As T. J.'s recovery progressed, Reverend Jimmy Witherspoon faced a dilemma. He had been a young minister twelve years earlier when the Miracle Board plucked him from his growing ministry in West Texas. They named him "Temporary Pastor" at The City of Miracles, moving him and his family into T. J.'s penthouse. While not the equal of The Chosen, he was carefully molded with speech and acting coaches until he could stand with the best. He may not have measured up to T. J.'s performance before he was stabbed, but he was at least in the same lineup with the finest that Sunday morning had to offer. It wasn't long before Reverend Witherspoon praised the Lord, cursed the devil and drove out demons as well as any man on television. He had ratings to prove it. As one year became two and two became twelve, he was still called the Temporary Pastor at The City of Miracles. Yet, he was the one who had substantially completed the vision of The Chosen. He began to think of it as his city, not that of the vegetable in the hospital bed.
He would have never admitted that early in his ministry he had prepared a proper eulogy for The Chosen, which he had polished each time that T. J. was pronounced clinically dead.
CHAPTER 4
The thoughts didn't come on like a runaway freight train on a downhill grade. Instead they began as tiny nagging worries that would pop up like balloons over a cartoon character's head. When they worked their way to the front of her mind, Lucy would try to shove them to the back and, hopefully, out of her consciousness.
Am I pregnant?
Is my period late?
When exactly did it last start?
The questions came at the oddest times—at the breakfast table, riding on the school bus, sitting in church. Most often they occurred just before she went to sleep at night and always when she awakened in the morning. At first it was easy to ignore them because Lucy had the prior counsel of her assembly of lunch table experts on sex and pregnancy. Besides, her periods were rarely regular. At the end of the second week after the rape, she anxiously awaited the start of her period.
Nothing happened.
As the weeks wore on Lucy began to consider the possibility of pregnancy. While she tried to convince herself that it wasn't possible, her mind stubbornly refused to dismiss the subject for longer than a few minutes. One night she woke up with her mother at the side of her bed.
"Child, whatever were you dreaming about? You were moaning, yelling and thrashing about. You woke the dog and I suspect half the neighborhood."
"I don't know, Mom. I'm all right now. I'll get back to sleep."
Her mother left the room. Lucy had lied. She wasn't all right. She was relieved that her mother could not interpret her screams. Her dream, as so many had been in recent weeks, replayed her struggle with Jason. In her dream, no matter how hard she tried she could not get Jason off her body or his erection out of her vagina. At the end of the fifth week, Lucy estimated that she was three weeks overdue. She argued with herself now, not about whether it had been a rape, but whether she was pregnant. Every morning she hoped that her period would start. When it didn't, it was usually lunchtime before she could concentrate. By the seventh week she could think of nothing else. She had seen pregnancy tests advertised on television, those commercials with the couple smiling when they got the result. Lucy decided it was time for one of those tests.
After the school bus dropped her at the corner, she walked four blocks to a drug store. Satisfying herself that nobody recognized her, she picked the cheapest test kit, paid for it, and stuffed it in the bottom of her backpack. She walked in her front door at four-thirty, pleased that the only sound was that of a rotary sander coming from the garage. Going to her room, she hid the test kit under clothes in the bottom dresser drawer.
Dinner was even quieter than usual that evening. Lucy volunteered nothing. Joanna noticed and attributed it to worry about an algebra test. Bo talked about some lawyer up in East Texas who just got a judgment of over two-hundred million dollars for a bunch of chemical workers who had been exposed to asbestos. The verdict had been the main topic of conversation at the plant that day. After dinner, Joanna and Lucy did the dishes and Lucy kissed her mom good night.
"I'm checking in early."
"You feeling all right, hon? You've hardly said a word since I got home."
"I'm okay. I just need to hit that algebra for a little while longer and then I'm going to try to get a good night's sleep before the test tomorrow."
When the house was quiet and her parents were asleep, Lucy opened the bottom dresser drawer and withdrew the kit. She tiptoed to the bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the light. The box contained a small cup, a device wrapped in cellophane that was about six inches long with a handle at one end, a hard brush-like device at the other and a small window in the middle. She followed the instructions. In two minutes she would learn if she was pregnant by looking at the lines that appeared in the window. She laid the test stick on the bathroom counter and filled the urine cup to the top. Next, she put the urine cup on the counter beside the stick and froze. Never in her young life had she been so petrified about performing such a simple task. With a shaking hand she reached out, picked up the stick and dipped the absorbent tip into the urine, counting slowly to five. Then, she laid the stick on the counter and waited, watching the bathroom clock for a full two minutes. After the second hand completed two rotations, she took a deep breath and looked at the stick. There was a pink line in the window. Her eyes widened with fear. Her heart raced. Her head throbbed. She was eight weeks pregnant. Sinking slowly to the floor, tears filled her eyes. Time passed and she didn't care.
CHAPTER 5
The next two weeks disappeared and Lucy never knew they were there. She went through the motions of her life. She got up, talked briefly to her mother, caught the school bus, attended classes, and went to choir practice and church. The only thing she remembered was passing Jason in the hall. He was always smiling and talking to a couple of friends. When he saw her, he quickly looked the other way.
It was when she woke up nauseated one morning that she realized that there was a clock ticking inside of her body and she had a decision to make. There were only two options, have the baby or get an abortion.
Before this had happened to her, she would never have considered an abortion. Everything in her upbringing shouted against it. Yet, if she told her mother, Joanna would condemn her to hell. Then, she would demand that Lucy have the baby and put it up for adoption. Having known two girls who had gotten pregnant and still attended school, Lucy couldn't face the gossip and whispers that would follow her. She would forever be branded as "one of those girls."
Lucy made the lonely decision to learn something about abortion and turned to the Internet. On the next Friday, after her parents left for the football game, she logged on to the computer. When the computer was ready, she paused, then slowly typed in the word: ABORTION. Shocked at the number of hits that appeared, she scrolled through them. There were pro-life sections, pro-choice, message boards, articles from women who had abortions and those who had chosen not to do so, scientific articles, sermons from priests, and lectures from philosophers. Only then did she realize the magnitude of the debate that was raging throughout the country. The idea that she would become the center of the debate could never have entered her mind.
She looked for something that would give her advice about her decision and spotted a site by Population Planning. Having seen a billboard with that name on it somewhere, she started there.
Population Planning had its roots in the segment of the environmental movement that feared a population explosion. A small group of hippies at Berkeley started it in the late fifties and it spread to college campuses throughout the country by the mid-sixties. They believed that people were going to over-populate the earth in a hundred years, causing famine, starvation and war. They urged birth control and limiting families to 1.6 children, a number that brought some kidding from their opponents, primarily the Catholic Church. Abortion was not on their agenda until 1973 when The United States
Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. With that decision, the leaders of Population Planning quickly saw abortion as the chance to jump-start their cause. The feminist movement joined them, seeing the right to abortion as a giant step in their equal rights agenda. Soon Population Planning centers around the country were performing legal abortions, thus becoming the primary target of the pro-life movement.
When she arrived at the section titled "What To Do If I Am Pregnant," she slowly began reading and thinking. It said that there is no right choice for every person. This was the first time she had ever seen or heard anything that suggested that abortion might be okay. The writer said that her choices were to have the baby and raise the child, to have the baby and place the child for adoption, or to terminate the pregnancy. Somehow, "terminating the pregnancy" sounded much nicer than "having an abortion." She read on and concentrated on a series of questions designed to help her decide which choice to make.
Which choice can I live with?
What are my spiritual and moral beliefs?
What is best for me in the long run?
What can I afford?
As she looked at the screen with these questions, Lucy pondered. How can I have a child? I'm just seventeen. My parents may throw me out of the house. I can't get a job to support myself, much less a baby. If I'm a mother, no boy will ever want to date me, much less marry me. How will I explain it to the members of the church? If I do have an abortion, it'll be over with soon. If I can do it in Houston, no one will ever have to know except me and God. What about God? What about the fires of Hell? Will I have wasted the rest of my life and given up any chance for Heaven? God is supposed to be a forgiving God. Can he forgive something like this? Is it murder? Is the baby alive? Will an abortion hurt? Will I miss school? How sick will I be afterwards? I wish I had someone to talk to.
The article encouraged her to find someone to help—her boyfriend, her best friend, her parents, her minister. She had already been down that path and hit a dead end. As a last resort, she saw that Population Planning offered counseling which they said would be absolutely confidential and gave an 800 number. She memorized it rather than risk writing it down. The last thing she read at the Population Planning site was a warning about "crisis pregnancy centers," which they claimed were anti-abortion. According to them such centers were not going to counsel her. Instead, they would try to frighten her away from abortion with films and lies about the emotional effects of the procedure.
She logged off the site and found another from a pregnancy crisis counseling center. Population Planning was right. The crisis center was definitely anti-abortion. Their site also made strong arguments that fit with how she had been raised and her religious beliefs. The author of this site talked about science and medicine: that there are two bodies in pregnancy; that the pre-born human beings cry, hiccup, dream, and urinate; that they have brainwaves and heartbeats; that they can kick and suck their thumbs; that they have hands and feet. As she read, Lucy carefully moved her hand to her stomach and felt around. No sign of life yet.
With a mind crammed full of confusing thoughts, Lucy logged off the computer. Soon she wandered out into the backyard. Like most yards in the neighborhood, it was small and surrounded by a six-foot fence. Her mother found time to grow a few flowers there and her dad planted a garden behind the garage, growing potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and tomatoes. Her favorite place was the old swing set, left over from her childhood days. Not a year went by that her parents didn't decide to throw it away or donate it to a charity. The next year it was still there and Lucy didn't mind. She did some of her best thinking while sitting on the little swing beside the trapeze bar, slowly rocking to and fro and dragging her feet on the ground. On this evening, the sky was filled with stars. She looked up at them, seeking an answer and asking for Divine guidance. If there was any answer from above, it must have been that it was her choice because she heard nothing else.
For several days she debated the decision that she had to make. With nowhere else to turn, she decided to seek advice from Population Planning. After school she searched the house, garage and backyard to make sure that her dad was not home. Satisfied the house was deserted, she sat at the kitchen counter and slowly dialed the number. It rang twice. As someone picked up on the other end, she lost her nerve and hung up. She stared at the phone and walked around the house a second time, pausing to look out the front window to make sure no one was coming.
Then she returned to the kitchen and dialed again. This time, she stayed on the line when someone answered.
"Population Planning, can I help you?" It was a woman's voice, pleasant, soft and friendly. Counselors, usually social workers, manned the telephones. Everyone who worked there believed in a woman's right to choose. They had to because they worked in the eye of a social and political storm. Not only was their work controversial, but they were reminded of the potential danger every day. They parked in a guarded lot across the street from the center. As they approached, they saw a two-story building surrounded by a six-foot wrought iron fence. Rooftop security cameras scanned each corner, positioned so that no one could get close without an image being recorded on videotape. Workers at the center often forgot about the importance of security until they walked through the one door that permitted access. Once there, they were confronted with an off-duty policeman and the most sophisticated metal detector available. While the officer was friendly and helpful, it was nearly impossible to walk through the metal detector without being reminded of the important reasons for security. When the war over abortion had escalated to violence years before, such centers had to adopt a bunker mentality. In Houston alone, they had to spend over one hundred thousand dollars to install the detector, bulletproof glass, security cameras and other devices to try to ensure the safety of the clinic's employees and their clients.
"I…uh…would like to talk to a counselor."
"My name is Sylvia. I can help you."
Lucy hesitated and finally said the words out loud. "I think I'm pregnant."
"Would you like to come to the center and talk? If you'll tell me your name, we can schedule an appointment," Sylvia said.
"My name is Lucy. I've already looked at the calendar and next week on Friday the teachers have a workday. Could I come in then?"
"That's fine, Lucy. Our address is 4432 Space Shuttle Drive in Houston. When you get here, ask for Sylvia."
"One more thing, ma'am, is there any charge?"
"There's no charge for counseling, but if you want a procedure done, the fee is three hundred and seventy-five dollars."
As Lucy put down the phone, she went to her closet and pulled a Mason jar from the top shelf. That's where she saved the proceeds from baby-sitting along with birthday and Christmas money. When she spread the money out on the bed and counted carefully, she had exactly $305.55. Next, she retrieved a large freezer bag from the kitchen, stuffed the money into it, and placed it on the top shelf of her closet next to the jar.
CHAPTER 6
Born in Fort Worth shortly after World War II, Thomas Jeremiah Luther was called T. J. He drifted through high school and graduated near the bottom of his class, his only distinction being voted the class clown during his senior year.
With a certain amount of charm and charisma, T. J. thought that he could make his way through life without ever breaking a sweat, and he soon discovered that the easy money was in what the police called the "character" world of hoodlums, pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. He fell into life on the underbelly of society and relished it. Starting as a small time drug dealer, it wasn't long before T. J. became hooked on his own products. To supplement his income, he robbed an occasional convenience store and passed hot checks. It was the trail of hot checks that eventually led the police to his flea bag apartment. He surrendered peacefully. None of the checks was over one hundred dollars, making them all misdemeanors. Without the benefit of a lawyer, T. J. quickly pled guilty to the check charges, preferring that the D. A. not paddle through the
backwaters of his brackish life. He agreed to eighteen months in the county jail, figuring good behavior would get him out in nine.
Prisoner # 214C53, according to the identity card with the Tarrant County jail, was the sum of these parts: Name: Thomas Jeremiah Luther; Weight: 157; Height: five feet, nine inches; Race: Caucasian; Complexion: Sallow; Date of Birth: April 18, 1946; Identifying Marks: tattoo of coiled serpent on right bicep. The photo in his folder revealed a man at nadir. His eyes were dead, more sad than sullen. His hair, sideburns and mustache were the trimmings of a nineteenth-century desperado, once gun metal black, now streaked with gray.
To ensure he got out as soon as possible, T. J. was a model prisoner, kissing the ass of anyone who wore a badge. "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," "Can I get you some coffee, sir?" "Here, sir, let me mop that hall, sir." "Can I help you pass out the dinner trays, sir?" While he didn't have an official "trustee" status, T. J. unofficially became one. His jail cell was opened in the morning and he didn't have to return to the iron cage until after the evening news.
Thinking the guards would look favorably on a prisoner that demonstrated worthwhile use of his time, he asked a social worker if he could purchase a sketch pad and colored pencils with his savings from the dollar a day he earned for his jailhouse duties. At first, his efforts wouldn't have placed in a third grade art show. After a few weeks, the guards started to comment, "Ain't bad," when they walked by. It wasn't long before they were posing for portraits to take to their wives and girlfriends.
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