He paused, then asked, “Are you gonna race him back the aisle, like you did Billy Schmidt?”
I nodded, “Sure’ but he’ll beat me - Indians are quite fleet of foot!”
Doug shot back that they hadn’t been fast enough to outrun “your ancestors.” So I objected that my ancestors had been Vikings, not John Smith or William Bradford. I started to add that his ancestors hadn’t managed to outrun the slave traders, wither; but since we both think he’s a white kid, I didn’t say it.
Instead, I decided to go ahead and really startle him, and said, “OK, big brother, there’s something else I need you to do for me, if it’s not too much trouble, and you can spare the time.”
Now, of course, since we were keeping him out of jail and feeding him, nothing I asked was apt to be “too much trouble” - so he knew I was setting him up, and teased me back, “Well, I dunno - depending on what it is.”
So I replied, “Raise me from the dead.”
Now, Doug’s still learning how to use “the gift”; and maybe God hadn’t shown it to him yet - but he had no clue what I was talking about and simply thought I was kidding, and responded, “I can’t - you’re not dead.”
So I replied, “I’m gonna be - Thursday night.”
That got his attention, and he asked, “When?”
So I said, matter-of-factly, “Right after I get shot in the head.”
He sensed that I wasn’t kidding any more, and asked, “Who’s fixing to shoot you?”
I responded, “A hit man CPS is hiring, to finish the job you botched..” At that point, Doug wasn’t certain what to make if it, and asked flatly, “You serious, kid brother?”
I replied, “Absolutely - you’ll be just a few feet away while I’m lying there on the platform bleeding to death - unless you can bring me back.” Not surprisingly, Doug was more than overwhelmed by this revelation. He was silent for a moment, and finally exclaimed, “Oh, man! And he’s really gonna kill you?”
“Yeah, Doug,” I replied. “Promise you’ll at least try to get me back. Promise me you won’t let them take me to the morgue without at lest laying your hand on me, saying the words, and at least trying to make it happen.”
He hugged me and said that he would; but I’d upset him pretty bad. With his hearing coming up on Tuesday, maybe I shouldn’t have laid it on him right then. But I thought he ought to have some notion of the fight we were getting into. I don’t think either of us slept very much that night.
The next morning, before we left for school. Doug asked, “Did you really mean all that stuff you told me last night?” And I nodded and said, “Absolutely.” And we did have school - sort of. We’d had half a dozen kids come forward at the Sunday night services, and then want to come to our school - and of course, they hadn’t been “rented.” So Fr. And Alex were having “school” for them - which mainly consisted of just getting their enrollment forms filled out, giving them textbooks, stuff like that.
Of course, they weren’t expecting us to show up - and the six kids there acted like they’d captured two big celebrities. And of course, I told them, “We’re gonna be together all day every day - no big deal.”
They’d also gotten onto the fact that we always spanked the new kid his first day there; and so they wanted Alex to swat them; but he told them no, that you had to get it in front of the whole group, and that they’d get it “tomorrow.”
But because they wanted to hear us “perform,” I got Bob’s guitar, and Doug and I sang two or three songs for them. I know we sang Golden Slippers, and Doug danced a little for them. And we did try to teach them a couple of songs we guys were going to sing at the evening service.
We didn’t “hold school” (such as it was) the entire day; but they wanted to hear me “preach.” Of course, our services have been more like a coach whooping up a pep rally - the only ones who’ve heard me really preach a full-blown sermon were the guys, to whom I’d delivered Billy Sunday’s harangue against booze.
So we went over to the church, actually sand a song and said a prayer, and I gave them about fifteen minutes’ worth of the “booze” sermon, and then the part of Jonathan Edwards’s sermon about holding the spider over a fire. None of them had any clue who Jonathan Edwards was, and were surprised at his odd accent and rasping tenor voice, since I was “channeling” him - but of course they found the content of his message gripping.
They didn’t cling to the posts of the building (our church doesn’t have any), as Edwards’s hearers are said to have done; but I got the feeling that if I’d kept at it a little longer, they’d have tried to hide under the seats. So I again noted with great satisfaction that my speaking style was improving. Since God’s called me to do public speaking (c’mon, I never had any personal ambition to leave Copenhagen and go harangue people in Pocatello about the evils of booze), I’m trying to do it as effectively as possible.
When I said that to Doug, he asked if that meant, next time he shot me, he should try to do it more effectively. So he’s learning to do repartee; but the fact we were both kidding about his having shot me, shows just how stressed out we were about Doug’s hearing.
Anyhow, that evening when it got church time, there were only Doug and me for Dad to take down to the tent. It seemed strange, not having my bunch of brothers around - not even my beloved Billy.
Alex and Fr. Had managed to make two banners with Doug’s picture on them saying, “Pray for Doug1" they’d put one above the platform, and the other one out front. Doug felt real funny about it; but we were both sure God wanted us to do it that way.
And it was, after all, basically a prayer request; and nobody could reasonably object to a church urging folks to pray for somebody. The guys trickled in one by one, and by the time we started, they were all there, and we marched down front carrying our Bibles, as usual. Most - maybe all - of the folks who’d “rented” us, stayed for the service. For one thing, they all wanted to “rent” us again, so they’d get another shot at “their” kid’s tail - and all of then had gotten on well enough that they wanted the same kid again. Even the three profs showed up again - mainly because Prof. J. Wanted to hear Doug and me sing again.
We put on a pretty good “show.” Of course, since Doug’s hearing was the next morning, the interest was quite high. The tent was full, with people standing around on the outside. A number of churches - actually over a hundred - had notified us they were holding prayer services simultaneously with ours. I started off by saying that, and we actually managed to stream a live picture from three of them and let each pastor say a few words.
We’d also gotten a local black minister there, and he got up and thanked the people for coming to pray for “our brother Doug.” Then I sprang my big surprise - by passing around enough money, Mr. Huber had managed to get the prison officials to let Doug’s dad speak to our folks via the www.
It wasn’t a particularly big deal for them - they did court hearings via the web, and so all they had to do was use that. And there was nothing particularly risky or objectionable in letting a prisoner ask a church to pray for his son.
But, to Doug, it was a really big deal. He hadn’t come out on the platform yet, but was standing in the little “waiting” area we’ve made behind the platform - but there was a monitor there, and the security cam caught the look on his face; and we streamed it on a split screen so all the folks got to see him react. Glitzy? Maybe - but they were our church family sharing the moment with him. “Rejoice with them that do rejoice.”
I could read his mind, and it was a wrenching experience for my brother, who’d always been part of the white community, to see his dad for the first time, and come to grips with the fact that he really was half black, and that his dad was incarcerated.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have sprung it on him the night before his hearing, especially since Doug was scared he himself might be in jail by that time tomorrow night. But it certainly added to the drama of the meeting; his dad had been more than willing to do it - and in view of the horrific struggl
e ahead, Doug needed to realize the seriousness of our (OK, God’s) fight.
But I had another surprise in store for my half-breed brother. I followed the live statement from his dad with a live shot of his step-mom’s family - consisting of five kids, two of whom were his half-siblings, whom he’d never seen. The oldest, Shawn, was about Doug’s age. NO one but I knew that he’d shortly be joining us, and he and Doug be “hanging out” together.
They simply thanked the folks for praying for “our brother Doug.” Then we put Dad (whose money was bankrolling the whole thing) up to say he was adopting Doug to be a brother to his two sons (not strictly true, since he was also fixing to adopt over a hundred more, in short order; so Doug would have lots of “brothers.”)
Dad was perfectly used to making presentations - albeit not usually to five thousand people - seemed perfectly at east, and stubbornly insisted that he was going to adopt Doug anyway, even if they did throw him in jail (and I pictured his adding, “Not to worry; I’ve got enough money to buy any judge in the state.” I lack words to describe how I despise the America judicial system.) And Bob and Billy came up and stood beside their dad, and each said, “Thanks for coming to pray for our brother.”
Then we went through the motions of taking up a collection to pay Doug’s lawyer. They pretended to count it, then put it in a big bag, brought it up front and handed it to Mr. Huber. Of course, I knew how much it would be, and had simply told them the amount in advance.
Someone should have wondered how we got it counted that fast - but nobody thought of it. Not that it mattered - Mr. Huber immediately came up onto the platform, announced that he was doing the case pro bono publico (free), donated the whole pile to the school, and gave us an extra thousand dollars of h is own.
We hadn’t set it up - Mr. Huber did it spontaneously (as I’d known he would), but he knew that Dad would pay him whatever he wanted. So, in effect, we’d collected an extra twelve hundred dollars for the academy; money which it didn’t really need. But everyone who’d contributed (an average of about $2.40 each), each felt that he now had a personal stake in the fight.
And the picture of five thousand people pitching in to help Doug pay his lawyer, wasn’t lost on the judge and t he prosecutor (both of whom wee there), or on the governor (who wasn’t, but who knew it happened).
Chapter 511 - “I value my life!”