Solomon's Porch

by Wid Bastian

  Malik Graham had become such a mellow soul, full of love and compassion for all of God’s creation, that his brothers had almost forgotten that he once was, not so long ago, a violent predator with little respect for any life other than his own.

  “I agree, Mr. Graham, violent death is never pretty. In fact, in God’s eyes, there isn’t anything much uglier. There is no excuse, no justification for it, other than self-defense.”

  As Jose spoke, the disciples all marveled at how a career military officer could say such a thing, much less believe it.

  “Jose,” Peter asked. “I thought brothers weren’t supposed to serve in the same units in wartime, to prevent what you went through.”

  “True enough, sir. We were in different units. He was Army, I was a Marine. By pure coincidence we ended up in that nasty little valley at the same time.”

  “There are no coincidences, General Vargas,” Peter said.

  “I know that now, Panos. Didn’t at the time, didn’t at the time.” The General seemed to drift back to 1969 for a moment, as if just talking about Ramon forced him to relive his brother’s death, to endure images stored in his mind better left dormant.

  “About a week before he died, I received a letter from Ramon. When I first arrived in country we would write each other every two weeks or so, but his letters came less frequently over time. Found out later that’s when he started using heavily.”

  “I was aware from his letter that his unit might be in the same general area as mine. It was my plan to find him that very evening and to finagle a ride to wherever he was bivouacked and surprise him.”

  “So he had no idea you were there?” Kenny asked.

  “None. Couldn’t have. My platoon was supposed to be at least five clicks west. God put me there for a reason, but at the time, well, let’s just say I didn’t understand.”

  “I recognized Ramon’s voice when he started yelling. Never have been quite sure what he was saying. His buddies claim he was singing some Stones song. I’ll never know. What I do know is that it got him killed.”

  “Like you, Saul, Ramon was a rebel. By the time he turned eighteen, Ramon was no longer the obedient child. In fact, he was damn near uncontrollable. Back in the sixties, LSD and heroin were easy to find in Bakersfield, and Ramon had no problem getting the money he needed to buy drugs through stealing.

  “The police caught him several times, but it became serious for him in ’68. Ramon was looking at doing some hard time.”

  “Unless he enlisted,” Saul surmised.

  “Yes, you got it. It was Vietnam or jail for Ramon. That was the choice he was given, that he forced himself into really. His draft number was so high, he might never have been called otherwise.

  “As for myself, I wanted nothing more than to enlist. In my room at home, I had a calendar, on it I marked the days left until I turned eighteen. I knew on that day I’d be in the Marine recruiter’s office signing my enlistment papers.

  “Ramon thought our country was a hypocritical society whose basic purpose was to take advantage of the weak, like blacks and Chicanos, so that the rich could get richer. As with many other men I’ve met during my lifetime, gentlemen, Ramon used America’s flaws as an excuse to act like a fool, to ruin his life, and to discredit himself and his family.”

  This was a reality many of the disciples had lived and no one argued with Jose’s premise or his conclusion.

  “As for me, I loved America and the Corps. Everything about the military life fit my personality; the training, the discipline, the teamwork. While I’m not a violent man by nature, I learned to fight and kill and to do both highly effectively on command. My specialty was sniping. In my prime I could knock a hair off a fly’s butt at a thousand yards with the proper scope and rifle.”

  “After Ramon was killed, I kind of fell apart for awhile. I was already headed downhill. Seeing Ramon get shredded stripped away my last layer of humanity. The Corps offered me a discharge, even encouraged it, saying my parents deserved to have one son make it out of ‘Nam alive. They were right, of course they were right. But I wasn’t right.

  “Only nineteen at the time, I figured the best way to deal with my problems was to kill as many Vietnamese as possible, as if by doing so I could somehow get justice or payback for Ramon, or find happiness for myself. I refused the discharge. Instead, I became a predator, a murder machine without any conscience, a true servant of hell. After a while, my feelings about Ramon were irrelevant. I came to enjoy hunting and killing human beings, gentlemen. I got off on war.”

  “Know all about all those feelin’s too, Mr. Jose,” Malik related. “Been so mad and lost at times the only thin’ seemed to make any sense at all was hurtin’ somebody else. I thank the Lord everyday that He delivered me from that evil.”

  Jose nodded, glad that at least one of his brothers had shared some of his same struggles. Then he continued.

  “For the next nine months I unleashed hell on any Vietnamese that crossed my path, VC or friendly. Earned a couple of commendations, damn near got nominated for the CMH. I was wounded twice, once seriously.”

  Jose Vargas lifted his shirt. His left side, from armpit to waist, was one giant scar.

  “Took a glancing blow from an anti-personnel mine there, gentlemen. Ripped me all to hell, but didn’t clip any vital organs. I should be dead, but now I know the Lord had other plans for my life.”

  “It was after those first few months following Ramon’s death, February 1970 as I recall, that I first met him. I was on leave in Saigon, drinking heavily and whoring, trying my best to numb the pain. Me and a couple of buddies had just shared a Vietnamese girl, she couldn’t have been much older than fourteen, and then we beat the hell out of her for her trouble. In fact, we were laughing about it in the bar when he approached me.”

  General Vargas paused for a moment, while he remained calm and in control, his trembling hands revealed his inner turmoil.

  “My Lord,” Jose prayed, eyes now moist. “I know you have forgiven me, Lord, but bless those who I have made to suffer. Show them mercy Father, grant them peace.”

  Although they could not have known it at the time, Jose was sharing events and emotions with his brothers he had never fully revealed to another living soul. It was obvious that Jose deeply regretted many of the things he had done in his life, which was a condition common to all present.

  “I’m almost positive I know who you met, Jose,” Peter said, reassuringly touching Vargas’s shoulder, trying to offer some comfort. “But we are always amazed by the variety of roles he assumes.”

  Vargas gathered himself, straightened his posture, and sat at attention. His main defense against evil was self-discipline. He knew that he must focus and ignore his pain and fear if he was going to be able to finish bearing his testimony.

  “Back in ’70 I wasn’t even an officer yet, so when a full-bird Colonel walks up to you, whether you are in a bar, on base, or on the moon, you are supposed to stand and salute. I was so drunk I didn’t even realize he was there until I saw my buddies all standing chest out, shoulders back.”

  “The Colonel, who looked to be thirty something, with light brown, curly hair, dismisses the other men and sits down by me. He had this look about him, this vibe; somehow I knew right off this was no ordinary officer. Of course he wasn’t even a human being, much less an officer.”

  “Colonel Gabriel says to me ‘Rico,’ that’s a nickname only my mother called me, ‘you need to let God handle your pain. Give your problems to Him, let Him take vengeance. Rico,’ he says to me, ‘the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.’

  “Now, drunk or not, by instinct I defer to all higher ranking officers. So while I have no idea why this serious marine was preaching a sermon, I say ‘yes sir,’ nod and look him straight in the eye.

  ‘Rico,’ then he says, ‘do not patronize the Lord or His servant. Your orders come from God, not the Corps. I know you were paying attention when Carmela told you to put your faith in
God, not in man.’

  “Carmela was my mother. This was something she said often to me. She was always worried that the world would use my strength to lead me astray.

  “I was sobering up fast. I asked myself, how in the hell did this Colonel know who my mother was? Had I told anyone else alive about her admonition to me?

  “Before I had the chance to ask him how he knew my mother and a secret only she and I shared, he spoke something in a foreign tongue and then touched my hand.

  “Suddenly she was sitting there right in front of me.”

  “Who, Jose?” Kenny asked.

  “My mother. She looked ghastly; all sick and pallid. Life had been very hard on mom, and the years of backbreaking work and exposure to toxic chemicals had broken down her body. I didn’t know it then, but she was dying of liver cancer. She had been diagnosed with it right about when Ramon was killed, and she didn’t want to burden me with her suffering while I was in Nam, so she didn’t tell me.

  “I’m freaking out. ‘Mom! Mom!’ I shout. ‘How did you get here? What’s going on?’ She reaches over and touches my cheek like she always did, and smiles, and then puts her finger to her lips asking me to be quiet.

  “Then she says, ‘Rico, God loves you. He has a plan and a purpose for your life. Come to Him when He calls, Rico. Put your faith in God and not in man.’ Then she disappears. So does Gabriel. I’m left sitting there stupefied, wondering if I was losing my mind or maybe if someone had slipped me LSD or something.

  “A few hours later I’m finally able to get through to my family in Cali. My dad is just out of his mind with grief. ‘Your mom died this morning,’ he tells me.

  “Then he says he wants me to know that her last words were directed specifically to me. ‘It was like you were right here in the room with her, son,’ he says. Reading from the notes he took of mom’s dying declaration, he then repeats the exact statement, word for word, my mother made to me in the bar. It also wasn’t hard to figure out that I saw mom at the exact same time she died in California.”

  If Jose was expecting some awestruck reaction to his story he didn’t get it. Each of the disciples silently contemplated what they had heard and believed it without reservation. By now, nothing God did surprised them.

  “You know what, gentlemen, I never told my father about seeing mom in the bar or about Gabriel.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why not?” Peter asked.

  “I was afraid. Scared he might think I was crazy, or worse, weak. I have always believed in God, my mom and dad were devout Catholics, but I never really believed, ‘believed.’ You know, accepted as fact that the miracles and supernatural events in the New Testament were actually real, not just p.r.”

  “Don’t feel alone, Jose. I preached the word for a couple of decades, sure that it was all superstitious nonsense,” Kenny confessed.

  “I am so ashamed, gentlemen. I should have changed my life right then and there, repented and gotten right with the Lord. I mean I was given a miracle for hell’s sake, and still I was too proud, too hard headed, to believe.”

  “Reminds me of eleven other men, Mr. Vargas,” Peter said.

  “Who were they, sir?” Jose asked.

  “A few fellows from Galilee, saints all. They watched Christ raise the dead, exorcise demons, walk on water, disappear into the midst of crowds, and still when the Romans came to arrest Him, they fled. The man upon whom the Lord built His church, the rock, Cephas, he denied Him three times.”

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me, Panos? I’m to have an excuse for my sin? Comparing me to an Apostle seems, well, forgive me sir, a bit extreme.”

  Peter was beginning to understand that while General Jose Vargas had great faith and the calling, otherwise he would not be sitting with him now, he was still stuck in his sin, not yet ready or able to completely accept the cleansing power of God, to fully submit.

  “Whether you know it or not, Jose, you are no different than the Apostles. No better, certainly no worse. Nothing is troubling you that is not common to all men, and no, there is no excuse for sin, but there is forgiveness if you seek it.”

  “But Panos, you don’t know what I’ve done.” As Jose said this he looked down and slumped, at last losing his military posture. He sounded like a man defeated, not a warrior.

  Peter then also understood that they were listening to a confession that also happened to be a testimony. His newest disciple was desperate to unburden his soul, but his “old man” was dying hard.

  “You never confessed your sins to a priest, did you, Jose?” Peter surmised.

  “No,” was the answer. “I was too ashamed.”

  “Well, then now is the time, brother. I suspect it is well past the time,” Peter said, hoping for Jose’s sake that he would not waste the opportunity.

  Vargas stood, stretched, and looked around. His brothers knew, they could all sense and see it. A war was raging in Jose’s soul. At that very moment the devil was doing all he could to keep Jose from fully committing to the Lord.

  “Part of you wants to run?” Saul asked.

  “Honestly? Yes,” Jose answered.

  “Wondering how in the world you ended up here in a Federal prison camp with a bunch of convicts?” Kenny asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Considering the idea that we’re all a bunch of con men who have somehow tricked you into being a fool?” Larry asked.

  This time Jose did not answer.

  Saul then fell to his knees in silent prayer. The attention briefly shifted to him. When he was finished he opened his eyes, sat back down, and spoke.

  “The Lord has granted my request, Jose,” Saul told his struggling new friend. “For the next few minutes He has blessed you with my gift.”

  “What gift would that be, Mr. Cohen?”

  “The ability to see for yourself who is putting all these doubts and heresies in your mind.”

  Saul reached over and touched Jose’s arm. That’s when Peter and the disciples saw something that the Vietcong, the Iraqi insurgency, or any of the thousands of men Jose Enrique Vargas had commanded over his lifetime ever saw. The unconquerable General Vargas was suddenly paralyzed with fear.

  Jose’s main antagonist was an especially large and vile looking demon. He was surrounded by imps, too numerous to count, who were all chewing on something. Exactly what, Jose could not tell.

  Vargas was in shock. He had never seen such creatures, or truly believed they could exist, imagining demons to be the fantasies of overzealous or delusional men. This beast, though, was very real. He could also speak.

  “So, you stupid son of a b****, you can finally see me. Think you can beat me now? You are only a worthless ape, Vargas, a toy for me to play with and dump on when I’m through.”

  In the beast’s hands were weapons: automatic rifles, grenades, spears, and clubs. The assortment was endless and kept changing by the second. His image seemed to flux, to get weaker, then stronger, pulsing like a strobe.

  “Who are you?” Jose asked, trembling so violently he thought he might shake himself apart.

  “Why, I’m you. What a stupid question, Vargas. You made me. Aren’t you proud?”

  “How could I make you?”

  “Damn you, you blind fool! Look at my servants all around me. They’re eating the bones of your victims, Vargas. You’ve killed enough people to feed them forever.

  “I’m your beast. Every time you hate, or even better, ignore the suffering you create, I get stronger. Death, pain, killing, it’s what you do, Vargas. It’s you. I’m you.”

  Enlightenment is always best experienced gradually. If the harsh reality, the naked truth of the horror of the monsters and demons created by a lifetime of sin is thrust on a man without warning, chaos can be the result.

  Jose had his epiphany, but the consequences of it were unresolved. The demon was telling him the truth, but like all evil, he only told him part of the truth, the condemnation side of the equation.

  Feeling forsaken and
unworthy, believing the lie that he was no better than the demon who tortured him, Jose Vargas was standing on a precipice, ready to jump into the abyss. Try as he might, he could muster no argument against Satan, because he hated what he’d done, and thought it made him every bit as vile and ugly as the disgusting nightmare from the pit of hell who was trying to steal his soul.

  From afar, outside of his evil narrowed field of vision, Jose heard his brothers praying for him. So did the demon.

  “You think they can help you? Those losers? What a stinking pile of garbage they are. Worthless thieves, con men and killers, all of them weak. You call that undisciplined collection of filth brothers? They’re not worthy of bathing in your piss.”

  “Lord have mercy on me a sinner,” chanted the voices in unison.

  “Christ was a wimp, Vargas. You worship Him? That limp wristed queer died on the cross like a piece of spoiled meat. We laughed at Him then and we are still laughing now.”

  “Lord have mercy on me a sinner!” The chant grew louder, stronger.

  “Don’t listen to them. Stay with me. You’ve seen me now, you know what’s real. Accept what you are, Vargas. You can’t change it, so revel in it! If you will forget all of this stupid, childish bull**** about God and Christ and righteousness, all your suffering will be over. I offer you the peace that comes from acknowledging your true nature. We can have so much more fun, monkey boy! We haven’t even gotten started yet.”

  Despite the pain, the crushing weight of his unrepented sin, which was urging him to abandon Christ, somehow Carmela got through.

  In his agony, Jose saw her standing close by, along with another woman. They called to him.

  “Rico, put your faith in God, son, not in man. Confess, repent, and live. I love you and so does the Lord.”

  “Lord have mercy on me a sinner!” The call from his brethren was now almost deafening.

  Seeing his mother urged Jose’s spirit to accept his gift, to realize that he was being given yet another opportunity to turn to the Lord. That this was by no means his second chance, or even his hundredth was unimportant, irrelevant. Carmela was here now, along with her angelic host, which meant to Jose that Christ was with him also. He was strengthened and ready to do battle.