Knight to Bisop

Upon pondering the state of Creation at zero point, a thought entered the consciousness of The Power That Creates The Universe:  "Under what conditions could an entity exist, completely without Me?"

     Bishop Charlie Ellis of the First Consecrated Church of Holiness sat in his usual booth at Henry’s Pool Bar and Grill.  Wearing the booth, he ran a circle with a finger of his left hand around the rim of a tall glass of water with lemon while holding his father’s open NIV Holy Bible with the right.  The bar was dark, so he used a small reading light with a bookmark attachment.  It was Friday night and the bar was fairly full.  Amid the clamor of people trying to get drunk or laid or both, Bishop Ellis studied Matthew Chapter 4.   As if transported back in time to the very event of Christ’s temptation, Bishop Ellis was unaware of the people in the bar around him.  This passage had always troubled him.  Something about the incident had always failed to reveal itself.  In the story, Jesus goes into the desert.  He hasn’t eaten for forty days and nights and the devil shows up and asks why Jesus just doesn’t turn the stones on the ground into bread.  Jesus tells him his quest is one of the spirit, not flesh.  It’s not about hunger.  Then the devil transports Jesus to the top of a tall temple and dares him to jump off.  The angels will protect him from the fall.  It would be a cool miracle.  Just trying to help…  Jesus tells the devil that it’s not right to test God.  Then the devil does something really odd, as far as Bishop Ellis can read, he transports Jesus to the top of an enormous mountain, shows Jesus all of the kingdoms of the earth and everything of beauty and splendor within it and offers it all to Jesus.  The catch is, Jesus has to worship the devil.

     Bishop Ellis looked at Jesus.  “Why would he make such a stupid deal, Lord?  Does he think you’re crazy from hunger?  Is he just makin’ trouble, playin’ the fool and trying to get on your nerves?” Ellis asked, pointing at the devil.

     The devil, a bit more difficult to put a face to, just grinned at him.

     Jesus did not reply.  He simply continued looking at the devil.

     Bishop Ellis studied Jesus’ hardened face, seeking some clue to the answer there, but finding none.  After all, this was only one of Ellis’ imaginings.  Oh to really have been there…

     “Bishop?” a voice said from the darkness beyond Ellis’ booth.

     Ellis was startled from his fantasy.  “Yes?” Ellis returned.

     “Wow, I thought that was you,” a tall, impossibly beautiful woman in a long, black, leather duster said.  The sparkle of mischief behind the woman's eyes was at once magnetic and threatening;  a mind melting cosmic "Caution," sign.


     “I’ve seen you on TV.  I like your show,” the woman said.


     Bishop Ellis shrugged off the odd feeling in his stomach as hunger (he hadn’t had dinner yet), sat his Bible down on the table, and maneuvered his large frame up and out of the booth he was wearing to greet the stranger.  A shitload of energy invested with no known return…  “Hope you got something out of it friend,” he said offering his hand.

     “Great production values, good camerawork,” the woman said as she shook Ellis’ hand.  “Quite humorous sometimes.  Real entertaining.  You got the gift…”

     “I meant the message, friend.  I hope it touched you.”

     “Not really,” the stranger confessed, smiling broadly.  “The name’s Ferris, Lucy Ferris,” she added, gesturing to the vacant seat in the booth.

     “Please,” Ellis said.  “Have a seat.”

     “I never come in here,” Lucy said.  “But tonight I’m walking by on my way from the office and I just… came in.  Kind of like I was led by the Spirit,” Ferris said, the smile never leaving her face.  Ferris was stunning to look at, projecting happiness from her core like one of those geysers at Yellowstone National Park.  “I don’t really drink, so I looked around and there’s a tall, black, handsome, preacher in his bishop’s collar reading in a booth at the back of the room.  It’s Bishop Ellis from the television show!  That’s just odd, so naturally, I had to come over.”

     “I used to drink a lot.  This place has always been sort of my home.  Henry, the owner helped me out when I was lost.  He’s always held this booth for me.  Drunk or sober, the vinyl don’t care,” Ellis explained, patting the cushioned booth.

     “Doesn’t the noise and the crowd drive you nuts?” Lucy asked.

     “You know, I don’t really notice it anymore.”

     “How come you’re not standing on this table sharing the good word with these drunken bastards?” Lucy asked, not quite mockingly, but close.

     “Now, what good would that do?  One of ‘em gets out of hand, I’ll step in with the bouncer.  One of ‘em starts throwing up, I’ll take ‘em to the bathroom and help ‘em home.  Anyone needs me, I’m right here.  Wouldn’t be the first time.  They don’t really see me.  But I’m here.  Good a place to study the Word as any other, I imagine,” Ellis explained.

     “Any of them ever come to you for some advice?” Lucy asked.

     “That’s what the bartenders are for,” Ellis joked.  “I have been the relief pitcher once or twice.”

     “A hungry man in the wilderness,” Lucy said, looking away.

     “What?” Ellis asked, even though he heard what Lucy had said.

     Lucy continued to stare away at the bar.  After a very long time, she turned to look at Bishop Ellis.  “If you could ask an angel any question, what would it be?”  Lucy inquired, the smile gone.

     Not really expecting a comment like this, Ellis stared at her for a moment.  “Interesting thought.  I do have a question,” he finally replied.  “But, I’m not sure I would run it past you.”  Ellis did not break eye contact.

     “At no risk to your soul, if you met the devil, and could ask one question, what would it be?”  Lucy asked, as the bar around the two seemed to fall away into darkness.
Surprisingly, Bishop Ellis felt no fear as he began to realize who was sharing this booth with him.  “No risk, in any way, huh,” Ellis said.

     “None,” Lucy replied, crossing her heart.

     “In Matthew, Chapter 4, Jesus encounters the devil…” Ellis began.

     “I’ve read it,” Lucy interrupted.

     Bishop Ellis looked Ferris square in the eye.

     “The last offer, control of all the world, well, it just bugs me.  The offer doesn’t make any sense to me.  He was God in the flesh!  Henry owns this bar, I don’t.  It would be like me offering the bar to him.  He’d just look at me like I was nuts!  What am I missing here?”

     “An essay question.  Excellent.  Man, I haven’t had a decent conversation since breakfast this morning.  Okay.  What if you once owned this shitty bar and gave it to Henry?  Not because you liked the guy, but because he kept standing up to you, kept defying you…  And he could kick ass!  He could crush any fucked up drunk in the place.  So, you give him the place, lock stock and barrel!  Henry gets to run the bar, you see, from the floor, the air handlers, the plumbing, the snacks, the idiots that wander in here.  You give Henry authority over the air and the land!  And it’s a shitty job, Bishop.  So one day, you wander back in, hungry and thirsty.  Henry’s actually glad to see you.  You shoot the bull for a while, when Henry says, hey, take the bar back.  Henry knows that you plan on knocking the dump down someday, anyway, and building something different here, even though you gave it to him in the first place.  Henry’s just tired of it and wants you to take the place back.  But he doesn’t want to be left out of the plan.  Besides, Henry’s got some ideas.  If he was in charge but in a different way… but he knows that’s not going to fly.  So, Henry makes an offer anyway.  You should always take a shot, right?”

     Ellis stared at Lucy, not sure what to say.

     “The answer is this, the devil wanted to go in a different direction.  Jesus wasn't the only one being tested.  It’s not like the Bringer of Light is invited to any of the meetings anymore.  Was Jesus trapped by the flesh? Have you ever gone forty days without food and barely enough water keep your blood wet? Hell, try to make it a week sometime, Bishop. Forty days. Wow, do the physical urges that drive the container, paint perspective so completely that choice always takes a back seat to survival?  Hell, the universe itself needed that answer.  Aren't bad choices part of the human experience? The macro universal container that holds the very architecture of all things knowable suddenly, with the appearance of some hairless apes, has a dent in it.  Things once known to everything can now be hidden!  You know in part and that’s the point!  Limitations! To build effective strategies you have to find out where the boundaries are.”  Lucy explained, barely controlling her excitement in a way that disturbed Ellis.

     Lucy leaned in close, “but basically, Jesus had wandered into the wrong venue. People do that sometimes, wander into a challenging temple...” she whispered, her words sliding into Charlie's ear and moving through his brain like a heroin injection. The bar came back.  Ellis thought it was an interesting spin.  “You sound like you were there,” Ellis tested.

     Lucy relaxed back into the booth, moved her hands to the table and touched her fingers together to form a cathedral.  “I saw the movie,” she said with a smile that would have given a Hollywood casting director an orgasm.

     “Lucy,” Ellis said, staring hard at his visitor.  “Who are you?”

     A glow appeared in Lucy’s shimmering, beautiful eyes, like an ember from a distant nuclear explosion suddenly stopped by some unseen force.  “Environmental Management,” she said, the smile never relaxing.  “Consultant work, mostly.  I have my own company.  I’ve never liked answering to anyone.”

     As Lucy talked, the music from the front of the bar grew louder.  “Long Way Down” by Robert DeLong was suddenly replacing the very air in the bar.  Lucy was now grooving to the song in her seat, eyes closed, head moving in small controlled motions to the beat.

     "The end, the end, everyone will go away in the end, the end, in the end everything will go" she sang along, never breaking her supernatural stare into Charlie's soul.

The music was taking possession of Lucy and it pulled her to her feet. Charlie wasn't sure they even touched the ground. He looked a little closer. They didn't.
     
“Nice to meet you Bishop.  The choir is calling!  Salvation awaits!” Lucy shouted above the steadily rising volume of the song.  She danced away, moving with a skill and expression that even Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire or Michael Jackson could only achieve if they were allowed to dance for 10,000 years.  Ellis could not stop watching her as she assumed control of the front of the bar, her arms lifted high in a call to the parishioners to join the worship call.  The energy in the bar reached levels that in 20 years of preaching, Ellis had never experienced.  Bodies moving, gyrating, twirling, flying to the hard driving beat and there at the front of it all, the most stunningly beautiful creature ever created by the will of God moving with an authority and defiance that seemed to energize the very universe itself.

     For the first time in his life, Bishop Charlie Ellis knew the true meaning of fear...

E.H.