Story (Part 8): The Third Temptation

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As if shaken free of allegory the warehouse seemed cold and bare. It was like the garage of one's childhood where the kids would go together to escape the heat, sitting on the cement floor and eating Popsicles. It was as close to cool as there could be. But here, in this cool place, the prodigal son, the fallen Don, sat propped against the wall. The dirtiest of all the walls. Dave found a pair of old overalls and threw them on top of him. He was no longer leashed like a dog but he still looked like an animal until he put the overalls on. Then he almost regained the dignity of a human. But not quite. He sank back to the floor, too beat and ashamed to stand.

I think this sh**ty place is just where I belong, he said, wetting the asterisks with his spit. No way, Jose (Dave replied). Elise is holding onto little Tinker Bell for you. That whole weird church is waiting for you to at least come back and show them that you're still alive.

There's been so much churn, some people are holding their breath waiting for you. Hey, it's not gloating. Everybody breaks. Some people are really quiet about it, that's all.

Okay, Don said. Then: Can you help me up stranger?

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He was like a child inside the body of a football player. Dave reached down to his armpits and lifted. Slippery, harsh. This was like manual labor in the prison yard, don't think about that. A demoralizing smell. So much of life is nothing but an effort not to be demoralized.

There was a third person in the room watching. Who was watching? Who stood there in the darkness? Was it the prison guard? The guard was corrupt, a criminal himself, bought off, paid to be bad. The guard pretended not to be a criminal. Pharisee. Pretended not but was.

Bad people blocked the sight of the good one who stood over all. They couldn't block it forever. You had to hold out.

A third person watched. Then Don got up on his feet. He reached forward and embraced his rescuer, a Christian embrace. A Christian embrace. Can we all be brothers? Can we love each other as our savior asked us to? You know, just brothers, nothing more? And then the third temptation stepped out of the wall rubbing its hands, smiling, indeed gloating. Dave's body fell into the embrace like a traveller stepping in a warm bath. Overwhelming memories filled him of the prison, of being passed around like a slave. The most terrible thing in the world. Even the memory was bad as a bone breaking. He shivered and tried to step out of his skin, like the dead rat once picked up in an old swimming pool whose innards just slipped out of its skin. Help me, Jesus, now more than ever.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Don was saying. Please take me back so I can -- I don't know, let's go see Elise. Make things right somehow. I am so grateful.

And so in a simultaneous movement one of them stepped out of danger. And one stepped right in. And it was the same step, just 2 different sets of feet!

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