by Evie Rhodes
It was believed that some of the participants might have been from other countries. “It is believed,” they reported, “that some of them came from as far away as Africa.”
Black male serial killers were a rarity, and a foundation for these needed to be established.
They were piecing together fragmented descriptions from the few witnesses they had.
The police had lied, big-time. No human being would ever be charged in connection with those murders, except for Alonzo Morgan, for whom they had a real dead body to point to.
The story was nothing more than a scam to buy time and let the uproar die down. Every parent of every one of those children had been bought into silence—except one, who was never heard from or seen again.
Eventually, The Schomberg Center for Black Culture and Research was restored, from a construction standpoint at any rate. The documents were restored from the backups that had been held in vaults in Chase Bank. The reams and reams of blank pages were burned.
The room with all the portraits of the authors hanging in it, where the Harlem Writers’ Guild held their meetings, was restored to some semblance of what it looked like before Me’s destruction.
People could not handle what they had seen. They were not prepared to delve any further.
The story went away on the surface, though it had never gone away in people’s minds.
But just as they had been trained and conditioned to do, people believed what was convenient. They believed what they were told, what they saw and heard in the press, simply because that was the way it was.
That was the way it was in Harlem after fifty gifted and talented young black boys had been slain in a night, their blood drained from their bodies, their bodies broken up on the streets of Harlem, sunflower seeds stuffed in their throats, and the coveted sneakers removed from their feet.
That was just the way it was. The story, just like those boys, in time had expired—expired on the surface, anyway.
But it could never be extinguished from people’s souls.
56
When Tracie Burlingame had fallen, she had not fallen alone. With her the many little black babies had fallen, too. The family had been ready.
Leading the pack was Souljah Boy.
A council had been pulled together. It was made up of the ones to whom the existence of the Ancient Book of Prophecies had been whispered.
They had been summoned in the spirit to Anita Lily Mae Young’s apartment. They had witnessed the events that had taken place. They had been summoned for just that reason, just as it had been written.
When Tracie Burlingame descended through the layers of darkness, so had they, following her descent through layers upon layers of the earth. They were in a tight-knit circle.
They all held hands.
On the wings of eagles they followed the coffin that held Tracie trapped.
Just as Tracie was one step away from running out of oxygen, she heard the whispered words of Laura Peyton: “Just remember that the path to most things that are holy is fraught with many stumbling blocks along the way. Only you can know when you’ve reached holiness, Tracie, and you know that by your belief. Have faith.”
A tidal wave rose up in Tracie at the whispered words. She closed her eyes as calmness swept over her. She saw a part of her journey where she had been walking near a pool of crystal-clear water.
She had stood and watched as it dribbled through rocks that looked older than anything she had seen in her life. As she had watched, the water had turned into black, slimy mud. She had reached her hand down into the creek because she couldn’t believe that the crystal water had turned to mud.
When she stuck her hand in it and brought it before her face for inspection, she discovered a clear, crystal stream flowing through her fingers.
There was a reason she had seen that.
Her faith had almost faltered from fear. That fear had almost killed her—almost, but not quite.
Tracie realized that her dilemma was nothing more than an illusion, a mind game. There was no way she could be descending that far down into the earth, because that would mean she was descending into hell.
And there was only one man in the history of the world who had ever gone there and come back out alive, with the keys to heaven and hell.
There was also no way Jesus would let Satan bury her alive.
He only appeared to be getting away with it, because in her fear she believed he was doing it. So that meant that the demon bastard was still in Anita’s living room.
Tracie prayed, “Lord, give me the strength I need. I know that by the power of your holy blood I will complete what I was sent here to do.”
With those words, the family descended on the coffin. Souljah Boy unlatched the lock to the coffin. Tracie rose up and out. The coffin fell away. His was the first face she saw. He was smiling at her.
“Have faith, Tracie Burlingame. Have faith.”
Tracie gulped the newly found air. She touched his cheek as she momentarily glanced around at all the other council members. Souljah Boy was the youngest one in the group. He was the only one she recognized from the time they lived in. Praise Jesus for him!
Tracie threw her head back in the air. She closed her eyes. Then she tapped deep into the reservoir. She found herself standing in front of Me. He looked up from where he had been kneeling, in complete shock. Something was wrong.
“You’re dead,” he said.
“Only to the likes of you, Me,” Tracie told him.
Anita burst out in song.
She started singing, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!” She sang those same words over and over again.
Tracie looked inside Me and cried out in a loud voice, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to RELEASE them.” She stated this with extreme authority. Her voice never wavered.
And release them she did, through the almighty power of the Holy Ghost. She released them in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
They were released through the blood that had already been shed, and the price that had already been paid on a cross, long ago, on Calvary.
Last but certainly not least, through her faith, Tracie Burlingame unleashed the spirits that Me had been swallowing.
They began to break free and rise.
A stream of golden light lit their way. It streaked like a rainbow toward the sky. One by one they rose out of the shell of him; he could no longer contain them.
Me rolled around, agonized. He screeched. He howled. But it was to no avail. They were free. They were going home to their true resting spots, until the time should come.
Tracie looked at the rising souls. She saw Rashod. She didn’t see Randi, because Me had never swallowed his spirit. But she knew he was safe because she had seen him on her journey.
She had been allowed to see him through grace.
Rashod hesitated before her. A solitary tear slid down her face. She knew that he had to go. He would be released with the others.
Her throat tightened for a moment with tears, but finally she spoke, “Good-bye for now, Rashod.”
Rashod looked into her eyes. He blew her a kiss. And then he bowed low before her. “My mother, a princess in the spirit. Imagine that. You fought the good fight, Mommy. You fought the real destroyer, and you won. Not just for you but for all of us. I’m proud of you.”
It was all Tracie could do not to break down and cry. He smiled. Before Tracie could react, she received a gift in all its pureness.
Through Rashod’s faith he had made one request. That request was that he wanted to touch his mother— so she could feel him, feel his flesh, just one last time. And she had.
When Rashod threw his arms around Tracie, she felt him in the physical and spiritual, for one brief moment. She hugged him back tightly, loving the feel of him.
And then he pulled back from her grasp, knowing he must go with the others. He began to float upward, returning to his former state.
“Thank
you, Jesus,” Rashod whispered. “Thank you.”
He grabbed Ms. Virginia’s hand, and they ascended together. Tracie waved to Ms. Virginia. Ms. Virginia waved back.
“See,” Rashod said, “I told you, Ms. Virginia, we didn’t know everything.”
Ms. Virginia smiled. “And you were right, child. You were just so right.”
Hand in hand together, they made the journey as Tracie watched so many more go behind them, along with the little girl from Jersey, who gave Tracie a bright smile just before she sneezed. But she was no longer afraid. The child could feel the goodness of the Good Shepherd. He was there in the air.
When all the spirits that Me held had been released, a strong ray of light beamed down on the top of his bald head. His destruction was not a pretty sight to behold. He shriveled up into a mass of writhing worms under the heat of the light. Then the worms were drawn down into the bowels of the earth.
From Satan’s seat in hell he looked up. He beheld the light that was Jesus Christ, the Son of the living, eternal God. On sight of him, he knew that another of his victories had been short-circuited.
He disappeared because he could not stand before the sight of one so holy. And he trembled every step of the way as he took his leave. He could not stop Tracie Burlingame. She would live out her works, according to the magnificence of HIS HOLY WILL.
Tracie looked around and found that Anita’s apartment had been completely restored. If she had blinked, it could have just been a bad dream, but it wasn’t.
Just as Dre, Michael, and the presiding minister rose from their knees in the church, Tracie Burlingame rose from Anita’s couch. She walked toward the front door.
She was bathed in a stream of light.
She turned to look at Anita. Light shone from her eyes with great power and radiance.
“Changed. A new spirit I hold,” she said to Anita.
Anita couldn’t help it. She hugged her.
“Yes, child, I know. You sho do. Me, too.”
As Tracie turned to walk out the door, Anita said, “Tracie, you saw them fifty boys that was slain rise, too. Didn’t you?”
Tracie was touched in her spirit. Anita had known that Tracie hadn’t understood whether her sons were caught up in a mass murder, or whether the mass-murdered were caught up in the murders of her sons.
In the end they had all risen together, just as in life they had been caught up together. It no longer mattered in the scheme of things.
Tracie looked deep into Anita’s eyes.
As she did, her eyes flashed dark brown, hazel green, and finally settled on a bright, golden brown. Anita could see the rays of the sunrise in them.
“Yes, Ms. Young, I did. I saw them rise. Today I witnessed the mercy, grace, and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ!”
Anita nodded.
She watched as Tracie walked out the door. She noticed that the patchwork quilt was completely changed. It was just a silvery white, blowing in the wind, for all things had been fulfilled.
Something caught Anita’s eye, and she looked up to see that the invisible covering, which she had noticed on the quilt when Tracie had entered her apartment, was floating upward, heading toward the sun.
“What a mighty God we serve,” Anita said.
“Jesus Christ is Lord,” Tracie Burlingame replied as she passed through the door.
And as she walked the streets of Harlem, a different person, she let that simple fact be known, as people wondered and pondered about what had happened to her upon her sons’ murders.
By the time Tracie had resurfaced on the streets of Harlem, the police had not touched or questioned her. They didn’t want any part of her. Their stories had been decided; Tracie Burlingame could only muddy the waters.
As far as they were concerned, her sons were dead. They had the killer, albeit a dead killer. But still, they had him. End of story.
Tracie had witnessed and been a part of quite a different ending from the one they reported.
Twelve years later, Tracie Burlingame gave birth, at the age of fifty, to one healthy and bouncing baby boy, the child within whom the promise of a different generation would come forth.
During that time Tracie had also written a great many pages. She had written a legacy really: memoirs of hope, faith, and jubilance in the spirit.
But not one of those pages contained any writings regarding the Ancient Book of Prophecies.
The Ancient Book of Prophecies contained the secrets of many blacks and their roots the world over. It was the book from which the secret of Me, and how to destroy him, had been revealed to her—the book in which both Me and his leader, as well as the end of all things, had been summed up.
Nor had Tracie revealed that on the day the pages of the Holy Bible had flapped and turned of their own accord, for an instant in time she had been caught up in those pages. And she had felt the pain and persecution contained in them. She had also felt the holiness.
It was a love more powerful than she could ever have imagined on her own.
The Almighty, eternal living God and his Son Jesus Christ were love. They were love, pure and simple. The profoundness of it was something one did not experience in the natural world. You had to let go of the things that bound you in life. You had to be able to feel with your spirit, to feel with the very essence of yourself to connect to that knowledge.
You had to tap into your spiritual heart. There were two of them: the heart in the physical, the one that pumped blood; then the heart in the spiritual, the one that encased your soul.
Their glory was greater than mankind knew.
No, the Ancient Book of Prophecies she had not written about, because after all, the Ancient Book of Prophecies had not even been whispered about except among select, chosen people, let alone seen.
And as long as she lived, Tracie would always see the Holy Bible with its two burning flames shooting up staunchly on either side of it. At times she stopped by the House of Pentecost just so she could sit in the pew, watching the flames burn on the side of holiness.
She remembered the first time she had seen it and the old black minister whom she had asked, “Does your God dwell here?” He had told her that his God dwelled in many places. Tracie had discovered it to be true.
He had dwelled in some places where she had never expected to find him, yet there he was. He dwelled in the streets, in the projects, in the crack houses, in the prisons, in the homeless shelters, even in a mother’s womb.
His spirit had dwelled in her son Rashod when she had thought he was just another junkie. But Jesus had used him in a powerful way. While Rashod was getting high on the very drugs he craved, Jesus had held his hand.
He had imparted knowledge to him. He had sent him another junkie in the borough of Harlem, named Rozzie, to share some things with him, things that he would use to help clear a pathway for a new generation.
My Lord! Yes, he dwelled in many places.
Jesus had used Rashod to help her. He had given that boy strength and power. Jesus had not read Rashod’s outer condition. He had read the condition of his heart. Then he had stepped into the middle of what was evil and had used him to erect what was right and true.
Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ dwelled in many places. Some of them were not exactly where people expected to find him.
Tracie smiled to herself. He had shown up in a lot of her street stories, where there was complete chaos, desolation, and lack of hope. Yet he had shown up. He had been there.
If only people knew.
She could only hope to impart his presence to people so they could feel him. They would probably be surprised to know that she didn’t just deliberately place him there, as a writer. He just showed up. He dwelled in many places.
Later Tracie had discovered that the old black minister with the tar-black skin and silvery hair at the House of Pentecost had passed on during the time of her conversion.
Bless his soul, Lord.
The image of the Bible and its two burning flames
had always burned brightly in Tracie’s mind as she wrote stories, poetry, inspirational books, and songs that were published and made their way around the country and to other countries, to plant a seed of thought or a seedling of hope.
Stories that always expressed a road map to faith after people traveled down the many different roads that led them away most of the time. But in the end there was salvation for those who wanted it.
There was salvation for those who reached out to touch a single branch of it. If they touched a branch of it, they could connect to the true vine that was Jesus Christ.
Yes, Tracie Burlingame, unlike some who had gone before her, had learned how to use her gift. She wrote diligently as the spirit gave her guidance, to magnify the Almighty Lord, Jesus Christ.
She wanted people to know what he could do for them, just as he had done it for her. Before her experience she had never once touched pen to paper to write anything, except in her ledgers where she recorded her money.
One thing she knew for certain was that Jesus Christ could save anybody.
And he frequently did.
Tracie named her last-born son David Burlingame. The name David was in honor of the House of David, from which Christ had been born fifty-two generations after David’s existence.
When the child was a year old, Tracie, her new husband, Dre, Michael, Renee, Souljah Boy, and Anita all attended a small christening at the church, the House of Pentecost, for baby David.
Souljah Boy, or Daniel Thomas Caldwell as he had asked to be called at the christening, had been named the child’s godfather.
The boy was just adored by all.
When the preacher had sprinkled the holy water on little David Burlingame, the boy had opened his eyes. Reflected in them were two flames of fire. The preacher had drawn back in surprise, and yet they had all witnessed it.
Renee Santiago had been so touched by the event, she’d told Tracie she was taking a hiatus so she could experience life on a deeper level, hopefully one day to incorporate it into her own writing. She confessed to being tired of the commercial treadmill.