Brimstone

{ 45 }

The bus inched through a long, white-tiled tunnel in stop-and-go traffic and emerged from an underpass, a long ramp amidst steel girders in semidarkness.

New York City, thought the Reverend Wayne P. Buck.

Beyond the web of steel, he could see limpid sunlight, sooty tenements, a brief glimpse of skyscrapers. The bus lurched back into darkness, the brakes chuffing as the line of traffic stopped again.

Buck felt an indescribable mix of emotions: excitement, fear, destiny, a sense of confronting the unknown. It was the same thing he had felt a couple of years ago, the day he'd been released from prison after serving nine years for murder two. It had been a long, slow slide for Buck: delinquency, failed jobs, booze, stealing cars, bank robbery-and then the fateful day when everything went wrong and he'd ended up shooting a convenience store clerk. Killing a poor, innocent man. As the bus crept forward again, his mind went back over the arrest, trial, sentence of twenty-five to life, the manacled walk into the bowels of the prison. A period of darkness, best forgotten.

And then, conversion. Born again in prison. Just as Jesus raised up the whore, Mary Magdalene, He raised up the alcoholic, the murderer, the man who had been cast away by all others, even his own family.

After his salvation, Buck began reading the Bible: again and again, cover-to-cover, Old Testament and New. He started preaching a little, a few words here, a helping hand there. He formed a study group. Gradually, he'd built up the respect and trust of the prisoners who had ears for the Good Word. He was soon spending most of his time assisting in the salvation of others. That, and playing chess. There wasn't much else to do: magazines were showcases of materialism, television was worse, and books other than the Bible seemed full of profanity, violence, and sex.

As parole grew near, Buck began to feel that his ministry in prison was preparation for something else; that God had a greater purpose for him which would be revealed in time. After he got out, he drifted from one small town to another, mostly along the border between California and Arizona, preaching the Word, letting God clothe and feed him. His reading began to expand: first Bunyan, then St. Augustine, then Dante in translation. And always, he waited for the call.

And now, when he least expected it, the call had come. God's purpose for him stood revealed. Who would have thought that his call would take him to New York City, the greatest concentration of spiritual bankruptcy and evil in all America? Vegas, L.A., and other such places were merely sideshows to New York. But that was the beauty of doing God's will. Just as God had sent St. Paul to Rome-into the black heart of paganism-so had He sent Wayne P. Buck to New York.

The bus stopped, lurched again, everyone's heads swaying in unison with the movements. They were now on some kind of concrete ramp, climbing a rising spiral between crisscrossed girders. It put Buck in mind of Dante's circles of hell. In a moment, the bus plunged back into darkness and the stench of diesel, the sound of air brakes hissing demonically. It seemed they were at the depot-but a depot such as Buck had never seen or imagined in all his born days.

The bus ground to a halt. The driver said something unintelligible over the public address system, and there was a great sigh of air as the door opened. Buck exited. The others all had to wait for their baggage, but he was a free man, without possessions or money, just as it had been six years ago when he walked out into the bright sunlight of Joliet.

Without knowing where he was going he followed a crush of people down a series of escalators and through an immense terminal. Moments later he found himself outdoors, on the pavement of a great street. He stopped and looked around, feeling a rush of dread mingling with the spiritual vigor.

As I walked through the wilderness of this world . Jesus had spent forty days and nights in the desert tempted by the devil, and verily this was the desert of the twenty-first century: this wasteland of human souls.

He began walking letting Jesus take him where He would. Despite the crowded sidewalks, nobody seemed to notice him: the streams of humanity parted around him, then flowed together again behind him, like a river embracing a rock. He crossed a broad thoroughfare, walked down a canyon like street thrown into deep shadow by buildings that rose on both sides. Within a few minutes he arrived at another intersection, even wider than before, with roads coming in from all sides. Huge billboards and garish forty-foot neon marquees announced he was standing in Times Square. He looked skyward. It was a heady experience, surrounded by the mighty works of man, the modern-day glass and steel Towers of Babel. It was all too easy to see how one could be seduced by such a place; how quickly one could lose first one's conviction, then one's soul. He lowered his eyes again to the traffic, the noise, the great rush and press of humanity. The words of John Bunyan came to him again: You dwell in the City of Destruction: I see it to be so; and, dying there, sooner or later, you will sink lower than the grave, into a place that burns with fire and brimstone: be content, good neighbors, and go along with me.

Lost, all lost.

But perhaps not all: here and there, Buck knew, walked those who could still be saved, the righteous people with the grace of God in their souls. He did not yet know who they were, and it was likely even they didn't know. Be content, good neighbors, and go along with me. It was for them he had come to New York City: these were the ones he would pull back from the brink. The rest would be swept away in the blink of an eye.

For hours Buck walked. He could sense the siren-like call of the city tugging at him: its urbane window displays, its unbelievable opulence, its stretch limousines. Buck's nostrils filled with the stench of rotting garbage one moment, and the next with the scent of expensive perfume from some lynx-eyed temptress in a tight dress. He was in the belly of the beast, for sure. God had entrusted him with a mission, God had given him his own forty days in the desert, and he would not fail.

He had spent his last nickel on the bus ticket and had not eaten at all during the ride. Somehow the hunger, the fasting, had sharpened his mind. But if he was to do God's will, he had to seek nourishment for his body.

His wanderings took him to a Salvation Army soup kitchen. He went in, waited in line, sat silently with the derelicts, and ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese with a couple slices of unbuttered Wonder bread and a cup of coffee. As he ate, he slipped the shabby paper out of his pocket and perused the soiled article yet again. It was God's message to him, and every time he read it he felt fortified, refreshed, determined. After his simple meal, he left and began walking again, a new spring in his step. He passed a newsstand and paused, his eye catching the headline of the New York Post .

THE END IS NIGH

Satanists, Pentecostals and Prophets of Doom Continue to Converge at Site of Devil Killing

He instinctively shoved his hand in his pocket before remembering he had no money. He paused. What to do? This headline was, without a doubt, another message from God. Nothing happened in this world without significance. Not even the slightest sparrow could fall from the tree .

He needed money. He needed a bed for the night. He needed a change of clothes. God clothed the lilies of the field; would He not clothe him? That had always been Buck's philosophy.

But sometimes God liked to see a little initiative.

Buck looked up. He was in front of a huge building, guarded by two massive stone lions-the New York Public Library, the legend said. A temple to Mammon, no doubt filled with pornography and immoral books. He hastened around the corner. There, beside a small but nicely manicured park, were a number of people with chessboards set up and ready for play. They weren't playing each other; they seemed to be waiting for passersby. He approached, curious.

"Play?" one of them asked.

Buck paused.

"Five dollars," the man said.

"For what?"

"Game of ten-second chess. Five dollars."

Buck almost walked on. It might be considered a form of gambling. But then he paused. Was this, too, a little help from God? Buck sensed these players were good; they had to be. But what did he have to lose?

He sat down. The man immediately moved his queen's pawn, and Buck countered, ten seconds for each move.

Ten minutes later Buck was sitting on a bench in the park behind the library, reading the Post . The article told of small gatherings of people in front of the building where the devil had taken the man named Cutforth. It even gave the address: 842 Fifth Avenue.

Fifth Avenue. The legendary Fifth Avenue. The Mephistophelean heart of New York City. It all fit together. He tore out the article and folded it up with the other, carefully slipping them into his shirt pocket

He would not go there now; that could wait. Like David, he needed to gird his loins, prepare himself spiritually. He had not come to preach: he had come to do battle for the world

He checked his pocket Four dollars and fifty cents. Not nearly enough to find a bed for the night. He wondered just how God might help him multiply that money, as Jesus had multiplied the loaves and the fishes.

There were still a few hours before sunset. Jesus would help him, Buck knew. Jesus would surely help him.