Constantine went on to provide more detail about the fake Donald Summers, things he’d made up beyond the barebones sketch the Network had provided. He told Pantera that Summers had been an only child. His parents were dead, both dying the same year five years ago and that he missed them. He’d dated a secretary from the firm, but that had never gone anywhere. There were several others, but never a wife.
Indeed, these facts were taken from Constantine’s own life. Dead parents, no wife. He’d never found the woman of his dreams, just bedded whores on the Network payroll to satisfy his sexual needs. He’d been too busy with difficult and dangerous Network missions over the last ten years to cultivate much more than lust.
The rest of the Summers story had little relationship to his own. When he turned thirty, he continued as Summers, he began to feel as if his life had no purpose—no direction. His job was rote, serving to enrich clients through mutual funds or securities, about which he had become an expert. His life had become a grand bore rather than a grand adventure. In dark, lonely moments in his apartment, he had on more than one occasion considered suicide. In short, nothing seemed to matter anymore. He went to see a doctor and was given meds for depression. The doctor had convinced him to take a trip to Key West during the Christmas holidays.
Thus, Summers was ripe for the new, meaningful life that was the essence of Pantera’s message. Thus, it should not have been surprising that while on that Key West vacation, Summers found Pantera’s message to be a salve for his soul. The preacher’s message had resonated within and awakened him, easing his angst.
“Bottom line,” Constantine told Pantera, “I’m here because I need something that only you can provide.”
“What’s that, Donald?” Pantera asked.
Constantine looked up and smiled, now fully into his role as Donald Summers. “Salvation.”
“Now let me tell you about my life,” Pantera said. “Why I’m here, doing this.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is,” Pantera said. “You want to be sure, don’t you, that I’m the man you want to follow…the man who can guide you to salvation?”
Constantine shrugged, then said, “I think I already know that.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway,” Pantera responded. “After listening to what I have to say, you may change your mind.”
Constantine shrugged, silently agreeing to listen.
“First off,” Pantera began, “I’m a bastard.”
Constantine feigned surprise. He already knew this and certain other details that Pantera then related. His mother, Jane Smith—an intelligent, spirited woman—had raised him alone. They lived with his grandmother until he was about eleven; then, for some years after that, on a commune located on an abandoned and sprawling, hilly stretch of farmland not far from Watertown that belonged to the commune’s leader, a free spirit and former hippie named Gracie Paige. After the commune closed down, his mother moved them to a small apartment just outside Watertown. Aunt Gracie, as Pantera called her, moved in with them and cared for him while his mother worked long hours at a local diner.
“Gracie taught me some odd things about life,” Pantera told Constantine with a laugh. “Some of it fueled, perhaps, by a lifetime of smoking pot and dropping acid. Life was an illusion created by a secret ruling elite to make each of us subservient automatons. That sort of thing.
“And, of course,” he continued somewhat ominously, “there were visitors. Both at the commune and after.”
“Visitors?”
Pantera smiled and looked away, as if remembering something. Finally, he looked back at Constantine and said, “Yes, visitors. Emissaries from some mysterious group with ties going back to the Ebionites in the first century AD. These Ebionites believe, to this day, that Jesus was the Messiah come to overthrow the status quo and rule the world.
“At the time, I had no idea why they’d come…what they wanted, what any of it had to do with me. It was only years later that my mother told me that I was the reason they had come. They were watching me, monitoring my progress. They claimed that I was a descendent of Jesus, that his blood was my blood. They said I was to fulfill the scriptures, and that doing so was my birthright. They said I was the next Messiah.
“And they were right,” Pantera continued after a time. “I am the Messiah, the Savior of mankind. And so, last July, my mother and I agreed that I was ready. It was time to start my ministry.” Pantera was smiling now as he drew in a breath, adding, “It was time for me to save the world.”
Chapter Twelve
The Twelfth
Constantine didn’t think Pantera’s efforts to save the world had amounted to much so far after nine months of preaching. One hundred and fifty converts hardly constituted a revolution.
“Would you like to join us?” Pantera asked. “Help us save the world?”
“I have joined you,” Constantine said, smiling curiously. “I’m here. I’m handing over my car, donating my bank account. And I plan on liquidating my 401k first chance I get so I can donate that as well. I’ll be riding in one of the buses today.”
“No, not the buses,” Pantera said. “I want you to ride with me. In here. I think there’s more to you than those who ride the buses.”
“I…I don’t know what to say,” he said slowly. “I…just joined.”
“It doesn’t matter when you join,” Pantera told him. “It’s what you bring to the table. I see something in you, something deep. Like in the others I selected for my inner circle…Richard and Renata, Nick and Stu, and the rest. I see you can help us in doing what Jesus was unable to do, establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth.”
“And anyway,” Pantera went on, “my inner circle presently numbers eleven. I need a twelfth.” He smiled. “A messiah needs twelve disciples.”
Constantine looked down at the red-speckled Formica tabletop for a time. This seemed too good to be true—too easy. Still, he looked up, nodded, and said, “I accept. I’ll be your twelfth disciple.” Then, after another moment, he asked, “Now what?”
“Now, nothing,” Pantera said. “Now, you help us spread the Word of God, increase our numbers, expand our influence. Jonathan…he’s our computer geek in the other RV…he’s developing a website. We already have a Facebook page, and a Twitter account.” Pantera laughed. “He makes me tweet a new saying every day. He says all we need is something that we do or say to go viral.”
“Like what?”
Again, Pantera flashed that knowing, kindly smile. “A miracle. Maybe raising someone from the dead.”
Constantine shrugged, not sure whether Pantera was being facetious or serious and said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, shoot.”
“Those visitors you mentioned who came to see you and your mother, what proof did they have that you’re in the Jesus bloodline?”
“I don’t know,” Pantera responded slowly. “They never showed us any proof, far as I know. But my mother confirmed what they said, or at least, that’s what she told me. From her reading, mostly scholarly books on the life of Jesus written by college professors. Plus, there’s the Pantera name, same as Jesus’s supposed real father. Things like that.”
The preacher shrugged. “Or perhaps it’s all fantasy, wishful thinking. A delusion, nothing more.”
“Why don’t you mention it in your sermons?” Constantine asked curiously.
“Do I need to?” Pantera said. “It’s the message that counts, not the messenger. Even for Jesus, it was the message. Or it was, at first. But then, Paul of Tarsus, St. Paul, butted in, making Jesus the Son of God and morphing his message into something else, some bizarre myth.” He sighed. “Jesus’ original message got distorted because of Paul. It became, in essence, a fairy tale.”
In the next moment, Pantera added, “And plus, if it’s proved untrue and I’m discredited, that I’m not really descended from Jesus, the message would be discredited. I would be called a liar. So I can’t take the chance w
ithout more proof. Certain proof.”
“A DNA test, maybe?”
“That would do it, sure,” Pantera said with a shrug. “DNA confirmation that my genes are linked to Jesus. But I’m afraid getting that done may be impossible.”
Constantine knew, of course, that it had already been confirmed—the man was descended from Jesus. Being able to proclaim that as fact would certainly ratchet up Pantera’s gravitas to stratospheric heights, adding a new scary variable to the computations of the Network’s analysts.
“In which RV would you like me to ride?” Constantine asked after a moment.
“This one,” Pantera said. “I feel the need to keep you close.”
Constantine didn’t know what that meant, whether that was good or bad, and again feared that Pantera suspected him. The preacher seemed to have a keen sixth sense—an innate, uncanny, almost telepathic ability to know what made a person tick, what a person really was deep down.
Renata Singh quietly approached them from the back of the RV, moving to stand next to Pantera at the table.
“You should get to sleep,” she scolded as she stroked his head, confirming to Constantine in that gesture that she was his lover, his Mary Magdalene. “All these long nights. You’re wearing yourself out.”
He looked at Constantine and said, “Donald has joined us. Finally, our twelfth.”
Renata looked at Constantine and frowned. He wondered whether she might recognize something amiss about him, a statistical probability that he was a fraud. That he was not Donald Summers at all, but a Network operative come to take her place and sabotage Pantera’s quest to save the world.
The moment passed, and Renata stuck out a hand and said, “Welcome, Donald. God knows we can use all the help we can get.”
Constantine shook her hand and said, “Thanks. Glad to be here.”
By now, Pantera was sliding out of the booth. Before standing up, he reached over and grabbed Constantine’s left forearm.
“Get some sleep, Donald,” he said, nodding toward the front of the RV. “There’s an empty bunk forward. You need your rest. There’s still much work to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Twelve
At daybreak, Pantera sent Amato to the other RV to summon the rest of his inner circle for a meeting. As they crowded into Pantera’s RV, they frowned at the intruder, Constantine, seated next to their leader at the kitchen table.
“We all here?” Pantera looked at Amato, who nodded. “Before we begin,” he continued, “I want to introduce Donald Summers. He comes to us from the Chicago area.” He turned to Constantine. “Gurnee, right, Donald?”
“Yes, Gurnee,” Constantine said. “Halfway between Chicago and Waukegan.”
“Donald has agreed to become our twelfth disciple,” Pantera went on with a smile. “Our circle is now complete.”
The other eleven disciples greeted the news with brief nods or short smiles, but seemed leery of the new guy who had joined their quaint little group. Constantine wondered if they felt threatened by someone new competing for the Master’s attention. What would it do for team chemistry?
Pantera went around the room, introducing Constantine to the other eleven disciples of his inner circle. Some Constantine already knew—Renata Singh, Richard Avery, Nick Amato, and Stu Goldstein. The preacher had already mentioned Jonathan Walsh, the computer geek who was in charge of developing the ministry’s internet presence. Pantera had lured him away from a lucrative job as a programmer for a small but growing Albany, New York outfit that developed software for major businesses, law firms, defense agencies, and their contractors.
And then there were those members Constantine had only seen from a distance, hanging around the other RV. There was David Cantor, a social worker in his late twenties from Cleveland; a black guy with a rumpled frame and large, tired eyes. Miranda Siminski was a plain, twenty-something dental hygienist who had joined up as they were passing through Charlotte on the way down to Key West late last autumn. Mohammed Atti, a handsome and forever scowling thirty-five-year-old, was the son of a convenience store owner whose family had come to the United States from Yemen in the early nineteen nineties and settled in Lackawanna just south of Buffalo.
There was Ken Baker, blond-haired beach bum with a pleasant voice who played guitar and sang ballads and smiled a lot. He was a Yale dropout who had drifted down to Key West, where he sang at nightspots like Captain Tony’s and Sloppy Joe’s before hearing a couple of Pantera’s sermons. He’d become a follower at first, and then, as they started heading north, joined the inner circle upon Pantera’s invitation. Myra Kearns, an attractive, recently divorced real estate agent in her late thirties, had joined the caravan when it stopped for a couple of days in Sarasota.
“Last but not least,” Pantera continued, introducing Luke Morgan, a brawny, red-haired, good-looking general laborer in his late twenties who had kicked around various construction jobs in Florida over the last several years after dropping out of Florida State in his senior year.
With introductions out of the way, Pantera called the meeting to order as if they were the board of directors for some small company—which, in some sense, they were. What they were selling was Pantera’s message. They took in revenue in the course of doing so, by way of donations, and spent the money on expenses, like the RVs and buses as well as the food and drink that Pantera’s followers consumed. The enterprise was ultimately inspired by the ultimate business plan: saving the world.
“In light of last evening’s events,” Pantera said, “I think we need to break camp this morning and head north.”
“Yea, too many Christian rednecks down here,” Amato said with a laugh, and some of the others laughed as well.
“How far does the Master wish to go?” Mohammed asked with a humorless scowl.
Pantera shrugged. He opened an iPad on the kitchen table and tapped on the screen, calling up a map of Interstate 95 showing RV campgrounds and other recreational areas at or near the interstate’s exits along the entire East Coast. After a couple of minutes checking various campsites, Pantera nodded and looked at his inner circle.
“I think this one will do,” he said. “The Interstate Inn Campground in northern North Carolina.”
“How far is that?” Nick Amato asked.
“Two and half hours,” Pantera said. “The place has everything we need, including a bath house. And an inn with a hundred and sixteen units.” He scanned the twelve disciples of the inner circle until he found Goldstein. “We got enough money to rent the place out, Mister Goldstein?”
“Yeah, sure,” Goldstein said. “More than enough.”
“Call them up, then,” Pantera said. “See how many of our followers we can get into rooms. Have them clean up and sleep in beds for a few days. Take real showers. I don’t want to be seen as a bunch of smelly hippies.” He sighed. “So, any objections?” He looked around the RV. There were none. “Okay, next stop, the Interstate Inn Campground.”
“You gonna be preaching there?” Renata asked. “I mean, it’s rural, just like here. We need to reach more people if we’re ever gonna have an impact.”
“I thought that was a statistical given,” Pantera said with a smile.
“That’s the point about statistics, Cristos,” she said, and Constantine immediately noticed that she was the only one who thought to call him by his given name. “Nothing’s a given. It’s all probability.”
“Well, we’ve grown since you joined us, haven’t we, Renata?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “From twenty to a hundred and fifty. But that’s hardly a revolution.”
“Do we have to discuss this right now?” Amato asked. “We need to pack, get everyone moving, get on the road.”
“No, this needs discussion,” Pantera said. “Anyone else think that our mission moves too slowly?” He looked around at the faces of his inner circle. No one offered a response. “Why are we in a rush to do so anyway?” he asked, now looking straight at Renata. “What w
e’re trying to do can’t be done in a day, a week, a month, a year…maybe not even in a decade or a century. Our goal should be to plant the seeds of change and watch them grow. Some of them will not take root. But others, I think, will, and they will become a forest of change.”
Pantera smiled and looked with kind eyes first at Renata, who shrugged and nodded after a time, then at the others, as if they were children in a classroom.
“So all of you, be patient,” he went on. “Our mission is to offer a way to the Kingdom, not to impose it.”
Everyone sighed, seeming to accept Pantera’s patient approach. Spread the word, plant the seeds, and hope and pray that the new way of life being proposed would eventually take root and become accepted by the mass of humanity.
“All right, then,” Pantera said. “Let’s break camp.”
Chapter Fourteen
Baltimore
They spent four days at the Interstate Inn Campground. Each afternoon around four, Pantera drove into the small town of Weldon, a few miles from the campground, and preached. He was always accompanied by Singh, Amato, and Avery.
On the last day, Pantera asked Constantine to tag along, and he crowded into the backseat between Amato and Avery. The sermon was much like the one Constantine had witnessed at Waterboro, South Carolina. In his inimitable, charismatic style, Pantera told the audience that their present lives were an illusion based upon false beliefs that their parents, siblings, teachers, priests, friends, and the media had programmed them to accept. He told them they must renounce these false beliefs and embrace the new ones he espoused, based upon the sanctity of the human spirit. Such new beliefs would motivate them to do and think things that would improve the lives of their fellow man, enhance the survivability of the human species, and bring them closer to a comprehension of God and the cosmos. Only then, Pantera went on, could they attain a sense of genuine meaning and self-esteem in their lives; only then could they become authentic human beings capable of entering the Kingdom of God.
The Messiah Page 6
