The Shepherd’s Song

by Betsy Duffey

  God had not asked him to take the job. God had not required the weekends of work, the canceled vacations, nor neglecting his wife.

  The stars still beamed down all these years later, offering him love. In his deepest valley, God was still here.

  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

  How pitiful. He was running away from his life and God. God had never left him. He had left God. He wept.

  His anger abated, and he sat for a long time looking at the heavens and the piles of rocks.

  “I surrender all,” he said finally, echoing the words he had sung as a young student.

  Slowly, the mysterious presence that had followed him for days, maybe even for years, settled on him and engulfed him, wrapping around his tired shoulders like a shawl. Jake sank into the peace of God. He slept.

  Morning broke. The sun peeked over the horizon and glinted off the stones in the valley. He had known so much about God, but he had never known God . . . till now. Jacob walked through the valley and chose a large, solid stone. He carried it back and placed it on the spot where he had wept.

  “God,” he said, “from now on you will be my foundation, nothing else!”

  He found a smooth stone and placed it on the rock. “I’m resting on you, God. Not my job or Arthur, but you.”

  He found one more rock, a small, perfect, beautiful round stone, and placed it on top of the other two.

  “Thank you for June. You have given me my wife. If there’s any way possible, I will work it out. If not, I will let her go.”

  He looked out at the field of need and pain, thousands of small towers, representing thousands of needs. His heart was tendered by the stacks of stone, the need of people for hope. The need for someone to share hope.

  “I will go where you send me.”

  He remembered the psalm in the hotel room and his anger. A piece of paper in a seedy hotel room had brought him God’s word and reminded him he was not alone.

  He pulled out the bottle of pills. This was the place he had decided to end his life. Jake opened the bottle and poured the pills into his hand. He stared at the little, round white circles.

  “God, I surrender,” he said. “I give you my past.”

  He remembered his decision to become a minister, his seminary training, his ordination, and his call to Brownstone Church. He thought of the hurt he had experienced in his rejection from the church—his firing by Reverend Arthur.

  “I give you my present.”

  Jake thought about this trip and his choice to live. In one sweeping throw he hurled the pills out into the field.

  “I give you my future.”

  He thought of the many people who needed to hear about God’s love. He was being given a fresh start. He felt energized at the thought of sharing the truth of Christ’s love to those hurting and in need.

  Reverend Jake Ford lifted his arms toward heaven and declared, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

  He picked up his walking stick and turned toward a small village in the distance. He breathed the fresh morning air and realized that something was different. He wanted to live. He would call June as soon as possible and tell her everything.

  God was with him, and the rest of his life was ahead.

  MARRA GLANCED NERVOUSLY out the window of Johnny’s Tattoo Parlor. She felt vulnerable sitting in the metal chair, wrapped in a sheet worn soft from many launderings. The sheet was draped to one side, like a Roman toga, exposing her left arm and upper back. She pushed her chair further out of the line of sight of passersby on the street, although there was only one passerby that mattered. Lobo.

  This was a small shop in Barcelona near the docks, not a place he would likely look for her, but she couldn’t be sure. Lobo was smart, and he had a sixth sense about people.

  She shivered a little in the coolness of the room and reached for her scarf. She wrapped it around her small shoulders and took a deep breath. The smell of latex and astringent were familiar and comforting, but not enough to quell the fear rising within her—the fear of evil. Lobo’s own special brand of evil.

  Rock music blared from the speakers, and she could hear Johnny, the tattoo artist and shop owner, arguing on the phone in the back. Girl trouble, she thought. How well she understood. She touched the bruise on her cheek and remembered the pain of Lobo’s fist.

  “You want something to drink?” Johnny called.

  “No.”

  In Marra’s mind loomed a question, growing by the minute. It was a question she’d asked herself over and over during the past year—soon she would have the answer. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 9:15. She was to board the ship at 11:15. In two hours she would know the answer to her question: Could she leave Lobo? Could she really go through with it? Or would she hurry back, hopefully before he knew she was gone?

  Marra pushed away thoughts of Lobo. She wanted to think about her new tattoo. Choosing the right tattoo had always been a challenge, and it was one of the few things she did right in her life.

  She ran her hand over her right forearm, touching the design of a two-headed dragon exhaling flames up the side of her arm, smoke trailing behind—her first tattoo, representing her parents who had put her out on the street on her eighteenth birthday. She couldn’t tell anyone what she had experienced living with them—the pain and shame were too much to share, the scars too deep within. So, she had shown it on her body.

  Good ole Mom and Dad, she thought, looking at the two-headed monster.

  “Decided what you want?” Johnny called.

  “Not yet.”

  She looked at the walls surrounding her, covered with endless possibilities—cartoon characters and political figures, kittens and grizzly bears, zodiac signs, pin-up girls, hearts with banners that said Mom. Magazines and books with more designs covered the tables.

  The shop bell rang, and Marra jumped off her chair, whirling around to face the door and possibly Lobo. Instead, it was three giggling girls.

  “I think it’s soooo cool,” one said.

  “I vote for SpongeBob.”

  They giggled as they made their way to the wall. Then they caught sight of Marra with her jet-black hair pinned on top of her head and her powder-white skin covered in tattoos. Their eyes widened. One girl whispered to the others, and they laughed nervously, taking a wide arc around Marra.

  Marra sat back on the chair, this time vowing to be more alert and to keep a closer watch on the door. She’d need to be extra cautious. She took note of the back door and how she could get away if Lobo showed up.

  The three girls studied the tattoo possibilities, pointing and laughing.

  Marra stretched out her leg, and one graceful ankle came into view. A dark-green serpent twined around the ankle and up her calf. Her second tattoo. How could she tell anyone about her boss at the sandwich shop, the way he had touched her when the customers were gone? He was a serpent.

  Her body was covered with tattoos, with things unsaid. Something in her longed to speak, but the words could not form. Abuse victims lose their voice, she’d read in an article about trauma. It was true.

  Now she had another story to tell. Her life was changing again. She was leaving Lobo . . . maybe. Another girl had left him once. Marra had heard stories of how he had found her, of the ugly results of his rage. Marra had left him twice herself, but always ran back, even before he knew she was gone.

  What tattoo could tell the story of her life with Lobo? Nothing here could capture the darkness. She had been drawn in by his strength and power. The dark blue-black of his skin and the sculpted muscles that seemed to offer protection . . . at first. He seemed to have it all, and every girl wanted Lobo.

  She’d seen him first when he’d come into the Silver Bullet. He had seemed so beautiful. His dark skin had glowed in the incandescent light of the bar. She’d wondered at the glimmer of something dark hidden behind the black eyes. Marra had poured him a drink and watched his eyes assess her body. Why was she dra
wn to him?

  “You want anything else?” she had asked.

  “Yeah,” he’d answered in his deep, sultry voice, taking all of her in. When she’d left for the night, he had been waiting, and she had been with him ever since.

  Johnny emerged from the back. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said to Marra. He turned to the girls. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want Tweety Bird.”

  “Ray does a great Tweety Bird,” Johnny said, and he called to the back, “Ray.”

  Ray appeared and led the girls to the empty chair across the room.

  Johnny sat down and rolled his chair forward to Marra. His white T-shirt and jeans were clean and his hair neatly shaved into a Mohawk. A single tattoo, a small black cross, peeked out from his upper arm. Everyone said he was the best.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She liked his easy way and friendly eyes.

  “Hi.”

  She removed the scarf and let it fall to the back of the chair. She lowered her gaze.

  Johnny touched the jagged scar across her shoulder. “How’d you get that?”

  She didn’t flinch. “My old man did it.”

  Johnny let out a low whistle.

  “Some old man. You don’t still live with him?” He looked at her seriously.

  Marra shook her head. “I moved out when I was eighteen. That scar was from years ago. I was only five.”

  “Evil.”

  She nodded, unable to deny it about her own father.

  “Marra! Get out of the way.” Whack! Her father had slapped her across the back. “I said, get out of the way!” He pulled back and, with all his might, swung. She had dodged his fist but lost her balance and fell onto the glass coffee table, which broke and sliced into her shoulder.

  “Here.” Johnny showed her a T-shaped scar on his temple. “Here’s mine. Courtesy of my brother.”

  The corners of her mouth turned up. It was as much of a smile as she ever gave.

  “Yeah, evil.”

  “This one’s not old.” Johnny touched her cheek.

  Marra flushed deep red but could not talk. Johnny didn’t pursue it. He glanced at the form she had filled out.

  “Marra. Let’s see what you got.”

  Marra stretched out her arms. The paleness of her skin seemed so white in comparison to the jet-black ink that adorned her left wrist and forearm. The lace pattern formed a thick bracelet of fine interwoven lines, like gossamer threads, but distinct. Up the arm the pattern continued in graceful, black lacy swirls.

  Johnny nodded. “Nice. Delicate looking.”

  “That’s what I was going for.”

  The lace covering her left arm told of a coat of armor—the protection that she could not ask for.

  Eighteen, alone and on the streets, she had asked her guidance counselor for help. Instead of help, she got more abuse.

  She couldn’t tell Johnny that she’d lived with fear and evil most of her life and that she had been trying to quash the fear by slowly, piece by piece, tattooing her entire body.

  “What do you want this time?”

  “I’m leaving Barcelona tonight . . . maybe.” She paused, deciding how much to tell him. “Bartending on a cruise ship. I’m starting over, kind of. I think. I want a tattoo . . . to show where I am in my life.”

  The cruise would be a way to start again, leaving behind the hell of her own choices. Her relationship with Lobo had circled in a world of heroin use and crime. This morning, when she had complained about the drugs, Lobo had become angry. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’re nothing.” His fist surprised her, knocking her to the floor. “You hear me? You’re nothing!”

  His words confirmed what she had always known.

  When she had heard that the cruise ship was looking for bartenders, she hadn’t hesitated. Last night she had applied using her cell phone and got the call back within an hour. She looked again at the clock. Now it was 9:30. She had to avoid Lobo for another hour and forty-five minutes.

  A shiver of fear went down her spine. He would kill her if he knew. At least he might not find her here at Johnny’s . . . maybe. Lobo was smart. He always seemed to be a step ahead of everyone else. She shivered again.

  Johnny didn’t seem to notice. “Show me what you want and where you want it.”

  “Here.” She showed him one of the few clear places on her leg. “Can you do something here?”

  Johnny rolled closer on his stool. His touch on her skin was gentle. She thought of all the hurt that other touches had caused her, including the scar.

  “Sure. What design?” Johnny pointed to some possibilities on the wall. “I could do a ship and anchor, like that—to represent the cruise.”

  “No.”

  “Martini glass?”

  “No.”

  “Or an eagle with its wings spread out? New beginnings.”

  “No.”

  Marra wasn’t sure what she wanted this time. In the past it had been easy to choose tattoos to tell the stories of her life—the darkness, the pain. The tattoo of two black teardrops coming down from her eye were for Emmie, the friend she lost to heroin. The fireballs on her back were when she had been burned by an angry lover. And so on, until the tattoos began to overlap and there was little skin left unmarked.

  Some tattoos she got just because she liked the pain. When she was getting a tattoo, the pain took over. It descended like a blanket, smothering out the memories and thoughts that haunted her and filling the emptiness inside.

  Now Marra was ready for something different. This time the design had to be right.

  “I’ll go with the chain.” She pointed to links of chain on the wall. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted, but it seemed a good choice. She had been in bondage so long that it was almost physical. “Can you make it wrap all the way around?”

  “Yeah. Good idea.”

  He began to get out his things. He showed her the sterile packs of needles and got out his tattoo gun.

  She looked at the chain and thought how tired she was of fear and pain and evil. Would she have to run forever? How could she break the chains?

  Her eyes wandered across the room to the bulletin board covered with pictures of happy clients displaying ships and yin-yangs. One sheet of paper stood out from the rest.

  “Psalm 23,” she read. “What’s that doing up there?”

  The paper had been crumpled but was smoothed out now. It was covered with the carefully printed words of the psalm.

  Johnny shrugged, “I was walking down a sidewalk in London when it just fell out of the sky.” Her brow wrinkled. “Okay, someone threw it out of a hotel window. I thought it might make a good tattoo. The verses and all. People like stuff like that.”

  He got up. “I’ve got to get the chain pattern from the file.” He headed to the back room.

  While he was gone, Marra took the psalm from the board and scanned the words.

  “ ‘I will fear no evil,’ ” she read out loud, then laughed. “I’ve feared evil all my life.” She read the next line. “ ‘For you are with me.’ ”

  It was a hard thought. Was God with her during those dark times? She had never thought about God. Was it possible that there was a God? She wished it could be true. Was God good? If only it could be so.

  Up until now she did not believe in God. It was easier that way—one less person in the world to let her down.

  Marra stared at the psalm. I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

  The door jingled. Fear and panic grabbed her chest like a vise as she imagined Lobo’s dark eyes glaring and him yelling, “You’re nothing!” But it was only the girls leaving. Marra didn’t want this kind of fear anymore. There had to be something different.

  The words of the psalm were copied by hand; it looked like a woman’s writing. She wondered about the woman who had written the words and the faith that she must have had to print them so carefully.

  There was a tenderness in the thought. Help me believe, too, M
arra thought, and she realized that she was praying. She smiled at the thought that she was praying to a God that she did not believe existed.

  “Okay,” she acknowledged to the empty room. The corners of her mouth turned up again. “I believe that you exist.”

  The prayer was a start, and in an odd way it made her feel calmer. She let out a deep breath and sat in a quiet moment, looking at the paper.

  Johnny came back, sat, and rolled the chair forward. He held the chain pattern up to her skin.

  “I think I can probably get eight, maybe ten links on there.”

  “Wait.”

  Johnny rolled back. “You change your mind?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s okay. You can come back another time.”

  “No, I think I want to try something different. I’ve had enough of chains and stuff.”

  “We got plenty more. We could get out the catalogs.”

  “No, I want this.” She held out the paper.

  “The psalm?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of it?”

  “No. That line, there. ‘I will fear no evil, for you are with me.’ ”

  Johnny nodded, studying the words.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. A scroll with the words inside on two lines. With letters that aren’t too ornate. You want to be able to read it.” He smiled broadly. “I like it!”

  She gave him a small smile, a little bigger this time.

  “I like it, too.” And suddenly she did. She longed for the God who would take away her fear by His very presence.

  “Can you put it here?” She showed him a new location.

  “Interesting choice,” he said. He ran his fingers over the area and studied it closely. Then he nodded.

  “Not easy, but I can do it.”

  He drew the pattern, and she nodded her approval.

  He gently shaved the area to prepare the skin. The antiseptic gel was cold and soothing. He pressed the pattern on the damp area and pulled it off to leave the image of the words behind.

  Johnny began working, taking his time with each letter. Marra watched in the mirror. She could see the needles tapping, doing their job. The work was slow, and Johnny took his time. The tattoo took shape.