Solomon's Porch

by Wid Bastian

  Formerly each had lived a selfish existence, seeking only to satisfy their passions. In their ignorance, they believed sin was liberating, but after they were called, they discovered that total surrender to God is, paradoxically, the ultimate form of human freedom. What happened in this world no longer controlled them as it once did. Now they had no need to impress anyone, to be anywhere, or to do anything. No more egos, no more vain lusts. They had been set free in a way unimaginable to natural men. They remained incarcerated of their own free will. God wanted them at Parkersboro, so they stayed. The minute He told them to go, they’d be gone. That the United States Government still believed they were prisoners was a detail of little importance to them.

  “I know those guys,” Saul said, looking down the corridor as the two newcomers emerged from the camp offices.

  “Yep, me too, Mr. Pete,” Malik agreed.

  “Let me guess, these two gentlemen are part of the prayer circle you both saw standing on the porch in your dreams, two more of the seven?”

  “Yes,” they answered in unison.

  “‘Bout time,” Peter replied.

  December had casually strolled into April. Winter had passed by uneventfully, or at least without extremes, but now the men were ready for action, primed to respond to a call to duty.

  About an hour later, roughly the time it takes to go through a Parkersboro initiation tour, one of the new inmates walked onto the porch.

  He carried himself confidently, almost cocky, and acted as if he were greeting old friends, which in a very real way he was.

  “No doubt about it, you must be Panos Kallistos,” the man said while extending his hand. “And I don’t know either of your names, but I know that you both belong here.”

  “You have me at a loss, sir,” Peter acknowledged. “You know my name, but I didn’t catch yours.”

  “Kenneth Robert Simpson. My friends call me Kenny. The Justice Department calls me a ‘leach,’ a pariah that ‘feeds off of society and steals from his friends.’ How did they put it exactly in my pre-sentence report? I remember, ‘Mr. Simpson has no concern for anyone but himself and flaunts the law at every opportunity.’”

  “Sounds like you’ll fit right in,” Peter said, amused by the banter. “We don’t care what the Feds have to say about you, but who do you say that you are?”

  “Me, well, I have been crucified with Christ, so it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

  “That’s not very original, Mr. Simpson,” Peter said, happy to play along.

  “Damn! Caught again! I confess, it was St. Paul who first said that in a letter to the church in Galatia. Chapter two, verse twenty, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You’re not.”

  Peter would soon learn that when it came to quoting scripture from memory, Kenny Simpson was in a class by himself.

  “Had any interesting dreams lately?” Saul asked Kenny.

  “Oh, a few. Keep having one staring you three, Larry and two guys I don’t see here yet. We pray a lot and tend to emit flames from the tops of our skulls. Sound familiar?”

  “Ever met a man named Gabriel?” Peter asked.

  “Funny you should mention him,” Kenny answered. “Saw him last night. Told me to tell you that he remembers the prisoners as if chained with them.”

  “Hebrews chapter thirteen, verse three,” Peter replied.

  “I can see that I have a rival to my title as the ‘One most knowledgeable in the Word.’ Everything is true! Gabriel was right, you surely are God’s anointed messenger. I need to sit down, please.”

  Looking a bit peaked, Kenny managed to stumble into a seat on the bench.

  “Forgive me, gentlemen. This is all more than a little overwhelming. You men need to know that I’ve spent most of the last thirty years of my life preaching God’s Word, yet not truly believing. I thought it was all a game. To me the Gospel was nothing more than a ‘means of gain,’ if I may be allowed to quote St. Paul again. I’m afraid, my friends, that you have fallen in with the worst of sinners, a con man who used God’s name to exploit people.”

  Malik brought Kenny a cola from the vending machine. The caffeine burst seemed to pick him back up, and after a few minutes of small talk Kenny was ready to share his testimony with his brothers.

  “Back in the early seventies I graduated from Duke with a degree in business. Truth be told, my sheepskin should have read, ‘Bachelor of Science in Partying.’ Man, those were the days, a bag of weed, a keg of beer, and fifty of your best friends. Life was good, worries few. My flat feet and severe myopia, along with my student deferments, kept me out of the running for a body bag.”

  “That sounds vaguely familiar,” Saul said, thinking of his own history. “I remember those days well.”

  “Trouble was in ’73 it all ended,” Kenny explained. “Went through this little drama called graduation. Evidently after this blessed event, I was expected to go out into the world and make something of myself. For some reason I never saw that one coming.” Kenny’s smart aleck delivery was laced with self-deprecating humor and presented with panache. His style was disarming, amiable.

  Before Kenny had the chance to detail his dance with the devil, Peter could already see how powerful the man’s charisma was, and how easily it could be used for evil.

  “So, surprise, a girl enters the picture. Sheila and I are busy having bong hits for breakfast one morning, this is right after I graduated, and she says to me, ‘Kenny, you should be a preacher.’ Right out of the blue, just as matter-of-fact as can be.

  “I say, you need another hit darlin’, maybe three, if you’re saying crazy s*** like that.”

  Catching himself, Kenny apologized.

  “My toilet mouth isn’t quite where it should be yet, men,” he said. “I’m working on it. Forgive me.”

  “We understand, brother. We’ll pray about it later. Don’t let it slow you down. Continue, please.” Peter was never one to let form impede substance.

  “I’ll never forget what happened next. Over the following four weeks, every Sunday, Sheila and I made the rounds in the Piedmont Triangle. We hit a charismatic in Raleigh, a fire breather in Durham, a holy roller in High Point. She’s taking notes like we are still in class. I’m laughing my a** off, getting loaded, and aping each pastor for Sheila in the car on the way to our next service.”

  “You know what she says to me at the end of that first month, July ’73?” Kenny asked.

  “Haven’t a clue,” Saul answered, assuming the role of the straight man.

  “She says to me, ‘Kenny, you have no idea how good you are. You’re a better preacher right now than any of these bums we’ve been studying.’”

  “Truth be told, God forgive me, from a purely stylistic point of view, my old gal was right. I have the gift. Always will. Wait until you guys hear me preach. If you like straight up, old fashioned, in your face, step on your toes, fire and brimstone laced, born-again booming there aren’t many better than me.”

  “Bet you put on quite the show,” Peter acknowledged, “but we don’t do shows here, Kenny. This is the real deal.”

  “Don’t I know it, Peter. Between Gabriel and the Lord I’ve been convicted not only of my own sin, but of the absolute reality of the Living God. Thought I might do a number or two just for you guys sometime, you know, show you how I used to knock ’em dead.”

  “We’ll pass on that one, Kenny,” Peter said, wanting it to be clear what was expected. “Our mission is all substance, very little style. Please don’t go off and preach on your own. Our message must always be consistent. We act on one accord at all times, or we do not act at all.”

  “You know what, Peter, I understand, I really do. Gabriel told me to be obedient to God’s messenger and that’s you. Don’t worry about me.”

  Softly, so that no one else could hear, Saul leaned over and whispered in Peter’s ear, “Do
worry about him.”

  Peter looked anxiously at Saul, who answered the unspoken question.

  “No, but they are all around. I think they sense weakness, an undisciplined spirit perhaps.”

  “What was that? Didn’t catch that,” Kenny asked, clearly annoyed by the private whispering during his recitation.

  “Nothing, Kenny, nothing. What happened after 1973?” Peter didn’t know yet exactly where Kenneth Simpson was spiritually. Until he was comfortable with Kenny’s abilities and stability he would be kept on a short leash for his, and everyone else’s, protection.

  “Probably best if I give you fellas the condensed version. I enroll at the Way of the Cross Seminary in Winston-Salem. Learn the Scriptures, the moves, the whole act. Takes me one year to finish a two year program. Sheila and I support ourselves by selling grass and running a liquor house.”

  “I’m ready to rock and roll by ’74. We find a small time revival preacher with tents and trucks and team up, travel all over the South. ‘Healing the well, saving the staff, and banking the cash.’ That was our modus operandi. Old Otto, that was his name, Otto Meeks. Have never had a better partner. Good God Almighty, he knew how to make the mullah! Otto was a money magnet.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Peter prayed aloud, nauseated by the crass vulgarity of using God to victimize other souls.

  “Oh, it gets worse, Peter. Much, much worse,” Kenny confessed. “God should have killed me long ago and sent me to hell. That I live and breathe today is a testimony to His grace.”

  “Luke chapter seven, verses thirty six through fifty,” Peter offered.

  “You couldn’t be more right, Peter. I am the same as that sinful woman whose sins, which were many, were forgiven. I too love much in return. I know what the Lord has done for me. To have mocked Him as callously as I have, for as long as I did, and now to be called by God’s holy angel to carry His message, to fight His battles? Who but God would be so merciful?”

  “Who indeed,” Peter agreed.

  Kenny moved on, undeterred by the interruption.

  “So, we bounce around for a few years. We make some decent money, but we blow it all on fast living. Sheila gets pregnant twice; both times she gets an abortion. Found out later one of those babies was Otto’s.”

  “Ah, but all good things must come to an end. Our little troop gets run out of Jackson, Mississippi in ’78. After a few complaints, one night the local sheriff decided to pay close attention to the act. He gets a hold of one of our plants, the people we set up to be “healed,” but were really paid lackeys, and makes the poor kid sign a statement saying that we’re all a bunch of criminals. When the police raided us a few days later the hidden microphones, phony blood, pills, twenty pounds of weed, and the porno tapes didn’t exactly make us look like children of God.”

  Saul, who no longer had the power to resist, burst out laughing. It became contagious and soon enough everyone was enjoying the joke. However outrageous, Kenny’s antics were amusing and he told his story very well.

  “Why isn’t it hard for me to visualize you in a tent with a p.a. system and a choir, slaying people in the Spirit and laying on the hands,” Saul said, still chuckling. “You are quite the character, Kenny.”

  “Know what? It is funny. I see the humor, but we did a great deal of real harm. Most of our marks were poor people and desperate for help. They believed, we took advantage. Remember how much righteous anger Christ showed toward the Pharisees? Abusing the trust people give you when you hold yourself out to be a man of God is no small sin.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, Kenny,” Peter added, “but remember that you are forgiven. You can’t be anything like that old person now, not if Gabriel and God have put you here with us. I’ve also found that it is tough to take advantage of someone who doesn’t open themselves up to it, consciously or unconsciously, at least to some degree. That in no way excuses your sin, but in the con game it often takes ‘two to tango,’ if you will.”

  “Sounds like you speak from experience, sir.”

  “I do. You are not the worst sinner amongst us, Kenny. Believe that.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it on that one, Peter,” Kenny said, seemingly reluctant to accept Peter’s assessment. After taking another sip of cola he returned to his saga.

  “Anyway, they threw us in the county jail. Not a good place to be in the late ’70’s, a Mississippi lockup, especially if you’re white. Otto and I got out four days later after a few beatings and a bail reduction hearing. Sheila wasn’t so lucky.”

  “What do you mean?” Saul asked.

  “She was raped in the lockup by three guards who took turns on her for over twelve hours. Poor girl was never the same after that. Lord in heaven forgive us! She died ten years later in an asylum back in Carolina, broken and alone.”

  The reminder that sin can have very ugly, physical consequences sobered the men back up. Suddenly there was nothing funny about Kenny’s past anymore.

  “Okay, then Otto and I split up. Sheila disappears, I go back to Raleigh. My parents were still living so I moved home. Never did go back to Jackson to answer those charges. Someone told me years later they were dropped. I have no idea why.”

  “Now mom is real pleased and impressed that her son has become a man of God. As I told the story, it was that terrible ogre Otto who lured me into his sordid scheme. I played the young innocent, a lamb led to the slaughter. After a few months of pious living and cosmetic repentance, I landed a job as an associate pastor at the First Calvary Baptist Church.”

  “The pay was a joke, something like fifteen grand a year if I remember right, but the fringe benefits were enormous. Right quick I was doing five or six of the church hotties, all married, I might add, and skimming the collection plate for an extra grand or so a month. Got back together with a couple of my old college pals and soon I was moving grass again too.”

  “Talk about your double life. How long before it all collapsed on you?” Peter marveled at Kenny’s ability to live in two worlds at the same time without obvious anguish. He recalled the mental torment he endured while trying to hide his lies and embezzling from his clients and his family. Such detachment is a gift. For evil this talent is abused and those, like Kenny, who are very good at it, are often labeled sociopaths and said to be devoid of a conscience. For good this same gift has enabled the exceptionally devout for two thousand years to be tortured, burned alive, or eaten by wild animals without fear or complaint for the sake and glory of Christ. All talent is a gift from God, thus the villain and the saint can be seen as two sides of the same coin, one using his gift for evil, the other for good.

  “Til ’83. Yep, I had almost five full years of bliss there, in Raleigh. Right about the same time Pastor Henderson caught on to my skimming, my little ‘surtax’ as I liked to call it, one of the good ladies in the church came up pregnant and claimed I was the father. The fact that I drove her to the clinic and paid for the abortion and then dropped her off back home drunker than a skunk didn’t exactly make me look innocent.”

  “Man, oh man. Mr. Pete, I swear. Never knew you white boys could do so much damage. Yes sir, Mr. Simpson, you left quite a trail, I can see that.” Malik, who never said much when the brothers were all together, was clearly impressed by Kenny’s matter-of-fact attitude and brazenness. Before he came to Parkersboro and interacted with Peter and Saul, Malik knew little about the world outside of the hood and the prison yard. Much to his surprise, the so-called “good people” could be every bit as mean and ugly as the rough crowd in the projects.

  “Since this is a confession of sorts, Malik, I must tell you that yes, I did leave quite the ‘trail,’ as you put it, and it only got worse as the years rolled by.”

  “About ’85 or so I ended up in Nashville. This time I figured I might as well skip the middleman, so I started my own church. Called it the Covenant of the Blood Ministries. I had a covenant alright, but it wasn’t with the blood of Christ. For ten years I milked that situ
ation for all it was worth. I was slicker by then, more experienced. Never got too big, didn’t want the attention. Attracted some wealthy folks into my flock. Did “deals” with them on the side, told them I was making “investments for the church.” The denouement came in ’96. Stole three hundred grand from the building fund, in cash. Changed my name, moved to Florida, bought a sailboat. Nobody looked for me for very long or very hard. When you embarrass rich people, sometimes they’re much happier when you just go away.”

  “As you might imagine, three hundred G’s doesn’t last that long, especially when you’re putting coke up your nose an ounce at a time, living large, and whoring. By ’98 I needed a new gig. That’s when we met.”

  “I’m sorry, have we met before today?” Peter was sure they hadn’t. He would never forget a man like Kenny.

  “No, not you, Peter. Gabriel. That’s when I met Gabriel.”

  “It was March 1998. I’d been up all night in Key West partying like a madman. Keep in mind, gentlemen, I’m fifty years old by this time, still trying to be seventeen, but nonetheless fifty. Drunker than a skunk and strung out on coke, I’m sitting in this funky little bar at three in the morning and in walks this dude.”

  “A white guy about thirty with light brown, curly hair,” Saul interjected.

  “That’s him. Never changes, does he? I’m sure you guys know him as well, or better, than I do.”

  “We’re all very well acquainted,” Peter confirmed.

  “Gabriel sits down next to me and starts shaking his head back and forth with this incredible look of disgust on his face. Makes it very apparent that he is not at all pleased with me.”

  “Being an idiot, and being wasted, I take exception. Say something real slick like, ‘Why don’t you go bother someone else, a***hole.’ Yeah, that’s exactly what I said.

  “Gabriel, what’s the best way to put it? He’s less than impressed. Starts speaking in Aramaic. I recognized the tongue from my time in the Seminary. Now I have no idea what he’s saying, but it’s unnerving me. I get up to leave. Let me rephrase. I try to get up to leave. Can’t move a muscle, like my butt is a piece of iron and the chair is a magnet.”