The following summer was the same for the boys. They went through their annual ritual of sneaking in as they had done before. Again crossing the fallen tree to the other side where they waited until the time was right to squeeze through the rusted fence. Just as in previous years Josh and his friends would wander around checking out the eligible girls. Even if one of the boys had a girlfriend, they would still keep an eye out just in case they did happen to find another girl who was interested in them. It wasn’t the noblest thing for them to do, but they weren’t thinking of what was right. As they walked and gawked, Josh was suddenly cornered.
“Do you know Jesus as your Savior?”
The old man handed Josh one of his little booklets, almost shoving it into his hand. Josh reacted with the same contempt he had the first time he heard that question, but took the little booklet anyway. It was, after all, a different story than he’d read the year before—he could tell by the color of the book, it was red this time. He mumbled out something, the old man took this as a “yes” then turned to the nearest person walking by and asked the same question to them. Josh took the little book home, read it, and then toss it in the garbage. While Josh liked the stories, he hated being accosted by that old man. It always made him feel trapped and pressured. It made him feel like everyone was watching him. It was humiliating He knew the old man would be at the fair the next year, and the next one after that. He was certain the Bible-thumper would catch him, forgetting he’d asked Josh the same dumb question every year so far, and ask him again whether he knew who Jesus was. Josh wasn’t sure how to stop it, not unless he could get the old man to recognize him next year so all the years following he would stand out and the old man would leave him alone. But what could Josh do? He might be able to yell at him, “Leave me alone!!” But what would the people around him think? Some would applaud, sure, but some might look at Josh with their judgmental eyes.
What if he just read the Bible? In that way, when the old man stopped him the next year and asked the same humdrum question, Josh could tell him what he’d done. He hadn’t ever heard of anyone who’d read the whole thing, maybe his grandfather sure, but he was old, older than the old man at the fair. Of course his grandfather had read the whole Bible, it’d take that long just to get through it! Even if he couldn’t get through the whole thing at least he could say he was in the process of doing so. This might impress the old man. Maybe the old man hadn’t read the whole Bible himself. This would certainly make Josh look like some kind of learned scholar, wiser than the old man himself. Most definitely that would get him to remember Josh the next time he walked through.
Josh played out the whole thing in his head. He’d be walking past the crowds at the fair, almost floating, at one with nature and everything around him. He’d see the old man frantically trying to get people who pass by him to accept a tract as sweat ran down his forehead. Then he’d turn to see Josh walking up to him, Josh’s face looking surreal. The old man would quickly look to the ground, knowing Josh was much more knowledgeable than he was. People would look on, wondering who this kid was who could make an adult cower. They might think he was some kind of genius or, better yet, some kid with a power given to him straight from the hand of God.
It sounded great. Josh grinned from ear to ear thinking about it.
He started reading in the fall…one long page at a time. The sheer thickness of the Bible made Josh feel bored, but simply imagining the look on the old man’s face when he corners Josh at next year’s fair and Josh triumphantly declaring he had already read the Bible, helped him trudge on. None of it made the journey any easier. Josh groaned as he read through the seemingly endless genealogies, it didn’t matter that his Bible was a version an eleven year old could understand, the names of the people back then were hard to pronounce and the list of them went on forever. He actually fell asleep one time simply because it was so boring. All those names, people, and places melded together in his mind as he read making each one look just like the one before. Josh even struggled over some of the odd visions, like the ones that Ezekiel guy saw. Josh kept persevering though. By the time he got to the middle of it he was reading the Bible almost mindlessly. There were certain stories that had always fascinated him, like Jonah in the belly of the whale. He imagined a large whale, big enough to swallow a ship, coming up out from behind Jonah, opening its mouth, and then swallowing him up without slowing down. He thought of Jonah in the whale’s large stomach, maybe climbing aboard one of the swallowed ships, maybe even meeting other people who had been swallowed as well.
“Cool.” Josh thought as he smiled.
Fall turned into winter, winter became spring, and summer finally came. By some miracle Josh had finished the entire Bible. He couldn’t believe it. He’d reached his goal and felt confident it was enough to throw in the man’s face as a kind of self-righteous defiance. When the fair came once again, Josh was ready. After the boys sneaked into the fair, Josh actually made it his mission to search out the man. The fair was crowded that year it was hard to tell where he’d be. Every year he’d caught Josh it was in a different place so he could be anywhere, and most of the old people looked alike. This was farming country after all, old men in plaid shirts and suspenders roamed up and down the aisles like some kind of bad clown convention. After an hour and a half of searching Josh couldn’t find the man anywhere. A little disappointed, Josh assumed the old man was probably off somewhere pestering someone else. Probably had them cornered too, which is why Josh couldn’t find him. He tried to enjoy the rest of his time at the fair but he couldn’t. He was too nervous the old man would catch him off guard. Josh had to be ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
Night came and so did the closing of the fair. Josh saw nothing of the man he’d been searching for. The year following was the same. It was as if he knew Josh had finally read the Bible and felt his duty was finished, disappearing forever, never to be seen again. The possibility made Josh more angry than anything else. He’d spent all that time reading the Bible when he could have spent it doing something fun. That old man had just wasted a part of his life he’d never get back. Not only that man, but Jesus as well. It was because of Jesus that the man held Josh up. The old man felt obligated to do it because Jesus ordered His followers to save the lost souls, at any cost…even if it meant ruining their lives in the process. Josh didn’t know why Jesus didn’t just let him alone so he could do what he wanted. Jesus was nothing but a bother to the kind of lifestyle he wanted to live.
Chapter 11