Solomon's Porch (4 page)

“Hello, Malik,” Gabriel said, extending his hand. “Do you know who I am? Do you remember that Sunday some years ago when we first met?”

“Yes sir,” Malik answered.

“Your time has come, Malik. The Lord requires your service. He shall make you honored among men.”

Then Gabriel touched him and said some words in a language Malik did not understand.

Malik felt a surge of power hit him. It was a force far greater than anything of this world. It took control of his body. It froze him physically and mentally.

“And that’s how I found out about you, Mr. Pete. Gabriel shows me you and this place and Saul and four other guys. God wants us to work for Him, Mr. Pete, and I don’t think we best say no.”

“Tell me what happened when Gabriel touched you,” Peter asked.

“Like I said, Mr. Pete, God shows me all seven of us standin’ in a circle on this porch prayin’. White lights so bright it’d blind ya if ya stared at it shootin’ off our heads like bolts of lightnin’.”

“You’re the leader, Mr. Pete. Gabriel his self told me. He says, ‘Find Panos Kallistos and he will help you to fulfill your purpose. He is God’s instrument and you are his servant.’“That’s what he said, Mr. Pete. On my life, on Granny Arnold’s soul. I’m here to do what you tell me. I won’t disobey anymore, Mr. Pete. I know how rotten, violent, and sinful I always been, but you gots to believe me, ever since Gabriel touched me, I can’t hurt a fly. I’m not the same man that I was, Mr. Pete.”

Peter was trying to absorb all of this when Saul appeared and joined them on the porch.

“I guess by now you’ve heard Mr. Graham’s story,” Saul said, nervously finding a seat on the bench next to Malik. “Since he and I had the same dream, and believe me, we did, let me lay it all out for you, Mr. Carson.”

Saul Cohen had none of the language handicaps of Malik Graham. It became immediately obvious to Peter that Saul was well-educated and articulate.

“It’s frighteningly simple. In our dreams, we are brought here, and by “here” I mean right here, Mr. Carson, to this porch. It’s so fuc … , sorry, bloody real, it’s not like you’re just seeing it, you are actually there.”

“He’s tellin’ you true, Mr. Pete. Swear he is,” Malik confirmed.

“We are all standing around in a circle, holding hands and praying. I know that we’re praying, because I figured out after my visit with Gabriel that we are all saying the Lord’s Prayer in unison.”

“We keep repeating this prayer, over and over, until this intense white light, brighter than the sun, suddenly shoots out from the tops of our heads. Then I wake up.”

“That’s how we knew who you were, Mr. Carson. We’ve both seen you before, many, many times.” Malik nodded his head in agreement.

“You also spoke to Gabriel, Saul, is that right?” Peter asked.

“Same man, different uniform. Gabriel came to me as an FBI agent, but he told me the same thing he told Malik. Essentially, anyway.”

“Essentially?” Peter repeated. “Exactly what does that mean?”

While Malik Graham’s lack of verbal skills limited the type and breadth of his expressions, they did not limit their length. Malik loved to talk. Saul Cohen was just the opposite when it came to communication. He had the ability to explain and expound, but not the desire.

All he would tell Peter about himself (for the moment) was that he was fifty-eight years old, Jewish, from New York City, and in the middle of a fifteen year sentence for bank robbery. He also caught the BOP bus to Atlanta, but his journey began at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Kentucky, a “low custody” facility. This type of prison is one step up from a camp, but nowhere near as onerous as a penitentiary.

The moment Saul stepped on the bus to Parkersboro, he said he recognized Malik from his dreams. Without stopping to think, because if he had he would have realized how stupid and potentially suicidal it was, he pushed his way into a seat next to Malik. But before the other black inmates sitting nearby could react and beat down the skinny old white dude for his insolence, Malik said, “He’s with me.”

They spent the next three hours trying to figure out why God wanted anything to do with the likes of them, and how in the world they ended up on this bus together.

Under Federal Bureau of Prisons guidelines, neither Saul Cohen nor Malik Graham had any business being designated to a Federal prison camp. Camps are for people like Peter Carson, non-violent offenders with sentences under ten years.

While someone like Saul might see a camp near the end of his sentence, it was unheard of for a man to go from a maximum security USP straight to a camp. Malik told Saul that the BOP people in Atlanta checked and rechecked his paperwork several times before they put him on the bus, even going so far as to call Washington for confirmation.

A man like Malik Graham, such as he was before God through Gabriel touched him, doing time in a prison camp, would be like turning loose a tiger on a herd of trapped deer. In the few hours or days he would spend there, since there was no fence, a man like Malik Graham would be gone almost instantly, he would intimidate, rob, and beat the other prisoners at will.

Yet, as Peter sat looking at his new friends, he was struck by how unthreatening they both now were. Malik had become a lamb in a lion’s body, and Saul, who Peter rightly surmised had been every bit as evil if not as violent as Malik, looked like a chastened schoolboy ready to obey his Daddy and get straight.

“Well, brothers, if what you say is right, and believe me I do not doubt anything that you’ve told me, we’ve got work to do. I guess we should be expecting four more to join us shortly,” Peter said, contemplating exactly what his next move should be. “I’m new at this business of being God’s servant, but let me assure you, He won’t leave any doubt about what we are to do next.”

“Do either of you have a Bible?” Peter asked. Two heads shook no. “We will solve that problem quickly. For now let me quote to you from a book in the Bible called James, the first chapter and the fifth verse. It describes our current situation. James says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

With that Peter stood and motioned for Saul and Malik to do the same. They held hands and formed a small circle. Peter led them in prayer.

Several inmates who had been milling around the porch watched this happen and wondered why Peter Carson was praying at all, much less with two new guys he couldn’t possibly know.

It was the first time men were seen praying on the porch, but what now seemed odd would soon become a regular part of life at Parkersboro.

Four

“Daddy?”

“Kevin, how are you, son?”

“Okay, I guess. I miss you so much, dad. I’ve been reading the children’s Bible you sent to me. It’s neat. You help me to understand it better too. It’s just that mom … ”

Kevin Carson hesitated. He was so happy that his father was calling him regularly again, saying how much he loved him, and promising that God was going to help them both. He didn’t want anything to mess that up.

“It’s alright, Kev. You can tell me the truth. Don’t be afraid.”

“Mommy says you are a phony. I don’t know what that means, but it can’t be very nice. She and Walter were talking last night in the kitchen and I heard what they said. I wasn’t trying to spy, dad, honest. I was just coming downstairs for a glass of milk.”

“What did they say, son?”

“Walter said you’re a thief and a liar and that you should be in jail “until you drop,” whatever that means. Mommy says you are a phony, trying to use God and me to get something you want.”

“What did you say, Kev?”

“Nothing. I walked back upstairs and made a bunch of noise before I came back down so they could hear me coming. I kinda frowned at mommy, got my glass of milk and went to my room.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes, son.”

“Are you a phony?”

Out of the mouths of babes.
The old Peter Carson would have used his son like Julie was trying to, as a tool to hurt the other parent. In the past, not so long ago in fact, Peter had done just that, passing on thinly veiled insults for Kev to hurl at his mother on his behalf.

“Remember Moses, Kev? What did he do bad before he became a servant of God?”

“He killed the Egyptian who killed the Jew.”

“Right. Now a couple of weeks back we talked about King David. What did he do wrong, do you remember, Kev?”

“He sent a guy to die in war so he could steal his wife.”

“You are so smart. One more. What did St. Paul do before Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus road?”

“St. Paul hurt and per-se-cutted Christians.”

“Now, what did daddy do wrong to get sent to prison?”

“You stole money from people.”

Over the past few weeks Peter Carson had been doing his best to explain the divine mechanics of sin and repentance to his son. He wanted Kev to understand, even at the young age of ten, that we all sin, but we need not be conquered by it. Most importantly, Kevin needed to know, down deep in his soul, that his father was now a new man, someone whom he could both love and trust, without fear or reservation.

This was a delicate task. Peter’s goal was to make Kevin safer, happier, and more content, not to make things worse for him at home.

“Now, Kev. Do you think I’m a phony? A phony is a person who says he’s going to do something, or is something, when he knows that’s not true.”

“No, daddy. I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because you told me you were sorry, and that if you got do-overs you wouldn’t steal anymore. Because you love me. You never talked to me like this before, daddy. Now you ‘splain things to me so I know what they mean. I’m going to tell mommy you’re not a phony, she shouldn’t say that!”

“No, Kev, don’t. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s pray for her.”

So they did, asking God to help Julie Morgan, to protect and prosper her. Peter made sure Kevin understood that his mother was simply making a mistake, and since we all make mistakes, he should be nice about it, not mean. “God,” Peter Carson told his son, “is love and is not mean.”

They spent awhile going over how the Lord uses our weaknesses to show His strength, to glorify His name. Peter explained how God often times picks men and women who “people think are bad” to show how merciful and powerful He is. Heavy stuff, whether you’re forty or in the fourth grade.

“Is God using you like that, daddy? Are you like Moses?”

“Yes, son, God is using me to help you and I hope some other people, and also no, Kev, I’m not Moses or anybody special. I’m just your dad.”

“I love you, daddy.”

“Love you too, Kev.”

Peter was beginning to see the fruits of his labors with his son. Kev was happier, more active, and alert. His schoolwork had improved. He was hoping that Julie might bring him to the camp for a visit, something she had never done during Peter’s incarceration.

Julie. Julie “Morgan.” Peter still couldn’t adjust to calling her “Morgan.” Mrs. Walter Morgan.

Unreal, Peter often thought, my wife is married to another man. He wondered, would Julie always be his wife, down deep in his soul where it really counts? He prayed not, but there was a connection between the two of them that could not be broken, not by prison, and not by Walter. As far as Peter was concerned that wasn’t necessarily the good news. He didn’t consciously want Julie back, but he was still unable to rid himself of her influence, her presence in his daily thought life.

But now he trusted God, and that meant Peter had given Him this problem to solve. Sooner or later, whether she admitted it to herself or not, or even recognized it at the time as a choice, Julie Morgan would have to pick a side. Peter prayed it would be the Lord’s.

“The toughest thing for me, Peter, is the whole Christ as God, Lord, and Savior business,” Saul explained. “I’ve never been religious, until now I guess, but I have always been Jewish. Tough to go back on my entire family’s beliefs and traditions. I feel almost, well, disloyal.”

“Do you know now that Christ is who He claimed to be?” Peter asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Same way I know that you’re a man of God. The Voice inside me leaves little to doubt.”

“Don’t ever forget that Christ was a Jew, Saul. He never stopped being a Jew. In fact, he fulfilled the law, the Old Covenant, perfectly since he was without sin.”

“I hear you.”

“Then remember, you’re still a Jew. Difference being now you know the truth, your ancestors rejected the Chosen One. Don’t even ask me why, Saul. I don’t have a clue. We’ll ask Christ about this someday, you and me.”

“Do you have any idea, even a little bit, how weird this all is, Peter? I mean me sitting with you and Malik on this porch and talking about God?”

“I do.”

“I’m not sure you do, man.”

“Try me.”

Peter had been coaxing Saul Cohen along for a couple of weeks now, doing his best to get his new friend to open up. With Malik Graham it was like trying to control a fire hose when it came to him sharing his history, which had now become a powerful testimony. All Peter had to do with Malik was to be sure that the water was aimed at the flames and then get out of the way. But Saul, he was altogether different. Finally, Saul began to share himself with his brothers.