Intended for Harm

by C. S. Lakin

  Then he heard her—Rhonda’s cry and Mosey making a noise that sounded like whimpering.

  “My baby, my baby!” Mosey cried out, flinging his arms in the air, maybe ten feet away from where Joe hunched over. Joe choked on his next breath, saw a blur of people moving around him but seeing nothing but Rhonda on the sidewalk, her dress hiked up over her knees as she lay there, her head thrown back.

  Nadine screamed in loud hysteria into his ear, making it ring even more. She pushed off him and ran over to her daughter, calling out her name over and over. But Rhonda didn’t move, and when Joe rushed over, he saw blood pouring out holes in her gut onto her thin crepe blouse, the pink turning almost black, the blood spreading like ink on a wet page and Mosey’s gnarled hand moving in a frantic way, trying to figure out how he could fix this leak, but knowing he was unable and the stark truth of that fact breaking his heart.

  Joe grew still, the ringing morphing into a deep silence and he looked around at the chaos in the street and the people running and yelling and cars stopping and a crowd gathering but Joe hearing none of it, only the quiet beat of his heart.

  In the midst of the mayhem and anguish he waded through a strange sea of calm, came over to Rhonda and knelt at her side, Mosey and Nadine making room for him, their motions full of panic, their faces fearful and pained.

  Suddenly, as if in a memory—a memory of a dream you’d forgotten years ago but that rushes back to you in all clarity—Joseph felt a familiar, soothing sensation enter his head. He closed his eyes and reveled in the delight of the return of this featherlike touch he hadn’t had since he was five or six, so many years ago but he never forgot the inexplicable sensation of light filling his body, like liquid amber, oozing down from the top of his head, to his neck, his chest, like a warm ray of sunshine that streaks through a window on a cold day, erasing every last vestige of chill, a luxurious feeling.

  And with this light that traveled down his arms to his fingertips, making his hands thrum with energy, divine energy, came the piercing awareness of God with and within him, startling Joe with the realization that God had never left, had always been there, here, in him, ever close, Joe only pushing him away and not allowing God that place in his heart, the place he’d always inhabited, Joe forever thinking there was no room anymore in there for him.

  The thought almost made him laugh, and surely, as he knelt there grinning, placing his hands on Rhonda’s belly, the blood pulsing over his fingers the way they had that day he’d placed his hands on his dad’s leg—that moment so clear, as if it had happened just yesterday—Nadine and Mosey must have thought him mad.

  He closed his eyes, heard sirens coming from two different directions, muted and inconsequential, felt heat moving from his hands into Rhonda’s wounds, the skin puckering beneath his fingers and the feel of metal erupting under his palms. Four shots, four bullets, each one neatly spit out from her skin.

  Joe set the slugs on the ground, put his hands on her shoulders, drew in a breath as Rhonda drew one in too, together with him in synchronicity, her eyes fluttering open to meet his, and at that moment there was no one else on earth—only the two of them on the hot trash-choked sidewalk, the magnificent world spinning in all its beauty in the midst of ugliness and death, making Joe laugh for joy, reeling in his own salvation and redemption in conjunction with Rhonda’s.

  The world then intruded, and Joe heard Mosey talking at him. “Jay, Jay! What are you doing? Move back and let the paramedics get to her.”

  Joe reached over and picked up the bullet slugs, closed his fist around him, small little pieces of nothing. He stood and noticed an ambulance stopped in the middle of the street, two paramedics leaning over the obviously dead youth, the one who no doubt meant to kill someone in the car speeding by but whose errant bullets found a target in Rhonda’s stomach and chest on the opposite side of the street.

  Paramedics pushed past him and Joe stepped back out of the way. He felt otherworldly, glowing, the surge of energy now dissipating within his limbs but leaving a residue, a tingling, as if a small electrical current were firing his nerves. His heart filled with gratitude and humility, and tears flooded the wells of his eyes. He immersed himself in this joy, this heavenly favor, thanking and praising God in his heart, love mixed with relief, knowing Rhonda would live and God had chosen to save her. His heart overflowed with love for her too, an almost painful feeling, the thought unbearable that she might have died, that he might have knelt there watching her life ebb away and once more helpless, just as he’d been that day his mother died.

  In a flash, he remember the way God had spoken to him back then, not in words but Joe knowing the very words. That God had a plan to save Ben’s life. Ben’s—but not his mother’s. And Joe had not wanted to accept or believe it was God’s will his mother die, yet she did die, and he knew now that it must have served some divine purpose, although he would probably never know what. And here, God saw fit to save Rhonda, Joe also unknowing why and making no sense of how God worked but trusting him, believing maybe truly for the first time that God did intend good for all who loved him, even if humans could not make any sense of it at all.

  That was the crux of faith, he now understood. Trusting God.

  Regardless.

  Joe looked back over at Rhonda, who was sitting propped up against the building, the paramedics checking her over, Nadine glued to her side, refusing to relinquish room for them. Mosey hobbled over toward him, and Joe saw emotions flit across his old wrinkled face—relief, astonishment, confusion, awe.

  “Your hands . . .”

  Joe lifted them; he’d forgotten they were drenched in blood. He pulled off his T-shirt and wiped his hands with it and Mosey only whistled and shook his head.

  “You said you had a gift of healing . . .” Mosey began, then didn’t finish.

  Joe raised his eyebrows, nodded.

  “This gift . . . you’ve . . . done this before?” Mosey’s voice quavered.

  “It wasn’t me,” Joe protested. “I—”

  “No,” Mosey agreed. “It surely wasn’t you. “ He whistled again, looked back over at Rhonda, who seemed perfectly fine, although the paramedics were clearly perplexed by the four bullet holes in her blood-saturated blouse.

  Joe took Mosey’s hand, dropped the bullets into his palm. Mosey’s brown face lightened a few shades. “I’ve never seen such a sight, not in all my years.” He clicked his tongue over his teeth. “When you were leaning over Rhonda and I couldn’t see what you were doing, you lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  “I did?”

  Mosey nodded. “I expected to see the halo appear next.”

  Joe laughed, and it felt good to laugh, from a deep joyful place inside. He couldn’t recall laughing like that ever, not since his mother had died.

  “I don’t have a halo, Mosey. I’m just a sinner, like you.”

  “Hmph. A sinner with a gift.” He grew thoughtful, a look Joe had come to both love and dread in the old man. “I think you’re done stitching tents,” Mosey told him with a conclusive blink of his eyes.

  “Tents,” Joe said, trying to figure his meaning.

  “The apostle Paul, making tents until God told him to get a move on.”

  “And where am I supposed to go?” Joe asked, confused. He wanted nothing more than, at that moment, to stay exactly where he was.

  “To medical school, to become that doctor you dreamed of being.”

  Joe huffed. “This is my home now.”

  Mosey narrowed his eyes on him. “I’m sure that’s what Moses said to God, too, while living in Midian and God telling him it was time to fulfill his destiny.”

  “How am I supposed to go to med school? I have no money, all my records are in my former name, I can’t—”

  “Yep, you sound just like that whiny guy Moses. Ever occur to you that God had a reason for depositing you on my doorstep three years ago? My step and not some other folks’? Me—with a daughter who is in charge of admissions at USC and who can
singlehandedly, while blindfolded and cooking supper for twenty, get your transfer paperwork squared away and have you admitted with a full scholarship into college before you can say, ‘Lord, please send someone else’?”

  “That does kinda smack of God, I guess.”

  Mosey nodded, put an arm around Joe. They stood and watched Rhonda rise from the sidewalk like an apparition, whole and unhurt. Nadine turned and hurried over to Joe, leaving Rhonda to answer questions of the police officer who’d just arrived.

  “If you think the gossip’s been flying around church up till now, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” she said, her eyes full of wonder. “You wanna tell me what just happened back there?”

  “Isn’t it obvious, Nadine?” Mosey answered. “A miracle.”

  “I don’t suppose we can pretend it didn’t happen, just hush it up,” Joe said. “I really don’t want word going around that I’m some sort of miracle worker. It may have just been a one-time thing. It’s not anything I have any control over.”

  Nadine threw her arms around Joe, her tears of relief and happiness wetting his bare shoulder. “Now I know my daddy was right—that God sent an angel to us.”

  “I’m not—” Joe protested.

  “Hush,” Nadine answered in that firm voice she liked to use on the rowdy youngsters at church. “You’re Rhonda’s angel. At least today you are. Tell me, how ever can I begin to thank you?”

  Nadine looked so sincere and serious, Joe couldn’t help but bust out laughing again. “Okay,” he said, “since I’m on a roll . . .” He blew out a shaky breath. “I’d sure like to marry your daughter.”

  Nadine swung her purse at him again.

  “I’m serious!” he said.

  “I know it. Why’d you think I hit you with my purse?”

  Joe pouted as he watched Rhonda point in his direction and the policeman headed over.

  “Does that mean no?” Joe asked quickly, working it for the few seconds he had left.

  “It means it’s not my place to say. Ask her.” She nodded at her daughter, who sat with one of the paramedics drinking some water he’d given her. But Joe saw with relief the approval in Nadine’s expression.

  Joe met Rhonda’s eyes, eyes that seemed full of love. At least he hoped that was what he read there. He gave her a smile and when she smiled back he felt heaven smiling down on him, streaming radiant healing light and filling his heart with peace, a surefooted peace he’d never known in his entire life.

  The policeman stopped in front of Joe, frowned. “Your girlfriend there says you saved her life. I need to get a statement from you, from all of you. What you saw, any details about the car, the shooters.” He pursed his lips. “Any chance you can explain how her blouse is all bloody and riddled with bullet holes?”

  Joe shrugged. “The latest fashion?”

  The officer only shook his head, then proceeded to get their statements, Joe all the while basking in the shower of warm light in the heat of the August night.

  2001

  You Can Make It

  Oh, broken promises and shattered dreams

  No hope it seems

  Still I believe that I can make it

  By faith I am leading

  The King and I

  I will survive

  And I know I can make it

  I can make it

  Through the sun shining rain

  Make it through my sickness and pain

  Make it when they scandalize my name

  Make it just as long as the Lord is on my side

  Everything I know will be all right

  I can make, make it

  Out in the cold,

  No place to go

  Still there is hope

  Where the doors are closed

  That I, I can make it

  —Shirley Caesar

  “You two set a date yet?” Mosey asked Rhonda, who was showing off her diamond ring to some of her friends as they stood in the church parking lot, the service just ended and the sun soft and caressing—a perfect September day.

  Rhonda turned, walked over to her grandpa, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Don’t be in such a hurry to marry me off, Pappy. I want the wedding to be just right.”

  Jay came up beside them, Mosey so pleased, pleased with everything—Jay now going off to start college, become a doctor, and his granddaughter finally getting married, his only one and he sorely wanted to see a great-grandchild before his days on earth came to a close. Girls sure seemed to get married much older these days, not like when he was young and they were considered an old maid if they weren’t married by eighteen. Now they wanted careers and a chance to date a few guys, try them all on for size and see which one fit the best. But Mosey had no doubt about this union, a marriage surely made in heaven, soaked in God’s blessing. Not exactly who Mosey thought Rhonda would fall for, but there was no accounting for the ways of love. And those two truly loved each other with a fierce love.

  Jay put his arm around his fiancée. “The way she’s planning the wedding, it’ll be years before we have it all ready to go.”

  “Well, don’t wait too long,” Mosey said. “I want to be there in person—not watching from heaven.”

  “You will, Pappy,” Rhonda said.

  “You two will have to do some figuring on how to see each other now, what with Jay’s school schedule and your work. Medical school is going to demand a lot out of your boy.”

  Jay’s eyes shone as he looked at Rhonda. “Oh, we’ll make the time. I won’t be able to get through without seeing her at least . . . once a week . . .”

  Rhonda gasped and rolled her eyes. “Better be more often than that!”

  Jay laughed. “Mosey, we’re in it for the long haul.”

  “School or marriage?” he asked.

  “Both,” Jay answered, before Rhonda could elbow him.

  “So,” Mosey said, “you two heading over to the dorms now, to get him settled? When’s your first class?”

  “Tuesday.” Jay’s face grew sad. “I’m really going to miss being here. The best three years of my life.”

  “Boy,” Mosey replied, “you really need to get a life, if that’s the case.”

  “I am getting one—thanks to you. You saved my life, Mosey. In more than one way.”

  Mosey put his arm around Jay. “Now don’t get all sentimental on me; this old heart can’t take it. Besides, I’ll see you at church every Sunday. You can always come on my rounds with me afterwards, practice your bedside manner while I fix a few faucets.”

  “I’d like that,” Jay answered, grinning. “Well,” he said to Rhonda, “we should probably head out. Roland’s waiting with the truck.”

  “Bye, you two.” He grasped their hands. “You’ve made an old man very happy, very happy indeed.”

  Mosey watched the two walk out the lot, feeling the weight of his days lie heavy on his spirit. He reflected on his eighty-plus years, the trials he’d been through, like the war era where he saw too much loss of life, young life, and losing his wife to cancer going on twenty years now, and watching Nadine’s firstborn die not shortly after birth. So many heartaches, treks through the valley of sorrow. He thought about Jay, his brothers so jealous of him for whatever reason, feeling justified in throwing him off a freeway overpass, and leaving Jay hurting not just in body but in heart. The world was full of cruelties, yessir; been that way since the fall of man. Man’s inhumanity to man, as the Good Book put it.

  Then there were moments like this—the break in the gloomy clouds where God’s light shone down, reminding Mosey there were blessings in the storm, little reminders that God had a bigger plan, a salvation reserved in the heavens, imperishable and unfading. But the mercy was in being able to find joy now, here on earth, to be given the privilege of spreading just a little bit of God’s grace across the hurting world, Mosey grateful that God used him in that way, let him be his hands and feet, following the example set by a lowly carpenter of Galilee.

  By God’s grace h
e was a fix-it man, and it suited him fine. Maybe he could have gone off to school and become a great man, a doctor like Jay planned to be, but he’d never been given that dream, that ambition. He reflected on the moment when he’d stood on the sidewalk and saw Jay enwrapped in light, leaning over his Rhonda, the Holy Spirit pouring out of Jay’s hands, a miraculous healing taking place right in front of his eyes. Some folks with a gift like that would abuse it, would let the glory go to their head; no doubt that was why God rarely gave out such gifts to mere humans. And why God had put Jay through such a season of trial and a period of waiting. He figured God had great tasks in store for Jay, planned to use him in a mighty way. And Mosey hoped that Jay would find real peace and joy in his anointing.

  Yet, despite all those promising horizons, Mosey worried about Jay’s heart. Under that happiness lay a crack that could only be mended with God’s help, and Mosey feared that until Jay forgave his brothers and found the path to closure he might never be truly happy. Jay might go through his entire life broken, forever severed from his earthly father, wandering lost and orphaned in the midst of the Promised Land.

  Mosey knew Jay missed his father something terrible, even though the boy had never spoken of it. A boy needed his father—not just his heavenly father, although God did promise that if a person’s father abandoned him, God himself would take him up. But Jay’s father hadn’t been the one doing the abandoning, and Mosey could only imagine the pain that man carried each day, pain that he suffered needlessly. It wasn’t Mosey’s place—not at all—to rectify the situation. He’d promised to respect Jay’s decision and guard his secret. But he would not cease praying, as he had been doing since he’d heard Jay’s story, that Jay would find it in his heart to reveal himself to his father, to his brothers. He may have a divine gift to heal others, but Mosey knew truly that only through forgiveness would Jay find healing for himself.