The Third Step

by William Lobb

  Frankie just replied, “Listen, mister, I’m not confused. I know exactly what I believe and I don’t buy into any of this bullshit.” Don came back, “We’ve seen so many like you, right Tom? Just risking your soul to pride.”

  Frankie replied, “It’s not pride, and I’m pretty certain I was born without a soul, so you guys are wasting your time and breath on me.”

  Tom jumped into the conversation. “Everyone has a soul, Frankie, and I’m sorry, but I cannot let a lost soul alone. I need to try to help him. You, my friend, are lost. It’s my duty to help you, to pull you out of this spin before it’s too late.”

  The conversation went on from there, relentless. They talked to Frankie about Hell and damnation, about burning in Hell for eternity. They offered proof, biblical proof. Both came at him at the same time. Don would offer an argument and Tom would reinforce it before Frankie could get a word in.

  Finally, Frankie spoke, “Look, guys, I respect and admire your faith and conviction, but it’s not mine, it’s not for me. I’m trying to stay not drunk, I’m not even sure if I’ll ever be sober. I’m just trying to not do drugs, to be fucked up. I’m in a weak and confused state. It’s all I can do to simply get through these meetings. I’m not in any place to start embracing your beliefs, your God.”

  Don jumped right back in. “Frankie, your weakness and confusion are from the Devil. It’s the Devil himself that’s in you. Please, my friend, please pray with us. Let us show you what we know, what we know to be true. Let us call that demon from you. We can do it; we can do it today. You know the demon of which we speak, don’t you?”

  Frankie was a little stunned. His cynicism was breaking down. “You think you can rid me of the demon?” He felt sick and scared and confused and alone. He wanted to call home, to talk to Alexandrine, and Cora.

  A pretty young girl walked up to them, and then Payton also joined them. Payton grabbed Frankie’s arm, trying to pry him away from the other three. Frankie was listening, somewhat fascinated.

  Payton said, “Frankie, I promised Zara I’d bring you back right after the meeting. We’d better go.”

  Tom handed Frankie some papers and asked him to read them. Frankie took them and walked away with Payton.

  They walked down Royal Street and turned right on St. Peter’s, crossing Bourbon before heading back down to Zara’s. About the only conversation was Payton saying Frankie needed to get out and really see the sights of the city. “It’s a magical place, Frankie. You been here what, three or four weeks, and you’ve seen nothing but snake-worshipping crazy people, and the inside of gay bars, whorehouses, hospitals, and churches.”

  Frankie laughed and said, “From that list, it sounds a little like a party.” They both laughed and walked up the stairs to Zara’s.

  Frankie and Payton sat down on the sofa together. Zara walked into the room and gave Payton a slightly strange look. Payton unintentionally slid herself about six inches down and away from Frankie.

  Zara said, “So, I see you have some reading material. Is that from AA/NA?”

  Frankie said, “No, it’s from these two men I met after. Ministers at the church, but I’m not sure what to make of them or what they’re saying. I’ll tell you this, I will try anything to be free of that demon that lives inside me and ruins everything. He has ruined me.”

  Zara said, “Frankie, you’re in a bad place still emotionally. You are very fragile still, almost like a newborn child. Trying to become sober, trying to understand things that maybe you have avoided your entire life. I’m happy to see you considering a spiritual path, but please be careful”

  Frankie looked into her eyes and said, “You are frighteningly beautiful, even the girls here want you. It’s not just your sex, it’s you. You bring out in everyone the best possible feelings. You’re a lot like the old lady: a spiritual guide, a mix of everything good in all the traditions. Me, I’m the embodiment of my grandfather, your opposite, just as he was the old lady’s opposite. I’m weak, ruled by a tortuous demon. I’m of the earth while you are of the sky. You soar; I crawl. The old man and I are easily led and manipulated; we are weak while you are strong.

  “I don’t know or care what the method is, but I need to be free of this demon. Even now, even two weeks not drunk, he still sits there: waiting, smiling, and encouraging me back to the darkness. I want to live in the light, your light, Zara, the light of the old lady. I’m constantly pulled back down to and under the earth. I’m surprised you are opposed to me even just embracing the thought there might be a higher being and I would consider connecting to him.”

  Zara countered, “Frankie, I’m not opposed at all. I’m very happy. I want you to join me in a spiritual journey that will last, perhaps, a long lifetime. My concern is who you take your guidance from. Be careful; be wise. The truth you seek, the freedom you seek comes from within. Remember the words of the third step as you work the twelve steps—God as you understand him to be. Please embark on this journey, please let me walk it with you, but please seek the understanding your spirit needs. I’ll not say your soul yet, perhaps that has not yet been uncovered. But please remember the words of that step.

  “There are charlatans and snake oil salesmen out there. You are vulnerable. New Orleans would be the best place of any I can think of to find these types of men. Remember Frankie, me and my girls fuck those men and then they run back to their pulpits and speak against us and call us sinners. We are not the sin. The sin comes from their secret, hidden darkness. To the world they show their light, to me and my girls we see their true selves, their darkness”

  Frankie sat silently for a few seconds and then replied, “Zara, do you know anything of this demon who rules my life? He drives me, pushes me to do things I despise. He has made me hate myself and others. He’s made me kill and I know he’ll make me kill again. I can’t live with him. I can’t survive with him. These two men say they can rid me of my demon. I fear every day, drunk or not drunk, that I am becoming my grandfather. I’m becoming more angry and bitter and resentful until, after a time I’ll become him. I’ll become the demon and this miserable life will end and I will live on as a ghost. I need to be rid of this monster before I become him. My grandfather died and that night Hell opened up on Earth. Sometimes, I think he summoned the demon that has become me. I know I’m not sane; I’ve not been sane for a long, long time. I want to go find my sanity again. Why shouldn’t I let these men help me find my way home?”

  Zara didn’t answer. She let the subject drop. Frankie stayed up late that night, reading the material from Tom and Don. He read how he needed to be born again in Christ. How he needed to know Jesus, in his heart. He needed to be friends with Jesus. He needed to embrace the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and God as one. It was a tall order for someone who two days before would not set foot in a church.

  Frankie fell asleep on the couch. Payton joined Zara in the bedroom. They spoke softly and with concern about Frankie and this strange turn of events before they turned out the lights.

  He woke up early, about 6:30 a.m. It was still strange to Frankie to awaken and not feel like he was on the very edge of death. The shaking and violent vomiting were gone. He was still dizzy, but it seemed to be getting better. He reminded himself that all this healing was a process. He walked into Zara’s bedroom. He looked at Zara and Payton asleep on the bed. The sheets and blankets looked like a war had been fought on them. He smiled and thought about what he’d missed as he slept on the couch. He sat on the edge of the bed and took Zara’s hand.

  He said quietly, “I’ve got to go and meet those guys.” Zara sat up then and stood, totally nude. Frankie watched her as she moved around the room. She was magnificent nude. He found himself at a loss for words. She put on a robe and that made Frankie a little sad. He could look at her all day, every day. Her body was perfect; even the imperfections of her body that she was willing to point out, were simply perfect.

  She came bac
k to the bed, took his hand and said, “Let’s get some coffee and talk before you go.” They sat quietly on some bar stools in the small kitchen as the coffee perked. Neither one said much, as if they were gathering thoughts or preparing for a debate, if not war.

  When it was ready, they both got up and made their own coffee. Then, they turned and walked out into the cooling October air, still hot for a Yankee like Frankie, but cooler, and sat in some white wicker chairs around a white wicker table on the balcony. The third-floor balcony was white concrete with a black wrought iron railing and ornate scrolls in the steel. A person could sit there for hours in the morning shade and simply absorb the beauty, the madness, the absurdity and strange, twisted, and yet somehow perfect reality that was New Orleans.

  Zara looked out at the scene before her—the old narrow street, the voodoo shop, looking to the left and up the old New Orleans cemetery, the St. Louis Cemetery. She commented as she drank her coffee that they really ought to take a day and go explore the city together. Frankie just nodded and agreed that would be nice.

  Then he said, “Who and what exactly are we? I mean, what are we to each other? I feel like we met, we fucked, and then instantly we were some kind of strange, undefined couple. We barely know each other, but we are strangely close. We have a bond, but we barely speak. We haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other and now I feel I need to take this journey. I’m not going anywhere physically, but I need to take this journey and I worry it will take me away from you. I feel like I’m about to go down a rabbit hole, with no idea what I’ll find or who I’ll be when I return, but I have to find this God once and for all, or decide he, she, or it can’t be found and make peace with who and what I am.”

  Zara sipped on her coffee, lit a cigarette, and offered it to Frankie, then lit another of her own. She said, “I understand. I feel the same way about us. It’s a strange moment in my life. All relationships are moments; some moments are fleeting and joyful and brief and some are long and torturous. Some are simple, some complex. Some are inexplicable and right. That’s what this feels like. You need to take this journey to complete yourself. I have no expectation. I’ve told you what I think of some of these men, but you’re smart. I know you will go all-in, but at the end of this journey, you’ll have learned what you needed to learn.”

  With that, Frankie downed the last of his coffee, stood up, bent down to kiss her, and said, “I’ve got to go down to the church. Please tell Payton I’ll join her for the meeting this afternoon.”

  He walked back into the bedroom, picked up the papers from Don and Tom on the dresser and walked out the door. Zara sat quietly and sipped her coffee, letting the bittersweet flavor of coffee and chicory linger on her tongue. She lit another cigarette and wondered where all this would lead and who this strange, broken person was who had just now suddenly appeared right in the middle of her life and who was now filling a need neither one of them understood or even wanted to understand. The need was just there and commanded them to figure it out and deal with it.

  Frankie was never one to delve too deeply into the complexities of relationships. He just let things run their course until they ended. They always seemed to end. Sometimes loudly and explosively, like with Pam, sometimes just a slow and silent vanishing flame. Today, Frankie was out to become best friends with God, so he had no time for such things as a relationship with a complex woman.

  He walked down St. Peter’s Street, past the leather bar, crossing Jackson Square and on to the church. He walked in the office and Don and Tom were sitting there smiling. Don, the thinner, balding man with glasses, jumped up and extended his hand. His excitement was palpable. Tom was a little more subdued. Both were dressed in button-down shirts and cotton shorts and sneakers.

  Immediately Don said, “Come, let’s hold hands and pray.” Frankie stepped back, these guys didn’t fool around.

  Tom said, “We never know when we will be called home. It’s important to us that we bring you to the Lord.”

  Tom grabbed his right hand and Don the left and the two of them bowed their heads and Don began to speak. Frankie felt himself an uncomfortable observer, but he felt a deep need to play along. Something inside him was hoping for some moment when everything would fall together and make sense, when he’d have that moment and find his God.

  Don began to pray, “Heavenly Father, we humbly ask You to continue rescuing the lost from the domain of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of Your Son. You alone can draw and enable them. You alone can send Your Holy Spirit with the power to convict them of the sin in their life and their need to repent and believe in Your truth. The truth that Jesus is the only way to You, that He alone is the way, the truth and the life. Father, we ask you to forgive the sins of the lost. We come in Jesus’ name to demolish the strongholds in their minds that those sins have allowed. We come in the authority of Jesus’ name to overcome the power of the enemy in their lives, to ask You to bind evil spirits away from them in the name of Jesus and the blood of the Lamb through the word of our testimony.”

  Frankie could feel the grip of their hands on his tighten. He tightened his grip on them too. He sat there like a man desperately struggling to find something, almost drowning. In that moment, he felt himself failing. Once again, he couldn’t connect. He grew angry. He felt his grip on their hands tighten. He wanted to get up and run away. He sat in silence, feeling nothing. It reminded him of the same nothing he felt in church with the old lady and the times he went with Alexandrine. As his eyes closed, he thought of Betty, and Jones. He was suddenly homesick. Betty was a nice girl. She had made him happy for a time. The relationship with her was uncomplicated and unassuming. He missed uncomplicated. He missed Jones. He had to call Jones’ mom and give her Zara’s number. Maybe he’d say, “To hell with all of this” and get back out on the road with Mr. Jones. His mind seemed to go anywhere but to God and salvation.

  He could feel the other men let go of his hands. They all lifted their heads.

  Don said, “I felt something good when we were praying.” Tom agreed.

  They smiled at Frankie and Tom said, “Did you feel anything special, Frankie?”

  Frankie lied. “Yeah, I think I did, too.” He figured maybe it was just his first time trying. He’d get better at it.

  Don asked if he heard the part in the prayer about testimony. “You need to testify, Frankie. Stand up and tell people how God came into your life and saved you from certain death and a life devoid of God. Frankie, you need to testify, and we need to prepare you for baptism. We need to wash your sin away, Frankie, so you can be born again, a new creature in the Lord. Can’t you feel the power, the power in that prayer?”

  Frankie said he could, thinking at this point maybe he could just lie his way into Heaven. Don and Tom were masterful social engineers. They planted some seeds in Frankie and now all they had to do was sit back and watch them grow and flower. Frankie, always a soldier in anyone’s war, would be a fine soldier in the war to rescue souls from the Devil. Don and Tom were well pleased. They asked Frankie if he’d join them in some Bible study. Frankie agreed, not feeling he had much choice.

  They read a section of the book of Mark, a whole long section where it was repeated that Jesus was the Son of God. Frankie read that and said, “Yeah, I knew that. Cora told me that, over and over and over again.”

  They read another section that said essentially the same thing, and another and another. Frankie got confused at one point. He was reading along in his Bible, a newer and easier-to- read version than the one Don was reading from and Frankie asked, “Why are they all not the same? Some of the words are a little different and some are very different. How do we know which exactly are the Words of God?”

  Tom offered different versions and different interpretations of the same idea. Frankie asked, “If the words are different in three books, all claiming to be on the same subject, all published in the past fifty years, say
for argument’s sake, how much has changed over thousands of years? How do we know what’s really the Word of God and what is someone’s interpretation? Wouldn’t it anger God if someone interpreted His Word wrong?”

  Tom explained that King James was considered by himself and many others to be the definitive translation, but even the others remained true to the basic tenets. The modern translations affect no major doctrine. The deity of Christ, virgin birth, salvation by grace alone, all the teachings were still intact. Though certain passages were omitted or changed, the doctrines were not. That was the key that Tom and Don felt the urgency to pass onto Frankie. “You have to learn the major doctrines. You have to prepare yourself for the baptism. You must take your time and study and understand, but you also must hurry. There’s little time to waste.”

  Frankie said that talk scared him a little and Don said that was good, for Don felt Frankie’s soul was in imminent danger. Frankie didn’t bother to argue that he was pretty sure he was soulless, although what he felt, or actually didn’t feel during the morning prayer pretty solidly convinced him.

  He ended his first day as a born-again Christian more confused than when he started and, he admitted to himself, feeling possibly more broken. He thought about finding a bar, not hard to do in this city, and getting violently drunk. Nothing he’d been presented with made any sense or provided him any comfort. Don and Tom hugged Frankie and handed him some instructions, “Homework,” they laughed. Frankie was really torn between going to an AA meeting or going to go get drunk.