Chapter 7: Thunderhouse
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.” John 1:50
Luke had been at the Library for quite some time, and by the time he hit the street sweet darkness had fallen, fresh and wild. Luke looked around for somewhere to go, coz he didn’t have a home, nor did he have any plans. He looked both ways, and he spotted an intriguing joint down the block on his right hand. It was lit up and noisy, and there was peoples goin’ in and out, and there was music playing. Luke the Hun grinned and walked on down there.
It was a Blues Bar named Thunderhouse. It looked like a happenin’ club. So Luke went on in to see what was happening. Sure enough, it was some kinda scene. Kind of dark and smoky, and lots of good folks hanging about, most of them drinkin’, and all of ’em enraptured by the cool sounds emanating from up on stage. Luke listened to the band for a while, and he was impressed. There was a one-armed trumpet player named Reuben, and a long-haired drummer named Luis, and a blonde maiden named Hosanna on the piano, and two saxophone players named Benson and Hearst. Playing guitar and singing and sizzling was an old grizzled bluesman named Sam. Stanley Clarke himself was there playing bass. They were really kicking it out: innovative Blues-with-a-Twist, the twists being Luis’s use of clever Latin rhythms on some songs, and the fiery interplay of dueling saxophones on other songs, and Sam’s occasional gruff rendering of one of Hosanna’s touching gospel songs in between his blues anthems. They put together a pretty diverse set, and it kept the crowd on their toes. (Stanley Clarke didn’t need to throw in any twists: that cat just flat-out played!)
After watching them for a bit, Luke approached the stage between numbers, and caught Sam’s ear. “Fella. Lemme join you folks with my good Stevie Ray-style guitar magic.”
The bandleader thought about it, and then he agreed, “K. Get on up here and show us what you’ve got.”
Luke joined the band, and they jammed like a gun.28 He had a little trouble keeping up with their quick changes in direction, but he held it together, and he proved a sound addition to the band, and a strong complement to Sam’s B.B. King-style guitar mojo.
The band was so skillfully blue that the crowd began to throw money up on stage. When they ran out of money and couldn’t buy any more drinks, they realized their error, but at least they did get their money’s worth, because Luke and the band sure put on a show! When it was all over and everyone was leaving, Sam turned to Luke and said. “Good job. You can play with us any time.” Then he gave Luke his fair share of their tips.
“Thanks,” said Luke. “It was a thrill to have the opportunity to play with this wonderful band. I can’t promise that I’ll be back though. I’m searching for life’s answers, and they’re not all in one place you know. So I move around a lot.” He shook hands with his fellow musicians, and then he hit the streets, looking for a place to sleep.
He found a grand hotel, a beaut, the Hotel Cass, and they set him up with a room in exchange for some of his guitar-earnings. He slept great.
The next day, Luke was back at Thunderhouse having lunch with the pianist, Hosanna. He had decided to stick around for at least one more sold-out show, because he liked the band members, and he really didn’t have any better ideas on where to go looking for happiness or enlightenment, and at the very least, playin’ the Thunderhouse seemed like a pretty good gig.
Luke ordered a bottle of milk and a hamburger. Hosanna asked for a salad and a plate of spaghetti and a River Highball29. Luke was payin’, because he was a good guy, and because he kind of had a crush on Hosanna. (She’s pretty.)
“So tell me, Miss Hosanna: What’s a sweet innocent gal like you doing in a joint like this?” Luke wondered.
Hosanna smiled. “True, I’m a Christian, and true, this sure ain’t a church! But y’know, I still feel like I belong here! For one thing, I’m also a musician, and this sure is a collossal musical experience. I mean, these guys are blues Giants! Also, I feel like I’m contributing a different perspective, maybe bringing some of the gospel to the band and to the audience, too? Sowing joy where there is sadness, light where there is darkness. Real ‘Garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’ type stuff, I hope. It’s a strange kind of missionary work, but it sure is fun, and it sure beats traveling abroad. Heck, it’s hard to find a decent piano in some parts of the world!” Then she got a little more serious, as she took a document out of her bag, flipped it open to a certain page, and slid it across to Luke. “But there’s another reason why I am here. I was told to wait for you.”
Luke looked at the page she was showing him: “Why, it’s me! Did you draw that last night?”
Hosanna shook her head and indicated the date written on the page. Luke realized it was a journal of some sort, and the sketch had been done earlier in the year. She nodded when Luke looked up in surprise and asked if it was for real. Knowing that she wasn’t the type to lie, with a slight shiver Luke exclaimed, “Signs and wonders!”
“Miracles and blessings,” she replied softly, almost like a countersign. Then she explained. “I drew that after I saw you in a vision, and was told to wait for you here.”
That was the second time she said she had been told, and the question Luke was afraid to ask was, Told by Whom? Instead he asked the less direct question, “Wait for me why?”
“To help you to find God, I would guess. You are searching for God aren’t you?” she asked brightly.
Luke chose the less committed, “I was told that I should”.
“I knew it!” Hosanna exclaimed. “Glory to God! To God be all glory! How can I help you then?”
Luke wasn’t sure. He still was a little doubtful about the whole bit about her being told to wait for him. “Would that happen? Would God basically put your life on hold, just for my sake? That doesn’t seem to make sense.”
Hosanna laughed. “Well, remember the parable about the lost sheep, and leaving the others in order to search for it? And would not the One who tells us to ‘go the extra mile’ be willing to go to great lengths Himself? ‘More joy in heaven’ my friend... The salvation of a single soul is im-measurable. A joy beyond measure! Besides... My life on hold? Hardly. This is my life! If I can serve Him, if I can be a vessel for His blessings to flow to others, then my life has purpose. Especially if I can use this brief life to help gain you an eternal one! Imagine! I’m sure you’ll do the same someday,” she offered generously. Luke wasn’t sure, but he did like the idea of his life having a purpose.
“But how are you going to do that? How will you show me God?”
Hosanna reflected. “I try to show people God by showing them love. By living my life in holiness and goodness and truth.” Luke nodded, because he could totally see that in her, and was falling more in love with her minute-by-minute....until he received her next near-rebuke: “But some people will miss the point: some people start to see me as good, instead of realizing that all the goodness that is in me comes from God! With those people, we need to figure out why they want to look at me, instead of wanting to see God. Sometimes something needs to be taken out of the way...” she suggested, hoping Luke might supply the answer.
Luke had to think it over. “I’ve been reading the Gospel,” he told her, looking for acceptance. “Trying to at least give it some consideration at least. But I’m just not totally convinced yet, I guess.”
“Nor will you ever be, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” Hosanna said a little curtly. Luke’s first thought was that this didn’t exactly sound like an expression of confidence in the overpowering truth of her beliefs. But Hosanna went on to clarify: “You can never be totally convinced, because until you actually become a believer and it all comes clear, you can always give yourself reasons to doubt: old beliefs you hold dear and don’t want to question, old habits you love and would hate to have to relinquish. And other people can give you reasons--tell you that Christianity
is a crutch, or a cult, or other charges they can’t prove. Or perhaps even the devil himself can put doubt in your heart, when you start to get too close to slipping from his clutches. So you can’t wait for anyone else to convince you. Eventually you just have to choose. What is holding you back from making that choice, I wonder?”
Luke was just a little offended by this. “Why do people think it’s that simple? How can I choose it before I believe it? And how can I believe it before I understand it? And how can I understand it before...”
Luke searched for what term must come next in this series of logic, but Hosanna broke in: “You’re never going to understand it fully anyway. So don’t wait for that. God is beyond our comprehension. But I see your point, maybe you just aren’t ready to believe yet.” A little sadly, she scaled down her ambitions. “Sometimes it’s not just one obstacle you can put your finger on. Sometimes it’s a lot of little things holding you back. Take them out of the way one by one, and you’ll get to the Truth! But you’ll get there, as long as you never stop trying! So what little thing can I help with? I know you are here for a reason...” She asked these last questions more to herself than to Luke, thinking aloud, trying to puzzle out what it could be. As she sized him up, she seized on it: “The way that you play the Blues. The way that you inquire and search for a salve. I see it now: you are a ‘man of sorrows’. Tell me about your sadness, your weaknesses, your guilt. Do you good to get it off your chest.”
It was quite an invitation. Even though Luke was a bleeding heart and an artist, and had no trouble sympathizing with others and helping share their pain, as a hard-nosed Hun he didn’t yet feel comfortable sharing his own. But something about Hosanna... Those tender shining eyes! There was something special there. As he told himself later, it was ‘As though she could with a single look see exactly what was hidden in your heart... and then forgive you for it.’ So after a long pause, a thick silence, suddenly Luke’s Confession poured out in a torrent. Not even in sentences, just insufficient words, trying to describe a single moment, a single image frozen in his memory.
“A sunny day. Hot. Flies buzzing, sticky sweat. After the battle. We were having a snack in the village we had just conquered, slight breeze, blue sky, birds still singing. The men laughing about something, feeling good. Another day of work, done by lunchtime, another victory for the Huns. Yay. And then... there was a boy. I saw him in the empty streets. I can see him still! Brown hair. That innocent face. That puzzled expression. Very tiny, two years old I would guess, not more than three... Walking, toddling about in the bleakness. Came out from somewhere, tired of playing ‘Hide-and-seek’ perhaps, and then...” Luke began to break down here, and by the end his confession was punctuated by sobs of grief. “Clutching a body… Shaking the man I had slain!” Luke began to shake too. “Can still hear his voice… his haunting voice... clear as a bell, everything else went quiet... Cold...” Luke shivered and wrapped himself in his own arms as he whimpered the rest in a child’s voice: “Ake up Daddy! Ake up, Ake up, Ake up....!”
At last it was said; finally it was shared. Luke sobbed and shook, and Hosanna held him and comforted him, and wept gently with him, as she waited patiently for many long minutes as Luke tried to recover. “Let it out” she instructed when he tried to stop himself prematurely, and he did, weeping openly until there were no tears left.30
Finally Luke continued, finishing the story, “That was my last battle, in my last campaign. I faked an injury so it wouldn’t be desertion, and in the fall I left for school at Iowa State. I always made sure I had summer classes and summer jobs, so I wouldn’t have to go back home to work in the wars. Haven’t been back to Hun-Country since. So yes, you see, I probably am afraid to believe in God. What else can there be but wrath and hatred for such a wicked man as I am?”
Though she was saddened before by his confession, Hosanna was overjoyed now. “Luke, you are so wrong! And you are so close! You just need to understand: ‘God is love’! ‘His mercies are new every morning’! How could He hate you? He hates what you have done, but so do you! That is repentance already! You have turned from that wickedness, renounced it, rebuked it, and put it in your past. The only thing left is to give it to God! Because you can’t get to heaven by being a good man, and God won’t keep you out for having been a bad one.”
“What?” That last bit had gone over Luke’s head.
“It is great that you have realized you were wrong, it is awesome that you are making yourself a better person now. But you will never, ever be able to make up for what you have done, never be able to take it back.” Luke knew this, so it almost seemed cruel for her to say this, but she was trying to make a point: “The only thing to do is to give your past to God, ask for forgiveness and mercy, so you can concentrate on your future, and on becoming a new creation in Him! And this is what I mean by ‘He won’t keep a bad man out’: What you have done is terrible, awful, you’ll pardon me but I must even call it evil. But are you greater than God? Can any evil of yours be greater than His good? Are there limits on God? Bounds to His mercy?
“So you can tell yourself, Luke, that your hesitation is from respect and humility and considering yourself unworthy, but God knows better. Deep down your hesitation reflects an underestimation of God, a failure to put God on top, an unwillingness to give Him the glory due His name. It’s as though you said, ‘God may save the good people, and the part-timers, but He can’t redeem the really dedicated full-time sinners like me’. What an insult! That attitude of denying God is still sin: that’s why no matter how good you make yourself, you still can’t earn your way back on your own--Because the very act of attempting it is continual sin! Yes, you are unworthy. Go to God anyway. God uplifts and changes the unworthy. That’s why they call it salvation; that’s why they call Him God.”
“But what about the man I slew? What about his son?” Luke asked skeptically, not willing to believe that a change of heart and a few tears could simply wash everything away.
Hosanna looked sad, and she squeezed his hand. “That was a tragedy. Nothing can undo it. It helps, at least, that you won’t be adding any more tragedies to it. All you can do is pray, now. Commit that man to God’s care: yes you slew him here, but when you get to heaven you might just meet him there! What you took from him was precious, but eternal life is infinitely more precious! He is in God’s hands, as we all are. As for the boy, yes what you did to him is terrible too, but remember the story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt and it wound up turning out well? He told them ‘You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.’ Possibly that child who lacks a father will be quicker to look to God as a Father. I have absolutely known people for whom that has happened, Luke! Pray always that God’s will be done; sometimes you may not understand it, sometimes it appears to be hard for a time, but it turns out in the end--everything happens as it is supposed to. How could it not?” Hosanna looked baffled, as though unable to even conceive of it.
“What exactly is prayer?” Luke wondered, coz it had now been recommended to him several times, but he didn’t really grasp the concept, certainly not well enough to use it himself.
Hosanna was happy again: “Prayer is our conversation with God. Talk to God, He hears you Luke! Your confession today was priceless by the way. Beyond... price. But anything you can say to me, you can say to Him!” Then she thought a little more and extended her definition. “Sometimes we pray out loud, and sometimes we think the words in our head, and sometimes we can’t find the right words at all. But it doesn’t matter, God hears before we ask Him. At its heart, prayer is simply a spirit turned towards God--offering our requests and our tears in our sorrow, and sharing our thanks and our praise in our joy.”
“My request is simple,” said Luke. “I just want to do what I’m supposed to do. I wish I knew what that was!”
Hosanna tried to help again. “God gives us gifts and talents we can use for His glory. Try to figure out what you do well, and maybe you’ll see your plac
e in life.”
Luke passed by the part about being good at burning and looting, coz he was pretty sure that was the wrong answer--and he didn’t want that part anymore anyway. All that left was, “Football. And my Masters degree in Agriculture. Oh, and for a while I was being groomed to lead a nation.”
Hosanna seized on that. “Why didn’t you say so? It almost seems to fit: after having been a man of war, you can now become a Man of Peace! If you have the skill for leadership, I would suggest that you run for office, get elected, and then get us some World Peace. Be a blessing for everyone, if you ask me. After all, it’s never the people who declare wars, it’s always the government. So if we get some peaceful folks in office, Hey, Hooray, no more war!”
Luke considered it, and grinned. “You know, Miss Hosanna, you’re pretty naive. But then, so am I! I think I’m going to try it!”
Just about then, the rest of the band started to arrive, because they had to practice that afternoon so that they could play splendidly that night.
“Hooray!” interrupted Reuben the one-armed trumpet player, “Our guitar warrior is still with us!”
“Yes, but I reckon this is my last show. Hosanna and I have been talkin’, and we decided I should go into politics,” Luke informed the band.
“Yikes!” exclaimed Sam in his deepgruffgravelly voice, “Here in Chicago? Man, that would not be wise. Everyone knows that Chicago politics is synonymous with corruption. In the real world, the innocent vote with their hearts, and the realists vote with their minds. But here in Chicago, the innocent vote with their money, and the realists vote with their swords. Kid, they’d eat a naive young country boy like you alive, and you wouldn’t hardly even be a small snack for ’em. How do you think Reuben here lost his arm?”
Luke looked shocked, “Gosh I don’t know. Was it gangsters, sending you a political message?”
“No,” said Reuben honestly. “It was a jealous husband. The gal told me she wasn’t married. Learn a lesson from it, Luke: it’s wrong to tell a lie. Not only can you get hurt, but so can the ones you love. Now how does that tie in to Chicago politics? Well, it’s wrong to get into politics in Chicago, too: not only can you get hurt, but so can the ones you love!”
Luke looked intimidated. “Gosh, I didn’t realize. I would hate for anything bad to happen to Miss Hosanna here. But what shall I do? I’ve got to get into office somewhere so I can bring about World Peace.”
The band thought about it. Finally Hearst the Sax-man spoke up: “Luke, why don’t you try the town of Chair? It’s a nice town, with a liberal-arts college, not too far south of here, and I hear they’re havin’ a mayoral election soon. They’ve got some nice folks around there too. I think you would fit right in.”
Luke considered, and then he decided, “Sure, why not?”
“Swell; that’s settled then. Now let’s get set up and go over these arrangements,” hurried Sam. “I’ve got some ideas on how we can better exploit Luke’s guitar tonight, and I want to try something new on one of Hosanna’s numbers, and maybe even try to work out a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Hurting Inside’.” Enthusiastically, the band followed Sam’s directions, and they had quite a fruitful practice session. Later that evening, they put on a legendary show.
After the concert, before Luke went back to sleep at the Hotel Cass, he walked Hosanna safely home, which gave him one last occasion to say “Thanks for the advice, I love you, and Goodbye,” and to give her a hug and a good-bye kiss.
Hosanna wished him well and promised to pray for him, and asked him again to give it to God and trust that it would all work out in the end, promising gaily, “After all, if ‘the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much’, how much better when a righteous woman is praying for you!”
Luke grinned, tucked her tales of God’s mercy into his memory, and slept just a little bit more peacefully, that night and for nights to come.