Job 2.0 Page 5

  “Yeah, but what is the Truth?” asked Larry. “And don’t gimme your own version of a Keithism. Not another ‘I dunno.’ Tell us what the Truth is!”

  Jason got very serious. “Truth just is. It has no agenda. It needs no defense—at least by defenders like us. Truth defends itself just by being. And Truth is pure—it’s like a piece of divinity.” Pleased with his definition, Jason sat down, nodded, and crossed his arms as if he’d delivered a final ultimatum to a foe.

  “Pie-in-the-sky simplistic BS,” chided Larry. Unaffected by Jason’s speech, he said, “I prefer one of Keith’s ‘I dunnos’ over your hunk of ‘Truth is just itself’ smoke-and-mirror vagueness.”

  “Larry, you indeed are a cynic,” Jake replied.

  “Cynic, no. World-class realist, yes!”

  “Okay, I can’t argue with your nature, beer soaked as it is,” Jake said. “But what’s your point?”

  Larry stood up as if to preach like Donny Joel. He was all SMILE. “I go with what I know. Just look at the news and consider this: what happens when the Truth, to be true, has to be impartial? It will tell us bad news! If Truth is true, then it has to tell us about how the strong and clever dominate and abuse the weak-minded. It has to tell the good and the bad. Just this morning, in the same day’s news, terrorists duped a group of slow-witted women into becoming suicide bombers, and here, where we are so much more advanced, a sicko police detective, one of our ‘finest in blue,’ with the aid of his girlfriend, forced a thirteen-year-old runaway girl into prostitution. Evil is evil and it is everywhere, and Truth represents equally all the crap in this world along with the good stuff. Good news, bad news—that’s the only Truth I know.”

  “I don’t know much,” Keith admitted, “but that’s a hard line of reasoning to refute.”

  Now it was Jake’s turn to criticize Keith’s “I dunno” routine. He turned on him, asking, “For Pete’s sake, Keith, what do you know?”

  Keith scrunched his brow. Being put on the spot made him very uncomfortable, and he sat silent, unmoving for what seemed like forever. Just as Larry was about to give him a snap-out-of-it noogie, Keith spoke. He began clearly and slowly. “What I know is that I’m scared a lot of the time. Even though we live in a great place, far from war, richer that most of the world, with ample food, and comfortable safe homes, I’m still scared. When you are in a miracle, you cannot see it and definitely you cannot appreciate it. But nightmares are very different. When you are in them all you want is to get out. Stories like the ones Larry shared convince me that I’m in a nightmare, not a miracle. Did you know that we have a gun that can shoot a million rounds per minute? It is aptly named the METAL STORM. Who builds and uses that kind of weapon—dreamers of miracles? I don’t think so. Kind souls don’t think up things like that. Nightmare creatures are behind ‘em. Evil is in control, or at the very least it is quite good at getting us to do what it wants.” Keith sat upon a stack of old magazines and softly added, “Maybe my saying ‘I don’t know’ is just a short prayer based upon exasperation, or maybe it’s an ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Maybe it’s a prayer simply asking for help from above. I don’t want to rely upon people—especially after what I know about Kitty Genovese.”

  “This I gotta hear,” Larry sniped. “She must be one of the many women that dumped you.”

  Keith stared at Larry and said, “Not funny. This is real. It happened in March 1964. She was attacked on a street in New York City. When she screamed for help people heard her, but they did nothing. The attack went on. She yelled, pleaded, and begged for someone help—to stop the attacker. No one helped and she was murdered in their midst, only a few steps from her home. I just cannot trust people knowing what happened to Kitty Genovese. Life scares me.”

  (Silence)

  Finally, the silence ended. Larry apologized. He said softly, “I didn’t mean to bum you out, man.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” added Jason, just as softly.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry,” whispered Jake.

  #5

  “You boys look like Mommy put you all in time-out,” joked Brienne as she rearranged some of the items on the front table of the yard sale. “It’s either that or you ran out of beer,” she added with a smile.

  Brienne was the team’s pitcher, and its only female member. Well known for her quick mind and equally quick fastball, Brienne had negotiated her way through college on a joint athletic-academic scholarship to become a top-rated forensic accountant. No hidden number, obscure thought, theory, or riddle could get past her agile mind, plus she could more than hold her own as the sole non-male Misguided Saint. Her presence always raised her teammate’s spirits, Jake’s in particular.

  “Traffic for the yard sale has been slow,” explained Jake, bringing her up to speed. “We’ve been solving the world’s problems along with all its associated theological issues—just to kill time. Trouble is that we’re better at killing the friendly mood.”

  “Beats cannibalism,” quipped Brienne.

  Deer-in-the-headlights Keith uttered his incomprehension with another “I don’t understand.” Jake and Jason nodded their agreement, Larry opened another beer, and with motherly concern and great skill, Brienne successfully fended off his poorly aimed slap at the back of Keith’s head, grabbing Larry’s hand and forcefully bending his fingers backward.

  A loud “Ow!” erupted from Larry.

  Brienne held on and casually offered an explanation of her point without missing a beat. “As terrible as humans can be to one another in advancing their own positions, the only taboo is that we do not routinely eat each other. That would put an end to all the fun activities such as slavery, torture, and maiming, which I may want to get into with you, Larry, if you cannot stop picking on Kyle and Keith.” She applied more pressure.

  “Okay—okay! Just let go!” pleaded Larry.

  “Promise, no more head slaps—no more noogies. Understand?”

  “Yes! Yes!” Larry exclaimed. “Just let me go!”

  “Say it’s a deal.”

  “Deal—it’s a deal!” blurted Larry.

  Brienne glared at him and then let go. She looked at Jake and said, “This is your party—tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  Jake quickly recapped the morning’s conversations in every detail and closed with a solemn reiteration of Keith’s fears. When Jake finished, she said, “I understand,” and walked over to Larry and bent his fingers again.

  “OW!” he roared. “I thought we had a deal!”

  “Deal’s off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are dead asleep between your ears and an insensitive jerk to boot.”

  “Huh? Asleep?” Larry looked lost. “I don’t understand.”

  Brienne slapped the back of Larry’s head in the same way he had done so often to others. “How do you like that?” she asked. “This is not a sound-bite conversation, Larry. This matters and I’m serious! You will never awaken unless you stop doing the things that insults your soul—like insulting a friend. Especially when he is in a time of need.”

  “I’m sorry!” Larry pleaded. “I didn’t really mean it. I’ve been under tremendous pressure. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. I—I—”

  “Listen to yourself,” Brienne interrupted. “I—I—I—I—I! Even your apology is a self-centered rant. Confession is not wallowing away in narcissistic self-pity. Larry, can’t you see that your life isn’t always about you?”

  *********

  “She’s smart,” observed God.

  “Yeah, and that worries me,” Lucifer replied. “If she keeps this up, I’m going to zing her, too.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair.”

  “What’s fair got to do with this? I’m just interested in winning.”

  “Winning isn’t everything.”

  “That’s not what Pastor Donny says. He says you love winners.”

  “Luce, he’s on your team, not mine.”

  ********

  Larry hung his hea
d, rubbed his aching fingers, and moved closer to the cache of beer and snacks. Tossing a can each to Kyle and Keith, he glanced toward Brienne, saying to the pair, “One thing you guys don’t have to be scared of is running out of suds with me around.”

  They caught their beers and both gave Larry a friendly thumbs up.

  Brienne quipped, “Larry, remember that a double thumbs up means three times the obligation to stop being a jerk.”

  Larry nodded and gave Brienne a thumbs up.

  Jake said, “Brienne, I’m impressed. You always know how to cut through the bull, expose what’s real, and make sense of things.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I have a knack for it. For me making sense out of life is like walking through a wet desert. If you can do it, you are in a dream world, then you know you have it wrong. And if you cannot do it, then you are alive and still in the real world. There, you can still attempt to figure things out.”

  “Have you figured things out?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, some of it—I think.”

  Eagerly Jake made an appeal for insight that could explain his life’s downturn. “Please, tell me what you know.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t? Why not?”

  “Anything I share will seem ludicrous.”

  “I don’t get it. Ludicrous…how so?”

  “The things I know will mean nothing to you unless you find them yourself. The desire to know must spring from inside; if not, you’ll be as clueless as Larry.”

  “Can you at least give me a push or a hint at how to start?” he pleaded.

  Brienne hesitated. Her face took on an expression of deep thought. She sighed, and then asked, “Why is the ocean so close to the shore?”

  “What? A silly question—that’s it? That’s all you can give me?”

  “I tried to explain—there’s nothing to give.”

  “Ah, come on, please?” Jake begged.

  Brienne grinned and rattled off a series of similarly silly questions. “What is the weight of blue? Describe the smell of time? What shape is the sky? What time is love? What color is 3 p.m.?”

  “Wait—wait! Now I really don’t understand!”

  “You sound like Keith. Are you scared, too?”

  “No!”

  “Well, that’s a start.”

  “A start? Of what?”

  “The search—your search. It begins when you ask questions.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “I don’t know. The beginning. The end. Truth. God, perhaps?”

  “Yes. Maybe that. Yes, maybe God.”

  “Then start your search.”

  “Where? How do I know when it ends? How can I be certain I’ve really found what I am looking for? If I just ask questions—senseless ones—can I really find God?”

  She replied, “The Creator, the true God, will answer all your questions—even the ones that seem to make no sense. The ones that answer silly questions.”

  *******

  “That’s it!” shouted Lucifer. “You can’t fool me. She’s another ringer!”

  “Not so,” God answered.

  “Up ‘til now, no one has shown any real interest in you.”

  “I made them in my image. Why wouldn’t they think about me?”

  “Because I’ve taught them not to!”

  “How’d that come about?

  “Come on, you know.”

  “Yes, but I like to hear it from you.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s like this. First, I challenge any message attributed to you. Second, if anyone believes your words, I just change them and cook up my version.”

  “You lie to them, right?”

  “Sure, I do—I lie all the time. I’ve even been called the Father of All Lies. Now, back to my list… Third, I plant doubt by asking, ‘Did God really mean what he said?’ Fourth, I get them to question your basic level of concern with, “The worldwide death rate is two people per second. Does God really care about that fact?”

  “Luce, you do not miss a beat.”

  “That’s not all. Fifth and finally, I promise that I’ll make them more like you…being immortal is really big now.”

  “That’s quite a program. What do you do when it’s not going your way?”

  “Easy. I lie some more and promise them whatever their hearts desire.”

  “Luce, you are really something.”

  “You made them in your image, but they are not you—they are weak. I help their egos grow like mine did, and I use their poor choices to lead them to me through their desires. The key is to change people outside of their awareness, and to get them to do my bidding without knowing.”

  “They know not what they do?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!”

  God frowned and asked, “In this particular instance, what will you do?”

  “I’ll double down on the basic fact that humans are slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe.”

  “Simple temptation?”

  “Yes. I’ll use it to kill off that meddling woman’s influence on my target by tempting her ego. She’ll be out of the picture in no time.”

  *********

  At the end of the day, Jake had sold almost all of the items he had offered in the sale. Larry, Keith, Kyle, and Jason left as a group amid a swirl of good cheer and high fives. They astutely sensed that a closer bond could develop between Jake and Brienne, or so they thought. The quartet, and especially Jake, would soon find out otherwise.

  Brienne had spent much of the day getting and responding to work-related messages. Her final words to Jake were indeed final. “Jake, I’d like to tell you something,” she said with a slight tremor. “I am conflicted by the events causing your loss. I confess that on one side I saw it as an opportunity for me to finally express how much I admire you, and that in light of your changed marital status perhaps things could develop personally for us.”

  Upon hearing her words everything about Jake brightened, but not for long. The direction of her comments took an abrupt one-eighty.

  With no joy she said, “I…I…believe…no, I am certain that our potential is not very good.”

  Jake looked puzzled. “Brienne, what are you saying?”

  She donned a troubled face and told him, “You see, it’s this way—all the back and forth today on the phone was concerning an unexpected once-in-a-lifetime career move.” Sadly, she added, “I just cannot pass up this opportunity. Jake, I’m leaving—for good.”

  Brienne’s news assaulted his fragile spirit. Although never expressed, Jake’s feelings for his dear friend were the origin and resting place of his hopes for a new life. Jake knew Bienne always told the truth; now he heard it in her voice and realized that what he hoped for would never be. The seed that was his hope for a new future was not meant to flourish.

  Jake slumped as if shot through the heart. His inner core moaned, Why has God let this happen to me?

  *********

  “She is leaving him for a better lifestyle!” chuckled Lucifer. “He’s almost mine!”

  “I must admit that you are the best at what you do,” God said, weeping. When we hurt, so does God.

  #6

  A long time later, Scotty, an elderly recluse from the neighborhood, quietly placed himself on the porch next to an almost comatose Jake. In a voice seldom heard, he stated, “They say depression can be fatal.”

  In a faint monotone, Jake asked, “Who’s they?”

  “They are all the neighbors watching you wither these past months. Since the yard sale, they say you have hardly moved from that chair. They have been watching your decline. They won’t help. They just watch.

  “Some nice neighbors, huh?”

  “Lucifer’s minions, and full of that Schadenfreude stuff.”

  “So what do you say?” Jake asked.

  “I say if you are lonely when you are by yourself, you are in bad company.”

  Jake winced. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. You only give up your
power when you think you have none. It’s time for you to do something. Maybe not as grand as beginning a journey or starting upon a quest, but at least get out of that chair and give them something else to talk about.”

  “Scotty, I barely know you. I really have no idea who you are. Why do you keep to yourself? What are you hiding from? I can’t recall if we have spoken more than a half a dozen times in all the years I’ve lived on this block. Why on earth are you here talking to me now?”

  “Three reasons—the first is about coincidences.”

  “Coincidences?”

  “Yes. God’s way of revealing he is active in our lives.”

  “Really?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, it’s true. It’s the explanation for ‘the hand of God’ thing people believe in.”

  “Sounds plausible. What’s number two?”

  “God and needs.”

  “Needs? What in the world does God need from me?” Jake asked.

  Scotty laughed. “Now that’s ego for you. It’s not what he needs from you—it’s what you need from him.”

  “Like what? What do I need?”

  “To know what’s wrong with you and your life. You could ask him to show you your faults. Then you can address what’s wrong.”

  Jake said with more than a tint of indignation, “God’s in charge—let him fix it!”

  Scotty smiled at getting a reaction, any reaction, out of Jake, who continued.

  “And if he’s not in charge, it seems that he needs me to do stuff his way in order to appear that he is running things.”

  “No, no!” Scotty replied, guiding him. “I said God needs nothing from you. This is about what your fellow man needs. Your neighbor suffers from your wrongdoing just as much as you do. Likewise, he benefits from your doing good.”

  “Okay… Maybe, unlike my neighbors, I’ll buy that I am my brother’s keeper.”

  “It’s true if you choose so, yes. The choice is yours.”

  Jake thought about it a while and slowly nodded his agreement. “You said there were three reasons you stopped by. What’s the third one?”

  “Old sins cast long shadows.”

  Jake looked puzzled. “You’ve lost me.”

  “This visit has three reasons, two reasons for you and one for me,” Scotty explained. “The third is simply that I had to do something—to help. I couldn’t let you die.”