TWO
I don’t bother with the side entrance tonight.
There are two freaks on the porch, a young dude I’ve seen before and a woman with a baby asleep in a sling on her chest. When they see me they do these excited little jumps and even clap their hands.
The young guy wants me to tell him when he’s going to get married.
The woman, she wants to know the same thing.
I sit down on the porch and they sit next to me looking with the most eager eyes the same way they’d sit listening to a guru. These people have never actually met me. Never heard me speak. They have no idea what sort of week I’ve had and what I’m gearing up to do when I step inside my house.
Honestly, I feel bad about what I say to them. First I clarify that I’ve gone clean and there won’t be any more visions. “Besides,” I add, “I only ever saw
The young guy, he lopes off the lawn head hung low and shaking.
The woman, she’s just trying to keep her baby from screaming.
I get inside to find Mom waiting up for me.
I haven’t seen her in a few days, but we fall quickly into old habits the way trained monkeys might. When I walk in she does not get off the couch to hug me. She just smiles and opens the Revelation Book and clicks her pen open. Also she’s sipping tea and watching PBS.
I sit down on the other end of the couch and she shuts the television off and says, “Thank God you’re back.” Then, opening the Revelation Book, she asks, “Where do we start?”
“With nothing,” I say.
She starts writing. Says, “Okay, and in the nothing?”
“No. Really. Nothing. No visions. Like I told you.”
“No visions?” She looks me over. Sees my skin unbroken. My bruises yellow if there at all and nothing wrapped around my head. No busted lip. No stitches. She asks, “What are you doing, Ade?”
“I’m not knocking myself out anymore, Mom. I’m done. It’s been a while now.”
“Did Baby Jesus tell you to stop?”
“No.”
“Why? I don’t…” She’s shaking her head robotically.
I tell her that I don’t talk to Jesus. I tell her that I never have talked to Jesus and that Jesus never has and never will figure into the visions. I say, “All the things we’ve seen, all the things we’ve traced out, all the stuff about my future self, it doesn’t get good for me because of Christ. It gets good because I stop.”
Mom closes the Revelation Book and sighs.
I say, “I’m in charge of my own life, Mom. What if right here and right now is all that matters? What if everything else, everything you want to read in that book, what if it’s all just dreaming? Just wishful thinking?”
Mom moves over to my side of the couch and starts massaging my shoulders. Says, “You remember when we went to Cave of the Winds in the Springs? You were only ten or maybe nine at the time and the whole drive down you were carrying on something crazy. Anyway, we’re in these caves and you’re just having this fit. The tour guide is ready to leave us behind. She’s looking at us and frowning and ready to just kick you down into some bottomless shaft. The whole tour you’re getting on everyone’s nerves. Just driving everyone crazy and I can’t seem to do a thing about it. I’m embarrassed as all hell. I’m trying to calm you and trying to look like a decent parent, like an effective parent, but it’s going nowhere. I’m temped to turn back when we enter one particular part of the cave system and we’re looking up at all the stalagmites and stalactites-I can never remember which is which-and you suddenly stop complaining. You go silent. We had to stay in that room for five minutes longer than most tours stay. Everyone on the tour was fine with it because you were finally being quiet. You sat down on that cold stone floor so deep beneath the ground and just stared up at these rock formations. It was like it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. As though you were staring into the celestial heavens. Staring straight into the face of God himself. Sweet Jesus, that’s when I knew. Right then.”
“Knew what, Mom?”
Mom says, “I knew that you were a miracle. To be honest with you, I saw you in that cave and immediately realized that there was something more going on in your head than just the usual kid stuff. And you weren’t marveling at the strange developments of nature either. You were seeing beyond what all of us see. The world’s a curtain, Ade, and you were seeing right through it. Right though to the other side. To the strings and the hands that hold them. You saw the geometry of the Maker’s design. We see the simple wings, but you see the souls headed to Hell. You see the needle. What the rest of us only guess at. What scientists can only dream about.”
Mom’s talking dragonflies again.
She says, “Come in the kitchen with me.”
I look around the corner, up the stairs, and to the kitchen where the lights are on and two women, both Mom’s age and type, are sitting at the table drinking tea and looking back at me. They’re smiling, faces wide and warm. Also there’s a laptop and a projector sitting on the table.
In the family room, now with my back to the kitchen, I ask Mom who these women are.
She says, “Part of our flock. You’ve met them before.”
“When?”
“Many times.” And she touches my head. “It’s okay if you don’t remember.”
“Why are they here? It’s the middle of the night, Mom.”
“Waiting for you, Ade.”
I’m tired and trudge into the kitchen, head down, ready to just bulldoze through and maybe give these women a wave. That doesn’t work. As soon as my feet cross into the light of the kitchen, they’re up off their chairs and wringing their hands and patting my back and pushing me (so gently) to the head of the table. There’s even a cup of tea waiting there for me.
I sit and one of the women, a chubby one with a mess of curly hair, says, “You need to put your faith in the Lord. If he beckons, you answer the call, don’t you?” And Mom says, “Jesus
Of course, this all sounds very familiar. I saw this when Jimi hit me with the baseball bat and the vision was dull. Well, here it is again only in real time. The deja vu built right into the very fabric of my life.
I actually look forward to seeing where this leads.
“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.
“Love. Duty,” Chubby says.
The other woman-she’s got straight brown hair and a long-time-smoker’s face-says, “Being in love is the best thing ever. Wonderful. Have you seen this girl in the visions? Has the Lord directed you to her?”
Mom tries to answer, but Chubby shushes her.
I say, “I did seen her in a vision.”
Eyebrows up, Smoker says, “How far out?”
“I saw her two years ago. She’s here now.”
Smoker smiles. Chubby sips her tea. Mom crosses her arms and looks at me sad. Her eyes flickering closed and open and closed and open. Not blinking but signing something unconsciously.
I say, “I’ve loved her for years.”
Chubby, hands in prayer pose, says, “Wonderful, but…”
Smoker says, “Amazing, but…”
Mom says, “Your future, it’s already written itself. For you to get to where you want to go, baby, you need to trust in the Lord and do his bidding. Past few weeks, at the church, we’ve been working it out. These ladies have been there right along with me, sleeves rolled up and getting in the trenches. As it’s written, Proverbs 10:4, ‘He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.’ You’re the wealth, Ade.”
“Mom, I’m super tired, just want-”
“Aren’t you interested in what we found out?”
