Brother Word

by Derek Jackson

  “But you’re going to see your father now, right?” she asked, wondering what she would do if he did start crying.

  Chance shook his head. “It’s not the same. Even though I was the one Nina’s mother made to be the outcast, people think of Pop as the outcast’s father. He ran a bait and tackle shop for years, but the business stopped when people stopped coming by. Now he barely even gets out of the house. And when he does, it’s only to hobble on down to the liquor store.”

  Now Lynn felt like the one about to cry. “Chance, you shouldn’t be going through this by yourself. Let me help you.”

  “Help me do what? What are you going to do? You know what it’s like to be me? You know what it’s like to go places and see sick people, have a burden to lay hands on them and see them healed? All the while you’re dying to have someone lay hands on you? How do you heal a broken heart? Can you answer that since you want to help so much? Maybe women know the answer better than men, because we’re taught to be tough and don’t show emotion, right? We’re supposed to let problems bounce off us like rubber. But all that macho talk is a lie—all I know is, I had a great life. Love, happiness . . .” He turned away from Lynn, back to facing the window.

  “But Chance, you can have a great life . . . again. I don’t know why you had to go through what you did, but neither did Job. You know the story—Job kept his faith and in the end God blessed him double for his trouble.”

  “Losing Nina was more than just trouble.”

  “But will you let me . . . uh, talk to you sometime? Or listen? I can just listen if you need an ear.”

  “You’re asking for my phone number?”

  “If you put it that way, yes. Yes, I suppose I am.”

  He shook his head as he looked around him, finally picking up a piece of scrap paper lying on the windowsill. He quickly scribbled ten digits on it and handed it over.

  THE SILVER STAR’S RETURN TRIP to Columbia was taking forever, at least in Lynn’s mind. She’d finally gotten her wish about knowing the mystery man’s identity, but it was like that proverb her mom had always told her as a child: “Be careful what you wish for.”

  “God, I don’t know what You had in mind here,” Lynn said, gazing out the same window Chance had been staring out a few hours earlier. With darkness settling over the landscape and her compartment’s reading light on, the window doubled as a reflecting glass.

  “I just wanted to know who this man was,” Lynn continued, praying to God in the best way she knew how—simply talking as if she were having a conversation with her best friend. For in many ways, that’s exactly what she was doing.

  “I prayed for someone with the faith to believe for my healing, and You answered my prayer with Chance. And I know it didn’t make sense for me to get a ticket and follow him onto the train, but what else was I supposed to do? And after he confided in me the incredible things he’s gone through, what am I supposed to do with that information?”

  Even as she asked the question, she heard the quiet answer from the Lord resonating in her spirit.

  Minister to him . . .

  “But God, how am I supposed to minister to him?” It was a strange question coming from the outreach director of one of the largest churches in the Carolinas. As a full-time minister, her community involvement included daily counseling of pregnant teenage girls, praying with gang members, ministering to people in halfway-house transitions, and helping unemployed people finding work. And that was merely community ministry, which came in addition to her administrative duties at Faith Community. She’d been faced with a number of hopeless situations, yet seen the Lord work miracles time after time.

  But through all the experiences in her ministry, she’d never encountered someone like Chance—a man possessing such a great gift and yet in such great need of help.

  “How am I supposed to minister to him, God?” she asked again, staring out the window but really staring at herself. She made a mental note to meet with Pastor Gentry—maybe as another man, he would know what to do.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS SPLASHED on the State’s front page, on the left column below the fold. The tagline underneath read, “Mystery Healing Man Captured on Videotape.” Travis had also wanted to be able to disclose the man’s name, but he hadn’t yet been able to uncover that information.

  The mystery man had paid cash during all the times he’d stopped by the diner (which meant no credit card trail), and his picture hadn’t turned up any matches at nearby motels or hotels. Travis theorized the man was from out of town; if he’d been a local, surely someone would have recognized his picture. But Travis wasn’t worried about discovering the man’s identity, since it was bound to come out sooner or later. The interest in the story was growing daily as several area churches announced they would be teaching on the subject of divine healing or holding special services for the sick.

  Travis’s stature was rising in the eyes of his fellow journalists as well. He was no longer thought of as a lazy reporter, since he had done all the legwork on a story now dominating the local news. He’d been approached by two colleagues, inquiring if they could do anything to help on the story, but had turned them away with a big smile. This was his byline. And Benny Dodson had been purposely avoiding him, not having anything to brag about. Benny had never had his name mentioned on the front page of the entire newspaper.

  The red light on his phone began blinking, something it had never done before at eight o’clock in the morning, and he picked it up on the second ring.

  “Everett speaking.”

  “Travis, what do you think you’re proving by getting a picture of this man in the paper?” He instantly recognized his sister’s voice.

  “Andrea, I’m just doing some follow-up reporting. The people of South Carolina need to know—”

  “Travis, I’ve heard your ‘the people need to know’ spiel. But what the people really need to know is that the Lord Jesus is the one deserving of the glory for all these miraculous healings. Your wild-goose-chase search for a man who’s only serving Christ is placing the attention on the wrong person.”

  Travis rolled his eyes and had a notion to hang up the phone. But he was already on Andrea’s bad side—why make it worse? And why wouldn’t Andrea just let him have his moment in the sun? Was it so hard for her to be happy about him becoming an important person in the local news scene?

  “Travis, did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, but what difference does it make? My only responsibility is to report the facts. And the fact is, this man was spotted several times at Five Points Diner, and I was lucky enough to get a picture of him. Since everyone’s talking about this guy, the editor deemed it important enough to place the picture on the front page.”

  “Well, another fact is that many area churches are now holding special healing services for the sick, Travis. Since you’re holding so strongly to this ‘reporting the facts’ shtick, you should come to one of these services. As a matter of fact, we’re going to the one at Faith Community Church on Sunday night. Consider yourself invited.”

  “Uh . . . I don’t know,” Travis began, racking his brain for an excuse.

  “Maynard’s flying in from Boston, too, since he wants to see Eddie walk and talk with his own eyes. And afterwards, we’re all going out to eat at Damon’s Clubhouse.”

  Travis bit down on his lower lip. His sister knew Damon’s was his weak spot. A stack of all-he-could-eat, honey-glazed ribs? And with big brother Maynard footing the bill, no less? An offer like that was not to be easily turned down.

  “I’ll have to . . . um, I’ll have to think about that . . . especially if Maynard’s flying in. But I could just meet y’all afterwards at Damon’s.”

  “No. This is important, Travis. Eddie is going to say a short speech at this service, and as his uncle, I think you should be there.”

  “So now you’re using both Eddie and a plate of ribs against me, huh? You’re killing me, Andrea.”

&
nbsp; “I’m doing no such thing. I’m giving you a chance to see your nephew speak in front of a crowd for the first time in his life. And I’m giving you a chance to see another side to this healing story.”

  “Oh yeah? And what side’s that?”

  “The side that . . . believes.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  PASTOR, DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?”

  Pastor Gentry looked up from his large study Bible and removed his reading glasses. “Sure.”

  Lynn walked inside the spacious office, which had been designed in much the same way as a corporate executive’s suite—plush, but understated. She was always amazed at the sheer volume of books, commentaries, and concordances lining the wall-to-wall mahogany bookshelves. She’d once thought Pastor Gentry couldn’t possibly have read all these books, and so she used to randomly select books from the shelves and ask what they were about. Without fail, however, her pastor had given an exhaustive description on the subject and content of each book. Lynn was still looking for a Christian book he’d neither read nor knew anything about.

  “What’s on your mind, Sister Lynn?”

  Lynn took a deep breath. Where to begin? She started by explaining how she had run into the mystery man at the train station, and then subsequently purchased a train ticket to Savannah to follow him. Emphasizing that some parts of her conversation with Chance had been confidential, she retold how situations from his past had contributed to his conflicting psyche.

  “That man has gone through a lot,” Pastor Gentry agreed after she was finished. “You know, when I accepted my call to the ministry, I’d heard about the trials and tribulations that ministers of the gospel have to endure, but experiencing them firsthand almost shook my faith completely. There were times I felt like closing up this Bible and forgetting about preaching. But the love of Christ constrained me, and I think Chance is experiencing the same thing. Even though he’s gone through a lot, he’s been blessed with a gift that he can’t ignore. To whom much is given, much is required.”

  “But shouldn’t all Christians be walking in the healing power of God to lay hands on the sick and see them recover? There’s a scripture that says as much.”

  “Mark 16:18,” Pastor Gentry said, nodding his head. “God has given gifts to the body of Christ, as it’s written in 1 Corinthians 12, and among those are the gift of healing. Some Christians are graced to operate more fully in one gift than another, but that’s what makes us all a body. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are many members, but one body. Chance is certainly not the only person who can lay hands on a sick person and by faith see God heal that person—throughout the history of the church, there have been some highly anointed faith healers.” He gestured to the bookshelf on his right. “Could you get that book for me? Right there—the blue hardback right there on the edge.”

  “God’s Generals,” Lynn read from the spine, pulling the book off the shelf. “Written by Roberts Liardon—I think I’ve heard of him.”

  “You’ve probably heard about many of those generals, too. Roberts Liardon received a mandate from God to preserve the heritage and history of many of the church’s great leaders.”

  Lynn pondered that statement for a moment. “You think Chance could be . . .”

  “A modern-day general?” Pastor Gentry leaned back in his chair. “With what you’ve described and the gifting he appears to operate in, it’s possible. You see, what you have to realize about truly anointed—and I mean truly anointed—people is that, in addition to their gift, they also have incredible flaws. Just take some of the generals in that book, for instance.

  “Many people consider William Seymour to be the catalyst of the Pentecostal movement in the twentieth century, based on how God used him in the Azusa Street revival. But though he was highly anointed, he was also blind in his left eye. John Alexander Dowie was a great healing apostle in the early days of his ministry, but he eventually became sidetracked from God’s plan for his life and he started believing he was the prophet Elijah. William Branham possessed an incredible healing gift, but was semiliterate, had very little Bible knowledge, and as such became a walking disaster concerning healing doctrine. At the height of John G. Lake’s ministry in the early 1900s in Spokane, Washington, so many people were healed under his ministry that the government declared Spokane the healthiest city in America. Yet his passion to see people healed was partly born out of seeing eight of his brothers and sisters killed by a strange digestive disease.”

  Gentry leaned even farther back in his chair and crossed his legs. “So you see, possessing a healing gift alone does not make a man immune to heartache, adversity, or controversy. In fact, I believe it does exactly the opposite.”

  “I agree. Chance seemed so . . . lost, so shaken up by the tragedy of losing his wife. I wish there was something I could do to help him, to minister to him.”

  “You know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder about your meeting him at the train station. The Bible says that our steps are ordered by the Lord. God may be up to something.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yes,” Pastor Gentry responded, nodding slowly. “Oh yes.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  RUSTON, LOUISIANA, situated seventy miles east of Shreveport and thirty-five miles south of the Arkansas border, was the only home Chance had ever known, which explained his mixed memories as he stepped off the Greyhound bus. It had only been two years since his exile, but those two years had felt like twice as long. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he headed south down Trenton Road, a path he’d walked countless times as a child. Nothing about the road—from the towering tree branches blocking highway signs, to the beer bottles and random paper debris littering the grassy shoulder, to the scent of freshly chopped firewood heavy in the air—had changed.

  He’d never imagined he would ever leave Ruston—and be forced to leave, at that. He knew the flavor and pulse of this town intimately, the way a veteran mechanic knows the varied sputters of a classic automobile. Not that there was a great deal to know—life here was slow and steady, with many of the twenty thousand or so residents well into their golden years. Louisiana Tech, the local college, helped infuse the town with a fresh supply of young people, but Chance always thought of the students as four-year tourists. The people who called Ruston home were the ones who’d always called it home—those whose families had land here, had grown up here, and would eventually depart from here to enter their final resting place.

  “Hiya!”

  Chance turned at the voice and waved back at the elderly man sitting in a rocking chair on a porch. He recognized him as Ol’ Man Rollie and recalled that Rollie was always out here on his porch, waving at passersby. Rollie hadn’t recognized him (the old man’s eyes, along with his hearing, had been bad for as long as Chance could remember), but Chance knew that if he stayed here long enough, somebody would recognize him sooner or later. He hadn’t wanted to return in the first place, but he really didn’t have a choice. He had to come back . . . for Pop.

  Bennett Howard had returned from Vietnam disabled and disillusioned by what the remainder of his life held for him. His left leg, decimated by shrapnel, had been amputated at the knee, and he had been shot three times, with two of the bullets still lodged inside him. Though he’d been awarded the Purple Heart for his service, Bennett Howard didn’t care about that. Chance had asked to see his pop’s medals once and had been answered with enough curses to shame a sea-weary sailor. Now the man lived to spend the rest of his days fishing out on the river, especially after Chance’s mother died. Who could blame him? Life had not been easy for Bennett, which only made the scandal surrounding Chance that much harder to deal with.

  The screen door was locked but the front door open when Chance finally walked up the steps to the house he’d called home as long as he could remember.

  “Pop!” He rapped on the screen. “Pop, you awake?”

  He waited for a few minutes, hearing nothing in
side.

  “Pop!”

  After another minute of silence, Chance stepped off the porch and walked around to the back of the house. He had once hidden a spare key behind the old air-conditioning unit in the backyard, and he wasn’t surprised to find it still there. He unlocked the back door and walked into the living room. The air smelled stale and sweaty; neither the air conditioner nor the fan had been used in weeks.

  “Pop! You in here?” He walked to the bedroom and opened the door. In addition to the stale, sweaty odor, a strong liquor scent attacked his nose. His pop lay facedown on the bed, his hands splayed out on both sides like a human airplane. Several empty beer and vodka bottles decorated the floor next to the bed.

  “Pop!”

  Chance rolled the old man over on his back, tilted his head forward and gently pressed on his father’s eyelids.

  “Pop!”

  “Ungghh . . .” Slowly coming to, Bennett started coughing and wheezing, spittle and foam flying from his mouth and dripping down the front of his T-shirt.

  “You messing with this stuff again?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Ungghh . . .”

  “Pop, wake up! You hear me?”

  Bennett groaned again. “Dat you, Chance? You back?”

  “Yeah, I’m back.”

  “For good? ’Cause Jucinda ain’t have no business spreadin’ that bull—”

  “Pop, I don’t know how long I’m back,” Chance interrupted, taking a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping his father’s mouth. “How much have you had to drink, Pop?”

  “Who you now, the liquor police? I ain’t had but a couple beers.”

  “You’ve had more than a couple of beers. A couple of beers ain’t nothing for you anymore. You’re just killing yourself, you know that?”