The Lord’s Army

I don’t know about other folks, but I was schooled in the Bible in a right proper way. On account of that, I know good and well that we done gone off on the wrong track.

I talked to my Mammy about all this—Pappy died years ago—and she seen the trouble too. She don’t agree with what I mean to do about it, but we’ll get to that.

“Mammy, you see what they put on the news?”

“I seen it.”

“Well? What you reckon ought to happen?”

“Junior, don’t you bring the law back to this house.”

“Mammy, I ain’t aiming to bring you trouble.” Mammy don’t get around too good no more, what with her diabetes and her failing eyesight.

“Then go get my script and them pain pills.”

“I said I’d go. I just got to finish this first.”

“And what’s that?”

“Ain’t nothing special.” I kept cleaning my gun.

“Well, if it ain’t special, how ’bout you stop and go get what I need?”

“I’m near done. It’ll take twice as long if I stop now.”

Mammy don’t know it, but I joined the Lord’s Army. I only did it recently and ‘cause He told me to. Came to me in a dream.

“On your way into town, stop by Preacher Rickey’s and give him this.”

“What is it, Mammy?”

“It’s here in my hand. Come take it from me.”

I went to Mammy’s bedside and she handed me a folded five-dollar bill.

“Five whole dollars? Ain’t you got no ones?”

“I got ones. This is what the Lord wants me to give.”

“Well, how am I supposed to pay for the pain pills and the script?”

“You tell Mr. Allen my check comes tomorrow, and I’ll sign it over to him.”

“So, I got to go again tomorrow? Why don’t I just wait?”

“Junior, I need the pills today. Now get on your way and hurry back!”

“Yes, Mammy.”

I stuffed the paper money in my pocket and went back to my gun laid out on the kitchen table. She’s a beauty all right. And not a soul knows what I got in store.

I grabbed my keys and out the door I went. Screen slammed behind me, and I heard Mammy yell, “Don’t slam the door!”

No mind. What’s done is done. I cranked the old truck. It coughed and wheezed, then settled into a clanging purr. “Need to replace that belt,” I thought, as I shifted into reverse off the gravel, then into first and second, easing off the clutch down the drive to the dirt road that connects to the tar road.

Preacher's place come up first, so I put it in neutral and set the brake. Leave it running, was my thought.

I rapped on Preacher’s door, and he opened it wearing street clothes.

“Junior, what a nice surprise!”

I doubt he thought of me as nice, after that last incident. Mammy talked to him about it, and I didn’t rightly know what to say, so I just pulled out the five and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“Mammy said to give it to you.”

“Well, that sure was nice of her. It’s a donation?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, please be sure to tell her thank you, Junior.”

“I’ll do it.” I stood there, pondering. If I told someone the Good Lord spoke to me in a dream, wouldn’t they think I’m even crazier than they already do?

“Is there something else, Junior?”

“I got a question for you.”

“Anything, Junior. What’s on your mind?”

“Do you think the Good Lord might could speak to us in a dream?”

“The Almighty can do anything. You know that. Why? What did you dream?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Don’t want to tell me what it was?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.” Then I thought maybe he trapped me. “I mean, I ain’t saying I did dream something. Wanted to know is all.”

“Asking for a friend? All right. You come talk to me if you need to.”

I nodded and turned to the truck.

“Junior?”

I looked back.

“Don’t go upsetting your Mammy, hear?”

“Don’t intend to, sir,” and I climbed on in.

At the pharmacy, Mr. Allen had a line of folks, so I stood and waited my turn. Ain’t nothing I hate more than waiting in line. Actually, that ain’t true. I mean, there’s plenty else to hate, but waitin’ in line is a waste of time.

Finally, it was my turn.

“Junior, how’s your Mammy doing?”

“‘Bout the same, I reckon.”

“Well, you be sure to tell her hi from Mr. Allen.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Now then. How can I help you?”

“Mammy asked me to pick up her pain pills and the script.”

“Let me see if I got that ready. Standby.”

He went back into that secret room with all his drugs. Standby to standby, I thought. What we used to say in the Army. Then I thought how easy I could swipe something off the counter, no one behind me to see. Then the bell jingled on the front door, and I let it go.

He came back and set two bottles of pills down next to the register.

“I ain’t got the money. Mammy said her check comes tomorrow. I’m s’pposed to come back after she signs it over.”

“Junior, I told your Mammy the bank don’t like it when I cash her check this way.”

I just stared. Ain’t nothing to say.

“Tell you what. Cash it wherever you can, then bring me what she owes tomorrow.”

“We ain’t got no bank account. And if I go to the food store first, how will I know I got enough left?”

“Co-pay on these runs a hundred nineteen dollars. Can you just make sure you got that left?”

“I reckon.” I did know Mammy’s check was about five hundred, so…

“That’ll be fine, then.” He stapled a brown paper bag with both bottles and handed it over. “See you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came, and that was my day to go to the VA for my needle. The needle makes me tired, but they say I need it to keep getting my disability check since the Army sent me home. Had plenty of dreams back then, too, but I’m pretty sure they wasn’t from God. Satan, maybe. That ain’t the whole of it. A man can feed on his own anger if he gets a taste for it.

“Mammy, got to get my needle. Did you sign the check?”

“Not yet, Junior. Bring me a pen?”

“Dang it, all I see is pencils. Here, sign it with this one. Least it’s sharp.”

She handed me the signed check and the pencil back, and I took it down to the grocery store where I cashed it and picked up a case of beer. Figured on a road pop or two for the ride home.

There was plenty left. Enough to settle up with Mr. Allen, and then some.

On my drive to the VA, I passed by the clinic where all sorts of sinners do unspeakable things, or so I been told. Never been inside, of course, and no line or protesters out in front, either.

I never got no one pregnant, but Lord knows, when I do, it ain’t going to be for my baby to get aborted. Fact is, no baby killings like that should take place, and I knew it even before the Lord came to me in my dream. It just ain’t right. I aim to put a stop to it. At the right time, of course.

* * *

A few miles away, a mosque held Friday Jumma prayers where Imam Hussain was nearing the end of his sermon.

One of the congregants, the Imam’s son, Ibrahim, had recently returned from a mission trip to Gaza. The mission included freedom fighting alongside Hezbollah to liberate Palestine.

“We thank Allah for this mosque. It is an oasis in a desert,” Imam Hussain said. “But outside these walls is temptation. Men forget themselves. Women flaunt themselves. Shetan does not need much help in this country.”

“Close by, there is the abortion clinic. Women go there to cast off their unborn children. That place is an abomination. Keep yourselves from it, and from what is done there. There is struggle all over the world. Not just in Gaza, but among us, too. Ameen.”

“Ameen,” the subdued congregation uttered in unison. A few nodded. Others kept their eyes down.

The gathered men rose slowly. Some spoke in low voices. Most remained silent.

Mr. Latif, the tailor from beside the laundromat, reached for his shoes next to Ibrahim. “Welcome home. Your father speaks hard today,” he said.

Ibrahim shrugged.

Mr. Latif kept his voice low. “Hard words are easy.”

“My father speaks truth. I fought in the holy war. I will continue to fight.”

“Some truth. Not all.”

Ibrahim’s jaw tightened.

Mr. Latif bent to tie his laces. “A woman came to my shop last week. No hijab. Short sleeves. Needed a dress taken in. She asked after Seema.”

“That means nothing.”

“Means she was a person.”

Ibrahim said nothing.

“Do not let anger make a fool of you, son.”

Ibrahim stared at Mr. Latif as he walked away, offering salaams to others as he went.

Imam Hussain approached his son. “Something troubles you?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Good. You listened to me well?”

Ibrahim nodded. His mother had asked him to fix the porch light when he got home. He had said he would. In Gaza things had been simpler. Dust. Orders. Men who knew what God wanted by breakfast. Here there was traffic, children laughing, carpet cleaner. The woman downstairs had once brought his mother rice pudding. She did not cover her hair. His mother ate two bowls. He hated that.

“A man must not soften here,” his father said.

“No, Abu.”

Outside, a boy fell and scraped his knee. His mother bent and blew on it. Ibrahim looked away.

Mercy was a trick. Doubt was worse.

By the time Ibrahim reached home, the sermon had stopped sounding like his father’s voice. It conveyed instruction. At home, his mother called from the kitchen for him to fix the porch light. He said yes, but went first to his room and shut the door. Under the bed, behind a folded prayer rug and an old duffel from Gaza, he found what he had packed away in another life. He laid each piece on the floor with care. Wire. Cloth. Tape. The little switch wrapped in plastic. His hands remembered faster than his mind did.

From the kitchen, his mother called again. “Ibrahim?” He covered everything with the prayer rug. “I’m coming,” he said. The porch light could not wait until morning.

* * *

That night, Junior had a dream. The abortion clinic doctor would be opening the clinic at 7:45 a.m. just as buses were arriving from fifty miles away or more. His job was to take out the doctor before any more sinning could occur.

“Mammy, I got an errand.”

“What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Whatchoo got to do so early?”

“Important work. The Lord’s work. Men’s work, Mammy.”

I set Mammy’s water where she could reach it and turned her pill bottles so the big words faced her better eye.

“That don’t sound like a Bible study. Don’t make me have to get out of this bed.”

“Ain’t Bible study, and you stay put.”

I grabbed my scoped rifle from the kitchen table and pocketed my keys. Made damn sure not to slam the door.

* * *

At 7:15, Ibrahim left his house. He had mapped out the route and would park a safe distance from the clinic. He knew from experience, the best way to avoid arousing suspicion was to arrive on foot.

As he recited verses from The Holy Quran, perspiration formed on his entire body: forehead, upper lip, armpits.

Checking the clock, he decided to park where there were no restrictions or risks of parking tickets. There was no reason to cause his parents to have to pay the infidels any more than they already do.

He found a spot several blocks away and left the key under the mat.

The cool morning air was refreshing, and he breathed it in fully, then continued in the direction of the clinic, walking with purpose, but taking care not to run. Soon enough, it would be done.

* * *

At 7:25, Junior was situated across the street from the clinic. He had set up a deer blind in a grove of trees, elevated and up a small hill. Through the blind, he had a perfect line of sight to the front door.

Five minutes later the first bus, a chartered Greyhound, pulled up and parked. Relieved that his line of sight was unaffected once the bus parked, Junior saw women, both younger and older than he had envisioned, exiting to form a loose queue outside the front door.

At 7:35, other women, some he recognized from church, and a few men, most carrying signs with pictures of aborted fetuses in KFC cartons, gathered opposite the clinic, at the bottom of the hill below him, and disappeared from his view.

Mrs. Appleby, a friend of Mammy, came back into view. She carried a different sign. It said, “Adoption not Abortion.” She started talking to the youngest looking girl, then dropped her sign and put her arms around the girl as she started to cry.

Dr. Reyes sat in her car sipping the last of a coffee gone cold. The clock in the car read 7:42. Saturdays were always loud. Patients came quiet. Protesters hollered. Many on both sides cried. Her phone buzzed. “Game at two. Don’t forget!” It was Lizzie.

“I won’t!” she texted back.

Another bus pulled up. A young woman stepped down, both hands on the rail.

Dr. Reyes knew better than to think she knew every woman’s story. Some came scared. Some came sure. Some came because there was nowhere else to go. Some came back more than once.

Her job was to get them inside safe, hear what they had to say, and do the work in front of her. And she would be damned to see her own lifelong right taken away from Lizzie.

At 7:45, she got out, buttoned her lab coat, and started toward the front door.

* * *

From the blind, Junior watched the white coat move across the narrow sidewalk between the parking lot and the clinic door, exactly where the dream had placed her.

He eased the rifle into his shoulder and brought her into the crosshairs.

Below him, the morning noise shifted all at once. A bus door sighed open. Somebody shouted. A sign lifted, dipped, disappeared.

The doctor reached for her keys without looking up.

Junior let his breath out slow.

Then the crowd shifted, and a man cut through its edge.

At first Junior saw only movements, colors and shapes: a dark jacket, one hand pressed tight against the chest, shoulders angled forward like he meant to force his way through. A woman staggered back. Someone cried out.

The man’s head entered the scope, white coat still in the cross hairs.

The man opened his mouth, but the sound did not reach the hill.

Junior’s finger found the trigger and he squeezed. The shot cracked. The man dropped. For a moment, time stood still.

Then it sped back up, faster than before, quickened by gasps and shrieks, as the queue disbanded and people ran. The woman in the lab coat vanished through the clinic door. Another woman dropped her folder. Mrs. Appleby pulled the crying girl behind the Greyhound bus.

One woman pointed up toward the trees, at the blind, and Junior saw her look him in the eyes.

He gathered his rifle and turned to run for his truck. Before he could crank the engine, police cars hemmed him in, front and back.

* * *

The next morning the local paper featured the following headline:

Local Vet Saves Life of Family Planning Doctor, Takes Down Suicide Bomber

Later that week, investigators found a notebook under Junior’s cot. It opened to The Dream, written in pencil; the doctor’s opening time, circled and underlined twice.

The End