One to come…. Home
Is time to find one to come. Yeah, one to come. I giggled as I got up and followed Jesus.
As we walked, I finally began to calm down. I wondered what He was thinking and how in the world did He ever deal with all this? I didn't know. It boggled my mind and I wandered around sort of trailing Him, while I tried to remember every thing He'd said to me. I was absolutely floored that He didn't think I was disgusting; yet at the same time quite comforted to know His own excitement had absolutely nothing to do with me! It was a relief to know, I wasn't actually the temptation.
The glory of the love of the Father in His own space is what restrains Jesus. How cool is that: actually! I snickered happily as I imagined Him swaddled in this mantel of protection. Wrapped in the hands of God. I will attend to you and blow kisses from heaven, because I know you don't have the luxury of fulfilling your inclination to be fruitful and multiply in the flesh. So dear Jesus, you can lock yourself in your prayer closet and wail to ME to your hearts content.
I paused a moment when Jesus giggled.
"What" I wondered.
"He love me." Jesus answered.
"You know what I'm thinking?" I asked.
"No, I only sense you contemplation." He replied.
"You are very loved." I smiled.
"I know." Jesus whimpered a bit before He let out a little giggle and sucked back the tears.
Oh don't do that. My heart melted as I let out a pained sigh. Makes me just want to hug and kiss You again.
Jesus paused a moment and looked at me.
"Come." He said. "We still to find one to come."
"O.K." I sighed as I collected myself.
We headed back toward the atrium where a Starbucks coffee bar sat strategically among the turnabout of intersecting mall traffic.
"There." Jesus pointed as He headed for a man who was sitting quietly pushing buttons on a cell phone.
I followed Him up to the stranger.
"Toby." Jesus said.
The man looked up. His mouth dropped open as he sat staring at Jesus. "Is it really You?" He whispered as his phone slipped out of his hand on to the floor.
Jesus nodded and smiled as the stranger named Toby stumbled his way out of the chair to a standing position. He was thin and pale; a rather sickly looking fellow. I stood and observed a moment wondering if he had cancer? If that was the case; it didn't appear he was undergoing treatment, for he still had a full head of hair. Yet he had red scaly patches and brown bumps on his face. He put his hands up to his mouth as tears trickled from his eyes.
I bent down and retrieved his phone. "Here, you probably don't want to lose this." I grimaced as I handed it back to him. "Besides, it's…. beeping?"
"Oh." the man looked around a minute and then at his phone. "I was playing snake." He shrugged haplessly as he folded it up and stuck it in his bag. "The snake died."
"You thank me. I kill you snake." Jesus laughed.
"Yeah." The man nodded. "Crush the head of the serpent. Thank You." He sucked back a sob. "Zack said You were here." Toby wiped his face as he wept. "I didn't believe him and I almost didn't come. I didn't feel well."
"Yes, I know this." Jesus answered as He reached out to put a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Oh, don't touch me." Toby recoiled. "I'm contagious."
"Yes, I know this too." Jesus replied before He rested His hand on Toby's shoulder and Toby cried a bit more.
"I'm O.K. I'm O.K.; really I am." Toby waved his hands as he collected himself, while Jesus looked around a bit and reached toward a table to retrieve a couple of napkins. "Thank You." Toby tried to smile as he took the napkins and carefully dabbed his eyes. "These stupid MC lesions itch." He nervously laughed. "Doctor gave me a cream along with steroids." He sighed. "I'm so tired of steroids; but I guess it won't be long now." He sucked in a breath as he looked up at Jesus. A few more tears streamed down his face as he began to laugh. "I know! I'm so stupid." He giggled. "Hey, ahh…. You want a cup of coffee or something." He suddenly gestured toward the Starbucks.
"If you feel up to tea; I get you some." Jesus answered as He pointed toward the chair with the indicate that this poor sickly fellow should sit down. "This, is Katreen." He turned to me. "He is Toby. You stay while I figure how much this cost?" Jesus chuckled as He peered behind Him at the busy baristas filling orders. He turned back to me. "You want?" He pointed at Starbucks.
"Ehh?" I peered indecisively at the bar as I rummaged through my purse and pulled out a $20. "Here, I don't think they'll take Herod's shekels." I snickered as I handed it to Jesus.
"Is worth more than this." Jesus smirked as He waved the bill at me.
"You're probably right!" I laughed. "Get what ever You want. I'll go up when You come back."
"O.K." Jesus shrugged as He left the two of us there.
"So… you're Toby." I sucked in a breath as I took a seat next to this stranger.
The man nodded.
"He told me we were going to meet someone here." I made some small talk. "I guess that's you?"
"Yeah." Toby chuckled a bit as he picked up another napkin and dabbed his face.
"Are you OK?" I flashed an unsure frown.
"No, I'm actually not." Toby tried to laugh as he cried some more. "But that's OK; I don't have much longer." He paused. "Zack actually drove over to my apartment after work. Which is good, 'cause I was just sitting in there feeling sorry for myself." Toby squeezed out a laugh.
"He says to me. You'll never guess who I ran into in the mall at work today!" Toby sucked in a breath and started coughing. "Excuse me." He gasped as he turned around and took a couple of hits on an inhaler. "That's better." He sucked in another breath.
"And no, I didn't believe him." Toby laughed. "He said: Yeah, Jesus had this girl with Him. I said: What? He said: I don't know. I guess we all stuck in her dream. I told him: You're crazy. Shut up. But he brought me down here anyways. I guess it's true." Toby muttered as he gazed off in the direction of Starbucks, watching Jesus standing in line.
"So don't wake up." He turned back to me and chuckled weakly. "This is so much better than sitting in my apartment staring at the pharmacy on my kitchen table."
I let out a little chuckle too. "You said you were contagious?" I flashed Toby an inquisitive look. "What's wrong with you…. if you don't mind me asking?"
Toby sucked in a hesitant breath. "I have AIDS."
"Oh." I sat quietly for a moment.
"These bumps on my face…. are contagious." He amended. "That's why I told Him not to touch me."
"Hum." I sat for another long moment.
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking." Toby confessed. "Yes, I was gay and that's how I got HIV. Doesn't matter who knows now. Maybe I'll survive another week or two?" He dabbed his face again and started to laugh. "Sometimes we pay the consequences in this life."
We both sat for a while.
"No, actually." I interrupted his pondering as the tears escaped my own eyes. "I was thinking about the war. But you're right." I amended. "Sometimes we pay the consequences in this life."
Toby sat and looked at me a minute as I stared off in the direction of Starbucks, watching Jesus.
"You…. cleaved to Him didn't you?" He asked a question I was only half paying attention to.
"Huh?" I turned to him.
"The way you look at Him." Toby went on to explain. "I never really understood that when I was… in the lifestyle; you know." He gaffed with a wheeze or two before sucking in a deep breath. "But I'd see it all the time. Chicks lookin at guys and it used to…. really piss me off." Toby scowled as he too was watching Jesus collect cups into a cardboard tray. "I thought they were just weak." He continued. "Had a partner who used to call 'em breeders. Oh how we hated you." He paused a thoughtful moment. "But I was so mad and confused; I hated everybody."
"But you hated yourself more didn't you?" I posed a thoughtless rhetorical question.
"Yeah, I did." Toby confessed.
"I know." I confessed in return. "I did too."
Toby paused a moment. "But you never got to full blown Lessie though did you?"
"No." I shook my head.
"Because of Him." He pointed at Jesus, who was now making His way toward us.
"Ehh, Yeah." I hesitantly confessed.
"I get all peppermints." Jesus commented as He set the tray with 3 cups down on the table, before excusing Himself to go find another restroom.
"He was good wasn't He?" Toby perked up a bit as he started to laugh, while I flashed a scowl in his direction and he watched Jesus disappear down an adjacent corridor. "No, I don't mean anything bad." He corrected himself in his raspy voice. "Really I don't. It took me years to learn how to surrender." He coughed a bit. "All that time I wasted, running after something that I knew was never going to fix what was really wrong inside." He paused another moment to catch his breath. "But I couldn't help myself. I had to have my fix; and with all the drugs and crap. I'm surprised I'm not dead already."
Toby sat for a bit.
"So how old were you when it happened?" He posed another question.
"Which…. it are you referring to?"
"The it that got you off the wrong road."
"18"
"Woah; the hell I could have avoided at 18." Toby paused a moment and shook his head; before he coughed again and cleared his throat. "All the years of my life the locusts had eaten." He looked at me. "You got any idea how lucky you are?"
"Honestly." I sucked in a breath, trying not to cry. "Not really."
"He stopped you dead in your tracks." Toby…. exhorted in comfort. "No matter what crazy things went on in your head; you were finally safe. Safe from a whole lot more suffering you could have gone through." Toby gasped again before he held his tumored hands out before me and chuckled a bit. "Look at what you missed."
"Yeah, As if I didn't think the war was bad enough." I mumbled thoughtlessly as I looked at his hands.
"It's a whole other battlefield." Toby explained. "Of a very different type of war; one very few ever make it home from." He sucked in another breath and excused himself for a second hit on his inhaler. "You know why?" He continued. "Because there's no VA. There's no American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars. We are too busy jumping off of bridges. The faggots get what they deserve…. and in a lot of ways that's true."
Toby paused to think and catch his breath.
"You know, I never thought I'd be…. grateful for my own sin." He continued. "But it was always in my face. You're going to burn in hell. God's wrath abides on you. Yet, every word of it was true and I knew that. I always knew that. I never wanted to believe it; but I knew it."
Toby sat another moment contemplating his inhaler.
"Then one day I was wandering around Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran, watching the… prophets with their picket signs." He smirked weakly. "And it suddenly hit me. God, I know what my sin is. Do they know what their's is?" He paused to reflect. "So I did something I'd never do before and I walked up to one of them and asked 'em."
"What'd they say?" I peered hesitantly at Toby.
"They could't answer me." Toby replied. "They'd give me a whole bunch of theological jargon; a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Oh, we're all sinners! But not one of them could tell me specifically what they were convicted about." He paused another moment for a third puff. "Then I realized they didn't know. Here they all are screaming hell at me; and they aint got the foggiest clue what it means?" Toby started to chuckle before he coughed again and sat quiet another moment.
"Then I went from there and did the next craziest thing I'd never thought I'd do." He continued his story. "I went into an old used bookstore and bought a…. Bible." He chuckled. "Yeah, a Bible. Guy must have felt sorry for me because he just gave it to me." He laughed as he threw his hands in the air. "Then I was like; I gotta find out. I didn't know why; but I wanted to find out. I was condemned, but why?"
"So, what conclusion did you come to?" I inquired.
"God is holy." Toby simply answered with cough and a shrug. "It wasn't a split the sky open here comes the angels type of revelation. I just knew it was true. Then I was like. God, I gotta get out of this and I realized I'd run out of excuses to lie to myself any more." Toby paused another moment to catch his breath again.
"I didn't really understand at the time what was happening to me. All I knew was that something was different and I couldn't keep doing what I was doing." He continued. "So I left San Fran; made a bunch of people mad." He laughed. "But I moved back here. Stayed with my cousin for a while. My dad wouldn't talk to me. He was actually more comfortable with the gay kid, than the weirdo I'd suddenly become, walking around with a Bible. I guess I made his stripper girlfriend uncomfortable?"
"Well, I got family members who don't like me either." I sighed with a bit of a chuckle.
"Your enemies you will find under your own roof." Toby quoted. "It's OK though, in just a little bit; I'm going to see all kinds of family I never knew I had." He smiled.
"I know some day I will be free. The weight of sin shall be released." I started to quote Steve Camp.
"But for now He covers me." Toby completed my quote. "You a Steve Camp fan too?"
"Yeah, I like his music." I answered.
"And though the trials never end. I've learned to take them as my friend; for each day He covers me." Toby finished the verse. "One day, all these struggles we have will be gone and the questions won't matter any more."
I had to sit and think about that one a moment.
"Yeah, I guess that's true." I sighed in thoughtful contemplation. "Never thought about what I'd struggle with for the rest of my life and how even the burning questions, though they might never be answered; they will become irrelevant."
"Things we…. gotta know.. in this life; but are too afraid or embarrassed to ask." Toby chuckled as he sucked in another breath and looked at his inhaler again. "Speaking of asking. Here comes our opportunity!" He smiled as he pointed at Jesus, who was now returning with another fellow I recognized. It was the rock wall guy.
"There you are!" He pointed at Toby. "Look Who I found!" He held his hands out to Jesus.
"Hey Zack." Toby raised a pained wave. "Got a clue for ya bro." Toby retorted. "He wasn't the one who was lost!"
"Aren't you the smart a…" Zack laughed. "How you feelin?"
"Not well." Toby hesitantly confessed before he peered up at Jesus and suddenly asked. "Is this my night; cause I sure feel like it is?"
Jesus only nodded.
"How long will this take?" Toby raised an honest yet painful question.
"Before morning." Jesus answered.
"Dude." Zack glared at Toby before he sighed a sober question. "Where do you want to go?"
"I guess to the hospital." Toby gasped. "My back is killing me."
Jesus leaned over and took Toby's arm. "Stand up." He whispered.
"But… I don't want You to cure me." Toby hesitantly whispered back. "I'm ready to go."
"I know." Jesus answered. "But you no have to go in pain."
"Or in morphine?" Toby smiled a bit as he looked at Jesus and slowly stood up. "Will You walk me around the mall a bit?" Toby paused before he hesitantly asked. "I… I want to say Thank You."
Jesus smiled kindly as He picked up Toby's bag. "You want you tea?" He asked.
"No." Toby shook his head before pointing to Zack. "He can have it."
Zack plopped in the chair Toby had been occupying, while we sat staring at three cups of tea that hadn't been touched.
"You like peppermint?" I mumbled.
"Love peppermint." He replied as we each picked up a cup and our eyes drifted back toward Jesus and Toby, who'd managed to shuffle across the corridor headed for the Atrium. Jesus held Toby's elbow as they chatted.
It's time to find one to come. I thought about Jesus's words.
Yeah, one to come…. Home!
