The Final Testament of the Holy Bible Part 13

When he talked about the world, it was usually about how we had destroyed it, or allowed religions and governments to destroy it, and how it was all going to end soon. He said religions and governments were never about what they claimed to be, which was helping people and making their lives worth living, but were simply instruments of greed and power and death. That none of them were worth a s.h.i.t. That even the best of them were evil, and existed solely to control and exploit humanity, and control and exploit the earth's resources. That he couldn't, over the entire course of recorded history, find a single example of a government that didn't exist in the name of power, that didn't kill in its own quest for power, and that didn't use its citizens as servants of its greed. Though he said he didn't know how the world would end, it was obvious it would, that there were too many ways, and that one of them would happen, and it would happen soon. He said that too many people had too many weapons. That once the big weapons started flying, they wouldn't stop. That once one crazy man pushed a b.u.t.ton, all of the b.u.t.tons would be pushed. That too many people wanted to be right. That too many people wanted to control. That too many people wanted their G.o.d to be the only G.o.d, their system to be the only system. That Democrats and Republicans, and Capitalists and Communists, and Liberals and Conservatives, and Fascists and Anarchists, and Nationalists and National Socialists, whatever they called themselves, were all the same, and that they were no different than people who worshipped G.o.d. But that instead of pretending to believe in a supernatural G.o.d, they pretended to believe in G.o.ds called social justice, and equality, and freedom, but that their real goals were no different than the religious people, that all they were truly interested in were money, and power, and control. That between them, they would destroy the world. That they would start a war that they wouldn't be able to stop, and that would have no winner. That the war to end everything would be coming. And that even if the war didn't come, everything would end anyway. There were too many people. There were no more resources. The earth itself couldn't support everything on it anymore. Soon all of its resources would be gone. And when we realized it, we would tear each other apart while we starved. And he said it was too late to try and stop it. That there was nothing anyone could do at this point. That no leader, no religious figure, no man, no woman, no nothing, could do anything about it. That we had jumped off the cliff, and that at some point soon we were going to land. And it was all going to end. And we were all going to die. And that it was best. It was the best thing that could happen. That destroying all of it, razing it, burning it to the ground, was our only chance. And that after it happened, he hoped, though he doubted it, that whoever was left would be smart enough to start again and forget all of it. And start something that revolved around the worship of love instead of the worship of G.o.d and money. G.o.d and money brought nothing but death and war. Love might bring something worth living for.

And he wasn't angry or mean when he talked. He didn't scream or shoot spit out of his mouth like lots of people did when they said stuff. He said it just like someone would say they were going to buy some milk or fill their car with gas. Just like it was something that was going to happen. He said we had choices about how we were going to live before it happened. We could either accept it and live as beautifully as we could before it happened, or we could not believe it and keep wasting our lives doing things and chasing things that didn't make us happy and make us feel good. He said his choice was to love as much as possible, and give as much as possible, and feel joy and happiness and ecstasy and pleasure as much as possible. Life was hard enough, he said, without denying ourselves the things that brought us into a state of bliss. Those who thought we should deny ourselves were fools. Our bodies were built for it. We should allow them to do what they were made to do.

After he finished speaking, he would always kiss someone. He did it with Mariaangeles the most, but sometimes it would be someone else, and sometimes it would be a man, and sometimes a woman, and sometimes a man that looked like a woman, or a woman who looked like a man. He would kiss them and touch them and love them. Most of us would follow his example and start kissing and touching and loving. Some of us would go into the house or into the barn or the fields, but most of us would stay on the lawn. It didn't matter who you were or what you looked like or what your background was or what color your skin was or if you had an accent or if you had money or no money or if you had gone to school or not gone to school or anything. Everyone loved everyone else. And everyone had s.e.x with everyone else. And everyone came with everyone else. When we first started, it was just a few of us, but near the end there were lots of people staying all over the place and more would come or would be visiting for the day and people would be everywhere. And there was so much love. And we were all happy. And nothing else in the world mattered at all. Not one single bit.

Seven months after we all came to the farm together, after all of the s.p.a.ce in the house and barn were taken up, and people were living in tents in the fields and the woods, and there were seventy-seven people living there, a girl came to see Ben. I was sitting on the porch when she came walking up, and I could tell something was wrong. She was young and sad and her face was bruised and her clothes were not in good shape. It was pretty normal for people like her to show up, but I could tell somehow that she was different. She asked if Ben was around, and I said he lives here but isn't around right this minute. She asked if she could have something to drink, and I said yes, of course, silly. She sat down on the porch stairs, and I got her some water and gave it to her. I tried to be chatty with her, but I could tell she didn't want to be chatty, and really she looked like she was going to cry in a sad way so I left her alone. An hour or two later Ben came walking out of the fields with a young couple who had been trying to have a baby but couldn't and they were smiling and I could tell the woman had been crying in a good way and Ben put his hand on her stomach and put her husband's hand on top of his hand and they both just looked so happy, like they knew everything was going to be fine for them. As they walked away towards their car, Ben turned towards us. The girl saw him and stood up and Ben smiled and she immediately started crying. He walked over and put his arms around her, and she just cried into his shoulder, really cried, like her whole body was shaking and sobbing. I could tell it was something really serious, so I left them alone there in front of the porch and went inside and read books to Mercedes.

Later everyone at the farm met outside for dinner. Ben seemed really happy and really sad at the same time and the girl was still there. She was sitting with Mariaangeles and they were holding hands. It wasn't unusual for women to be holding hands, but they were holding hands really tight. We had a really awesome dinner, and afterwards, instead of talking, Ben kissed every single person at the farm. He kissed everyone really nice, and everyone different, like he could tell what kind of kiss they liked and what kind of kiss they wanted and what kind of kiss they needed. When it was my turn, he kissed me real soft on the lips but not really s.e.xy or anything. Just really nice and soft for like ten seconds or so, and then he pulled away and whispered I love you in my ear. After he kissed everyone, he took Mariaangeles by the hand and took Mercedes, who had dinner with us lots of the time, by the other hand, and they walked into the house with each other, and the girl walked with them, right alongside of them. It was really cute. Like he was Mercedes' dad and Mariaangeles' husband and the girl was part of their family somehow and it was really super cute. For a minute n.o.body was sure what to do, but then people started kissing each other just like we did every night when Ben was with us. And then we loved each other. And the sky was clear and it seemed more clear than ever and the stars were out and they seemed brighter than ever and it was a beautiful night, a perfect night, the most awesome I had ever seen and still have ever seen. And everybody loved each other. We all loved each other in some perfect way even stronger than before, like somehow the night made us better than ever and gave us more love. It gave us everything and it was beautiful. The most beautiful thing in the world. Love.

The next morning, when I woke up, Ben was gone. The girl was gone too, and Mariaangeles didn't come out of her room for the whole day. And when she did, she wouldn't say where Ben had gone or who the girl was or what had happened. All I knew was that Ben was gone.

II ESTHER.

I think about my suffering. My sadness, loneliness, the fact that my family has been destroyed, that I've been beaten and tortured and forced to worship a G.o.d that is not mine, and live a life that is not mine. I think about the suffering of others in this world, this ugly, ugly world. I think about all of the violence and war, the poverty and hunger. I think about the addiction and abuse and oppression. I think about all of the sickness and disease and physical misery, and I think about all of the suffering of the soul, which is greater and more profound than any of the physical ailments that befoul us. I think about all of the pain that everyone feels every minute of every day. There is so little joy. So little freedom. So little security. So little that makes us feel as if this is all worth it. And what there is that makes us think it's worth it is love. Love is the only way to alleviate suffering. Love is the only way to find freedom. Love is the only place in all of humanity where there is security. And even love doesn't work for very long. Love always disappears or vanishes. Love is always killed or destroyed. Love always changes into something that isn't really love. Moments of true, pure, unconditional love are the rarest and most valuable things on earth. If we have two or three of them over the course of our entire lives, we're lucky. Most of us have none. Most of us live with the illusion of having love or seeking love or knowing love, but what we have or seek or know is desire and possession and control. What we know as love doesn't really make us happy. If anything, it makes us suffer more. It makes us more unhappy and more violent and more oppressive and more miserable. It increases our suffering. But if we could learn. If we could learn what Ben Zion learned. If we could live as Ben Zion lived. If we could feel as Ben Zion felt. If we could love as Ben Zion loved.

I always believed we would see him again. I hoped it would happen before our mother died. After he first left again, after his fight with Jacob, I prayed for his return. I prayed for hours a day. When I was supposed to be praying for other things, when I was supposed to be praying for things that Jacob wanted me to pray for, and told me to pray for, I prayed for Ben Zion. While I was praying, I thought about what it had been like seeing him again. I thought about who he was and what he had become, which my parents, and everyone in our family, and our rabbis always believed he would become. I thought about what he could do, how he could perform miracles, how he could make people feel, and how he could change lives with a word or a touch. I thought about all of the languages he could speak without having studied them and all of the books he knew without having read them. I thought about how he could speak with G.o.d. I thought about all of the signs of divinity that were recognized when he was born: his Davidic blood, his birthday on the day the Temple of Solomon was destroyed, his circ.u.mcision at birth. I thought about the burden he must have felt for most of his life. Being raised and educated as someone who might be the Messiah. What that must have been like for a little boy. A three-year-old who should have been playing with trucks. A five-year-old who should have enjoyed playing at a playground. A seven-year-old who should have enjoyed school like a normal child. A nine-year-old who should have been allowed to have friends. I thought about what it must have felt like for him to know what he was, or what he was believed to be, what made his father and brother jealous and scared and made them hate him. I thought about what it must have been like for him when he was thrown out of our home. He was still a child, barely a teenager. I wondered what he did for all of those years we searched for him and could not find him. I wondered where he was, who he met, and what he felt. I wondered if he was waiting to become what he became. If he believed it. If it was a burden. If he woke up every day in terror, wondering if today was the day he became Moshiach. If he ever spoke to anyone about it. If he had any friends or anyone who loved him. If he cared. If he knew how it would end, and I suspect that he did. I don't have answers, but I believe it must have been some kind of h.e.l.l. To know that you were Moshiach, the Messiah, the Son of G.o.d, Christ reborn, the earthly incarnation of G.o.d on earth, even though his G.o.d was not the G.o.d propagandized on earth for thousands of years. It's a miracle he survived knowing. It's a miracle that he accepted it and waited for it, wherever he was, whatever he did, whatever he felt, however he suffered. It's a miracle. My brother was a miracle.

And while I thought about all of this, I let myself doubt it. Any faith, any true faith, involves doubt. If you say your faith is unshakeable, you have no faith. If you say you have no doubt, then you have no belief. The struggle of faith, the worthiness of faith, the value of faith, is holding true to that faith in the face of doubt. If you are to believe in G.o.d, you must allow yourself to doubt G.o.d. If you are to believe in anything, you have to doubt it. I believed in my brother. In his power and his divinity. In his righteousness. In his mission, which was to show us the folly of our beliefs, to show us the danger of our religions, to show us the stupidity we exhibit by placing our hopes and dreams in the hands of politicians, and to show us the value of living our lives believing in love, and living with love, not the false, judgmental love we have been taught, but a love where every human on earth is given equal value, and granted equal rights, and provided equal care. I believe that he was who he was born to be, and that he was the man that had been prayed for for thousands of years. I believe that in his death, in his sacrifice, he gave us a chance to redeem ourselves. He died willingly in order to redeem us of the sins of religion, the sins of our G.o.ds, the sins of placing our lives in the hands of politicians who have defrauded us. He redeemed our humanity by showing how and why the humanity we have been sold is wrong. That the G.o.ds we worship don't exist and don't care. That the systems we have been forced to exist in are destroying us. In the same way that Christ supposedly sacrificed himself for our sins, sins that are a natural part of our humanity, as natural as breathing and eating, sins such as love and s.e.x and choice, Ben Zion sacrificed himself for our belief in the Christ story, and for all the stories like it, stories that enslave us, and oppress us, and destroy us. If we realize Ben Zion was right, and if we learn from what he taught us, we have a chance to save ourselves. I don't, however, believe we will take it. He was prophetic in that he knew the end was coming. He was Moshiach in how he showed us how to avoid it. He showed us we are all asleep. He screamed, and he kept screaming it until it led to his death. We have a chance if we remember that scream, if we listen to it. I don't, however, believe we will take the chance. It will all end.

And while I believe what I believe, there is doubt, there is always doubt, and there has to be doubt. Was Ben Zion just a man? Was he a child poisoned by religion and convinced to believe in ancient prophecies that will never come true? Did he become what he became because he was told he would? Was he mentally ill? Did his epilepsy destroy his sanity? Was he a criminal who deserved what he received? Was he an egomaniac serving his own self-need? Was he delusional and sick and dangerous? I allow myself to ask the questions, because when I think about the man I knew, and the life he lived, and the words he spoke, and the example he gave, and the miracles he performed, and the love he shared, and the sacrifice he made, the answer, to all of the questions I ask myself, is no. Or the answer is no to all the questions but one. He was dangerous. He was absolutely dangerous. Dangerous because if we listen to him we will wake up. If we listen to him, we will stop buying the bad goods that are sold to us, and we will stop falling for the cons of preachers, popes, and presidents, and the disease of religion will be cured, and the lies of politicians will no longer be believed, and everything that has been built, all of the sick, diseased inst.i.tutions that rule us and control us, and deceive us, will crumble, and they will fall. He was absolutely dangerous. And they killed him.

After he left, after his kiss with Jeremiah and after Jacob beat him, and after he turned our water to wine, the priority became finding him again. When Jacob saw the wine, he immediately believed he had made a mistake, a major mistake, an irreparable mistake. He ran from our house into the street, but saw nothing. He got into his car and drove around the surrounding streets, but saw nothing. He went into local churches, believing that might be where Ben Zion would seek refuge, but saw nothing. He called the local precincts and hospitals, but n.o.body had seen anything. He searched for days, and when he wasn't searching, he was on his knees praying at the church, or talking with Pastor Luke, who, after meeting Ben Zion and hearing him speak and witnessing his miracle, was convinced that Ben Zion was Christ reborn. Jacob did not find him, or even any sign of him, and Ben Zion did not come back, or offer any clue as to his whereabouts, or contact us in any way. After Jacob realized Ben Zion was really gone, he started disbelieving what he had seen and claiming that Ben Zion had kissed Jeremiah only to upset, and had hid a bottle of wine somewhere in the house, knowing that he might get an opportunity to replace the water with it when he was alone in our dining room. He also started to become angry and say that Ben Zion had mocked him, and mocked G.o.d, and that what Ben Zion knew, the languages and the holy books, was something anyone could know if they studied long enough, which was what he must have done. When Ben Zion's court dates were coming up and he did not appear, thus jeopardizing both our home and the church, Jacob became enraged. He restarted his search for Ben Zion, and with greater vigor, and he also started screaming at, and eventually abusing, our mother, whom he believed knew where Ben Zion was living. Our mother knew nothing. As had always been the case, she became the focus of Jacob's rage. He screamed at her. He spit on her. He took all of her money and refused to give her any food. He would push her into our front closet and lock the door and spend time kicking it, and whispering through the door to her that she was the mother of the Devil, and telling her that our father had never loved her and regretted marrying her. Eventually he threw her out of the house. He let her leave with the clothes on her back and nothing more. She tried to go to other church members for aid, for they were the only people for years that she had interacted with, but they would not help her. She went back to Brooklyn, where we had lived as Jews, but the people we had known there would not forgive her for forsaking them. She lived in a shelter until her time there ran out. She went to another one. After a couple of months, she ended up on the streets, begging, hoping each day to get enough money for a meal. I tried to help her. I would bring her small amounts of money, blankets, clothes. Jacob caught me and beat me, breaking three of my ribs and three of my fingers, and quoted Ecclesiasticus 26:25, A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord, after he was finished beating me. He told me if I did it again, he would beat me worse, and throw me out as well.

As the days went on, and Jacob became more desperate, and our mother became more desperate, I also became desperate. At the time I believed in the church, in Jesus Christ, and in the Heavenly Father as depicted in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible. I knew nothing else. I had never been given the chance to learn anything or believe anything else. I did not want Jacob's church to fall apart, or to be taken by the government. Obviously I did not want to lose our home, as it was the only thing of value that my family owned. I started looking for Ben Zion on my own. I asked Jacob's permission before I started, and he initially said no. After Pastor Luke left, saying he could no longer reconcile his belief in Jesus Christ with what he had witnessed in Ben Zion, and he could no longer preach a gospel that he did not feel in his heart, Jacob granted me permission. Not only was he in danger of losing the physical building that held his church, but the congregation was losing members, as people felt the chaos, and saw the instability in the leadership, and started going to other churches.

I started by asking my mother, but she knew nothing. I went to the Bronx, where Ben had been living before his accident, before he came back to us, but no one would speak to me, and one large man recommended that I leave, that no one there would tell me anything, and some might hurt me if they thought I would hurt Ben Zion, who they knew only as Ben. I went to the construction site where he had worked, but the workers there had not seen Ben Zion, and the foreman of the site would not see me. I went to the jail and tried to speak to some of the people who had been in the tunnels with him. I saw three men and one woman. As soon as I told them who I was, they stood and walked away without speaking a word to me. I did what Jacob did, called police precincts and hospitals and homeless shelters. I went to the hospital where I had found Ben, but the doctor was not available. I went back to my mother, hoping maybe Ben Zion had contacted her, but I couldn't find her. I went everywhere she had been, or where I knew she had been, but she was nowhere to be found. I stayed home and at church for two days and prayed, and still nothing. On the third day, I decided not to go to church and not to pray. I was tired, and I did not like being around Jacob, who was becoming increasingly desperate and irritable and rageful. I stayed home. I listened to the radio. I put on a station that was not a Christian station, which would most likely have resulted in a beating had Jacob known or come home and discovered it. I listened to a pop station, like a normal girl my age might have done, like normal girls my age all over New York City were probably doing at exactly the same moment. I heard songs about falling in love, about being in love, about going to parties and dancing, and about losing love and mourning love. I heard songs about beautiful kisses and songs about s.e.x. I heard songs about big dreams and people going after them and sometimes losing them and sometimes finding them. I had never known any of these things. I had never experienced anything like them. My life had been church and prayer and school at home and Bible study. What boys I knew were off-limits until marriage, and contact between us was strictly controlled and supervised. I had never walked out the door of our house knowing I was going to see a boy, a boy who might like me, who might kiss me, who I might fall in love with and laugh with and dance with, a boy who would make me happy. I loved the songs I heard, and they made me smile. And they made me hope. And they made me dream. I had dreams I had only dreamed of having. Maybe someday I would know something real about them. Maybe someday some of them would come true. After two hours of songs and dreams and smiles and some awkward dancing, the phone rang. Jacob answered the phone when he was home, and it was my job to answer it while he was out, though no one ever called for me. I immediately turned off the radio, a.s.suming it was someone for Jacob, and knowing that if they heard the radio, I would pay for it later. I picked up and said h.e.l.lo, and a man asked me if I knew Ruth Avrohom. I told him she was my mother. He said he was a social worker from a hospital in Brooklyn, and that my mother was there, and that they needed someone to sign some forms related to her. I asked him what had happened, and he said he could not share details, but that he would discuss it if I came to the hospital. I asked him if she was okay, and he said she was in critical condition. I got the address and hung up.

Without thinking, or without thinking of the potential repercussions, I left immediately. I took the subway and found the hospital. It was in a poor section of Brooklyn, and I was the only white person there, at least among the patients and visitors. I asked a woman where to find my mother. She sent me to the critical care unit. When I got there, I had to speak to another woman, who gave me my mother's room number, but told me I had to wait for a doctor to speak to me. I sat down and I waited.

I waited for a long time. I was very scared. People looked at me like I didn't belong there, in that hospital, and I felt the same way. No one else was white. Lots of the people didn't speak English. I knew people who weren't white or didn't speak very much English at church, but there we were all united by our belief in G.o.d. At the hospital we weren't united by anything. I had no idea what they believed. I didn't trust them. I could tell by the way they were looking at me that they didn't trust me. One asked me if I was a police officer. Another asked me if I worked for the state and was there to take away someone's child. Most just stared at me for a minute or sat where they didn't have to be too close to me. Finally a doctor came to see me. He asked to see my ID and I showed it to him. He walked me to a room down the hall, where my mother was lying in a bed. Her face was hideously swollen and there were large bruises on it. There were tubes and wires going in and out of her arms and a tube going into her mouth and bandages all over her. Her eyes were closed.

I didn't know what to do, what to say. I was scared to step into the room. The doctor told me she had been attacked outside a homeless shelter. There were no real details as to what exactly had happened, but he had heard that there had been a dispute regarding food with a man at the shelter. The supervisor at the shelter had seen her leave, and she was found an hour later in an alley two blocks away. She had been raped and beaten. Her nose and cheekbones were broken and her skull fractured. She was stable, and would most likely live, but she was in poor condition. The police had taken a report, but there were no real suspects and they didn't expect to arrest anyone. He said that for the immediate future my mother could stay at the hospital, but that she would have to leave fairly soon. He asked if I could take her in. I started crying.

I stayed with her for a couple of hours. I sat at her bedside and tried to apologize to her. I knew she couldn't hear me but I did it anyway. When I got home, Jacob was waiting for me. I tried to tell him what had happened but he said he didn't care. Our mother was no longer our mother to him. I tried to talk to him about it and he hit me, and he kept hitting me. When he stopped, I went to my room and I stared at the ceiling until I heard Jacob go to sleep. I waited for an hour after that, and I got up and I got dressed and I left.

I went to Manhattan. The subway was empty. It was the middle of the night. My plan was to go back to all of the people I had seen and ask them again if they knew where I could find Ben Zion. I would explain the circ.u.mstances and why I needed to see him, believing if I could find him and bring him back, Jacob would allow our mother to come home, where I could care for her. I came out of the station into the city. The sidewalks were deserted. The shops were all closed. There were no cars on the street. It was quiet and still and beautiful. The long, straight blocks stretching out to the horizon line. The buildings in shadows, in black. The electric storefront signs were glowing red, yellow, blue. The streetlights were flickering. The blacktop was deserted. The closest location was the hospital, so I started walking towards it. For fifteen minutes I saw no one, though I did occasionally see shadows moving behind lit windows. As I got closer to the hospital, I started to see cars, and a few people. Hospitals are one of the few places in the world that never sleep, never stop, never have a chance to breathe, to be alone or quiet, to be deserted. The closer I got, the more people I saw, some in scrubs or white coats with badges on the front, some just sad or upset, some who looked sick and lost. I went to the emergency room, where the doctor worked. There were a few people in the waiting room. All of them looked scared, almost guilty. A young woman and a young man, both dressed like they had been somewhere fancy, looked like they'd seen a ghost. A little boy held his father's hand. An old woman sat by herself and stared at the floor. A couple was sitting together, the woman sobbing into the man's shoulder. As I walked to the reception desk, I saw the doctor standing in an office behind it. She was on the phone. She seemed very serious. The receptionist asked if she could help me and I told her I needed to see the doctor. She asked why and I told her it was about my brother. She asked if my brother was a patient at the hospital and I told her he was but not anymore. She asked why I needed to speak to the doctor and I told her it was very important, that it was about my brother. I asked her to give the doctor my name and tell her I needed to see her. She said she would and I sat down.

I waited for an hour. Every time a doctor or nurse would come in, everyone would look up, some mixture of great fear and great hope on their faces, knowing that at any minute they were going to be either saved or ruined. The fourth time, the woman doctor came in and looked at me and smiled and sat down next to me. She said h.e.l.lo and asked me what had happened. She could see fresh bruises on my arms and neck, and a.s.sumed I was there for some kind of care. I told her about what had happened with my mother and the situation at home, though when she asked if Jacob had beaten me, I said no, and I told her I needed to find Ben Zion, and that I had been searching for him for several weeks and couldn't find any trace of him, or anyone who would even talk to me about him. She asked me if I thought Ben Zion would be in any danger if I found him, and I said no, we're his family, we need him, we love him and we miss him and we need him. She smiled and said she'd be back, and she hugged me and walked away. She came back a little while later with a sticky note in her hand. She said he was living on a farm upstate and that she'd called the farm and spoken to him. He told her to give me the address and that I should come see him, and that he loved me. I took the sticky note and she hugged me and I left.

I walked to the bus station. I had enough money to buy a ticket most of the way there, but not all of the way. The station was disgusting. And frightening. It was dirty, and there were lots of homeless people and men who stood around waiting for something, or someone, and never seemed to leave. More people seemed to be coming to the city than were leaving it. As I watched them get off their buses, I wondered how many of them, if any at all, would end up happy, or would think they had made a good decision. I found my bus as fast as I could and got on and sat down in the seat directly behind the driver, so that if anything happened, I'd be near someone who could help me.

The ride was a few hours. The bus was mostly empty. An old couple sitting together holding hands. Three girls with shopping bags. A teenaged girl who looked tired and sad. A teenaged boy who looked like he was going to explode. I stared out the window at the green blur and the endless gray line stretching out in front of us. Three hours later I got off in a small town in upstate New York. It looked like it had been nice at some point in the past. The houses were clapboard Victorian, and many of them were very large, though most were now decrepit. There was a main street lined with shops, almost all of which were now closed and boarded. There were liquor stores and churches. Three gun shops. A discount clothing store and a thrift shop. A used car lot full of pick-up trucks, and crumbling factories at the edge of town. Most of the people I saw were sitting on their porch, or their lawn. n.o.body seemed to be working. I stopped at a gas station and asked how to get to the town where Ben Zion was living. The man laughed at me when he asked me how I was getting there and I said I was walking, but he gave me directions anyway. He told me it was about seventy miles away. I started walking down the road. It was a two-lane country road with garbage and weeds along the sides. When I saw cars, I would step deeper into the weeds so that no one would see me, even though I knew they did. I was tired and my body still hurt from Jacob, and I was ashamed to be walking along the side of the road. I didn't have running shoes or walking shoes. Just my church shoes, cheap black leather flats with plastic soles. And I was wearing what I always wore, a long skirt and a long-sleeved blouse and long socks. I started sweating almost immediately, and I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for a long time. I'd walk for a while, and then I'd sit down and rest. I was making some progress, but seventy miles seemed like a thousand. I could not imagine walking the entire way. And I knew that at some point I'd need to sleep, and find some food. I knew that at some point I'd need to find shelter of some kind.

I started praying as I walked. I was talking to Jesus and the Holy Father, and asking them for aid and guidance. I told them I was scared and needed help. I told them I was devoted to them and believed in them and would do whatever they asked of me if they helped me. I begged them for a sign, for something to let me know they could hear my prayers. I held my hands together, above my heart, as I walked, and I looked up towards where I believed Heaven was, and I asked for the angels to come down to me. I believed, because I believed in and lived by the word of G.o.d as expressed in the Bible and had a personal relationship with Christ, that help would come in some form. I prayed so hard. I kept walking, and I prayed so hard.

I don't know how far I got the first day, probably ten or fifteen miles. I slept in a park in a small town that looked exactly like the first one. All of them looked like the first one. I was woken by a police officer's boot. He was pushing me with it. Not in a violent or angry way, but enough to wake me. He asked me who I was and what I was doing. When I told him where I was going, he laughed at me and turned and walked away. I got up and got back on the road.

It was a long day. The longest day of my life. I drank water from gas station bathrooms. I ate food from garbage cans. I walked for hours and hours. My feet and my body hurt. I kept praying. I kept asking Jesus Christ and the Holy Father for help. Twice cars pulled over and I believed my prayers had been answered. Both times men offered me rides if I would do things with them, if I would defile myself for them. Both times I ran off the road into the woods to hide. When they pulled away I came out, and I just kept walking.

Three days after I got off the bus, I found the entrance to the farm. My feet were burning and my throat was burning and I felt like I was going to vomit. I thanked G.o.d for giving me the strength to make it. I literally got on my knees and looked to where Heaven is supposed to be and thanked Jesus Christ and G.o.d. I thanked them for guiding me and keeping me safe and showing me where to sleep and where to find water and where to find food. I thanked them for allowing me to recognize non-Christian predators and avoid them. I thanked them for allowing the doctor to tell me where to find Ben Zion. I thanked them for Ben Zion himself, and for the gift of having him as my brother. I stayed on my knees for an hour, praying and thanking Jesus and the Heavenly Father. I stayed on my knees until the urge to vomit disappeared and until I felt like they had given me my strength back.

The walk up the drive was easy. The road was long and straight and there were woods on both sides. It took about ten minutes. When I came to the end, there was a large white farmhouse and a barn, and huge overgrown fields behind them. There were people around. Some were working a garden, some just sitting around. They all looked happy. A large woman asked if I needed help. I told her I was looking for Ben. She said he was out and she wasn't sure when he'd be back. I asked for a gla.s.s of water and she got me one. She tried to talk to me but I asked her to leave me alone, and she did.

I watched the people around the farm. There were all types of people, all colors, different ages. Some of them were definitely strange, or what Jacob would call perverted or deviant. Men were holdings hands. Women were holding hands. I had been taught for my entire life that h.o.m.os.e.xuals were evil and d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l. That they spread disease. That they were mentally ill. I was scared of them. I didn't want them coming near me, and although I had seen Ben kiss Jeremiah, I thought that was more just to anger Jacob than because he accepted them or their lifestyle, and I couldn't believe he was living with them.

I sat on the porch for an hour or so. Once I stopped moving, my fatigue caught up with me. I had trouble keeping my eyes open. It took a great effort to bring the gla.s.s to my lips, though the water was wonderful when I did. It felt like my chest was weighted down, and each breath was work, and with each I could feel my strength dissipating. The woman who had gotten me my water checked on me occasionally. The rest of the people, and they were coming in and out of the house, coming down the road with bags that appeared to be filled with food and clothes, people going out to the barn, seemed not to notice me, and when they did, they were very friendly, and seemingly normal. Finally Ben came walking out of the fields. He was with a couple, and they looked happy, and he hugged each of them. He turned towards me and saw me and smiled. He looked thin, and his hair was longer, and he was still pale, and his scars looked worse than I remembered them, or they seemed to jump out more. He walked towards me, and I started smiling. He sat down with me and took my hand and put his arms around me and said h.e.l.lo. I immediately started crying, sobbing, into his shoulder. I couldn't say anything, I just sobbed. And it felt wonderful to do it. I felt secure and strong. I wasn't scared anymore. I felt comfortable and calm. I felt like what I wanted to feel like when I was praying to Jesus and the Holy Father. I felt loved.

He took me by the hand and led me to a room. He told me I should lie down, and the bed was big and the sheets were clean and I was so tired. I tried to tell him about what had happened in New York and why I was there and how our mother needed him and how Jacob was going to lose the church and how Pastor Luke had left. He just smiled and said I should sleep. I told him he would only have to come back for a few days and he could leave again and come back here or go anywhere. He said once he left he'd never be back, and I asked why and he said because we both know what is going to happen when I get back to New York. I told him we'd get our mother home and he'd talk to Jacob and everything would be fine. He smiled and told me he loved me and would come get me later, after I'd slept, and he left the room.

I fell asleep almost immediately. I woke to Ben Zion sitting next to my bed, his hand on my arm. It was dark, and there was no light coming through the window. He smiled at me and said it was time to go. I got out of bed. He had a pair of shoes for me. Not new new, but someone else's shoes that were in better condition than mine, and were better for walking. I asked him why we were leaving in the middle of the night, and he said it was easier to walk because it was cooler, and there were more trucks on the road, which would increase our chances of getting a ride. He walked out the door and motioned for me to follow him.

We walked through the house. It was silent and dark. As we came down the stairs, I saw people in the living and dining rooms. There were five or six in each room. Most of them were nude, and they were entwined with each other. I saw two of them kissing, and moving, and I immediately looked away. I believed that whatever they were doing, it was wrong. Whatever they were doing, it was against the ways of G.o.d. Whatever they were doing was a sin. Ben didn't pay any attention to them. We left the house.

The yard was the same. It was warm out and people were sleeping on blankets in the gra.s.s, and some of them were still awake. The moon was high and half full, so I could see them better, and they were doing the same sorts of things, and some of them were making noises. I saw two men kissing, their arms around each other, and I looked away again.

I must have tensed up, because Ben took my hand and spoke.

It's okay to look.

I spoke.

It's wrong.

Why?

It's a sin.

Why?

It goes against the word of G.o.d as expressed in the Holy Bible.

Two people making each other happy isn't wrong.

They're both men.

They're both human beings.

Leviticus 18:22 says you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

I can see that they're happy, and they love each other, and they're making each other feel good.

Their souls are d.a.m.ned.

You hate them for how they live?

Yes.

Your Bible also says, in 1 John 4:20, if anyone says, "I love G.o.d," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love G.o.d, whom he has not seen.

In G.o.d's eyes, as I have been taught, because of what they are, they are not my brothers.

You've been taught wrong. We are all the same, regardless of who and how we love.

That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible is a book. Books are for telling stories. They're not for denying people the right to live as they choose. Live by what you feel, and what feels right to you, not by what some book of stories tells you.

I can't look at them.

You don't have to look, but it's no different than a man and woman in love, and you wouldn't look away from that.

If they were sinning I would.

There is no such thing as sin. Only control and guilt.

We walked away from the house, down the drive. He kept holding my hand. We turned off the drive and started walking down the road. I asked him where we were going and he said the highway.

We walked for thirty more minutes. We didn't speak, but it wasn't awkward. Ben Zion made me calm, made me feel safe, made my insecurities and anxieties disappear. He just held my hand and walked next to me. And as ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.

We made it to the highway and started along the side of it. There were lots of trucks, and very few cars. They would drive by us and the wind they created would move me a little, and I was scared because they were so close. Ben just walked and didn't appear to be scared at all. He told me that he had done this a number of times and that usually someone would stop and offer a ride, though it might be harder because there were two of us. And even though I had had some sleep, I was tired and couldn't imagine walking all the way back to New York.

After an hour or so, a truck pulled over. It was an eighteen wheeler with the logo of a grocery store on the side. The driver rolled down the window and asked where we were going and Ben said New York. He said he could take us to New Jersey, and we climbed into the truck. The cab of the truck had a small area behind the seats with a small cot mattress and a blanket. I went back and lay down. I tried to stay awake to hear what he and Ben Zion would talk about, because I was curious what the Messiah would say to someone he had just met, but almost as soon as we started moving, I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were in New Jersey. The truck was stuck in traffic, and we were barely moving. Ben and the driver were telling each other jokes. Silly one-liners and knock-knock jokes. They would tell a joke and laugh and laugh and laugh. I didn't really get the jokes, and when Ben heard me he turned around and said h.e.l.lo and put his hand on my head. Though I had been a bit sleepy still, I was immediately awake, and my heart was beating really fast, like I had just been running or something, or like what I imagined it must be like to be on drugs. All of the worries and fears and insecurities were gone. This weight I had felt my entire life, that I think every person feels, this weight that is our existence, or our soul, or the bad things that permeate our souls and infect us and make us do bad things, was gone. I didn't know what to say, so I said hi, and Ben Zion laughed and he told me we were almost home. I smiled and said good, and the trucker turned around and looked at me and said h.e.l.lo, and I smiled, but wasn't sure what to say. I rarely spoke to men outside of church. He told me my brother was a funny guy, and a good travel partner, and I smiled and said yeah. He asked me if I was shy, and Ben Zion said yes, she's shy, she's a good Christian girl, or she used to be before I came around, and they both laughed and I was a little confused by what Ben Zion meant and why the trucker would laugh. I did, though, feel different, felt better and lighter, felt the way I had felt before when I had been sick and woken up better, like my fever had broken or something, like I wasn't sick anymore. The trucker turned back around and Ben Zion told another joke and they laughed again and we kept moving slowly towards the city. That was it for the next ten or fifteen minutes. They told more jokes and the trucker called another trucker to ask about traffic and he called his destination and told them how far away he was. He pulled off an exit and to the side of the road and I could see the skyline of New York in the distance. The sun was coming up between the skysc.r.a.pers and streams of light were pouring through the s.p.a.ces between them. And even though I had lived there for my entire life, I hated New York, and was scared of it, and thought of it as a cesspool of sin, a modern-day Gomorrah, a place where the Devil took the souls of innocents every day. This morning it was beautiful. The buildings were all shining. The Hudson was calm and there were ferries moving slowly across it, small wakes trailing behind them. I could see the George Washington Bridge, and cars streaming on both levels, full of people going to their jobs, or to see friends, or shop, or visit the sights, or do whatever they were going to do, and I felt happy for them, like the bright shiny beautiful place they were going was somehow going to help them, or make them better, or make them happy. And I didn't resent them for it. I guess growing up in an environment where I was told everyone was wrong and we were right and everyone was going to h.e.l.l and we weren't had me scared and hateful, and resentful, in a way, of people who didn't think like me or live like me. But for some reason this morning, all of it was gone, all of it was gone.

We got out of the truck and the trucker got out with us and he gave Ben Zion a big hug and said thank you over and over, and Ben Zion said no, thank you for the kindness of the ride, and the man started crying. I don't know why, but he did, he just stood there and cried and Ben Zion held him against his shoulder and let him do it. The sun was still rising behind them. And the light was still streaming. And the ferries and cars were still moving. And all of the people in the city and going to the city were alive and living their lives and I loved them all. And I don't know why, but I did. And I know Ben Zion did. And I know that trucker did. And I don't know why or what Ben Zion did to me or to that man while I was asleep and before they were telling silly jokes and laughing, but it's never left me, and while I may have wondered before, I didn't after. I didn't anymore.

The trucker watched us walk away. Ben Zion took my hand again and he smiled and we walked towards the bridge. It took an hour or so. Walking along empty sidewalks next to roads packed with cars. We crossed the bridge, and the closer we got to the city, the more beautiful it looked, the brighter it seemed. We were the only people walking on the bridge; everyone else was in cars or trucks, and almost all of them were alone. Tens of thousands of people, all of them going to the same place, all of them alone. We came down off the bridge and into the city. We were in upper Manhattan, where it's mostly long blocks of low-rent apartment buildings, and empty factory buildings, and warehouses, and where some of the subway trains run on elevated tracks. I asked Ben Zion where we were going and he told me the subway and I told him I didn't have any money and he told me we didn't need any. He led me into a tunnel where one of the trains came out of the ground, and it went from being bright and beautiful to being pitch black and terrifying. I told him I was scared and he said don't be, and I asked him if he knew where we were going, and he said yes, he had come across the bridge and into this tunnel many times.

We walked right down the middle of the tunnel, in the area between the two tracks. Occasionally there'd be an overhead light, but mostly it was black. I could hear dripping water and rats, and once or twice I heard some yelling. When the trains would come by, I'd put my hands over my ears, and the wind was really strong and the girders holding the tunnel up would shake a little bit. The trains were only a few feet away, and the people in them were a blur. Even though Ben was with me, I stayed scared. I felt like we were walking into h.e.l.l and the trains were full of souls of the d.a.m.ned, rushing towards eternal fire and pain. And though I would have once thought, having seen what I saw with Ben Zion, and having disobeyed Jacob, and having forsaken my mother, that I was going to join them, this time I didn't. If I was walking into h.e.l.l, I knew I'd walk out. Or if I felt like we were walking into h.e.l.l, I believed that there was no such thing. There is only life. This life that we live. If it is h.e.l.l, it is because we make it so.

I saw lights ahead of us, and we came to a platform and we climbed up and waited for the next train. There were a few other people on the platform, but they paid no attention to us and didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that we had come walking out of the tunnel. We got on a downtown train and switched to one going to Brooklyn. n.o.body on the trains spoke or really even looked at each other. Ben held my hand and closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window and breathed through his nose, and though he looked like he was asleep, I don't think he was. Once a thin white man in a nice suit got on with a briefcase, and Ben immediately opened his eyes. The man was sitting across from us and further down, and Ben stared at him. He didn't give him a dirty look or a mean look, just stared at him. At the next station the man got off the train.

It took an hour or so. We got off and walked to the hospital. When we arrived, our mother was sleeping. The doctor said she was fine but not good. Ben Zion took me to the waiting room and left. I asked him where he was going and he said for a walk. I asked him where and he just smiled and walked away.

He came back three hours later. I had tried to pray while he was gone, but had had trouble doing it. It seemed strange to be talking to something that wasn't there, or that I didn't know was there, or that I believed was there but had no evidence was there. And I saw other people in the waiting room who were praying. I watched them carefully. Two of them were praying to a Christian G.o.d, and I know because one had a Bible with them and the other made the sign of the cross before prayer, and another was a Muslim, and had a copy of the Qur'an. They were praying very hard, and they were very focused. I was used to praying with other people, sometimes many other people, especially at Bible conventions and Christian Youth meetings, so that wasn't it. I just couldn't do it at that moment, and wanted to see other people do it, and wanted to see what, if anything, happened. There were magazines in the room, magazines with movie stars on the front of them and silly headlines and bright pictures of pretty people in fancy clothes. I picked one up and looked at it. While I looked at it, I watched the people praying. If the outside of the magazines seemed silly, the insides were worse. The stories were about people who were very concerned with how they looked and dressed, and how much money they made, and the houses they lived in. And while I could understand worrying about those things on some level, they seemed incredibly insignificant in a hospital, a place where people were sick and diseased and dying, and where the people who loved them came to watch them suffer. At the same time, what the people praying were doing seemed equally insignificant. They were all begging for help, for aid, for some way to relieve their suffering, and to relieve the suffering of whomever they were praying for, begging to characters in books, characters that no one had ever met or seen or spoken to and was sure even existed. They were praying to whatever G.o.d or Savior they believed in to save them, and in the same way that some people worship the silly people in the magazines, who we at least know are real, they worshipped the people in their books, who we don't know anything about. I watched a doctor come in to see one of the Christians, and he had some type of bad news, because the person immediately started sobbing. A family member of the other Christian, or someone who I a.s.sumed was a family member because they looked exactly alike, came in to take the person away, and the family member had clearly been crying. The man with the Qur'an saw what I saw, that the prayer had clearly done nothing, but kept clutching his book and praying anyway. I wondered, and I still wonder, if I had replaced their books with the silly magazines I had been looking at, and if they had worshipped the silly people in those magazines, if they would have gotten the same result.

When Ben Zion came back, he smiled and told me to come with him. I stood and we left the waiting room and walked to our mother's room. When we went in, she was awake and she smiled at me. The tubes were out of her mouth, but there were others still in her arms, and she was still covered in bandages. I sat next to her and took her hand and told her I was so sorry and that I loved her and I started crying. She pulled me towards her, and though she was too weak to really do it, I understood what she wanted, and I stood and put my arms around her. I kept telling her I was sorry and that I loved her, and she put her hands on the back of my head and held me against her chest. Ben Zion stood a few feet away and watched us. After a minute or two, our mother let me go and I pulled away and sat back down, though I still held her hand. Ben Zion walked over and kissed me on the forehead, and leaned towards my mother and whispered something in her ear, though I did not hear what it was. She smiled and kissed his check, and he stepped away and sat with me. He stayed until she feel asleep, and when she did, he stood and kissed her forehead and turned and started to walk out of the room. I asked him where he was going, and he stopped and turned around and looked at me and spoke.

I'm leaving.

Where to?

I'm going to see Jacob.

Don't.

I'm going to make sure you never have to see him again.

Don't hurt him.

I wouldn't hurt anyone.

Then why go?

I want you to be free.

I'll be fine.

Fine is no way to live. Take care of Mom.

You call her Mom?

When I was little I called her Mommy, when I got older it was Mom. Only when we were alone. It was our little thing, away from the rules and formality of our home.

Is she going to be okay?

I don't know if she wants to live anymore. She's had a long, brutal life.

She didn't deserve it.

None of us deserve it.

He turned and walked to the door.

Don't let him hurt you, Ben Zion.

I love you, Esther.

PETER.

I met Ben at his arraignment hearing. It was at the Queens County Criminal Courthouse. He had been arrested and charged with attempted murder and arson. I am an attorney and work for the criminal defense division of the Legal Aid Society. In simple, layman's terms, I am a public defender. I literally drew his file out of a basket. In doing so, I have been irrevocably changed. In almost every way for the better. Except for the rage I feel when I think about what was done to him.

I became what I am because of my father. He was a drug dealer. He was not a drug lord or anyone of importance in the drug trade. Rappers have not glorified him in their songs. Writers have not written books about him. Hollywood has not made his life into an award-winning drama. He was, like many black men, both now and in the '70s, when he was active, a street-level drug dealer. He literally stood on a corner and sold drugs. He did so because he believed there were no other options. He was not well-educated. There were no jobs available to him. He did not have parents who were able to support or nurture him. We lived, and still do, in Harlem. He and my mother were married, and still are, and they had three children, me and my twin sisters, who are a year younger than me. We lived in a fifth-floor walk-up. My mother worked as a checkout clerk at a grocery store but made very little money. My father looked for legitimate employment but was unable to find anything. He did what he had to do. He took the only job that was available to him.