Luke Lucas, a man who crawled from Earth during the fire, and sings his own songs.

Some babies are born, others hatch, and a few are delivered, but Luke Lucas crawls out of the dirt—a naked man-child covered in mud with the longest fingernails between the Ozarks and Great Plains. His snarl is as natural as his blue eyes and lack of hair, possessing an appetite for air that never seems to be quenched, no matter how wide his nostrils flare. His birth, his rising, all happen on the evening of Glenpool, Oklahoma’s first uncontrolled fire. They’ve had their share of controlled fires. Glenpool is a prairie town, and they burn most of the tall grass and flowers every spring to feed the soil before lightning starts anything they can’t handle, but the lightning has struck, the sky is smoke and ember flames, and a naked man crawls from the ground, surrounded by the curious bee-hive hairdos, slim cigarettes, tiger-print t-shirts, and high-rise trousers, those in need of a smoke, only to find this pale Crescent amongst a raging inferno, pointing to them, screaming, “Momma.”

Ms. Putman does what she always does: she stays inside and calls the police. To pass the time and find inner peace, she opens the bible to the book of Revelation, and reads about the great prostitute in Chapters 17 & 18, The Whore of Babylon, but this did little to bring her any comfort. As a matter of fact, it did the opposite, increasing a sense that her time was scarce and the future is a hopeless picture of uncertainty, painted with an uncanny mix of everything she finds repulsive. Naked, white men who crawl up from the Earth. His second words were “Luke Lucas,” but when the crowd asked him what he wanted, he responded to the name, Crescent, and it stuck. The fires are out, and the police came, pointing their guns. The home bodies explain what has transpired, and this only fuels the speculation amongst the department that they should kill this thing, but it says “Momma,” and the cops slowly lower their weapons, unable to shoot something this white that just said, “Momma.”

Ms. Putman marches out of her home and demands to know why it is still breathing the Christian air? The Police arrest Crescent for being naked, but besides that, he has done nothing wrong. “Nothing wrong?” repeats Ms. Putman. “It crawled up from the Earth. Look at its fingernails. So long, I might have mistaken them for a rotating barber shop pole from hell! Some women go to the barbershop! I do. The salon is the devil’s saloon.” Indeed. Her hair is short, she is short, and is as human as Minnie Mouse can get without looking like Liza Minelli. Crescent pressed his face against the squad car window and said, “Momma,” whenever Ms. Putman accidentally saw him.

“Listen. Judy,” said the officer. “We’re taking him downtown. There are a lot of people who could use a lot of help right now, and he isn’t going to hurt anybody. He speaks, but if he were just born, he’s a baby.”

“He was not born, he crawled up from hell, and brought it with him.”

She points to the orange glow in the pockets of black smoke that carpet Glenpool, Oklahoma’s world. The other women, having forgotten the fire, are so intrigued, so curious, they walk right up to the police car Crescent is in. His large, blue eyes are wet, and they are taken down to the station, where the police play the radio.

Having never been indoors, he jitters. They cover him with a smock, and instead of walking to his cell, he pogos, straight as a stick, constantly exposing his pale bottom, and making little lizard, monkey noises. Someone speaks over an intercom, and his first and only act of aggression is swift. He grabs a computer and throws it, which is followed by shouting and guns being pointed at him again, but to him, they might as well be fingers or branches on a tree. They can see he is strong, a natural strength that comes from 35 years of digging beneath the Earth’s surface, but he begins to relax, and the police wonder what the source is. He walks to the radio and turns it up like he’s used one before. It’s the community college station, 104.3 Lizard FM, and John Shapiro is happy to announce that there have been no deaths and no houses destroyed, so he is going to continue J. Shapiro’s Blue Grass hour, and it was the sound of mandolins and banjos that seemed to capture Crescent’s heart. One cop said it was bluegrass, and apparently, this freak comes from the dirt. They grab Lieutenant Rodrigo’s guitar and hand it to Crescent, and a phenomenon occurs as Crescent finger picks and sings songs no one has ever heard.

My home in Kentucky

Ain’t so lucky

Since my little girl ran away

Blue, blue hue’s

Yellow, yellow, muse

My Home in Kentucky is Grey!

He receives a round of applause and is quite pleased with this result. He is given underwear, which he refuses to wear, but wears jeans and a blue button-up shirt. For shoes, they let him pick, and his long nails dig through a bin of evidence they don’t seem to care about. He chooses a pair of rattlesnake boots and gets a “hoot-hoot” from the women and men in blue. They ask him to play another tune, but he replies, “Momma.” They don’t know what to do about that. They don’t know what to do about him, so they call local news stations and tell them of a man who crawled from the Earth during the fire, naked as the day we are all born, and he sings his own songs.

Ms. Putman is a producer for Channel 2 Eyewitness News, and receives a phone call from her boss and the merged affiliates who listen with patience that borders on the divine. Mrs. Santopadre asks Judy, "Have you seen this Earth man who plays his own songs?” She says, “She has, but he is no Earth Man, may not even be man at all,” which gets everyone on the other side of the phone in a knot of anticipation and ratings gold.

“We’re coming to see this Crescent. He is going to play a show at the Police Station, and we are going to film it, if it’s the last thing we do.”

“It might be,” says Judy. “Foul and vicious, this thing is. Not a Christian bone in its body, but the build and make of fallen angels.”

“Oh,” says Mrs. Santopadre. “You heard it too?”

“What?”

“When the police called, he was playing and singing a song called Fallen Angels’ Go Home. It’s an original, Judy!”

She hangs up and looks out her blinds. Everyone from everywhere is leaving their homes and walking with fold-out chairs, coolers of Coors, and children, children for christsake, like it’s some kind of fair. The kids aren’t even walking. They’re skipping or up on someone’s shoulders. Judy falls on her knees and prays to God. She says she does not know what to do or if there is anything she can do. Her deep contemplations are interrupted by visions of the rapture and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Galvanized, she leaps to her feet, marches to her window, and shouts, “The firefighters! We’ve got to help the firefighters!” But they walk past her house, and say everything is fine, and this is a most welcoming surprise.

Surprise is right, thought Judy Putman. He’s going to surprise us out of our heavenly bodies and off God’s green Earth. She calls the police. Speed dial number one. Officer Sternstin picks up, but all she can hear are cops clapping in unison while some croon-dog, scoundrel sings,

Yip, yip, dip, dip

Hip, hip, flip, flip

Croon-dog scoundrels, here we come!

(Here we come!)

Croon-dog scoundrels, here we go!

(Here we go!)

I’m a croon-dog scoundrel,

A rough n’ tuff bundle,

A Croon-dog scoundrel on the road!

The only thought in Judy’s mind is, “My, does he play fast.”

“He sure does, Ms. Putman!”

“Oh, I said that?”

“You did!”

“I’ll see you later, Officer Sternstin.”

“Alright, Ms. Putman. We can hear the vans pulling up. See you soon!”

The tone of an empty line and a whole town gathering. It was as if Judy’s neighbors, the love thy neighbors, were against her. They know she is afraid of it. “Nothing just comes up from the ground and is good! This thing is a wicked heap of meat. A sorcerer’s spell! I must expose this evil at once! TV crews be damned! I will end this satanic escapade.”

Judy Putman marches down to the police station. She can’t believe what she sees. A queue, waiting to get into their little prison! The camera crew and news anchors rush inside and set up. Crescent is happily practicing in a cell, waiting for his moment on the Sheriff’s desk, where he will go through a repertoire of even more new music. It is the first time he is excited.

The News anchors are live, looking into the camera and touching their earpieces, waiting for more information on when this dirt dweller will perform, but it should be any minute. Lieutenant Rodrigo hops up on Sheriff Wallace’s desk and asks if everyone is ready for the moment they’ve been waiting for! There is a mighty reply, but in the cell, smiling, Crescent nods, answering his first question. Judy is with her team, and she’s telling them it is a mistake, that this will be a profound embarrassment to the soul! She begs each camera crew to turn off their equipment, and they laugh until it is burdensome, and she is pushed away and told to “Get lost.”

Live on local TV, she is seen behind reporters saying, “You are the ones who are lost! Blasphemous heathen horns of Yesuah!” always restrained by the police that, like Crescent, they are not sure what to do with her, until Lieutenant Rodrigo calls the man who crawled from the dirt, and sings and plays his own songs up to the desk. The pale thing, as Judy thought of him, comes running out to thunderous applause and hops on the desk. He is ready, he is tuned, but out amongst the many faces, people, life, he sees Judy and drops the guitar like he’s never held one in his life and says, “Momma.”

The crowd is confused. The News doesn’t know what to make of this. “Did he really come from the ground?” one asks.

“I don’t know if I believe this whole dirt business,” says another.

The cops try to hand him back their instrument, but his large blue eyes fill with tears, and he cries, “Momma.”

The tremble in his voice and body, the way he looks at her, transform Judy Putman from one who thought him wicked to one who thinks he is precious. People are booing, but they cannot hear. She walks toward him, and he walks toward her, and from Heaven a spotlight hits the floor where they meet, embracing, and then a voice no one has heard before or since, a genuine sincerity that comes from Crescent’s vocal cords, a tenderness carried by notes of music’s nature. He holds out his hand, and they dance slowly. The cameras are off, and Crescent sings,

My Baby

Has it been too long?

I hope not, for I sing this song

My baby

Where has our time gone?

We must dance as if the moon can sing along!

They twirl, surrounded by utter darkness. Judy does not care if they are alone or watched by a million eyes. For the first time in her life, she is in love and has given herself completely to the Son of God.