Anything to relieve stress: It’s scotch and smokes one night, the gym the next.
A black giant interrupts my workout.
“Someone’s praying for you very, very hard.”
Not this shit again — not now. My life’s too complicated for a late entry.
I’m entrenched in a restaurant that’s sinking fast. I owe more than $100,000 to local contractors, and thanks to an arrogant partner who fled, business sucks. Every phone call’s a creditor.
I’m drinking, drugging, whoring, gambling, juggling two girlfriends and studying for captain with three other lieutenants.
I’m so busy I barely have time to ignore my creditors.
The giant says, “The Holy Spirit compels me to talk to you. Someone’s praying for you very, very hard.”
I stare at my sneakers, “The same line again. The same f***ing line.”
Elijah’s voice slashes again, “You spent a year in Vietnam, and your brother died in a fire.”
I don’t need this crap now, but the giant’s glare suggests he’s on a mission. He recites my life the way actors read scripts.
Then, Elijah tells his story.
“I played football at Grambling University. I was good enough to be a pro. Football was all I thought about. My fiancé suggested I spend less time in a three-point stance and more time on my knees.
“She said, 'Be thankful for the gifts that God gave you. Don’t pray for more. If it’s God’s will, your dreams will come true.'”
Then, his kicker.
“During my senior year, I was diagnosed with bone cancer. The doctors said lose the leg, or lose your life. A week before the operation, like Christ in Gethsemane, I sweated blood. I vowed to God if he saved my leg, I’d devote my life him.”
The giant’s intensity mesmerizes me.
“The night before the operation, all signs of cancer disappeared. My doctors were mystified — not a trace.”
Then, Elijah talks casually about things I barely remember. He preaches a long time.
I squirm and sneak peeks at the two frozen hands on the clock.
Silent, Elijah looks skyward searching for divine disclosure. He praises God, thanks God and prays. Then, he stops. A calm descends, and in a hushed tone he delivers the final blow — Elijah reminisces about my future.
“God gave you a gift. He gave you the ability to communicate with people, and you used it in an unholy way. God’s disappointed in you. I am your last warning. Why do you ignore my Lord?”
I hear my skin crawl.
Once more, Elijah glances upward and praises Jesus.
“Yes, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. The Holy Spirit wants you to read the Bible. Jeremiah, Chapter 1, verses 5-15.”
“The Bible?”
“Jeremiah, Chapter 1 verses 5-15. No more self-gratification. Fulfill the plans he made for you before you were born — yes, Jesus; praise Jesus.”
I’m scared shitless. Got to end this, “Thanks, man.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m only his messenger.”
I sprint to the showers.
“God gave me a gift. God is pissed off. This guy’s my last chance -- holy shit.”
Can two warnings be coincidence?
*****
My girlfriend Colleen’s a brilliant girl with the balls of a burglar. Nothing shakes her, yet she’s alarmed.
“You can’t ignore this. God’s trying to reach you. You know how strong your mother’s prayers are.”
I reply, “Calm down, I’ll look into it when I get around to it.”
*****
Two days later, “Colleen, I have a doctor’s appointment in the city. You want to have dinner afterward?”
After we eat, rush hour approaches.
Rather than trek upstate, “What do you say we take in a flick?”
I spy a newsstand and pull over. Colleen comes back empty-handed.
“No more papers.”
“No papers in Manhattan?”
Then, a candy store two minutes later, “No papers. He’s all out.”
I say, “That’s crazy. Let’s get the hell out of Manhattan. We’ll just catch a movie up north.”
In Yonkers, I see a multiplex and pull over. I buy tickets for the 8 p.m. show.
“I’m not drinking. We gotta kill 45 minutes.”
She says, “Let’s browse the books in Barnes and Noble.”
Then, she adds, “Hey, let’s see if we can find the reference the preacher told you about. They must sell Bibles.”
“Yeah, why the hell not. Let’s see what that passage is all about. What was it again, Jeremiah, Chapter 1, verses 5-15?”
Inside, I say, “Find the section marked ‘Religion.’”
Not one Bible.
Colleen says, “Over here’s a whole section of Bibles.”
I join her in the aisle, and I’m overwhelmed. Rows and rows of Jewish Bibles, Living Bibles, Good News Bibles, Bibles in German, French, Dutch, King James, Webster — Bibles everywhere.
I say, “Any one.”
From the 1,000 or so, I reach at random.
Looking down at about 3,000 pages, I notice one dog-eared page. A cold chill runs up my spine, my heart races, my knees weaken, and I almost put the book back on the shelf.
I turn to Colleen, “No f***ing way. If this dog-eared page is Jeremiah Chapter 1:5, I swear to God.”
I open the book. I’m in disbelief.
Jeremiah 1:5.
*****
The passage reads, “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb ... I ordained thee a prophet.”
God commands Jeremiah to spread his message. Jeremiah’s a profligate, so he pleads mistaken identity.
He tells God he’s not the right man for the job. But the Lord’s divine, unmerciful persistence insists.
God says, “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”
The passage continues: Sometimes God chooses unlikely orators to deliver his message. God also warns Jeremiah he has no choice. If he doesn’t obey, he and his descendents will be punished severely.
*****
Like a carpenter’s callouses, my Irish Catholic mother’s skin shines between thumb and forefinger from her rosary beads. My father died of alcoholism; my brother died drunk in a fire.
She’s a selfless woman who wore out her knees praying that her youngest son, all she had left, would see the light.
*****
While The Beatles blast from my car radio, I drive my mom to the store.
Now 82, she asks, “Whatever happened to them, The Beatles?”
“Two of them are dead.”
She says, “What a shame. Just when they were starting to be successful.”
She’s diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer’s.
I need to get sober.
*****
Six months later, I’m driving from Gainesville to a Miami nursing home to visit my mom.
“I’m drinking too much. I have to stop.”
The sky opens, and sheets of rain force me off the turnpike. I squint through my wipers at a stop sign and see St. Jude’s church. It’s Sunday morning, and I laugh at the irony.
St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes.
If ever there was a lost cause … Why not?
A solitary sheet of 8-by-10 paper shares the last pew with me.
“Say this prayer to St. Jude seven times a day for three weeks, and God will answer you.”
Swayed by coincidence, I say the short prayer seven times and pray for God’s gift of sobriety. A selfish request, because if my mom needs me and I’m drunk, I won’t forgive myself.
For three years, I recite the prayer everyday. I stay dry.
*****
A year after my mom’s death, I’m done praying. I don’t need God anymore.
I leave a Miami bar whacked. It’s 2 a.m. and, again, pouring rain. I squint through my wipers and see a truck paused at a stop sign.
Not obliviously drunk, I slow up and pull behind the flatbed. I don’t see the 12-foot pipes that extend beyond the back of the truck. The steel explodes through the windshield, rockets past both my ears and out the back window.
I sit frozen. The silence becomes palpable and merciless in its depths.
The only sound comes from my car’s radio. The Temptations tow me to clarity, then tears.
“People get ready, there’s a train a coming. You don’t need no ticket, you just get on board.”
On Sept. 10, 2001, covered in broken glass, decapitation two inches from both ears, I realize there are no lost causes.
I answer my mother’s prayers. Finally, I climb on board.
The very next day, two planes destroy a skyscraper in New York. Entombed amid the steel and concrete of 9/11 are three captains: three study mates who passed a test I failed.
People often ask me, “How long has it been since you’ve had a drink?”
The date is painful, but easy to remember.
Bill O’Connor is a Vietnam veteran, former Bronx firefighter and pub and restaurant owner. He is a journalism major at UF and a standup comic. The irreverent and acerbic O’Connor performs free standup in Gainesville.
