the information the orb had recorded about the Reverend Titus and Antonio. Their thoughts were among the thoughts of the seven billion plus people it recorded that morning, including mine, and I wouldn’t have reason to access Antonio’s and Titus’s specific memories until later.) Once my eyes fluttered open, I looked at the clock: 9:05. I dragged myself out of bed in a daze, fingers worming through my hair to scratch at my scalp. After taking a leak and flushing, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and yelped. I was covered with a thick film of yellowish dust.

  Reversing drought was dirty work. I stripped off my clothes and took a long, cold shower standing in my still-filthy bathtub. I was fully awake by the time I was done. Clean underwear—blue boxers and a faded blue T-shirt from one of my dresser drawers—materialized on my body. I walked back into my bedroom and froze when I saw Monica.

  She was sitting in a chair from the dining room, in the corner, facing my bed. She wore wrinkled yellow capri pants, a yellow blouse, and sneakers. Her expression was blank.

  I was surprised and confused. “Monica? What’re you doing here?”

  “Something in my head told me to come,” she said, looking at me. “And I had to come. I couldn’t stop myself, even though it was so late.”

  Note to self: Do not fall asleep wishing you were in the company of a certain pretty girl while your mind is linked to a God machine from outer space that’s waiting to take orders from you.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since four. This morning.” She seemed disconnected somehow, aware but not quite tuned into the real world.

  “Did we do anything… freaky?” My tone was somewhere between embarrassment and hope.

  “No. Can I go now?”

  “Man. Your parents must be worried to death by now. I’m sorry. Yes, go home. Please.” The orb let me know her parents had filed a missing person report. Unsurprisingly, the cops were dragging their feet. Official policy was that any missing person report involving a child received priority. However, when the child was a teenager, the detectives tended toward a wait-and-see attitude in a situation where there was no evidence of foul play. In the detectives’ experience, the teen in question usually turned up after passing out drunk somewhere or spending the night with a friend of the opposite sex. I used the orb to adjust the memories of Monica’s parents and remove their report from the minds and computers of the cops.

  Monica stood up, staring at me with her blank eyes. “You cry a lot in your sleep. Did you know that? I think maybe that’s why you wanted me here, so you wouldn’t be alone when you cried.” Her face softened with sympathy. “You kept calling out for your mama. You must really miss her.” She hesitated, torn, uncertain. Finally, thankfully, the orb wiped her memories of coming to my house, and her face went blank again. She turned and left, walking from my room, through the living room, and out the front door without another word.

  That was weird. True enough, I missed my mom desperately, but I couldn’t figure why, in my sleep, I’d reached out to a girl I had only known a few days. I sent up silent thanks that my subconscious hadn’t called Mama back.

  There were footsteps coming toward my room, moving quickly. I knew it was Dick; the smell of cheap, days-old whiskey reached me before he did. He bolted through my door and stopped. He had just arrived home when Monica was leaving. His clothes were somewhat wrinkled, and I could see the dried stain in the front of his shirt where a drink had been spilled. He took in the sight of me in my underwear. It had been a long time since he had looked at me with so much disgust.

  “What was that girl doing here this time of the morning?” he snapped at me.

  “She was just paying me a visit.”

  “I’ll bet she was.”

  I was already tired of the conversation. “It’s my house. I can have anybody over, whenever I want.”

  “It’s immoral. It’s wrong, you bringing girls here to spend the night with you.”

  “Yeah?” I mentally asked the orb for information about my father’s weekend. “What about you, spending three days with a hooker and not even paying her because she liked your looks so much. Isn’t that wrong?”

  Dick looked surprised for a moment at my knowing such details. Then his chest swelled as he indignantly sucked in a deep breath. “I’m a man, you’re not. You’re fifteen—”

  “I’m sixteen,” I snapped.

  “You’re a fucking kid! And it’s just plain wrong for you to go fooling around with girls.”

  Okay, that’s it. Conversation over. “Dick, go to sleep.”

  Instantly, his eyelids grew heavy, and he yawned. As if he’d forgotten I existed, he turned and went into the living room, where he lay down on the sofa and started snoring.

  Still angry, I walked into the kitchen and devoured half a box of Lucky Charms. Dick had used the last of the milk on Friday, so I ate the cereal right out of the box, washing it down with grape Kool-Aid. My work the day before had taken a lot out of me, but now I felt rested and ready for more.

  I had decided that my new life and abilities would be devoted primarily to the greater good of mankind. I still had to provide for my own basic needs, however, and therefore figured I’d have to hold on to my job, at least for now. But with so much suffering and need in the world, I couldn’t bring myself to devote any time today to frying hamburgers. I reached out mentally through the orb, searching for my boss.

  Monroe “Bebe” Banks was seated in a booth at the front of his eatery, slumped over the sports section of the Commercial Appeal. He was awash in the sunlight blazing through the big front window. A dark-skinned man, he was fifty-six, short, and corpulent, his belly bulging between him and the table’s edge like a cushion. He had thick lips, squinty eyes, and a short, bowl-shaped Afro that was as black as shoe polish. He wore olive slacks, held up by green suspenders, and a white dress shirt that was already wet under the arms from perspiration. In all the months of my employ, I’d never seen him eat anything that came out of his restaurant’s kitchen. You can read into that whatever you want, but it never stopped me from gobbling his food.

  He was waiting for me. Anxiously. I assumed he was eager to get back home. He didn’t trust any of his employees with the keys, so he came in every morning to admit the day’s lead worker (which, Monday through Friday, was usually me) and then retired to his home until midafternoon. He lived just three blocks away but wouldn’t dream of doing anything approximating exercise. His two-year-old gray Cadillac Escalade was parked at the door, ready to bear him away.

  I requested a modification to his memory, and the orb promptly responded, planting in Bebe’s head the idea that he had granted me the day off without pay. He thumped the heel of his right hand to his forehead, chiding himself for forgetting. Still strangely uneasy, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed my home telephone number. I, of course, did not answer. Bebe waited through twenty-five rings before finally giving up.

  Settled comfortably on my bedroom floor, I opened my mind again to the thoughts pouring into the orb, seeking out those in need. Something disturbing began brushing at my awareness. I focused o
n it, and a gust of fear came rushing in.

  There was a voice following the fear, strong, urgent, and distressed. “Please, please don’t let him be dead. Please let him come home.”

  A prayer.

  My mind homed in on the fear and found the source in a bedroom of Tyree Jacks’s suburban home. Kayla Jacks lay under her bed. Tears wet her face. No one had seen her father since Sunday afternoon. This left Kayla frightened and confused. Her mother, Emilia, tried to remain calm for her sake, but she knew the risks her husband’s livelihood entailed. She had called Tyree’s parents in Miami and his sister in Indianapolis, as well as the few friends of his she knew. None of them had heard from him recently.

  Emilia hadn’t yet contacted the police but was planning to do so tomorrow, merely as a formality. In her heart, she knew her husband was dead. By this morning, she could no longer hide that conviction from her daughter.

  When Kayla had asked yet again where Daddy was, Emilia said, “Baby, don’t worry. Daddy is okay.” But Kayla saw the truth in her mother’s harried expression, and it sent her under her bed in tears.

  Damn.

  Withdrawing from the Jacks household, I looked into the home of Elbertha Smith. She lived in Whitehaven, a once-suburb below South Memphis. The sixty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher firmly rejected any suggestion that she retire from her job and sell the big, two-story house in which she and her husband had reared their two children. Her husband had died in this house, in a fall down the stairs five years ago. Her sons and her house were all she had left of her life with him.

 

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