Solomon's Porch (22 page)

“I was sobering up fast. I asked myself, how in the hell did this Colonel know who my mother was? Had I told anyone else alive about her admonition to me?

“Before I had the chance to ask him how he knew my mother and a secret only she and I shared, he spoke something in a foreign tongue and then touched my hand.

“Suddenly she was sitting there right in front of me.”

“Who, Jose?” Kenny asked.

“My mother. She looked ghastly; all sick and pallid. Life had been very hard on mom, and the years of backbreaking work and exposure to toxic chemicals had broken down her body. I didn’t know it then, but she was dying of liver cancer. She had been diagnosed with it right about when Ramon was killed, and she didn’t want to burden me with her suffering while I was in Nam, so she didn’t tell me.

“I’m freaking out. ‘Mom! Mom!’ I shout. ‘How did you get here? What’s going on?’ She reaches over and touches my cheek like she always did, and smiles, and then puts her finger to her lips asking me to be quiet.

“Then she says, ‘Rico, God loves you. He has a plan and a purpose for your life. Come to Him when He calls, Rico. Put your faith in God and not in man.’ Then she disappears. So does Gabriel. I’m left sitting there stupefied, wondering if I was losing my mind or maybe if someone had slipped me LSD or something.

“A few hours later I’m finally able to get through to my family in Cali. My dad is just out of his mind with grief. ‘Your mom died this morning,’ he tells me.

“Then he says he wants me to know that her last words were directed specifically to me. ‘It was like you were right here in the room with her, son,’ he says. Reading from the notes he took of mom’s dying declaration, he then repeats the exact statement, word for word, my mother made to me in the bar. It also wasn’t hard to figure out that I saw mom at the exact same time she died in California.”

If Jose was expecting some awestruck reaction to his story he didn’t get it. Each of the disciples silently contemplated what they had heard and believed it without reservation. By now, nothing God did surprised them.

“You know what, gentlemen, I never told my father about seeing mom in the bar or about Gabriel.”

“For heaven’s sake, why not?” Peter asked.

“I was afraid. Scared he might think I was crazy, or worse, weak. I have always believed in God, my mom and dad were devout Catholics, but I never really believed, ‘believed.’ You know, accepted as fact that the miracles and supernatural events in the New Testament were actually real, not just p.r.”

“Don’t feel alone, Jose. I preached the word for a couple of decades, sure that it was all superstitious nonsense,” Kenny confessed.

“I am so ashamed, gentlemen. I should have changed my life right then and there, repented and gotten right with the Lord. I mean I was given a miracle for hell’s sake, and still I was too proud, too hard headed, to believe.”

“Reminds me of eleven other men, Mr. Vargas,” Peter said.

“Who were they, sir?” Jose asked.

“A few fellows from Galilee, saints all. They watched Christ raise the dead, exorcise demons, walk on water, disappear into the midst of crowds, and still when the Romans came to arrest Him, they fled. The man upon whom the Lord built His church, the rock, Cephas, he denied Him three times.”

“What is it you’re trying to tell me, Panos? I’m to have an excuse for my sin? Comparing me to an Apostle seems, well, forgive me sir, a bit extreme.”

Peter was beginning to understand that while General Jose Vargas had great faith and the calling, otherwise he would not be sitting with him now, he was still stuck in his sin, not yet ready or able to completely accept the cleansing power of God, to fully submit.

“Whether you know it or not, Jose, you are no different than the Apostles. No better, certainly no worse. Nothing is troubling you that is not common to all men, and no, there is no excuse for sin, but there is forgiveness if you seek it.”

“But Panos, you don’t know what I’ve done.” As Jose said this he looked down and slumped, at last losing his military posture. He sounded like a man defeated, not a warrior.

Peter then also understood that they were listening to a confession that also happened to be a testimony. His newest disciple was desperate to unburden his soul, but his “old man” was dying hard.

“You never confessed your sins to a priest, did you, Jose?” Peter surmised.

“No,” was the answer. “I was too ashamed.”

“Well, then now is the time, brother. I suspect it is well past the time,” Peter said, hoping for Jose’s sake that he would not waste the opportunity.

Vargas stood, stretched, and looked around. His brothers knew, they could all sense and see it. A war was raging in Jose’s soul. At that very moment the devil was doing all he could to keep Jose from fully committing to the Lord.

“Part of you wants to run?” Saul asked.

“Honestly? Yes,” Jose answered.

“Wondering how in the world you ended up here in a Federal prison camp with a bunch of convicts?” Kenny asked.

“Yes.”

“Considering the idea that we’re all a bunch of con men who have somehow tricked you into being a fool?” Larry asked.

This time Jose did not answer.

Saul then fell to his knees in silent prayer. The attention briefly shifted to him. When he was finished he opened his eyes, sat back down, and spoke.

“The Lord has granted my request, Jose,” Saul told his struggling new friend. “For the next few minutes He has blessed you with my gift.”

“What gift would that be, Mr. Cohen?”

“The ability to see for yourself who is putting all these doubts and heresies in your mind.”

Saul reached over and touched Jose’s arm. That’s when Peter and the disciples saw something that the Vietcong, the Iraqi insurgency, or any of the thousands of men Jose Enrique Vargas had commanded over his lifetime ever saw. The unconquerable General Vargas was suddenly paralyzed with fear.

Jose’s main antagonist was an especially large and vile looking demon. He was surrounded by imps, too numerous to count, who were all chewing on something. Exactly what, Jose could not tell.

Vargas was in shock. He had never seen such creatures, or truly believed they could exist, imagining demons to be the fantasies of overzealous or delusional men. This beast, though, was very real. He could also speak.

“So, you stupid son of a b****, you can finally see me. Think you can beat me now? You are only a worthless ape, Vargas, a toy for me to play with and dump on when I’m through.”

In the beast’s hands were weapons: automatic rifles, grenades, spears, and clubs. The assortment was endless and kept changing by the second. His image seemed to flux, to get weaker, then stronger, pulsing like a strobe.

“Who are you?” Jose asked, trembling so violently he thought he might shake himself apart.

“Why, I’m you. What a stupid question, Vargas. You made me. Aren’t you proud?”

“How could I make you?”

“Damn you, you blind fool! Look at my servants all around me. They’re eating the bones of your victims, Vargas. You’ve killed enough people to feed them forever.

“I’m your beast. Every time you hate, or even better, ignore the suffering you create, I get stronger. Death, pain, killing, it’s what you do, Vargas. It’s you. I’m you.”

Enlightenment is always best experienced gradually. If the harsh reality, the naked truth of the horror of the monsters and demons created by a lifetime of sin is thrust on a man without warning, chaos can be the result.

Jose had his epiphany, but the consequences of it were unresolved. The demon was telling him the truth, but like all evil, he only told him part of the truth, the condemnation side of the equation.

Feeling forsaken and unworthy, believing the lie that he was no better than the demon who tortured him, Jose Vargas was standing on a precipice, ready to jump into the abyss. Try as he might, he could muster no argument against Satan, because he hated what he’d done, and thought it made him every bit as vile and ugly as the disgusting nightmare from the pit of hell who was trying to steal his soul.

From afar, outside of his evil narrowed field of vision, Jose heard his brothers praying for him. So did the demon.

“You think they can help you? Those losers? What a stinking pile of garbage they are. Worthless thieves, con men and killers, all of them weak. You call that undisciplined collection of filth brothers? They’re not worthy of bathing in your piss.”

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner,” chanted the voices in unison.

“Christ was a wimp, Vargas. You worship Him? That limp wristed queer died on the cross like a piece of spoiled meat. We laughed at Him then and we are still laughing now.”

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner!” The chant grew louder, stronger.

“Don’t listen to them. Stay with me. You’ve seen me now, you know what’s real. Accept what you are, Vargas. You can’t change it, so revel in it! If you will forget all of this stupid, childish bull**** about God and Christ and righteousness, all your suffering will be over. I offer you the peace that comes from acknowledging your true nature. We can have so much more fun, monkey boy! We haven’t even gotten started yet.”

Despite the pain, the crushing weight of his unrepented sin, which was urging him to abandon Christ, somehow Carmela got through.

In his agony, Jose saw her standing close by, along with another woman. They called to him.

“Rico, put your faith in God, son, not in man. Confess, repent, and live. I love you and so does the Lord.”

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner!” The call from his brethren was now almost deafening.

Seeing his mother urged Jose’s spirit to accept his gift, to realize that he was being given yet another opportunity to turn to the Lord. That this was by no means his second chance, or even his hundredth was unimportant, irrelevant. Carmela was here now, along with her angelic host, which meant to Jose that Christ was with him also. He was strengthened and ready to do battle.

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner,” Jose prayed. While his heart was in it, he sounded reedy and weak.

“Please,” the demon baited. “Who do you think you are talking to? I know you, Vargas. You don’t love God. Look at all the pain and misery He’s allowed in your life, in everyone’s lives. He’s a joke, not a God. Don’t be a damned fool.”

“Lord have mercy on me a sinner. Jesus forgive me for the lives I’ve taken and the pain I’ve caused. Heal me Christ, lead me away from this vision of sin and death.”

Sensing Jose’s resistance to him growing, the demon spread his arms, which looked like giant deformed bat wings with undersized claws. The demon then called to his attending imps, who responded by opening their mouths. Images, rather than voices, came pouring out.

Jose saw the six children in that little village south of Hue, the ones who had ignored his lieutenant’s evacuation order and stayed behind. Vargas’ platoon burned them alive, they had come out of one of the disintegrating huts aflame, four foot high human candles.

Then he saw himself that very night back at the base getting drunk on Jack and beer and laughing about it, as if it wasn’t somehow children he’d tortured and destroyed, but rather some subhuman vermin deserving of extermination.

Next, another imp showed him the five civilians he’d casually killed less than a week after the children simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then one after another came a rapid succession of death and mayhem, scenes of violence from his life in Nam and elsewhere, some of which he’d actually been able to forget.

But General Vargas could never forget Aziz.

Above and beyond every other callous act of cruelty he’d ever directly committed or ordered another man to commit, what happened to Aziz was by far the most troubling to Jose’s soul.

Back in
2004
, Vargas was in command of a Marine division taking part in the battle of Fallujah in Iraq. While American casualties were light, the hand to hand, house to house fighting to rid the town of Sunni insurgents and terrorists was bloody and at times intense. During the Iraqi campaign the enemy used women and children to carry out their vicious suicide attacks. This was nothing new to Jose Vargas. As a grunt marine in Nam, he’d seen the VC use this same tactic, and use it very effectively.

Division commanders were supposed to remain at headquarters, but leading from the rear was unacceptable to General Vargas. Among his faults were neither cowardice nor a lack of concern for his men, so barely a week after the fighting in Fallujah started in earnest, he called for a driver and a platoon escort and headed straight into the action to see for himself how the battle was progressing.

The U.S. air strikes and subsequent occupation left the once prosperous and bustling city of Fallujah nearly deserted and selectively reduced to rubble. Precision munitions targeting allowed the Americans to hit one block where they believed the insurgents were entrenched and leave the next virtually unscathed. Jose found this brand of twenty-first century warfare both disingenuous and naïve, for like rats, his enemy fled when the light shone on them and melded into the background to avoid capture or destruction. As in Vietnam, political considerations took precedence over the most effective military strategy, which Vargas at the time honestly believed, was to use all available means to root out and kill his adversaries.