Solomon's Porch (3 page)

Money meant little to Peter’s “new man,” beyond what was required to survive and to care for his son. Status and worldly glory, all of the “stuff” that this fleshly existence holds to be so valuable, had become worthless to him.

Peter began to realize, to believe by faith, that he had been snatched from the jaws of the evil one not for his own glory, pleasure, or comfort, but to fulfill God’s purpose. Exactly what he was supposed to do he didn’t know, but he trusted that Christ would reveal this to him in His time.

Meditating often on his vision, Peter could not help but wonder what it all meant, for him specifically and for everyone else. Who were these “others” God spoke about who were coming to help him? How would he know who they were? What were they supposed to do once they arrived?

Yet, even in the face of all this uncertainty, Peter was not anxious. He worried for nothing, wanted for nothing. Even though the United States government held his body captive, Peter was now truly free. He had asked God for the forgiveness of his sins and had received it. He was at peace with the Lord and with himself.

He did still enjoy mowing the lawn, maybe even more so now. One bright September morning, while he was happily cutting away, engrossed in some thoughts about the prophet Isaiah, two men came walking toward him. Both were unfamiliar.

One was black, maybe thirty, and he was large, muscular, and menacing. The other was much older, slender, and white, and had the look of someone who had gotten the worst of one too many bar fights. They stood directly in his path, obviously intent on making Peter stop and pay attention to whatever it was they had to say.

Peter pulled back on his machine and turned it off. He removed his earplugs and watched as both of them looked him over, silently but very thoroughly. After a minute or so, it was the skinny white man who spoke first.

“Is your name Panos, Panos Chrismos, or something like that?”

“Yes, yes it is,” Peter responded, startled by being addressed by his birth name once again by another total stranger.

“Good. We need to talk to you, man. Are you the one Gabriel sent us to find? What do you know about our dreams?”

Three

Peter needed a few minutes to prepare himself, so after brief introductions he asked the two new men to meet him in the library in half an hour. Peter’s mind was racing, he could sense the Spirit telling him that whatever God was planning was starting right here, right now. It was a holy mission that could not be stopped or delayed, something both magnificent and perilous.

Their names were Malik and Saul. Evidently they rode in together on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) bus from Atlanta, but had come from separate institutions. Saul, the thin white guy, mumbled something about being “drawn” to Malik, but he did not elaborate further.

It was also certain that both of them had seen Gabriel. Dreams, they’d also mentioned dreams. Peter wondered if God had put them through the same tortuous series of sufferings he had endured.

Walking toward the library, Peter saw Malik sitting alone on the patio. They greeted each other and shook hands, which with Malik Graham was like grabbing a bear. Even restrained, Malik’s physical strength was impressive. As were his tattoos, which consisted of various women’s names, assorted firearms, drug paraphernalia, barbed wire, and snakes. His two front teeth had gold caps and his left forearm bore a surgery scar from elbow to wrist. Anyone with eyes and common sense could see that Malik Graham had a violent past and that he was not someone to be disrespected.

Before his vision, Peter Carson would never have come near a man like Malik Graham unless he had been forced to by circumstance. If that happened, outwardly Peter would have remained calm, but on the inside he would have been panicky.

But as they sat down together on one of the hard wooden benches on the outdoor library patio, Peter wasn’t afraid. Malik’s body was saying, “I’m a dangerous man,” but his eyes were those of a frightened child. Peter understood the source of this fear immediately, God must have recently touched Malik. No matter how big and bad you are in this world, you are as helpless as a fly in a hurricane before the Almighty.

“Should I be callin’ you Panos or Peter?” Malik asked.

“Peter is good, it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you some sort of prophet? Do you have any idea of the weird s***, sorry, crap, that’s been happenin’ to me bro?”

“Can’t seem to curse much anymore, can you,” Peter said, laughing.

“No, and it’s a pain. I thought God’s last name was damn until real recent. I was a mothereffing, straight up gangsta, Mr. Pete. No one badder’n me. Genuine thorough hoodlum. Now look at me, sitting here in this punk a** prison conversating with a crazy old white dude. Oh, no offense there, Mr. Pete. Damn! What’s happenin’ to me?”

“Why don’t you tell me about it,” Peter asked, trying his best not to smile.

Using the broken syntax of sixth grade level English mixed with a unique southern variety of Eubonics, Malik began telling his life story, condensed and summarized to the best of his ability.

Like so many other black, violent, and incarcerated men, Malik Graham came from a poor home with no father. Born and raised on the north side of Charlotte, North Carolina, Malik learned his lessons early.

Lesson one was that he was bigger and meaner than almost anyone else his own age. Once he hit sixteen or so, this comparison then also applied to the population as a whole. Being large and tough in the projects meant that you were respected and feared. Malik’s self-image was built entirely around his ability to be the “baddest mothereffer on the block.”

Lesson two was that the way to get ahead in this world is to deal drugs and steal. None of Malik Graham’s peers were anything but antisocial and criminally inclined. The guys that drove the Beamers or the classic cars with the three thousand dollar rims, the homies who passed around benjamins like they were candy, the gangsters who had a stable of bitches and whores, these were Malik’s role models. Who else, what else, could he possibly want to be?

Only one person in his whole life ever saw Malik Graham as anything other than a career criminal and a violent felon, his grandmother Josie.

Josie Arnold was Malik’s maternal grandmother. When her daughter abandoned her only child at the age of twelve because her coke dealer boyfriend didn’t want him around, Josie took Malik in. But by then it was already well past too late. Malik’s heart was hardened, his life’s course set.

Granny Arnold was the only person Malik truly loved. While she wasn’t nearly a strong enough influence on him to keep him away from the streets, drugs, violence, and “the life,” Granny Arnold was able to get his attention when no one else could.

In and out of juvenile facilities on charges ranging from assault to grand theft, Malik left a swath of destruction from an early age. During those rare short periods when Malik slowed down for awhile to appease a judge or a probation officer, Josie Arnold got him to read the Bible and go to church.

The Arnolds had been Pentecostals always, which meant church services included copious amounts of “spirit-filled” worship, like prophesying and speaking in tongues.

One Sunday night, when Malik was fifteen, Josie was able to cajole him into going to a particularly raucous service. Men were “on fire with the Spirit” that night, many were “slain,” demons were “exorcised,” “miraculous healings” were achieved, new and unique “heavenly languages” were spoken.

Malik told Peter that during all of this commotion, a man appeared out of nowhere. A white man about thirty or so, with light brown, curly hair. This man’s presence at once made Malik uneasy or, as he put it, “scart to death.” Why? For one thing, white people didn’t go to Granny’s church, so at first Malik thought he might be a cop or a social worker that had come to take him away. For another, this person, in Malik’s words, threw off a “righteous power” he could readily sense if not easily relate.

Before Malik even said it, Peter knew he was describing Gabriel.

Young Malik sat there petrified as Gabriel held his hand and said to him, “Say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” Gabriel repeated this short verse from the Psalms three times.

Then he said, “Be ready when you are called, Malik. The Lord will protect you always and make you honored among men.”

Malik remembered that at that moment a blanket of peace swept over him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He described it as “pure joy,” a calmness, a passive, positive feeling of acceptance and love both “intense” and “comfortin’.” Malik remembered thinking that this has to be “what heaven is like.”

Malik told Peter that he turned his head to get Granny Arnold’s attention and to show her this unusual white man. Josie was evidently completely engrossed in the service and in the thirty seconds or so that it took him to get her awareness, Gabriel disappeared.

On the ride home, Malik told Granny Arnold everything Gabriel had said to him. Almost anyone else would have dismissed Malik’s statements as the rantings of a disturbed and impressionable teenager, overcome by an intensely dramatic Pentecostal service, but Josie Arnold wasn’t anybody else.

“That was your angel, Malik,” she told him. “We all have ’em. Always remember what he told you, boy. God must have somethin’ real special planned for you.” She said this with such assurance that Malik believed it without question. He didn’t understand it, but he did believe it.

“Scary thing is, Mr. Pete,” Malik said, catching his breath after telling the Gabriel portion of his story, “now I think I do understand.”

From the age of fifteen on (he was thirty now), Malik Graham lived the gangster life. His encounter with Gabriel did not change that. By eighteen he had killed his first man. There would be several more.

Malik sold “rocks,” crack cocaine. He robbed other drug dealers, pimped whores, fenced stolen property, and set up a counterfeit money ring. Every few months or so, he would get arrested.

Since he had plenty of money for lawyers and “business expenses,” like bail and bribes, Malik was never in jail for very long. Clever at his craft, the local authorities could never stick Malik with anything serious enough to put him behind bars for any length of time. This would change when Malik turned twenty-four. It was then that a federal drug task force zeroed in on his operation. The FBI set up wires and surveillance, paid informants, and tracked all of Malik’s criminal activities for six months. Then they nailed him.

Malik woke up one morning to the sight of ten U.S. Marshals, all pointing shotguns at his head. They seized everything; cash, cars, motorcycles, boats, jewelry. The Feds also found twenty kilos of crack cocaine, enough to put Malik away for the rest of his life.

You cannot easily buy or talk your way out of major federal drug trafficking charges, Malik found out. He spent the last fifty thousand he had stashed on a top-notch defense attorney.

What did it get him? Rather than life in prison, he signed a plea for a sentence of three hundred months. Thirty years. Even with good time, that meant Malik Graham wouldn’t see the world again until he was fifty something.

They sent Malik to the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Atlanta. He fit right in. Malik knew four or five of the inmates there, because he once ran with them in Charlotte. They quickly became his crew and did Malik’s bidding.

Always the dominant one, Malik Graham ruled his block with harsh discipline and cruelty. What privileges and luxuries that existed in a bleak place like a USP, Malik made sure he had plenty of, like drugs, liquor, and dirty magazines. Actually, his life was little changed from the one he lived on the streets, the only real differences being he couldn’t move around freely, and his “hos” were now punks.

So should have ended the saga of Malik Graham. Over and done, a menace to society, put away and left to rot during the best years of his life. Granny Arnold died just before the Feds arrested Malik. Despite the fact that he had at least ten children by six different “baby mamas,” after Josie Arnold passed on, there was no one left in the world who really gave a damn about Malik Graham.

As it turns out, this world is not what it seems.

About six months ago, Malik told Peter, he started having “crazy dreams.” The first set of these were not dreams at all, but rather lucid nighttime recollections of several near death experiences he’d survived during his thug life.

Malik relived the shotgun blast from ten feet away that somehow completely missed him, the time he rolled his new Corvette, totaled it, yet amazingly walked away without a scratch, and the night when his ex-best friend Tyrone blasted away at him with a pistol from across his living room and only managed to graze him.

Malik awoke from all of these dreams with the same thoughts.
Why am I still alive? Just to sit in this human zoo for twenty plus years? I should be dead.
Malik had questions, but no answers.

Then one afternoon, about a month before this day on which Malik Graham sat pouring out his heart and soul to a complete stranger at Parkersboro, a new inmate arrived on his block at the USP. He was white, about thirty or so with light brown, curly hair. Malik recognized him immediately, even though he had not seen him in fifteen years.

At the time he didn’t recall Gabriel’s prophecy because he was so taken aback by watching this “angel” stow his gear in a cell and then walk out on to the recreation yard. Without prompting, Malik followed him.