Lush Tales: Jakob, Tip, and Leona

Tip and Jakob, who was an immigrant from Eastern Europe, came into the liquor store two, three, sometimes four times a day. They always bought minis of vodka. The vodka was so it wouldn’t leave the scent of alcohol on their breath because they were mechanics at the nearby Buick dealership on Papermill Road. They’d get a car fixed and then tell their boss they had to take it for a test ride. They’d high-tail it up to the liquor store, just three-quarters of a mile away–close enough to be convenient but far enough away that the boss wouldn’t see them. They’d park around at the side of the store, which was visible from the main road, so I don’t know what good they thought that would do them. They’d get their minis and then slink back out to the customer’s car. Down the mini (sometimes maybe it’d be two), and then head back to the dealership, where they could report that the car had checked out just fine. Apparently, their boss was never the wiser. In my naivete, I once suggested to Jakob, who went by Jack, that they’d get more for their money if they’d buy a half pint. He looked at me sadly and said in his good but heavily accented English, “Whatever I get, I drink all at once. I stick to little bottles.” I guess a man’s got to know his limitations.

Tip was a nice (if somewhat inebriated) guy. Youngish–I’d have put him in his 30s at the time–and reasonably attractive. Jack was older, but they were good friends, in spite of the age, culture, and language barriers. From what I understood, they hung out during their free time as well as at work. They enjoyed one another’s company, I guess, or else it was just better than drinking alone. Jack also enjoyed the company of Tip’s wife, Leona. Leona was one of those bleached-blonde women who–though she was probably about the same age as her husband–looked old beyond her years. She already had wrinkles, her body was kind of shapeless, and she was missing a few teeth. She was not an attractive woman, but that evidently didn’t keep the men from coming around.

Leona would come to the store every afternoon and spend hours there, just confiding in me. I was 21, just out of college, still in the suburbs, and had no idea what to make of this junkyard-dog of a woman. Leona was mean, and I was afraid of her. So, I just agreed to whatever she said, though I was appalled by everything that came out of her mouth. Her speech was typical of the kind of uneducated East Tennesseans I’d grown up with. I’d known them at school, so it seemed like they’d had the same opportunity to learn at least decent grammar as the rest of us. The difference is that, by fourth grade they were out “sick” more often than not, and by fifth grade, they disappeared altogether. At the time, I wondered what was wrong with them that they were sick so often. I myself was a somewhat pale, sickly child, but even I didn’t miss as much school as they did. Now, as an adult, I realize that they were either being put to work on their family’s farms or else they were from such dysfunctional families that they couldn’t make it to school on a regular basis for a variety of reasons that would have traumatized me for life if I’d known about such things.

Anyway, Leona was probably one of those early dropout kids all grown up and now wreaking havoc on her own family. I mean, she and her husband spent as much as five or six hours in the local liquor store, for crying out loud; not even at a bar, idly passing the time with other drunks. I never could figure out why they hung out at the liquor store; maybe they’d been kicked out of all of the local bars. Leona was definitely the kind who would’ve started fights at bars, I figured.

It was Leona herself who told me about her many affairs, including with Jakob–her husband’s best friend. She said that Tip was a nice guy, employed, and was “stable.” He wasn’t going anywhere (in more ways than one), he was kind to her and her kids, he paid the bills (which had not been a given with her previous “husbands”) and–this appeared to be the vital point–he was clueless. Again, these were Leona’s descriptions of Tip, not mine. She was pleased that she could carry on with other men and that Tip was oblivious.

I know that in some such relationships the cheatee knows, but for reasons of his or her own, decides to remain silent–and married to the cheater. But I never could figure this one out. Tip was a good man, reasonably good-looking, and employed. In spite of his drinking problem, Tip could’ve done better than Leona, who was not his equal in looks, temperament, or earning ability. In fact, I could never see any redeeming qualities at all that would have kept Tip with Leona. Maybe it was the sex, though–looking at Leona–that seemed unlikely to me. In fact, I could only imagine what was in it for her illicit partners. I assume that it was a little spending money of her own that drove Leona, but, good grief, it really seems like the guys could’ve done better if they’d just gone out to Magnolia Avenue. I guess that Leona’s main advantages were proximity and price.

I felt sorry for Tip, though. I would look at him sympathetically when he came in. Who knows, if he’d left her for a better woman, maybe he wouldn’t even have had to drink anymore. Leona would’ve driven anyone to drink, after all. I really don’t think he knew about Leona and the other men. I wanted to take him aside and tell him, but even as young and innocent as I was, I knew better. Plus, I didn’t want to get my throat slit by Leona. So, I just watched this awful daytime drama unfold in my liquor store.

One day, Leona came in with a cervical collar around her neck. She explained that she’d been in a car accident that was the other person’s fault. She’d gotten whiplash, and who knows what all else, she said, and it hurt like a demon. Over the next few weeks, Leona came in, always faithfully wearing her collar. As time went on, she confided in me that she wasn’t really hurt. And finally it came out that she was not driving her own car–she didn’t have one–but she had borrowed a friend’s car with this very scheme in mind. She drove around the parking lot of West Town Mall because she wanted the accident to be at low speed. What’s the point of getting into an accident if your settlement money really does have to pay for medical bills? She figured that a crowded mall parking lot was the perfect place to stage her little money-making scheme. It wasn’t all that hard. She just cruised around the lot until she found a luxury car being driven by a nice-looking middle-aged gent. It was perfect: a nice car and a nice, upper-middle-class looking driver–he was bound to have good insurance. Leona herself didn’t have insurance at all; back in those days, it wasn’t required by the state of Tennessee. So, she got in front of this guy, poked along for a little ways and then slammed on her brakes. Perhaps I should say that she slammed on her friend’s brakes. Sure enough, the guy couldn’t stop in time, so the accident was his fault.

But now she had to wear this expletive-deleted uncomfortable collar everywhere she went, she complained. She had to make it look convincing, after all. She could only take the cursed thing off at night when she was home, with the shades drawn, lest the guy’s insurance company was using a private detective to check up on her story. Apparently that was a real possibility because Leona had been in more than her fair share of “accidents.”

Between this and the way she treated Tip, I wanted to find out the name of the other driver’s insurance company in the worst way so that I could call their claims department and report Leona’s scheme. I could just imagine the satisfaction of hearing that they’d come and arrested her, collarless at home one night, and dragged her off to jail. It would’ve been such a joy to see that wretched woman where she belonged. But then, I imagined the trial. (I’d seen way too much TV, which was my only experience with the legal system and courtroom procedure.) I, having the only actual evidence of Leona’s treachery, would be the prosecution’s star witness. I could imagine the satisfaction of getting up before the entire court and telling them of her intentionally planned misdeeds. I would look with steely determination right into Leona’s eyes, which were shooting darts of death at me the whole time. She, clearly, was not afraid of jail time. I, on the other hand, was quite afraid of her. And the whole daydream would disappear in a poof of sweat-soaked fear.

Actually, I never was able to get the name of the insurance company from her, so I’ll never know whether I would’ve had the nerve to face her after I’d turned her in. Somewhere in my TV-saturated mind, I knew that there probably wouldn’t be a trial at all. Her claim would be dropped, the insurance company would agree not to prosecute her in exchange for some kind of probationary time for her, and then...there’d she be, back in my liquor store, knowing that someone had spilled the beans, and I was the only one she had told about her scheme. She would’ve slit my throat. Leona was the kind of woman who, if you got on the wrong side of her, would just as soon kill you as to look at you, and I knew it.

Where Is the South, Anyway?

A visiting pastor from Ohio told this story to our congregation of East Tennessee Presbyterians. The pastor, who found Southern ways strange and accents almost incomprehensible, had found himself transplanted to Tennessee, and he often used examples of his confusion over all things Southern as illustrations in his sermons. He sometimes referred to the place where he’d found himself as the “Deep South.” 

Finally, after one of many such references had been made from the pulpit, an old man from Mississippi who had been transplanted to East Tennessee himself to live with his daughter and her family (and apparently was none too happy about it), went to the pastor after the day’s service. 

The Mississippian said to the pastor, “Suh, you often refer to Tennessee as the Deep South. Tennessee is not the Deep South. Tennessee is not the South.  Tennessee is not even the beginning of the South. Suh, Tennessee is the bottom of the Nawth!”

Many Tennesseans would take umbrage at the old man’s opinion. And they’d be (partly) right. 

In my view, the Deep South consists of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. I think that most Southerners would agree with that assessment. When non-Southerners (from here on known as “Yankees”) ask about Florida—because of its position south of the Deep South, Southerners sigh (some might even gasp) because everyone in the South knows that Florida is not a Southern state. The truth of it, though, is that parts of northern Florida are the South (mostly the inland parts). But everyone knows that once you get south of Tallahassee, Florida’s population is made up almost entirely of transplanted Yankees (in central Florida) and Latinos (in southern Florida. The Sunshine State may be southern, but it is not the South.

From here on out, though, deciding which states are Southern is a matter of opinion—often expressed quite loudly over beer (or Jack Daniels, or Maker's Mark, or moonshine, or any number of other "refreshments," depending on the origin of the opinion holder). Typically, I’d say that other Southern states include North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana (though we’re not too sure about those Cajuns, who originated in Canada and they don't "talk right"), and perhaps all or parts of Arkansas. Far Eastern Texas has some Southern traits, probably because of all of the Tennesseans who have populated that state from its earliest days. Having lived in Texas, among Texans, I’d have to say that Texas is not Southern, and it’s really not even Southwestern. Texas is Texas. That is all. It is an entity unto itself, and I’ve never been anywhere like it or known people quite as peculiar as Texans. I mean “peculiar” in the good sense. (If there is one.)

You may have noticed that I’ve left out a couple of states. The most glaring of my omissions is the seminal state of Virginia. First among the colonies, definitely south of the Mason-Dixon line (as is Maryland, by the way), and motherland to Robert E. Lee, as well as many of the other leaders of the Confederacy. I think that Virginia gets into the South based on that history and for its grace and charm. But even we in Tennessee find Virginia a little suspect because of its proximity to the North.

What does one do with West Virginia, then? Well, really, who cares? I’ve been through the state several times and never seen a soul. I hear that they’re there, lurking suspiciously in the hills, ready to shoot any “furriners” who come poking their noses where they don’t belong. Anyway, most West Virginians can’t read this blog anyway. Not just because they’re illiterate. It’s also because they don’t yet have the Internet there. So, let’s move on to more interesting matters.

Kentucky, though—like Virginia—dangerously close to the North, is also Southern. Let’s look at the facts: they fought on the Confederate side of the War, they raise horses, and they make bourbon. Plus, they produced Colonel Harlan Sanders, founder of KFC. Sounds like the South to me. 

This brings me back to Tennessee. Why did our old man from Mississippi disparage my fair state as being the “bottom of the North”? (And, yes, I very much believe that he meant a double entendre there.) Tennessee fought with the Confederacy, raises horses, and makes bourbon (Jack Daniels, no less). In addition, Tennessee is home to Music City—Nashville—the Country Music capital of the world. What could be more Southern? We share far more characteristics—in geography, history, food, language, and culture—with the rest of the South than we do with the North. 

Except for East Tennessee, which, in politics and history could easily be every bit as Yankee as central Florida. Middle and West Tennessee are pretty solidly Southern. And they often shake their heads in embarrassment over the sad, sordid history of the eastern part of their state. Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy, and the first to withdraw from it. Pro-Union East Tennessee was the part of the state that held the rest back. Once Tennessee was in the Confederacy, East Tennessee continued to make life difficult by continuing to be pro-Union, harboring Union military men and funding the Union causes. Of course, many men from every Southern state joined the Union cause. As is often said, the Civil War divided families, pitting, quite literally, brother against brother.  But East Tennessee remained a bastion of Union support surrounded by a hostile and seething Confederacy. They’ve never quite forgiven us for that. 

DIY Home Projects: Opposable Thumbs Optional

I have no fear of tackling light do-it-yourself projects around my home. My fearlessness is completely inexplicable, considering that each time I try one of these projects, it turns into a cross between episodes of I Love Lucy and Home Improvement. The stories I could tell are legion, but I will focus on today's DIY project.

More than a year ago, I bought the materials to install a simple shelf on the wall behind my couch. They have sat there, collecting dust, right next to the couch all that time because there were always more pressing things to do. But finally, the time came to do it. That means that I had another project to do (a work project) that I didn't want to do even more than I didn't want to try hanging that shelf. So, faced with a truly odious task, it was now time to take a “few minutes” to install that long-overdue sofa shelf.

I moved the couch, which is way heavier than it looks, by the way, away from the wall, creating a space slightly smaller than what I could comfortably wedge my cetacean form into. But, with some effort, I was able to get back there, I just couldn't move after I was there. I had thought ahead to get out my cordless screwdriver (my Aunt Jo always says, “All of my screwdrivers are cordless.”), but it is also a drill, and I needed both. I took a pencil and measuring tape with me as well. I usually also bring all sorts of rulers, levels, and my fancy electronic stud finder along for jobs like this, too, but I decided to try a different approach today. I have found that, after employing all of these devices, I end up getting things crooked and drilling about six holes more than are needed. What I mean is, I drill six holes that have to be redrilled because I got them in the wrong place after all of my careful measuring and leveling. I couldn't even find the stud finder today. It's okay, since it didn't work anyway. I used it several times, but I never did find a good-looking guy to do these DIY projects for me. Ha ha. The truth is, in my entire home, there appear to be about a total of 13 studs. There will be two in a space of eight inches, and then not another for the next six feet. It's completely random and incomprehensible. And I really never did figure out how the electronic stud finder with an echolocation system worked. I never once successfully located a stud with it. And I mean, the kind that are inside the walls.

So, my new approach was this: Just eyeball where the metal shelf support strips should go, mark the screw holes with the pencil, drill, and screw them in. I really couldn't imagine that I could come out any worse with this guesstimation method than I've done in the past with all of the proper tools. So, half-crouching between the wall and the couch, barely able to reach down far enough to drill the hole closest to the floor, I hit the trigger on the drill. Nothing happened. It had lost its charge. I plugged it in and tried again. ErrrErrrErrrrrrr...and then it stopped. I had to leave the whole job for awhile to give the drill time to recharge. This is the problem with these “cordless” tools. Mine get used so infrequently that they have to be charged every single time I need them. I moved to get out from behind the couch, barely touched the container of carefully sorted screws that I had set precariously on the back of the couch, and they plummeted to the floor, leaving not even one screw in the container. I huffed about that but didn't even feel moved to swear at the screws (whose fault this obviously was).

After picking up the screws and dumping them, unsorted, back into the container, I went about my other business while giving the drill time to recharge. Now, during this time, my two cats were in distress. You see, the back of the couch is their favorite place to hang out and take long naps. Especially if I'm on the couch, which I usually am. But here was their favorite piece of furniture, pulled away from the wall, with a shelf running the length of the cushions, and tools strewn all along their usual resting place. They kept jumping up to check things out, and left in disappointment over the upheaval they found there. Arthur finally just lay on top of the drill and settled in for his nap. Arthur could sleep on broken glass and concertina wire.

Finally, the drill was suitably charged, and I got back to my project. I hung the first metal strip (the kind with holes in it that a bracket fits into that holds the shelf). I had three strips to hang, and each one had three holes for screws. Nine total, so this would take no time at all. I went back to my pencil marks, drilled the holes, and starting screwing the first strip onto the wall, starting with the bottom hole first. However, I had somehow mismarked the top hole. I then realized that I should have just marked the top hole, screwed it on, and then the strip would hang straight and I could put the rest of the screws in with no trouble at all. Except for the part where my rather considerable girth barely allowed me to reach the bottom hole. So, with only one out of three holes having to be redrilled, I moved onto the second strip. I did better this time, by starting at the top. It turned out that I didn't even need the drill because there were no studs to be found behind the soft surface of the drywall, so that even I was able to just run the screws in with a screwdriver with almost too much ease. I got the second strip in also with only one misplaced hole. It looked like I was going to come in well under par on unnecessary holes in the wall.

Now, if I could have stepped back to review my work, I would have immediately seen the problem. But, what with being tightly wedged into my workspace, stepping back was not an option. On I went to installing the third and final strip. I got it hung with great ease and not a single extra hole! By this time, I was at the end of the couch, so I was able to look down the wall at the other strips. The one I'd just done and the middle one were fine. But the first one! Good lord! Imagine a clock face. The top of the strip should have been at twelve o'clock, with the bottom at six o'clock. But the top of the strip was at about 1:45! With it lining up straight with the floor at the bottom, how could I have possibly gotten so far off by the time I got to the top? So, I had to redrill the middle and top holes yet again.

The cats had continued to patrol around the couch, like so many sharks circling a surfing championship. As I redrilled the final holes, I said out loud to Arthur and Molly, “You all have no idea what I'm doing, do you?” It then occurred to me that I had no idea what I was doing either. In fact, the cats might have been able to think this job out just as well as I had. This made me laugh out loud, which only added to their perception that I'd gone off my rocker, I'm sure.

You may think that I should have placed the shelf below the back of the couch,
but that part was not by accident. I had several reasons for placing it where I did.
So, it turned out exactly as I had hoped it would.

So, having taken just five times longer (or so) than I'd anticipated, the job was done. And, as my DIY projects go, it came in well under par not only in unnecessary holes in the wall, but also in temper tantrums. And the shelf looks pretty darned good, I must say.

The Aftermath

[This is the final installment in a six-part series. If you haven't read the previous parts, I suggest that you go back to November 9 and start at the beginning, as each part builds on the next.]

Help arrived immediately. Out of the darkness, a beam of light shone toward our struggle and a rough voice shouted, “What’s going on?” as a person ran through the darkness toward us. My screams had somewhat arrested my attackers, and this voice and light and physical presence in immediate answer stopped them entirely. I was able to break away from the grip of the two who were holding me. By this time, others were arriving from the prayer hut with more yells. In my eagerness to escape my attackers, I’m afraid I left my rescuers on their own. I jumped past them and ran down a path toward the gazebo. As soon as I saw that I was safe, I started crying. My niece, Kaye's daughter Bethany, was the first person coming toward me on the path. It was such a relief to see someone familiar and to realize that I was safe and unharmed, and then I had adrenaline coursing through my body and became so shaky I could barely walk. By this time, there were several people around me (all strangers but Bethany), and everyone was asking me questions and wanting me to get checked by a doctor, but all I wanted was to sit down and be left alone, or with just Kaye and Bethany. I kept telling them I was okay. They finally stopped insisting that I see a doctor. I had so many feelings – thankful for God’s deliverance, glad to be alive, embarrassed about causing a scene, and just trying to calm down from defense mode. I was completely overwhelmed by it all. I looked at my left leg, and though I had known that the kid wasn’t cutting me, I almost couldn’t believe that there was no blood. I was alive. And well.

My “guardian angel,” was Karen (from Texas). Hers was an amazing story of listening to the still, small voice of the Spirit and obeying, even when it seemed ridiculous.

Karen was pretty close by–-about 20 feet, maybe–-and as soon as she heard me scream, she knew that that was it, that’s what she was there for. She sprinted to the bench, flashlight shining. I think that the excitement–and yelling while running–made her voice sound rough, deep, male, all of which was enough to startle my attackers long enough for me to get away. Anyway, by the time that she had startled them, men were pouring out of the gazebo and running our way, and the banditos could see that they were finished.

After the attack, as I sat and calmed down, Karen and others prayed over me, which was very comforting. Some prayed in tongues, which I was beginning to get used to, but I still found a little discomfitting. Still, I really appreciated their prayers, and I was keenly aware of God’s presence, protection, and provision in that moment.

Afterward I learned that the men who had come running up from the gazebo chased after the three banditos, who ran for the wall. The banditos just barely made it over the wall before our guys could catch them, so they got away. I was glad for them.

That might sound strange, given the circumstances, but I really was glad that they got away. I had seen what even the little children of Pomba did to adults many times their size and strength who were even suspected of a crime, such as stealing. They pelted them with the heaviest rocks they could pick up and launch. They especially went for the head (and they had good aim). Once the culprit was down, everyone would descend on him, kicking, scratching, biting. It did not matter whether he had been proved guilty of his “crime.” He was guilty by accusation and by his reputation. If either seemed a credible proof of his guilt, he received his punishment publicly, by the people who knew him best.

These young men who attacked me: they are the hopeless ones. The ones in the generations skipped over during the hard years, who received no education, no parenting, nothing but hardness and bitterness and hopelessness. I could not hate them. I prayed for them then, and I pray for them still. I will never know what became of them—whether they're alive or dead now. But I do believe that prayer offered in love is better for a person than a rock upside the head, so I still pray for these young men; that they will see some love, some gentleness, some understanding in the world around them. I believe that God changes people. I believe that no one is beyond God's reach.

Epilogue: Our Last Day at Pomba

Kaye and I were in the visitors’ compound when someone came in saying that there was a fire in the prayer garden, and we all needed to bring as much water as we could carry. I grabbed a box of two-liter bottles and ran out. The brush field behind the garden had been set on fire by a resident kid, who apparently did it on purpose. By the time I got out there, this fire had covered a large area and was ready to really take off in the tall, dry grass of the field. It wasn’t immediately dangerous to life and limb, since it went out as soon as the grass burned up, but it was spreading fast, burning in an ever-widening circle, as it searched for more grass to consume. The one thing that was in harm’s way was a little prayer chapel at the back of the garden. I don’t know whether there was anything else important that it might have burned if allowed to go. Of course, as it grew, and its outer edges grew wider, it took more people to try to patrol its borders to put it out. There were dozens of us, running around the edges, throwing water on it from anything we could carry. I then saw that the Africans were beating it with green branches from bushes and trees. I knew that theirs was a better way to do it. I didn’t have my knife on me, but I was finally able to wrest some little green, leafy branches from a nearby bush. My beater was far more effective than my water bottles had been, though eventually even the green leaves burned up. By the time the fire was out, my little branches were leafless. We did get it put out, but it had burned an area of maybe three-quarters of an acre. It stopped short of the prayer chapel.

While we were putting the fire out, dozens of villagers, hearing all of the commotion from the Pomba side of the wall, had hoisted themselves up and were sitting, lined up along the top of the wall, laughing, shouting, jeering, looking like they were having a good time watching us scorch our sandaled little feet while trying to put this fire out. As far as I know, none of the villagers jumped down and came over to help, but I can’t say for sure. It just seemed like they were enjoying themselves, and the laughter and shouting felt a lot like they were cheering for the fire. I felt discouraged by their apparent glee over their neighbor’s misfortune.

On the other hand, I myself was glad that the grass had burned. To me it felt like the hand of God, sending his refining fire to burn up a wicked and dark place. No one would be able to use that grass as a cover for their evil purposes for a while.   

Part V: What Came Next

[This is part five in a six-part series. If you haven't read the previous parts, I suggest that you go back to November 9 and start at the beginning, as each part builds on the next.]

After I had sat awhile in the garden, three young men, ranging in age from maybe 16 to 24, came up the walkway from the direction of the prayer gazebo. They came up to my bench and hung around, speaking in their tribal language, with just a smattering of Portuguese thrown in. I tried to ignore them at first, but they were really being annoying. They also made me feel uncomfortable. We have been warned over and over about the banditos–on the beach, on roadways, in town. One of our roommates–a long-term Pomba student–had been mugged in town on Tuesday, and had had her backpack stolen. They have warned us to carry as little as possible, not carry a purse or pack if we could help it, but we have been told that the Pomba compound, especially the part farthest from the front gate, is safe, so I had felt completely unconcerned about going off alone into the dark to pray. But I didn’t feel comfortable with these guys there, so I decided to leave.

I got up and walked about five feet away –- and then the Celt rose up, and he said, “NO. I am not going to run out of a quiet, prayerful place by people who are clearly not here to pray.” These guys were too old to be Pomba kids-–at least two of them were. But there are all of these young guys who hang out in Pomba and no one seems to mind. They are deemed safe by the staff. Maybe they’re members of the congregation. They could have been workers or visiting pastors (there for the conference), so I didn’t want to be rude to them, but I really didn’t feel like they were there for legitimate reasons. I suddenly wanted to stay and see if I could make them feel ashamed for disturbing a place of God. I also wanted to be able to describe them to Mark (the staff guy in charge of visitors) the next day since I suspected that they weren’t supposed to be there. So, I stopped, turned around and looked long and hard at each one individually. When I got to the third one (the leader), he said, “What is it ‘mana?” (They call all women ‘mana, short for hermana, sister, but they also call women older than themselves “mama” or “mommy,” so I wasn’t sure which one he was saying.)

I said, “Did you come here to pray?”

There was no answer, but a general befuddlement on their part. Finally, one of them said, “what?”

I said, “This is a prayer garden. A place of prayer. I came here to pray. What did you come here for?”

The leader said, “We live here.”

I didn’t know whether that was true, though I doubted it. “Did you come here to pray?” I repeated.

They didn’t answer but shifted uncomfortably. Finally, the smallest one (possibly a kid in his mid-teens) mumbled something like “yeah,” and even seemed to try to take on a prayerful attitude, somewhat bowing his head. The other two continued to just seem confused by my questions. It was quite dark by now, with the only light coming from the prayer gazebo, about 50 feet away. I was standing with my back to the light at the time, with the light on their faces, so I could see them relatively well.

And now is when I did something inexplicably stupid, something that went against my intuition and reason and better judgment. The only explanation I can offer is that the Celt rose up at this moment, saying, “It’s not right. You shouldn’t have to leave. They should leave. They don’t belong here. You do. You were talking to God in this place, and you shouldn’t have to leave.” (One of the more pious Celts on the planet, apparently.)

And so – it pains me to even put this in writing – I marched back to the bench and sat back down, on the end opposite them. My thought was to shame them for disturbing a place of God and to make them either pray (or pretend to) or leave. Two of them were already sitting, and then the other one sat down. So now I had these three fidgeting young men sitting next to me on this bench in the dark. I was uncomfortable, but the Celt was still there enough that I wasn’t really afraid. I had said I was there to pray, so I began to pray, silently–-but with my eyes open!-–for these three young men. I prayed that God would turn hearts of stone to hearts of flesh and that God’s Holy Spirit would pour down on them and fill their empty places, leaving room for nothing else. They sat in silence, with the leader closest to me on my right. They were probably trying to decide whether I was crazy. I think that in most cultures, even violent ones, a lot of latitude is given to crazy people and they are often left alone by thugs who prefer easier and more rational prey.

After about a minute and a half of silence, the leader says, “Hey, mommy.”

“Yes?”

“Give me the bag.” It sounded conversational, not demanding or threatening. It was almost like a suggestion.

“The bag?” I didn’t know what he meant.

“Yes. Give me the bag,” he said quietly, tossing his head back, pointing his chin in my direction, and that’s when I realized that he meant the small pack I had fastened around my waist.

I’ve had a lot of training in practicing sensitivity toward the cultures I’ve visited. We are usually taught about the accepted practices, friendly gestures, and taboos among the people we are going to meet. We’d been told that most Mozanians feel no shame in casually asking Westerners for anything–from our watches to our money to the clothes on our backs–and they’ll do this even upon first meeting us. You just have to get used to it and learn to turn them down in a kind, cheerful way. However, in this case, though the leader was using a calm conversational tone, I was definitely aware of my situation: alone on a bench in the dark with three young men, two of whom were my size or larger. The threat was there, though unspoken.

I turned my head toward him, looked him straight in the eye, and said very firmly and clearly, “No.” I suspected he would not like this answer, so I got up to leave. My plan was to walk confidently away, toward the light and activity of the prayer hut, but I stumbled on an uneven place in the big flat rock that had been used as a platform for the bench.

All three of them were up in an instant, grabbing for me. One grabbed my bag, which I think they didn’t realize was attached securely to my waist. Had it been on my shoulder, they would have had it and been gone. I reached out to try to defend myself, push them away, and get away when another one grabbed the upper part of my right arm and started pulling on me.

The one with my arm and the one with my pack were the leader and the other big guy, though I don’t know which one was where. The smaller guy was on my left and I didn’t consider him a serious threat. That was, until he pulled a machete out and swung it high over our heads, and then it came down towards me, toward my left thigh.

I cannot really capture what was going through my head. There was this calm, rational part of me observing the situation and thinking, “You can handle this. Just stop the kid with the machete.” Yet another part of my brain was thinking, “This is bad. You might not get out of this. This kid could chop your leg off. You could bleed to death!” And yet I didn’t feel panicky. I felt a completely irrational sense that I was still somewhat in control of the situation and might be able to get away, as long as I could stop the kid with the machete.

The machete would go up in the air, and I would see it silhouetted against the moonlit night sky, hanging above my head, just before he would swing it down and, with a loud “thwap,” it would make contact with my leg. I kept trying to grab his machete arm. Even with the one guy tugging on my right arm and the other one pulling on my pack, I felt like I could take on the kid with the machete and get it away from him if I could just catch his arm. I kept seeing the machete go up into the air, then swing back down toward my leg. The Celt was with me, and I felt strangely calm, rational, like a Celt calculating how best to defend himself against each enemy he meets in battle. The kid hit my leg, hard, at least four times, and each time, I thought, “This could be the one that severs an artery, and you will die.” But each time, as he struck, I realized that he had hit with the broad side of the blade, not the sharp edge, and I was unharmed (mostly). This is what made me feel like I could take him on. As long as I wasn’t cut and bleeding, it wasn’t too late, and I could grab his arm, twist it, and make him drop the machete. But after the first four blows, and while grappling with the other two guys – whom I wasn’t even looking at or really even thinking about now because my full attention was fixed on the machete and the arm that wielded it – I began to think, “This is a very serious situation. I think I need help. But how can I get help, when I can’t get away?”

And then my earlier thought came to me. It takes a lot more conscious thought to scream in a situation like this than I had ever imagined. I had always thought that screaming was a natural and instinctive reaction to a scary situation, but it is not; at least, it’s not for me. But in a completely calm and unfearful way, I screamed at the top of my lungs three times.  

Part IV: The Listener

[This is part four in a six-part series. If you haven't read the previous parts, I suggest that you go back to November 9 and start at the beginning, as each part builds on the next.]

The young woman from the States had been in the prayer service in the gazebo when she heard a still, small voice–-a voice that was both outside of her yet inside her head-–tell her to get up and go outside, which she did. The Spirit then directed her to a park bench near the one that I would choose a little later. Unknown to me, she was the person who was sitting on the first bench that I had come to when I was trying to find a place to be alone. The Spirit’s voice also directed her very clearly to put the hood of her jacket up, over her head, and to hold her headlamp in her hand, with her finger on the switch, hidden inside her folded arms. So, she sat there on her bench, the shadow created by the hood obscuring her face, flashlight in hand, praying, “Now what, Lord?” The answer: “Wait.”

While she waited, three young men approached her bench, surrounded her, speaking in a language she didn’t know. They came to her bench three times. And three times they went away, leaving her alone. She thought that they were casing her, but the hood protecting her face left them unsure whether she was male or female. What sealed it was that she had no bag or pack–nothing that looked like it might hold valuables–so they left her alone. The final time that they came to her bench, she prayed, “Lord, if they are not of you, send them away,” and they left. Sitting there in the dark, praying, listening for the voice of the Spirit and open to whatever it spoke to her, she was placed and ready for whatever was to come next.

Part III: The Celt

[This is part three in a six-part series. If you haven't read the previous parts, I suggest that you go back to November 9 and start at the beginning, as each part builds on the next.]

Does everyone have this thing that lives inside of them, this thing that gets riled up when they are pushed too far, a thing that finally rears up and says, “No. I will not take this.” I’m assuming that everyone does. We probably explain it away as adrenaline or the instinct to flee or fight when faced with danger. 

However, I feel like, for me, this thing is not a mere instinct. It has a personality. It lies dormant most of the time and has often let me deal with risk on my own, when I would very much like for it to be present. It decides on its own when to come and help me and when to sleep.

I call it The Celt. As a matter of fact, I should admit that I call him The Celt, because there has never been any doubt in my mind that he is male. He is an ancient Irish Celt that courses through my blood, an echo of a long-forgotten ancestor. He is wild, he is almost nonverbal, he doesn’t have any use for the niceties of modern life. If he walked on his own through my usual day, he would leave a swath of destroyed electronics, twisted machinery, and injured people behind him. He is really a fairly unpleasant fellow: squinting suspiciously at everyone, dark hair hanging in near dreadlocks across his broad forehead. He carries a number of large weapons whose purpose is clearly to kill, not to just stop, his attackers, and I can tell from long acquaintance with him that he uses these weapons offensively as often as he does defensively. He smells bad. I doubt he’s ever immersed himself in water for any purpose other than ambush. He is generally in a foul humor, and it’s best to just leave him alone. Which I do.

But I have this one great advantage with him. He lives inside me, so my survival is of prime importance to him. In that sense, he is quite solicitous toward me. He is kind of like the big dogs that live around me on the farm. As far as I can tell, they are unaware of or apathetic toward my presence. But if a visitor–-it wouldn’t even have to be a stranger-–seemed to be poised to harm me, those dogs would go for that person’s jugular. The dogs don’t love me; they are simply bound to me by some sense of family that I do not understand. The farm dogs would even defend me to their deaths. I have no doubt about this. The Celt is one of those dogs; our bond is blood, even if we are separated by centuries. He may not love me in the way that we think about love. But he would die for me.

There are two kinds of people that The Celt hates more than any others: bullies and bureaucrats. And when I get pushed around by either one, The Celt boils to the surface with a speed that frightens me. His eyes turn to slits, his nostrils flare, he hefts his axe with his right hand, bouncing its haft in his left hand, feeling its weight, rubbing the sharp edge with his thumb in delicious anticipation of the mayhem he is about to loose upon these weak, puling moderns who had the gall to offend his family, his blood. He stands between me and my enemy, ready to do whatever it takes to protect me.

Whatever happens next usually becomes one in a long list in the book titled, Not Some of My Prouder Moments. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate The Celt’s efforts on my behalf. I really do. But there aren’t many ancient Celts left. They don’t understand guns and Tasers. They really don’t “get” lawyers and courts and the American judicial system. They know only their own narrowly defined limits of right and wrong. They know Justice, but the nuances embodied in the realm of Law escape them. One cannot pound a lawyer right at the crown of his skull with the rather considerable end of the haft of one’s rough iron sword, rendering the man dead or comatose, without immediate consequences.

Bureaucrats are just bullies in white collars or slightly rumpled uniforms who wield rules and procedure instead of guns or maces. Merciless longtime “civil servants” at the DMV are not swayed by my plight, even if this is my 18th visit and I took a number three hours ago. They have nothing invested in serving me. If they skip me, there will still be plenty of other cattle to call. And when it’s break time or quitting time, they will clack down their “Closed: see next bureaucrat” sign and leave, with absolutely no mercy for the despondent faces of the beleaguered masses huddled at their counters. I can tell that they take a certain kind of glee in this—schadenfreude, I guess, knowing that we may have many advantages over them, but this, this one thing, they have over us. The DMV is their world and they rule it with iron fists. They are bullies. But they have the law on their side, and if The Celt shows his temper in their domain, you will spend what seems like an eternity in DMV purgatory. Worse, if The Celt goes berserk when dealing with bureaucrats, you–the physical body that houses him–will pay dire consequences. So, I must keep The Celt at bay, even if it takes sedatives, when I am in the presence of bureaucrats. 

But, now, the other sort of bullies: common thugs, mean kids, what have you. Bullies understand The Celt. Bullies know the world from which The Celt comes. They understand the forces that made him. Bullies–-who are really just armed cowards--quake in the presence of The Celt, leaving a pool of urine around the Air Jordans that they stole off their last victim. I have found that The Celt is a quite useful presence when faced with bullies, because bullies fear and respect living, breathing, barely-contained violence that is informed by conscience rather than greed or power. They believe and live by the maxim that might makes right, but what they don’t understand is that when Right has might, less-pure motives such as their own fall away, and they had better head for the hills.