God, Are You Up There?
By Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 By Darrel Bird
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Darren Bond sat glassy-eyed as the loud music pulsed and thumped against the walls of the room. He looked around at everyone sitting cross-legged on the floor. There were towels stuffed under the door to keep the marijuana smoke from seeping out of the room, and you could get a hit off the fog alone. The music had begun to sound like screeching tires in his ears, and he thought, How did I come to this?
Darren’s head was swimming as he sucked on his third roach. He had already been drinking most of the afternoon, but neither the marijuana nor the beer was doing much good. He looked around the room at the men he had come with and wondered what he was doing there. He gazed at his grungy friends with their long stringy hair. Then he reached up and touched his own head, and his hand came away greasy.
He thought of his wife, waiting at home with their five kids, and a twinge of guilt went through him. He knew he ought to be getting home. He said to the guy nearest him, and to no one in particular, “Hey, I’m goin’ home!” Everyone was too stoned to notice. Darren walked out the door and staggered to his car. The sun was still shining as he gunned the ancient Olds, eased out of the driveway onto the street, and headed for home.
The next morning he awoke with a roaring headache, and staggered to the shower to get ready for work. Darren worked for a building company, just off one of the main drags in the city. They built prefabricated houses. The wages weren’t so hot, but he liked the variety of the work. He could do most anything construction-related. He had been in and out of the building trades most of his life. He never had any trouble finding jobs; he just couldn’t stick with them.
Another Monday morning. He remembered the song Johnny Cash had out a few years ago, “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” The song saddened and touched him with its true image of an alcoholic’s life.
His wife walked into the kitchen to start breakfast, but she said nothing to Darren. She didn’t have to. Darren recognized the hurt look on her face. There was hardly enough money for necessities, even before he wasted it on partying. Once again he had blown most of their money on liquor and Benzedrine. He had started taking Benzedrine, which cost about twenty dollars for a line of ten. He could drink all weekend without passing out if he juggled the Bennies just right. His life had become a burden, and it was a constant battle to keep his home life together. He wanted to keep it together, but it seemed as if his whole life was on a downhill slide.
His thoughts went back to a time a few years ago… He had sat at the side of the road near a bridge, drinking beer, and had prayed to the God of his youth that he would live to see his baby daughter grow up.
Crap, he thought, as he headed for his old broken-down dirt-white Olds. He got in and slammed the door, switched on the key, and checked the gas gauge. He only had a quarter of a tank, and that old sled was the biggest gas-guzzler in town.
“Crap, crap, crap!” he exclaimed, giving the steering wheel three hard whacks with the palm of his hand. Here he was, starting out on another Monday morning, hardly any gas, a whole week to get through with no money, and the rent due. He thought, Nothing ever changes in this frappin’ world! But he gunned the Olds out into the street, oil smoke billowing out the tailpipe, and headed for his dead-end job to support his dead-end life, a life that held no hope. But then one of his favorite songs, the Eagles’ “Hotel California” came on the radio, and he promptly forgot about the unpaid rent.
He got out of the car in the parking lot and slammed the door behind him. Then he saw his painting buddy get out of his car and head toward him. “Hi, Darren,” James said, as he fell into step with him. “What did you do this weekend?”
“Oh, not much,” he lied, as he wiped his sweaty brow. “Crap, it’s gonna be a hot one.” Darren wanted to change the subject. About twice a week, James would ask him to come to his church, where his wife was the pastor. Darren always managed to put him off.
James was a decent guy, and he didn’t want to offend him. James was a small thin man who wore his brown hair short. He was just about the fastest man with a paintbrush Darren had ever seen. He never spoke a curse word even if he banged his thumb with a hammer. Darren knew that just about every sentence he himself spoke had to be initiated and baptized with a swear word. “Crap” was his new favorite word; he had a few choice others that he brought out only on special occasions, although he had tried to swear less since James had come to work there. At least James’s soft voice didn’t aggravate or intensify a hangover. Darren liked to work with him, even though he thought James was a little quirky.
Somehow, he made it through until Friday. He and James had done a good week’s work. It made him feel good to work a week with not much to drink. I’ve been too broke to drink, Darren thought, as he began to wash up his painting tools.
As he was squirting water into a bucket, James came over and joined him at the water hose. “Say, how about coming to our church Sunday?” James asked casually, as he began to clean his brushes.
Crap, there goes that church business again! Darren thought, as he worked savagely at a brush. I ain’t seen the inside of a church in so long I done forgot what they look like! But all he said was, “Maybe next week. I got something going this weekend.” He lied.
No use telling him I’ll end up drunk all weekend and broke again on Monday. Nothin’ ever changes in this frappin’ world, Darren thought, as he slopped the water out of the bucket and quickly threw the brushes and rollers into it.
He walked across the compound and lined up behind the others in the pay line, as they poked and hit at one another good-naturedly. He got to the pay window in a few minutes and reached for the oversized payroll check. It was as if they thought the size of the piece of paper they paid them on would make up for the lousy wages.
Who they foolin’? He thought, as the woman handed him the check. She frowned as if it was coming out of her own pocket. “Stupid broad,” Darren mumbled under his breath.
He walked hurriedly across the compound, out the gate, and over to the liquor store that sat next door to the building company. A little bell on a worn cord jingled as he opened the door. He felt slightly guilty as he walked to the cooler and took out a tall six-pack of Coors beer. The guilt left quickly as he thought about the beer he’d guzzle before he even got home.
The store attendant was his usual sullen self, and said nothing as he plopped the six-pack down on the counter and handed Darren his change. And a how do you do too, jerk wad, Darren thought to himself as he swiped up the few bills.
He got back out to the Olds, sat behind the wheel, and popped his first top of the weekend. He had downed most of two beers by the time he got to the Red Rooster Tavern. He sat in the parking lot, drained the second can, and scrutinized the silly wooden rooster atop the bar. He had no Benzedrine so he was buzzed in the heat by the beer.
He went into the tavern and spent the next two hours downing one draft beer after the other. Finally, he noticed the time and decided to go home. It is already six o’clock, fer cripes sake! He thought, as he looked at his watch.
“Crappy world never changes!” he said savagely, as he drove the Olds into the driveway. He noticed the tall grass in the front and back yards. “Crap, I gotta mow that!” He slammed the door, staggered into the house, and flopped down in his old, worn easy chair. His wife had purchased it second-hand from somewhere. He plunked the remains of the six-pack down beside him and popped the top on a not-so-cold one.
The kids all scrambled to the back yard. They knew he would beat the tar out of them if they made too much noise and commotion in the house. They had witnessed their dad do that many times, swatting first one and then the other across the back of the head with his palm. Darren’s favorite threat was, “I’m gonna knock your block off if you don’t seddown!” Then he would “knock their block off” before they even had the chance to sit down. Or sometimes he grabbed hold of their ears as if he was bulldogging a steer.
His wife passed by on her way to doing whatever it was she did to keep the house halfway together. She didn’t say anything to him. In fact, she didn’t say much at all any more.
Crap! What is there to say? He thought drunkenly. Nothing ever changes. By seven o’clock Darren was getting along toward sloppy drunk, so he downed another tall Coors and finished off the job. Then he heard a knock on the front door and he got up and staggered over and opened it. There stood James with a woman that he introduced as his wife.
Well, crap, this is all I need! Darren thought. He said, “Just a minute.” He walked quickly over to the chair and reached for the remaining beer. As hurriedly as he could he walked to the refrigerator and shoved it in, box and all, slamming the door loud enough to wake the dead. He had not expected James to show up with his pastor wife! In fact, since he hadn’t been invited, Darren didn’t expect him to show up period. It irritated him that James had pulled a surprise visit, but he put it off to bad manners.
“Come on in,” he said.
His wife looked around the room as Darren’s wife came down the hall to see what was going on. Darren and James made the necessary introductions. Then Darren and James went into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table, while their wives talked in the living room, getting acquainted with each other as only women can.
Frappin’ women can just get acquainted just by looking at each other. Not like us men who got to circle one another awhile. Frappin’ women just look at each other and read one another’s minds fer cripes sake, thought Darren. At least that’s how it always seemed with his wife.
He tried not to appear drunk, but his voice slurred and he knew it. What a night! He thought to himself as he did his best to keep up the small talk.
After a few minutes, he noticed the two wives heading down the hall. Crap, they’re gonna gang up on me! Darren thought, as he sat and smiled drunkenly at James.
After about an hour of this foolishness, all Darren could think about was having another beer. But he knew he didn’t dare with his religious guests lurking all over the house. Crap… they might be all over tha county, Darren thought drunkenly. They might even be a swarm of’em! He just kept smiling foolishly as James yakked on about something or other.
What he didn’t know was that their wives were in the bedroom praying for his deliverance from alcohol and dope. Then James’s wife came back into the living room with Darren’s wife in tow, and said, “James, we’d better be going.” She gave James a no-nonsense look, and James got up to go. It looked to Darren like they were in a rush to get out of there.
Of course, as they headed toward the door, James had to once again invite the whole bunch to church on Sunday. “Well, crap. Who invited them in the first place?” he muttered after the door was closed.
Man, I feel weird! he thought, as he watched James flick on his headlights and back out of the driveway. I got to go and get something stronger to drink!
He staggered out to the Olds, spun her around, and headed toward the local liquor store, about six blocks away. He knew he was drunk, so he drove the back streets to avoid the main drag. He bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, and drove home the same way he had come. When he pulled into the driveway, he had already downed half the bottle.
He staggered into the kitchen, plopped down at the table, and started chasing the whiskey with a warm beer he had missed beside the second-hand easy chair. He wondered if the pastor had seen it sitting there. He drank awhile and got up to go to bed. He weaved his way out of the kitchen, and then the floor of the living room came flying up and attacked him with a whack upside the head.
“The nerve of that crappin’ floor,” he slurred drunkenly. He lay there trying to figure out how he had gotten so horizontal when the floor was standing up just a minute ago, and then his lights went out.
The next morning about eight, Darren awoke with a screaming headache. He got up off the floor, staggered into the kitchen, and plopped down into a chair, rubbing the side of his head. He wondered how he had gotten on the floor. He sat there rubbing his head a few minutes, and eventually the pain settled into a dull ache.
He walked over to the sink, took down the instant Folgers, slopped three teaspoons of coffee grounds into a cup, and ran it full of hot water from the tap. He walked back over, sat down at the table, and took a sip. He pondered the dirt under his fingernails and stirred the contents of his mug.
After a few minutes, the strong coffee began coursing through his bloodstream. He sat there awhile longer, and he suddenly realized he was feeling better than most mornings after a dance with Jack Daniels. He looked out the window at the early morning sunshine. It seemed even brighter than usual. Must be my eyeballs, Darren thought.
For some reason, he suddenly remembered that the owner of the Red Rooster had been after him to paint the kitchen of his house, and he thought, I’m gonna go down there and paint that kitchen for the bar bill I owe. I don’t feel like drinkin’ today neither. Crap with the beer, I’m gonna mow the yard too.
Darren got up from the table, walked over to the refrigerator, and took out the last tall can of Coors. He pulled the top off and poured it down the sink. Disbelieving, he wondered, What’em I doing pouring out my beer?
His wife walked into the kitchen. She just stood there looking at him with those eyes of hers that were always filled with sadness.
I hope she don’t start in, he thought. Before she could say anything, he said he was going to paint the kitchen for the guy who owned the Red Rooster. He gave her a passing smack on the lips as he walked out the door, putting on his dirty, tattered, paint-spattered cap.
He loved his wife deeply, and had ever since they first met. He was 21 years old and still in the military when they met and married, and he knew she loved him. He also knew his drinking stood between them, and it made his heart ache when she looked at him and he was forced to see the hopelessness in her eyes.
He drove the mile and a half down to the tavern, parked his car, and walked through the ridiculous-looking red door. There were no customers in the place. The owner stood behind the bar washing glasses in steamy water. Darren stood at the end of the long bar.
The bartender mumbled, “Mornin’.” He reached for the tap with one hand and a glass with the other, and in one swift, fluid motion he started drawing a beer for his best customer. Darren threw up his hand to stop him. The bartender released the lever at half a glass and looked quizzically at Darren.
“You still want your kitchen painted?” he asked without sitting down at the bar.
“I sure do,” replied the bar owner. “You wanna paint it today?”
“Yep,” replied Darren, and the bar owner slid the keys to his house down the bar.
“See you later,” he said, as he scooped up the bar owner’s house keys and walked out the door.
“Lock it up when you leave!” yelled the bar owner through the already closing door.
“Yeah, yeah,” Darren said, but the door had already closed.
The house was just a few blocks away. Darren worked steadily through the morning and finished about one o’clock in the afternoon. He felt well except for the fact that he hadn’t eaten all day. He drank copious amounts of cold water from the faucet as he worked that morning, and it cleaned out his system.
He gave the kitchen one last appraising look, then locked the house and drove back to the tavern. He slid the keys down the bar to the owner, who again reached for a glass with the same practiced gestures, but again Darren threw up his hand, stopping the bartender at half a glass.
“Thanks, but I gotta go. Are we even on the tab?”
“Sure, see you later,” the bartender said, as he went back to wiping the bar that was already clean. However, he didn’t see Darren later; in fact, he never saw him again.
Darren went back home, managed to get the creaky old lawnmower running, and mowed the yard. Eventually he stopped at the back door and shut the mower off. It gave one last pop, then died. He walked into the house, sober for the first time on a Saturday since he couldn’t remember when.
His wife came up and kissed him square on the mouth. That was her way of checking for alcohol on his breath, and he knew it.
She turned and walked back toward the kitchen where she was fixing a supper of steak and potatoes. She never could cook potatoes worth beans, he thought. He was raised in the south, but his wife was California-grown, and they had returned to California when his hitch was up in the military. To his way of thinking, there wasn’t a person ever born in California who could fix fried potatoes the way he liked them.
He had to admit though, it smelled good as he walked to the sink and filled a glass with cold water. He stood there and chugged the whole glass straight down. He couldn’t get over how different he felt that day, as he plopped down in his second-hand easy chair. He looked around the room at the worn, tattered furniture, which was all they could afford. “Crap! I never noticed before how beat-up this place is,” he reckoned as he surveyed it.
That evening, the kids could sense that it was safe to stay in the living room, so long as they were careful around their dad. They lined up on the couch, watched TV, and stayed quiet.
His wife gave him a few of her thinking looks as the evening wore on. She kept looking at him as if he had something growing out of his head. Generally, he was stoned on Saturday evening, and she didn’t know what to make of it, him sitting there sober! They went to bed early, and Darren slept deeply the whole night.
The next morning, Sunday, he was up early, sitting at the table and drinking coffee when his wife walked sleepily into the kitchen. She started making toast.
“Get the kids ready. This morning we are going over to that there church where James and his wife go.”
I didn’t know that myself, thought Darren, but as soon as he said it, he knew it was what he wanted to do.
“We don’t have much to wear to a church,” his wife answered as she turned and gave him a startled look.
“Well crap, get’em in what they do got! We’re goin’!” Darren answered back.
His wife took her toast and disappeared toward the bedrooms. He could hear her waking the kids in a loud, clear voice that Darren thought could shatter glass.
They all managed that morning to get bathed and dressed in the best clothes they had, including Darren. He had a pair of jeans that had only a couple of spots on them, and a halfway decent shirt.
They all trooped out to the beat-up four-door Olds, all seven of them piling into the car, slamming doors. He turned the ignition key, wondering if the beast was going to cooperate.
He surveyed the gas gauge. “Less than a quarter of a tank! Frappin’ gas guzzler!” he grumbled. They had to drive clear across town to an outlying village to get to ‘that there church.’
He turned the ignition, and after a few growls and groans, she fired up. He threw her into reverse and backed out onto the street. For the first time in years, he mumbled a prayer to God, just in case he was real, that they would have enough gas to get them back home.
They arrived at the little church. It sat a few feet off the main drag in the small suburb. He parked the car along the curb, and they all piled out. The kids looked bewildered at the place, and Darren felt no small amount of apprehension himself as he led his surprised family toward the door. It took all he had in him to open the door of that church house. He had no idea what to expect, and was afraid of what he would find.
He saw James puttering around up front with the songbooks, and he looked up in surprise as he saw Darren standing inside the door, the rest of the family waiting behind him on the steps of the church. James walked quickly back to Darren, shaking his hand vigorously as he pulled him on into the church.
Darren’s wife timidly followed him in with the baby in her arms and the kids in tow, not knowing exactly what to do. He knew his wife and kids were uncomfortable, but so was he. Now he wondered what in the world he was doing there.
James’s wife, the pastor, saw them and walked quickly back. She shook their hands and greeted them warmly. Soon other folks started shaking their hands as well. Darren had never seen so much handshaking in all his life. He felt like he had been handling a bilge pump on a leaky boat by the time they got through.
The kids all stood in a clump, looking scared out of their wits. His little girl was clinging to her mama’s dress like crazy, and the three older boys looked like they might turn and run at any moment. The baby was the only one who didn’t seem nervous. He calmly sucked on his bottle. He didn’t care where he was.
The folks seemed friendly enough. After a few minutes everybody calmed down and settled into the hard seats. The little church was a poor and humble place. On the wall behind the pulpit was a cross made of two-by-fours. The worn old pulpit stood out a few feet in front of it. There were two benches about four feet long standing on each side of the pulpit, and he wondered what those were. He later found out they were called altars.
James went around handing out tattered songbooks, and the pastor began the service. She officially welcomed Darren and his family. Then a young woman who Darren later learned was James’s daughter, cut loose on an old upright piano. Her fingers flew over the keys as if they were red-hot, and that gal could play! They ripped into a song or three, and the service moved along at a pretty good pace that bright Sunday morning. Then the pastor launched into a sermon. The sermon didn’t mean much to Darren. He couldn’t understand what she was talking about -- something about somebody named Joshua and some wall falling down.
What Darren noticed most of all about the service and the people was that they talked of God as if they lived next door to Him, and it was the most natural thing in the world. That fascinated Darren. He had never heard people speak in that manner.
After the service, just about the whole church walked to the back before Darren and his family could get out the door, and the handshaking started all over again. Darren and his wife both had to pump like mad. As soon as one hand pumped yours three or four times, another hand was there to continue the pumping, like the whole bunch of them was striking pay dirt. Crap, even the kids’r in the pumping business, he thought, as he shook one hand after the other.
However, among all the emotions flooding through him, he had a warm, hopeful feeling. Moreover, all the folks urged them to, “Come back tonight at six o’clock. We’re starting a revival.”
Crap, they don’t need much revived over what they already are, he thought as he mumbled that he “might be able to make it. Who was he kidding? As if I had a full schedule! I just might be able to fill it in if I was careful and timed it just right, Darren thought wryly.
They finally got to the car after the last wave and headed home. The family was silent most the way back to the house. When he could stand it no longer, he asked his wife, “What did you think of that?”
“I dunno,” she answered. That was typical of her when she was taking her wait-and-see attitude toward something. Darren thought, that darned woman won’t ever come out-and-out and tell you what she thinks!
They spent a quiet Sunday afternoon sitting around the living room watching TV, while the kids played outside. Suddenly his wife got up, walked right over to him, and gave him a peck on the lips. Darren didn’t know what to make of it, but he liked it.
As 4:30 rolled around, he looked at his wife and said, “You wanna go back to that there church?”
His wife gave him a startled look. “If we’re going I have to get the kids ready.”
“Well get’em ready, fer craps sake!” His wife got up and started calling kids as if she was an auctioneer selling prized heifers. About 5:30 they all piled into the car, slamming the doors. Bam! Bam! Bam! And bam! And they were off to “that there church.”
Darren pulled in at about the same spot along the curb. They got to the church door, and naturally the hand pumping started all over again. They seated themselves along a pew as more people were pouring in; the seats were filling up fast. He noticed a woman standing looking around for a place to sit, so he got up and offered his seat to her.
He walked back and stood leaning against the back wall of the church with five or six other men. The place had filled up, and there wasn’t an empty seat to be had.
Then the pastor’s daughter sat down at that piano again, swept her fingers across the whole range of keys from low notes to high, and the whole place cut loose with singing and clapping. She worked the keys of that upright with a vengeance, singing, “I don’t know what you came to do, but I came to praise tha Lord.” A woman stood next to the piano rattling some kind of a thing-a-ma-jig with little silver tinkle’s on it, and he wondered what it was. Hands were shooting up and waving like the feet of dying cockroaches at a Black Flag convention.
As the service progressed, people would break out with some strange language occasionally, and that place really got jumping. Along about that time, a man fell out of his seat and started crawling on his back like a snake. It was the weirdest darn thing Darren had ever witnessed in all his born days.
Somebody yelled, “Don’t let him get out the door!” Two old boys weighing in at about 275 apiece jumped astraddle that sucker and pinned him to the floor. About six or eight people gathered around him and started praying in that strange language. Occasionally Darren could hear someone speaking plain English, and they were calling on God to “Deliver him.”
After about ten minutes they let him up and he headed for the altar benches. Three or four people went with him and clung on to him, weeping and waving their hands in the air. The rest were clapping and singing at the top of their lungs.
Darren was starting to have misgivings about coming back to “that there church.” About the time they were doing all the praying in the strange language, he was thinking, Crap, I gotta get outta here! He took a step toward the door.
About the time he got his second step in, a young woman just fell across the aisle in front of him. She hit that hard wooden floor like a sack of cement. He stopped because he thought the woman had had a heart attack or something. He looked around, expecting someone to light atop her and do CPR, but nobody paid any attention at all. They all just went on with their singing and clapping and “praisin’ tha Lord.” One woman cut loose and started dancing round and round with her hands in the air.
Darren stood there, blocked in. He didn’t dare step over the woman, so he looked around wildly for another way out, but there was none!
If I step across her they might jump me! he thought, as he mulled the situation over. He couldn’t get out! He just didn’t know what else to do but to stay put. That woman lay there out like a light clear until the end of the service.
After all the singing and clapping was over, an evangelist stood up at the pulpit, and he went to preaching. He preached an hour-long sermon on death, hell, and the grave. By the time he got through, Darren was sure he was going straight to hell and would be shaking hands with the devil any minute.
Then suddenly, as the service ended, they all just turned back into normal people again. By the time the pumping, hugging, and backslapping was done with, Darren had calmed down some. They finally broke loose and were on the way home when again he asked his wife, “What did you think of that?”
Again, his wife answered with, “I dunno.”
He knew that was all he was going to get from her in the way of an answer, so he set to figuring it out by his own self.
By Monday morning, Darren had a whole list of questions for James. As the two men worked together, he asked James about the man who was trying to crawl like a snake. James said, “The man had a demon in him, and they cast it out.” He learned that the strange language was “tongues.” And the woman who was lying across the aisle was “slain in the Spirit.” Darren spent the day thinking about it all, up, down and sideways. He had more to think about now than he had in six months.
Crap, the whole world has changed! he thought. I don’t even want a beer! Sure is some strange stuff! he mulled as he swatted at the walls of the building with his paint roller. Whap, whop! Whap, whop!
He thought of all the friendly folks at “that there church,” and he liked it. They didn’t seem to be putting on a pretext; they seemed honest, down-to-earth, and humble. He was still fascinated with the fact that they spoke of God as if He lived next door. He thought about all this as he painted that day.
At the end of the day James urged him to, “Bring the family and come on out to the revival.” Darren debated the whole way home about whether to go. He was so lost in thought that he passed by the Red Rooster Tavern, where he usually stopped, without even giving it a thought, and pulled into the driveway of his home.
That was the third day Darren Bond was as sober as a judge, and he had not been sober for three days straight in fifteen years. He walked into the house, and his wife looked at him strangely, as she glanced at the clock. He just gathered his wife tenderly in his arms, held her, and kissed her sweet lips. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she liked it.
He said, “Get ready. We’re goin’ to that there church revival.”
Pandemonium broke loose again as his wife started rushing around to get four kids and a baby ready for “that there church.” The boys knew better than to say anything about having to go to church again. They were afraid they would get their block knocked off. However, that Darren was soon to disappear.
His wife begged off going to the revival the next night to stay home with the baby.
A little while before Darren Bond’s world changed, his only little daughter had “wanted to help Mom.” She picked up the baby out of his crib, and dropped him square dab on his head on the hard kitchen floor, cutting his head and fracturing his skull.
His wife’s brother was a local ambulance driver. He answered the call from his sister to come and get the baby. They rushed him to the nearest hospital, about two and a half miles from the Bond’s home. He said later that he didn’t think the baby would live till they got him to the hospital. That day, as usual, Darren had been off drunk somewhere. He didn’t even learn about the accident until the next day.
The baby had a long skull fracture that showed up on the x-rays, and the doctor had said they would just have to let the fracture close on its own, and that it would take time. The problem was the baby could not hold milk on his stomach, and every time Darren’s wife fed him, the baby would spit it back up. At times, he would just squirt the milk back out of his mouth as fast as it went in, and he was losing weight quickly.
When they started going to church, Darren’s wife had to struggle with the baby to try to get a little milk to stay on his stomach. That was why she had decided to stay home Tuesday evening, so Darren took the older kids and went on.
The revival ended on Thursday night, and he found he looked forward to Sunday. He had a hunger for “that there church.” He was getting used to the tongues by now. He still didn’t know what to make of them. All he knew was that he was sober, and he liked it. He was going to sleep sober and he was waking up sober. He had left the devil grieving over losing such a good customer. The devil was sure he would get him back if there was any way in hell. Trouble was that Darren Bond had left hell before the devil even knew the gate was open, and he had no intention of ever going back. So the devil slumped off, swearing like a sailor at loosing such a valuable piece of real estate.
Darren had begun to go the church any time the doors were open. The next Sunday night he went and knelt down at one of the altars, and he prayed to the God that everybody else around there seemed to know first-hand and he was serious as a toothache.
The following Sunday morning, the pastor, along with the whole church, including kids and dogs, prayed for the baby. That was one of the mornings he couldn’t keep his milk down, and he had squirted puke clean out into the aisle. The pastor just came back there to where Darren’s wife was sitting holding him, and she started praying for the baby, laying her hands on the baby’s head, on Darren’s wife’s head, and then even on Darren’s head! The whole church followed suit.
The pastor stood there praying at the top of her lungs and clapping her hands together like she was facing the end of the world. By the time she got done Darren figured the baby was thoroughly prayed for, up, down, and sideways. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he liked it.
The next week, the baby was no longer spitting up, and was holding his milk. At the next doctors visit, the doctor said the fracture had, “Just closed up, and the baby is ok.” He called in three or four other doctors, and they all stood around gawking at the x-rays, jabbering and twittering like a bunch of squirrels. They would all look at the baby, then back at the x-rays, and break out jabbering again, and flailing their arms around.
The baby never did puke that way again, except for the normal baby barf, and he put on weight. He took to peeing in Darren’s face every chance he got, and Darren figured he was looking for some payback.
During that time, Darren had heard a lot of preaching. He started wondering why he still didn’t know God like he was his next-door neighbor. He wanted to know if God was real or not.
One Tuesday evening he was reading the Bible somebody had given him. He read where Moses went up on some mountain to talk to God, and it made sense to Darren. Obviously it was closer to heaven than down in the valley. He made up his mind that he would just do the same. He remembered reading somewhere in there that God wasn’t partial with folks. Darren figured it just took a little elevation.
He thought about getting up on the roof of the house, but thought that wouldn’t be high enough, so he vetoed that idea right off the bat. Instead, on the next Saturday, he drove up to the mountains that rose from the valley floor. He parked the Olds and got out. He began to climb, got a little more than halfway up, and pooped out. He sat there with the evening sun shining on his face, huffing and puffing awhile. He wanted a cigarette but thought better of it.
It might offend him if I smoke at this altitude, crap I better wait until I get finished with this business.
When he got his breath, he sat and thought about the whole problem. He remembered Moses had to pull his shoes off first. He couldn’t figure why the Lord would want to smell stinky feet, but he unlaced his tennis shoes and pulled them off. He was tempted to put them back on after he got a whiff, but he didn’t want to take a chance that God would not hear him. He sat there in his sock feet and tried to breathe through his mouth. He wondered about the socks, but he couldn’t remember reading any rule about no socks, so he left them on.
He looked up to the sky and said, “Dear God!” He thought it might be better to put it like a formal letter rather than to start out with just plain “God.” “Dear God! If you are up there I need to know it. Can you talk to me?” He said it loudly. He figured it was probably loud enough for God to hear, since he’d closed up the distance by climbing up there. He began to wonder if maybe he was going to have to climb to the very top to be heard. Had Moses had to yell or what? He didn’t remember the Bible saying anything about voice volume, and he wished the Lord had covered it in more detail if it was necessary.
Just about that time he heard a voice in his head, clear as a bell. “I have seen you; go your way.” Somehow, Darren knew deep down it was his Maker speaking. This voice was like no other he had ever heard from anybody. It carried with it a sense of infinite power, and it commanded obedience. It crashed through his being like a juggernaut. The One that created him for whatever questionable or unquestionable reason had spoken to him.
He didn’t know what it meant, but he wasn’t going to hang around and ask questions. It scared the living daylights out of him. He pulled on his shoes without bothering to tie the laces, and got down off that mountain in a hurry. He got back into the Olds, and that was the first time the old jalopy had peeled rubber in many a year.
That was the last time Darren Bond ever questioned whether or not there was a God. Darren’s world, where nothing ever changed, had changed again. He hardly ever missed a time going to the altar after his encounter on the mountain, and he had no problem praying. He studied his Bible and just about drove that pastor crazy with questions, but she never let on that it was any trouble.
A short time later he and James left the cheap company they were working for, and struck off contracting on their own. They didn’t make a whole lot of money, but it gave him more time to pray and seek God.
One Sunday night at “that there church,” Darren was standing with his hands raised and thinking about how Jesus had bled and died for him. He could almost feel the shock of the nails being driven through Jesus’ hands. Wham! Wham! Wham! He envisioned the dry ground soaking up the blood of the innocent Jesus.
The next thing he knew he was not praying in English any more. He was praying in a language he had never heard before. He didn’t know what he said or how long he stood there. He was completely unaware of the presence of the other people there, as he soaked in the glory of God like a sponge. He knew he was talking to God as if he was his next-door neighbor. Darren Bond’s world had changed again that day.
****
All that was years in the past. They had long ago moved to a different town and joined a different church. As he drove the freeway, he thought of how much his life, and his family’s life, had changed. He was now growing old and was tired most of the time, but God had given him a sense of usefulness and purpose. He remembered the little church with fondness, and he wondered if it was still there. As his memory took him back to that time in his early thirties, he felt again that sickening feeling of a world without God – a world that never seemed to change or get better. It was a world without hope of any kind, and it seemed to get worse every day. He would be eternally grateful to his Maker for changing his world.
Yes, many years had passed, and Darren still possessed a deep, abiding, and constant peace.
The End
Matthew 11:28-30: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.