A week after Andy Chemosh’s arm was broken, Gene Chemosh was still overwhelmed with thankfulness. On Saturday morning he drove to work inordinately early, before the picketers arrived. It was a busy day. By 11:15 he had completed eight procedures. As he stepped into the lab a couple of employees were exiting the other door at the far end of the room. They must have been leaving for a smoke break, Chemosh decided. He walked over to the far counter next to the sink with the clear plastic splashguard above it. There he saw three tiny bodies, each almost completely pieced together, on trays lying on the counter. He stood there, looking at them, knowing they were in that position to make sure all parts of the fetal tissue were accounted for. Chemosh stood musing for a moment. He knew when the employees came back, these miniature fetuses would be ground up in the disposal, the splashguard protecting the employee in the process.
As he stood there, the familiar dread that always precipitated the nightmare began to surface. Chemosh went to the restroom and washed his face to clear his mind, then felt an irresistible urge to walk out of the building and get into his car. He went back to his office and grabbed his jacket. On impulse he scooped up the picture of his family, along with his framed medical certificates and a small sculpture Sal had given him. Cramming them all into his briefcase and a small box, he walked hurriedly out the door.
As soon as they caught sight of him, a couple of protesters called out, “Murderer! Butcher!”
“I hate you, stupid people!” Chemosh muttered to himself, climbing into his car.
Why? It was that voice he felt more than heard—the voice so familiar to him from last week.
“Because…” he started to answer involuntarily.
Because they’re speaking the truth?
Gene just sat there.
Gene? It was so personal, this talk.
“What?”
You know what they’re saying is true.
Gene was filled with a feeling of defiance, and his jaw tightened. He didn’t like being called a murderer and a butcher.
But what else do you know?
Tears flooded Gene’s eyes instantly, and the answer came just as fast. “I know You still love me,” he said out loud, convinced but still puzzled. The words felt so strange.
Yes, I love you. So forget about them and pay attention to me.
“I want to get away from them, though.”
Drive out.
Gene started the car and headed for the gate, but before he reached it, the voice came again.
Lift your hand to acknowledge them. Don’t look at them. Just lift your hand.
Gene humbly complied, as there was no contending with this voice, but he was glad as always a moment later to be out of earshot of the ugly accusations.
Are you sure you hate those people?
“Well, I said I did.”
You don’t hate them anymore.
“I do!”
No, you don’t. They’re not perfect, but they know the truth. Ten minutes ago, when you looked at those three tiny bodies, you saw them through My eyes, just like they do. That’s because you now have My spirit of truth. There was a distinct pause. Welcome to My family.
Gene inhaled a deep breath and held it, overcome with the strangest feeling. It was like a baptism of love. “God,” Gene said simply. “God!” he said again, tears in his eyes. He turned onto an unfamiliar quiet street and parked. “You’re taking me down a path I don’t know.” He buried his face in his hand for a moment, unable to understand this feeling of being overwhelmingly loved.
Don’t worry. All you need to know is that I love you and I’ll help you.
Gene Chemosh sat for a moment, trying to process all that had happened in the last few minutes. He wiped his eyes, clearing his throat while he picked up his phone, and called into his office. “I left early today,” he said, offering no explanation to the receptionist. “Eileen will have to finish up. If she has questions, she can call.”
Chemosh found himself in a dilemma. He knew he would never again darken the door of the clinic he’d worked in for the past four and a half years, but he couldn’t even informally resign, because he had to tell Sally first before she found out from some busybody. He knew the word would spread fast. He had foiled his own plan to find another job first, as Denspot had suggested.
“Ah,” he sighed loudly, as he remembered Denspot’s parting suggestion from last week to check the ten Rules—all of them. He smiled in spite of himself. Denspot was right about that first one. He was no longer exempt.
“I think I can say I love You, now.” He smiled a slightly sheepish grin, and true as always in this new phenomenon in his life, he felt a smile in return—no words. Just a smile, big, and broad, and so… knowing. He had never felt so loved, without any reservation whatsoever.
……….
Chemosh needed some time to chill. He turned into Covella’s, hoping to think things through as to what to say to Sally. As he walked up to the bar, he was surprised to see the young man who had so long ago joined him for lunch.
“Well, if it’s not my young friend!”
Marc glanced up. When he saw it was the man who’d bought his meal a few months earlier, he readily traded in his anticipation of watching a game for a conversation that would undoubtedly prove far more interesting. Still, his reply was nonchalant.
“How’s it going?”
“Pretty fine. Wanna watch the game?”
“Well, whatever.” Mark’s downward grin and shrug showed the indifference he now felt about it.
“How about joining me for lunch again? Pot roast is good here,” Chemosh said, looking keenly at the younger man.
Marc was quick to answer, “I remember.” He smiled. “Let’s go.”
Once in the booth, Chemosh wasted no time with small talk. “Remember your advice to me that last time we talked?”
“Mmm. Not really.”
“Do you remember I told you I was having nightmares and couldn’t get rid of them, and that my shrink had given me a suggestion I’d not been willing to follow?”
“Yeah!” Marc nodded, his eyes brightening. “I suggested you try it.”
“And I did!” Chemosh exclaimed.
“Did it help?” Marc was especially curious now, because the man’s whole being seemed so relaxed—even happy.
“It did! My life has really changed. I’m still digging out some rocks in my marriage that have surfaced in the process,” he looked at Marc with a twinkle in his eye, “but no more nightmares.” Chemosh stopped, confirming Marc’s attentiveness before adding, “And I have another son.”
“What?” Marc exclaimed, looking at the older man inquisitively.
“I said I have another son.”
“Your wife had a baby?”
“No… Well, yes, she did. Fourteen—no, fifteen years ago now. We had a baby—that we aborted.”
Gene apologized on seeing the expression of shock on the younger man’s face. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I’m actually only following through on the treatment plan prescribed by my friend the shrink.”
Marc’s face twisted in bewilderment, and Gene Chemosh calmly went on. “Probably the only part you’d even care to understand right now is that I find a need at this point in my life to be transparent—especially on this issue. Would you mind my unloading on you?” He waited for an answer.
“No. Go ahead.”
“OK. I’m not sure where to start. I guess I’ll just throw out things as they come to my mind.” He smiled good-naturedly. “I’m kinda blunt.”
Marc held up his hands in a time-out gesture. “Maybe we should introduce ourselves.”
“Ah! We’ve never actually done that, have we?” He held out his hand across the table. “Chemosh. Gene Chemosh.”
Marc shook his hand. “Marc Garman.”
“You see, a big change has taken place in my life. I used to be my own person. I’m not anymore,” he said, shaking his head slowly. He looked intently at his young companion, and there was just a hint of embarrassment in his voice even though he punctuated every word, while a reverence shown in his eyes: “I believe in God.”
Marc sat stunned. These words were incompatible with the first potty-mouthed image he had had of this man who sat across from him now.
“I don’t really expect you to understand,” Chemosh said, with a slight smile on his face, “but maybe you could just indulge me.” Marc’s expression remained incredulous, and Chemosh smiled, acknowledging his friend’s honest reaction. “What I’m saying is that God is in my life now. I belong to Him, and I like it. I talk to Him, and I’m learning everything I can about Him. The suggestion of my friend the shrink so many months ago was to obey the Ten Commandments. You know—the Bible—Moses? When I started absorbing them, my life changed. I quit swearing, I quit lying, and I began to see that things were out of whack in almost every area of my life.
“But the real change—‘Marc,’ did you say?—didn’t come so much from adhering to the Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots—the rules. It came from being…tuned in, if you will, to the ‘Rule Maker.’
“A few weeks ago, I was at the hard place of facing the fact that I’d broken Rule Six, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” Chemosh leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. “With my own child.” He took a deep breath and responded to the shocked abhorrence he saw in the younger man across from him. “Early in our marriage my wife had an abortion, pretty much at my insistence. Now, you have to understand that I’ve never allowed the abortion of my own child—or any child—to fall into the category of murder. In fact, after the abortion, I never allowed myself to even think about the whole experience. I put it out of my mind as completely as I possibly could. It was there subconsciously, though, like a little box buried under layers and layers of …denial, I suppose, over the years—fourteen to be exact.”
He continued, talking in an animated whisper. “Like I said, when I saw the changes in my life that came from following the Ten Commandments, it was like a breakthrough. But Rule 6 brought me to a dead end with big flashing yellow lights—end of road! And there was that little box, totally exposed, just sitting there, the object of those flashing lights. I suppose acknowledging the worth of the rules had shoveled off most of the layers covering it, and pretty soon even the fine layers of careful justification were gone, and I sat there face to face with all my guilt and remorse which I’d buried inside that box.”
Gene looked across the table at the young man who was looking back at him, seemingly hanging onto every word in sincere attention. “When I came to this impasse, I asked Joe, my shrink, ‘What do I do?’ And he said, ‘Talk to the Rule Maker.’”
Chemosh leaned across the table, whispering, “That is what has changed my life.” He leaned back. “I did talk to the Rule Maker.” Chemosh’s eyes were moist with tears, and his chin twitched as he spoke, still in a whisper, with profound gratefulness. “That little devil of a box is gone. It is gone.”
Marc took a sip of water and began buttering a roll. The gesture was just enough to cause the older man to perceive that the younger one had been somewhat put off by his discourse.
“You have to understand I only mention the morbid to accentuate the wonderful fact that I feel so free!” He paused, knowing he had trespassed into subjects hardly appropriate for a rendezvous of such slight acquaintance. “I’m sorry. This is probably a little heavy for you.”
But surprisingly, Marc was not put off. “You feel free? I guess I can’t identify with that. Does that mean you felt caged before?”
“No. I never felt it, but I was, just the same. Kind of like a wild animal born in a zoo—never knowing true freedom and not missing it. He’s released into the wild, and then he knows freedom.”
“Hmm. Interesting.” Something about this candid man attracted Marc. Just that, perhaps—his raw honesty. He raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath, looking keenly at the man across the table. “I can identify with more than you might think.” He swallowed, contemplating whether to go on. Chemosh remained silent, and after a moment, Marc spoke again, his voice lowered almost to a whisper. “My child was aborted, too. But it wasn’t my idea. In fact, I fought it. The guilt I have is that I didn’t fight hard enough—hard enough for Trent.”
“‘Trent’? Did he survive the abortion?”
“Oh, no, he most certainly did not; but I had already named him before he was aborted.”
Chemosh put down his fork and planted his elbows on either side of his plate. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded hands. “If the mother was determined to abort your child, there’s nothing you could legally have done to stop it.”
“That’s what I’ve heard. But do you know that for certain?”
“Yes.”
Marc frowned, silently demanding explanation.
“It was my business to know that.” He looked down at his napkin. “I’m an ob-gyn doctor, and I perform abortions.” He sat pensively for a moment before looking up at Marc. Then, like a light bulb turning on, an expression slowly but surely came to his face as if he had just come to a conclusion warranting an announcement. And when he spoke, he seemed to be affirming to himself as much as announcing to Marc, “I quit today.”
Marc was listening intently to Chemosh, although his eyes had been on his plate. He glanced up sharply in disbelief, just in time to see Chemosh bow down his head and put his forehead on his hands.
“I wish I’d never started.” Chemosh raised his head, searching for words of apology to offer his guest, but before he could find any, the younger man threw down his napkin and grabbed his jacket and his bill. In five seconds he was gone, as Gene watched, helpless. He wanted to follow and catch up with him, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Instead, he pushed his plate to the middle of the table and laid his head on his arms.
“God,” he cried silently, “is everyone going to hate me? I know my own people won’t like me because I quit. I never thought about all the people on the other side. I can never make it up to them. Never.”
You need My help, don’t you?
“Yes.”
Nothing has changed then.
Gene shook his head, a smile of despair on his face. “Yeah. You’re right.”
When you’re ready to listen, we’ll talk about it.
“OK.” Chemosh whispered the word in resignation, sighing as he picked up his own coat and headed towards the cash register.
Once in his car on the way home, Chemosh complained, half to himself. “I thought I had enough problems, what with Sally and no job.” It seemed as if he were getting the last word. After a moment, however, he said out loud, “Did You have something You wanted to say?”
Chemosh listened, and felt in reply a big smile directed at him that seemed to diffuse the heaviness he felt.
I always have something to say. The question is, do you want to hear it?
“No, I don’t. I just feel tired right now.”
Go home and take a nap. We’ll talk later.
Fat chance—take a nap, Chemosh thought to himself. He knew Saturday afternoon this time of year was always busy at home. To his surprise, however, he discovered when he walked into the house that Andy had gone to a movie and Sal was lying down. Gene gently laid a throw on top of her and lay down beside her, feeling as exhausted as he’d ever felt in his entire life. Within five minutes he was asleep.