Virtual American Gothic - Second Season Episode Seventeen The Soul of God by Queribus ********************************************* NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. Special Guest Stars: Alan Arkin as Rabbi Stone Neve Campbell as Rebekkah Stone Marion Ross as Sara Stone Juliana Margulies as Tamar Frances Fisher as Susan Vanessa Williams as Althea Illeana Douglas as Sabbath ********************************************** An camouflage green Jeep Cherokee cruised menacingly through Goat Town at midnight, a primer grey van swaying in it's wake. The rover coasted to a stop before a white clapboard building, peaked roof, large double doors, typical Southern low-end church, no cross on the roof though. The Van screeched to a halt behind. "Shhhhhh, silent running." "Screw that! Hail the Covenant!!" Three tattooed skinheads in fatigue pants piled out of the van and booted open the double doors. "Juden Raus! Arbeit Macht Frei!" Baseball bats rained down on pews and railings. Spray cans painted swastika flowers on the white plaster walls. "Wake up, wake up little jewboys, Come out and play..." - ----- "Grandpa?" Rabbi Stone heard his grandson before he heard the invaders. He turned to his wife, Sarah and said, "Make the call." "Do I have to?" "We should die in our beds instead?" "I'll make the call." - ---- Wood splintered on carved lintels, the delicate pattern of leaves and vines shattering with one blow. "Let the sword strike!" Someone urinated on the carpeting. - ------ "Moishe, " Rabbi Stone called softly in the dark. "They can't hurt us back here, they will go away." "We're all alone, Poppa." "Never, never alone, my darling, the Shekinah is with us." He heard the boots kicking something over, breaking, smashing, grinding. He cradled the little boy in his arms, erasing the sound of the invaders with his own voice, "Closer than your eyelids to your eyes, closer than your heartbeat to your heart, closer than breath to life, this is how close the Shekinah is to the One who spreads His wings over Israel." - --- "Sig heil! Sig Heil!" The drunken shouts filtered through the floorboards. - --- "Now we know Paradise is gone, taken away long ago, and we were left shivering and shaking in a hard cold world." "It's scary here, Poppa." "And the Shekinah feels our suffering and our fears, the soul of the Holy One weeps for us more than our own mother." Glass broken, tinkling like a not so gentle bell. The ghost of Kristallnacht returning. "So the Shekinah left the side of Holiness and went forth to follow man wherever he would go, to suffer what he suffered, and right his wrongs, to gather together all the pieces of goodness and bring them back to their home." "Will the Shekinah whup the skinheads for wrecking our temple!" "That is not the way of a Holy Soul, little one. Before the goodness of the Shekinah, injustice melts away. Why even the Evil One himself can't stand before her. Under her gaze he would find all his wickedness falling into the dust it came from. She would convert him, destroy him, make him as nothing with a glance from her gentle eyes." - ----- "Let the blood flow!" Heavy fists had reached the tabernacle, leaning back to batter the posts down, to smash the scrolls. - ------ "Would this work with anybody's Evil One, even real live ones walking around in Trinity?" "Especially with real live ones, Moishe, after all that's where it counts." - ----- Doors slammed, and the boots faded away. The tabernacle was tilting but intact, the scrolls of the Torah untouched. "I made the call." "Thank you, Sarah." ****** "On most days it might be easy to overlook Trinity's only synagogue and the members of Beth Shalom, a mostly elderly congregation, like it that way." The African-American reporter spoke in a crisp no-nonsense voice. "The outskirts of Goat Town, where until about 20 years ago, most of Trinity's Jewish population lived, is a quiet, no questions asked, type of place. Today, however, questions are being asked across the country. Questions about a small but violent militia group called the Covenant of the Blood and the Sword. " She nodded to the cameraman who panned over the devastated synagogue, red and black swastikas alternating with the group's initials gleaming on the white walls. "Is this latest vandalism part of a wave of hate crimes starting with Black church burnings and ending with explosive grass-roots terrorism? The Jewish Defense League and the United Militia of South Carolina are coming together for a face-off in Trinity. The world is watching. A generation ago we faced the long, hot summer while our cities burned. Was another spark lit last night? This is Danielle Davenport for Channel Four News, and the summer isn't over yet." ******* The edge of twilight, that god-awful time when shadow and substance start to blur together, ugly red gashes from the tailend of the sunset didn't improve the nature of Goat Town any. Ben Healy's patrol car creeped along the dejected streets. Never mind. His son was coming over tomorrow to spend a whole week with him while BJ went to visit her folks in Florida. Her Momma and Poppa lived in a gated community with no children allowed. But that was just fine, he and his son could rent movies and eat pizza every night and be a real family. If Ben could just survive tonight. One little rash of graffiti and all this alphabet soup came into town. JDLers and CofBSers and, maybe worst of all, CNN. Most of them carried guns and the rest of them carried cameras. Couldn't everybody just let it all die down, Hell, there weren't more than 1 or 2 Jewish families in Trinity. There couldn't be! Ben had never even seen a Jew, except for old man Finestein that ran the watch shop, but that didn't count, he didn't have an accent or wear one of those beanies. He heard the shouting before he could see anybody. Yellow sodium light glared off the banners. Even the Klan had the sense to keep those swastikas under wraps. Funny wavy letters ran along the side of an abandoned storefront. He was in the old Jewish Ghetto-- almost looked pretty in the midst of Goat Town squalor. There were a lot of guns around. Big sidearms held shield-like against the chest, rifles bristling like porcupine spikes. Two men were shouting in the street, pretty easy to bet on who would win. A skinny little kid in Calvin Klein shirtsleeves was screaming insults at a thick-necked complacent GI Joe -- well, sorta, everything the militiaman wore was semi-army issue from his lace up boots to his camouflage scarf tied mercenary style over his shaved head. CofBSer to the core. "You Nazi hate mongers, we're not going to lie down and die for you any more!" "One out of two ain't bad. Die standing up." Ben got out of his car and unholstered his pistol. He'd thought about calling for backup but at this hour Floyd was the only one on duty if you could call it that. For a long moment Ben wanted to pack it in and phone the state troopers. But that skinny outmatched kid . . . Didn't want him to end up dead. Time to be Deputy Dawg. Ben pretended he was twice as big as he was and shouldered his way through the crowd, hoping nobody noticed how his gun arm was shaking. Damn, there were a lot of strangers, and they all had either no hair at all or way too much in weird places. "OK, people, show's over, let's move it along." Somebody laughed, which didn't surprise Ben; nobody much moved. Flash lights swept blinding light across the scene. Somebody stuck a video camera in Ben's face. The press? No such luck, an old man with ringlets on either side of his face. What was he doing out in this kinda crowd? "Now, you have to break this up, right now. Nothing's going to happen tonight." He waved his gun in GI Joe's face. The Covenanter shrugged, smiled, and moved off to his Jeep. "That's right, now you." Ben turned to the skinny kid. "I'm not going anywhere, not for a redneck cop." "I'm trying to help you out here." Ben said, touching his shoulder gently to steer the kid away. His hand was slapped back hard. "You're not trying to help anybody, you're one of them!" Something in the boy's hand -- a gun, pointing at Ben. "You don't want to do that." Lights flashing in his eyes, shouting where the shadows and the substance met. "This is ending tonight." The shouting rose to a roar, an explosion and somebody screamed, the lights blasted, Ben's hand clenched. Guns went off. Ben was pushed to the side and covered by a bunch of camouflaged bodies. "What happened?" The deputy said when the skinheads let him get up. "It was cool, man, you just shot him dead -- just cold stone dead." The skinny kid was lying in a pool of blood. A nerdy guy with a video camera pointed it at Ben and switched it off. ***** A coupla hours later after the body had been hauled off to the morgue Ben stood in Buck's office getting chewed out. Lucas stared into the blind light of his clouded window as he listened to Ben's pathetic story. His eyes were cold and unfocused. "I sent you there to calm them down and you go off half-cocked and give 'em film at 11." "I couldn't help it. Everything happened so fast" "You let me down." Lucas turned his dead shark eyes on his deputy. "Threw Trinity into Prime Time. Hard Copy'll be here next, shining their flashbulbs into my business. A little bit of vandalism dies off quick, killer cops make tabloid headlines forever. You think I want Mike Wallace jumping out at me? " "This is not about you, Lucas. Damn it, I'm the one in trouble, a boy is dead!" "Tragically struck down at 18 years of age-- that's what CNN said. I'd call that trouble with a capital T." "So arrest me." "Sounds good to me. Mr ex-deputy, hand over your badge and your gun." Ben passed them over, stunned that it was going this far. Lucas shook his head."There is nothing sadder than a cop gone bad." "Are you locking me up?" "I ought to for your own protection. You seen this?" Buck showed him a crudely xeroxed flier featuring Ben's picture, looked like it was off his driver's licence, and the exhortation $100,000, dead or alive. "They're up all over town, The all night Copy Shack must be doing a land office business. Hell, even the covenanters would shoot you for that kind of money. Anybody would and seems to me everybody's gonna try." "Oh, my God! What am I gonna do?" "Duck?" "No, Lucas, Benji is supposed to be staying with me for a week. I can't expose him to this." "Don't worry, I'll take care of Benji." "No, you won't!!" "You want to use him as a shield? He's not really big enough." "I'll get in touch with BJ. She can make other arrangements." "I'm sure you'll try, Ben." Buck leaned way back in his chair vastly amused. "but those lines can get all tied up. And I think those covenanter are staked out between your place and your ex-wife's. Really good shots them Blood and Sword boys." "Why're you doing this, Lucas?" "You know, I never saw the fun in shooting fish in a barrel when you can just hand them a gun and watch them commit suicide." "Oh, for crying out loud, are you still punishing me for getting Selena out of jail? "I don't know, Ben. You're the one who killed an unarmed man, do you feel punished, yet?" "He had a gun, Lucas." "Not on the tape, he didn't." Buck opened his office door. "By-bye, Mr Healy, It's been nice knowing you." ***** Dawn hit the obscenities on Beth Shalom's walls with gentle light. Buck had told everyone in the congregation to leave them alone, they were evidence. Enough was enough. Jacob Stone couldn't stand the swastikas on his door one more minute. Old Mrs Rosen screamed and cried every time she saw them, he could hear her moaning now. He was going to wash the filth off himself or die trying. He almost did. The big blonde oaf who tackled him must have outweighed him by 60 pounds. Jacob thought of telling him not waste so much energy on someone who couldn't fight back. His arms just weren't that long. Then the thug seemed to fall down. As if struck by the hand of God. "Hey, Arlen, lemme help you up there. Whatcha tryin to do, convert? You don't want to do that, Arly, " Lucas pulled out his switch blade and toyed with it, " They cut you down a piece, you know. Wanna demonstration?" the thin blade flickered out shining with its own wicked light. "You sidin with the Kikes now, Buck, ought of telling him not !" "Cmon Arly, CNN's in town, you wouldn't want them to catch you without your hood." Lucas smacked the Klucker on the side of his head and watched him slink off. "You OK, Rabbi?" "I'm fine, Lucas, thank you." "All part of the service. Arly isn't really dangerous, just a part time Klan Klown. Not like those gunned-up skinheads." Buck leaned against the graffiti and poked his knife in one of the big C's. "This is a mess, isn't it, brings down the property values. However, I believe our deal only involved somebody getting hurt, and no one was hurt, were they?" "No one at all," Rabbi Stone said, closing his ears to the old woman weeping inside. "Speaking of deals, I have a little favor to ask." "What favor, sheriff? I already told the Jewish Defense League to leave us alone. They won't be back around here. But I can't make them leave town." "I know, Jacob, you did everything you could. But there's another way you could lend a hand. Cause, I also know you saw the people who did all this, " Buck watched the Rabbi begin to shake his head. "Didn't you?" His last two words were slow and clear drilling like bullets into the rabbi's conscience. "I'll have to let my wife know." "I'm sure Sarah will back you up." "She will eventually." the little man sighed,"Whatever story you want me to tell though, I'm not sure either the JDL or the Militia will believe me." "CNN just might. As to what story, well, I'm in an indecisive mood today, must be the heat. You're a real good storyteller, yourself, Jacob, lemme run this one by you. Once upon a time, night before last, you woke up and peeked out your window to see my deputy, Ben Healy, running away from the synagogue with a paint can in his hand." The Rabbi was silent. "Not creative enough?" "Very creative, Lucas." "That bearing false witness can be a bitch, can't it? Not as bad as the next attack on your temple will be, however, especially if our deal is no longer in effect. How old is your grandson, now, about 5?" Jacob closed his eyes and swallowed his pride, once again. "I'll do what you want, Sheriff." "I know you will, Jacob, you always do. Cause you're a good man." Stone waited for the sarcastic smirk, but there wasn't a trace of irony on Buck's face. "Now, let's see if we can get some help getting your house in order. The African Methodists are moving across town, they might have some old pews you could use. Good carpenters, too. Mention my name, they'll lend a hand just fine." "Then there's this friend of mine out of a job right now, and pretty good with a paintbrush, here's his number, give him a call and tell him Lucas says he should help you with some whitewash. Use my first name, don't just say the Sheriff." As Buck strolled off he turned back for a moment and said, "Tell you what, Jacob, if you don't hear from me tonight, by the time you fire up those candles, you can forget our little storytime. Probably." Rabbi Stone looked at the paper the sheriff had given him, "Ben Healy 555-2020." TO BE CONTINUED ------------------------------ Soul of God, part two Ben was sleeping on his couch, cuddling up to his shotgun. He couldn't get ahold of BJ last night and after Buck's taunts he didn't know why he'd even bothered to try. Because it was his son, that's why --his son left to Buck's tender, loving care. He left a message on his ex-wife's answering machine for Ben jr to stay at home with all the doors locked. Didn't know what else he could do that wouldn't expose Benji to even more danger. Around two in the morning, Arlen Stoakes had tried to shoot a hole in his window and maybe his head. Not some jewish hired gun. Arlen, for gosh sakes! ---who was running for Grand Klingon, or whatever, in the local Klan! Well, $100,000 would buy a whole heck of alot of pointy hoods. He'd called the sheriff's office to report it, but Floyd had the nerve to tell him he couldn't come out, cause they were short handed. And Lucas got on the line to ask if he'd gotten ahold of BJ yet. Didn't that bastard ever sleep? The really bad phone calls started at 4 AM calling him more vile names than he had ever heard down in Goat Town and he'd heard quite a few. Every 5 minutes they called until he ripped the phone out of the wall. Then he finally got some sleep. Ben snorted and whistled and the gun slipped till the barrels were pointed at his chest. The pounding on the front door jolted him upright-- the shotgun hit the floor and blew a hole in the ceiling. Lucas was right, he thought, just hand the poor fish a gun. "Are you Ben Healy?" A little brown hen of a woman asked. "We have a job for you at the synagogue." She had no intention of mentioning Buck's name no matter what the sheriff said. "The what?" Sarah looked at the shotgun Ben was clutching and the hole in his ceiling. "Have you seen the outside of your home yet." The outer walls of Ben's house were covered with the same graffiti that defaced the synagogue. Plus ominous threats in both english and hebrew. One axiom Sarah always lived by: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. "Get dressed and come to Beth Shalom. We'll make sure no one hurts you." "I have a son out there somewhere." "Put the gun down, Ben. Trust that God will take of your son and He will. Your life is precious too." For some strange reason he believed her. ***** Ben snuck into the synagogue with a fishing hat pulled low on his head and big wrap around sunglasses. He had a coupla cans of white paint but he wasn't sure it would be enough. The damage was just awful, much worse than his place. Was that somebody's poop on the floor? The rabbi's wife scooped it up without saying a word and patted Healy's arm. "Just do what you can." She said. "That's all any of us can do." Except for the swastikas and obscene words it didn't look all that different from anybody's church. At least there weren't any gory crucifixes. Ben hated those-- looked like something for the coroner's slab. The Rabbi was sitting on a stool in the corner talking to a little kid about something Spanish or Mexican, something like that. The synagogue was full of people cleaning the wreckage. There must have been more Jews in town than he thought. They seemed like nice enough folks, though. Ben started scrubbing down the walls to prepare them for the paint. "We don't call them Marranos, Moishe, that means pigs," Rabbi Stone was saying, "we call them Conversos, the converted ones. When the Inquisition started in Spain, there were few places left to hide. Those Jewish communities that wanted to survive pretended to be Christians. The same thing happened in Nazi Germany, you know, we hid our children in Christian schools, with Christian parents if we could. That's what my mother did with me, that's why I'm alive when everyone else in my family died. Love makes sacrifices, sometimes long, long sacrifices." Two young women came into the synagogue with suitcases. "Not the Marranos again. Are you still handing Lucas Buck your . . . manhood on a silver platter, daddy?" "Hello, Rebekkah, you should kiss your son, not trouble your father." "As soon as I get my degree and get settled, I'll take him away from here. I'd take you too if you'd go. There's always trouble in this town and it's always spelled B U C K." "Not this time, Rebekkah." "Say hello, to Tamar Morgenstern." Jacob's daughter introduced her friend. "She's my conscience." "Rebekkah was so upset over what happened. I didn't want her to drive alone." Tamar's hair was dark as a cloud, her eyes a startling bright sea-green. "You're welcome under our roof, Tamar, such as it is." "What's a Buck?" She wanted to know. "It's a who not a what." Rebekkah warmed to her subject. "Lucas Buck, the hotshot sheriff, a typical phallocratic bureaucrat, tinpot dictator." "He's the man who got the Jews out of their Goat town ghetto 20 years ago." Jacob said. "Yeah, we sold our souls for condos and ranchhomes. Does he still own this synagogue?" "He bought it for us, but I hold the deed." "I'll bet it's not paid off yet." "Some debts take a long while to clear." Tamar was appalled when she saw damage to the shattered tabernacle but the Rabbi assured her the Torah was safe and that was all that mattered. "Then God must have spread his wings over you." "The dark wings of Lucas Buck." Sarah muttered and rubbed at the urine stains with half a lemon. Jacob hushed her sternly. The name of the Lord and the name of the Sheriff didn't belong together. "The Shekinah protected us!" Moishe piped up, "And she's going to get the Sheriff and the Covenanters, too!" "Don't condemn others, Moishe. Only the Lord knows the state of a man's soul." Rabbi Stone said, thinking of the deep stains across his own. "The Shekinah will see justice done. Only she must hurry, for once the Sabbath candles are lit, she returns to the Holy One. Every Sabbath Eve, the soul of God is reunited with God. And all is unity once more." "I'm curious about this Sheriff Buck." Tamar said. "Protective, feared, and despised? That's a man I should learn more about." Her green eyes caught the light and Jacob was suddenly suspended beyond the cycles of the sun and the moon-- knocked for a moment right into eternity. Rebekkah's conscience, indeed. "Tonight is the Sabbath, Rabbi. I don't have much time." "For what you need to do, go quickly." ***** Reporters were lined up in front of city hall listening to Kane ramble on about the differences between Church burnings and cross lightings. Caleb was listening but it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Buck came up behind him and draped an arm over his shoulder. "Some circus, isn't it." "Why do people hate the Jews so much?" "Everybody hates somebody, it gives them something to do with their spare time. And there's Jews everywhere. They're. . .handy." "Who do you hate?" He shrugged off his father's arm. It felt like a leash on a dog. "Well, I guess I'm the exception." "What about Merly? Dint you hate her?" "Your sister and I didn't agree on every subject, that's true. But we managed to find common ground once or twice." He sniffed the air like a spaniel getting the scent of mallard -- or tiger! Sabbath was crossing the street with a placard lettered, No Justice/ No Peace. Buck took the sign away and shoved Caleb at her instead. "Woodstock, this is no time to demonstrate. Your job right now is to get this boy out of the line of fire." He strode off before she could think of some comeback. "You think there's going to be more trouble?" Sabbath asked Caleb. "Probably shooting trouble. My daddy always knows, doesn't usually care, though." The Sheriff's car drove past them with only inches to spare. Lucas flashed them a look of follow orders or be roadkill. Sabbath spotted Loris across the street and they hurried to join her. From from the other direction, the late afternoon sun glinted off a dark BMW pulling up amidst the news crew. An African American woman jumped out, her taut energy galvanizing the press to her side instantly. A woman to be reckoned with. Skinheads and members of the Jewish Defense League started to gather in the street, Different clumps of angry hate, snarling at each other. "My car was stopped by Covenanters." Loris said, hugging Caleb as he ran to her. "I hope it's still in one piece." "Where's Matt?" "Being a hero, the damn fool! Let's get off the street and into the Tasty Hutte. Try to let things calm down. If they're going to." Rose's mother was working the cash register none too well and the diner was crowded. The counter was full of people debating the virtues of the good old days when the Klan was the only redneck game in town. A woman with a laptop computer and reams of paper had monopolized the big booth. She noticed Loris, Caleb and Sabbath instantly. "You can share with me if you like, excuse the mess. My name's Susan, Susan Astar. Scoot on in, there's plenty of room." She swept up her stuff and Loris parceled out all the names and introductions, hunted down a waitress and got dinner ordered. "What are you doing?" Caleb asked, slurping his Coke float. "Trying to get my articles together. I'm a reporter." Susan grimaced. "Then why aren't you out interviewing the skinheads? There ain't no news in here." "I don't report on violence. There's too much of that already." Her dark green eyes looked like they had seen their share of the miseries of the world and hope was just barely winning out over despair. She had the haggard beauty of survival. "My stories are about the people who save what everyone else is trying to destroy, the people who choose love rather than hate. It's a hard choice sometimes." "My daddy believes everybody hates somebody." "I'd like to meet your daddy, show him some people can turn hate into love." "I don't think you could reach Lucas Buck with that philosophy." Loris said. "You never know." Susan smiled, "Love is a very powerful force." She winked at Caleb. "It created the world, honey." A brick flew through the window and landed in Sabbath's vegetable soup. "We need more than Love right now no matter what the Beatles say." The black woman Sabbath had seen in the BMW scooped everybody out of the booth and shoved em towards the back door of the Hutte. She moved like a commando in a pinstriped suit. Gunfire could be heard outside. "Get on out of here. Things are going to get ugly fast." Rose's mother was screaming and wondering where the sheriff was. "Sheriff Buck is nowhere to be found." The black woman snorted, she glanced at Susan, "If you're looking for him too, Good luck." Their eyes were the same unearthly green color. "I'm not worried." Susan sighed. "Something always takes me to the place I'm meant to be." The woman in the pinstriped suit went back into the Hutte, back towards the gunfire. "Are you related to that lady?" Caleb asked as they all hurried down the back alley behind the Hutte. "'Cause you got the same eyes." "I've met her once or twice." Susan smiled. "That was Althea Gibson. She's the attorney for the Jewish Defense League." ***** Selena Coombs peered around the dim corridor into the striped light back in the cells. Where was Ben? She glanced up, hoping there was no one hanging around on a rope. "Remembering the Good Times?" Lucas' voice slashed through the gloom. "Looking for your latest victim. You told the reporters, you'd put Ben in protective custody." "I did, but not here. Sometimes I have to tell little white lies." Selena laughed nervously as Buck backed her up against the steel bars. "Just little ones?" "You know what they say, size isn't all that important." Buck studied her eyes and edged closer. "Wanta do me a favor, Selena?" "What kind of favor?" "Kind that needs a woman's touch." "Any ol woman or one in particular." She stroked his shoulders as much to push him just a little bit away so she could breathe. He looked about ready to chew her down and swallow her up. She kept thinking of the lion's cage at the Charlotte Zoo. "You do have the expertise, darlin." He pushed back against her fingers, his mouth just brushing her hair, his legs pressing in against her hips. "The. . .training." Oh, hell, who needed to breathe, anyway. "I guess you've convinced me." "All right!" He released her with a twisted smile. "Ben jr, get over here." Ben's son stepped out of the gloom and looked around timidly. "Are you going to lock me up with my daddy?" "No, son, I'm going to turn you over to Miss Coombs here until those Covenanters run out of steam. I can't guarantee there won't be handcuffs involved though." He glanced back at Selena who was percolating very nicely indeed. "Doesn't he have some kind of mother?" "Out of town. I think you owe Ben this one." He rattled the bars a little. "Phone for a pizza, rent a video. I'll bring by the dessert." TO BE CONTINUED ------------------------------ Soul of God, part three The walls of the synagogue were whitening just fine but Ben was coming apart. Every so often he would hear the jeeps drive by outside shouting threats. That beautiful green-eyed woman had come in. "You're Ben Healy, aren't you?" "Yes, Maam." "This Ben Healy?" She held out one of the wanted posters. "Oh, my God." He dropped the bucket of paint all over the floor. Tamar bent down to mop it up. "All I do is make a mess. that's all I do. And all I want is to see things come right." He put his face in his hands. "I'm not one of those bloody sword people and I never meant to kill anybody. You have to believe me. I am caught in a nightmare." "Good men often are, especially when they're forced to contribute to the evil in this world -- against their will." Her hand brushed against him in the paint mess and he felt some kind of calmness wash over him. "I'm not a good man. I wish to Hell I was -- excuse the language, maam. But I never seem to measure up." "None of us do, but we keep on trying and that's what God watches. He watches us fall and then he watches us pick ourselves up. Which do you think is more important?" Tamar's dress was smudged with paint where she kneeled too close to the spill. 'I don't think you should go home tonight, Ben. Stay with us for Sabbath Supper." 'I sure don't have anywhere else to go." Moishe and another child were running up and down the aisles shouting the Shekinah is coming, the Shekinah is coming. Ben prayed his son was in a safe place. "Who is this chatauquah, shipoopie, I don't know --it's like a foreign language!" Ben scraped the excess paint along the edge between floor and wall. "It's the Shekinah, she's the outward form of the spirit of God." Tamar was unpeeling some of the masking tape Ben had laid down. "Jews got a woman god?" "Not really. It's a matter of words. All souls are feminine, including God's soul and the Shekinah is the Soul of God. It's all very mystical, and complicated." She looked out at the Temple slowly pulling itself together with Methodist pews and new paint. The only traces left of the vandals the debris Sara had swept into tiny piles for the garbage. "As to what exactly the soul of God is, well. . . Some people say she is the comforter of the Jewish people, some say she's a sword of justice, or maybe just the spirit of love." "I don't think God, even God in a dress is going to get very far in Trinity." "She will if there's a Tzaddik there. "Not another one of those words!" Tamar smiled at him, and Ben thought he could look into that smile all day. "A Tzaddik is a man of great goodness, maybe you'd call him a saint." "Not in front of a Baptist preacher, I wouldn't. And, believe me, there are about as many saints in this town as there are women gods." Tamar kissed him on the cheek, "You never know." It wasn't too hard to convince the Rabbi to let Ben stay for dinner. Jacob had already resolved that he couldn't betray the deputy. There was a traditional prayer to be said when the knife was at your throat. Maybe it was time to start saying it. Only Tamar seem to give him any peace. She was going to try to find the Sheriff once more. "When the Sabbath Bride returns tonight, she'll bring real peace, I know it." Her bright eyes sparkled. "From your mouth to the Lord's ear." ****** Loris and Caleb were trying to find a back street that wasn't crawling with either JDLers or CofBSers. Sabbath had gone to find Matt and see if she could convince him to come home. Susan was tagging along for no apparent reason. One more street was cut off by skinheads in jeeps waving guns, they ducked into yet another alley and nearly trampled a old man with a video camera. He clutched at Susan's arm and looked into her green eyes. "A woman called Tamar told me to trust you, was she right?" "She's always right." He thrust the camera into her hands. "I shot a tape that neither side wants shown. You will know whose hands to get this evidence to." Susan nodded. "Forgive me. I haven't the courage to make things right." "You've already done the right thing, David." The old man made a gesture of horror and ran off into the dim evening. Lucas Buck reached over Susan's shoulder and snatched up the camera. "What have we got here, More of America's Favorite Home Videos -- the director's cut? Or is this the Blooper edition?" Floyd hung on Buck's arm, eyeing Loris and Caleb as if he wanted to take them into custody. "Are you Sheriff Buck?" Susan said softly. "I've been looking for you all day." "A beautiful woman like you looking for me? Don't tell me some good might come out of today somehow?" He flipped open the side viewer and scanned through the contents of the tape. "Somebody must have been praying, was it you Floyd?" "Uh no, Sheriff, I wasn't the one who was praying. If I find them, I'll stop em." "Never mind, Floyd, I think it must have been my old compadre, Ben, cause this here is sure the answer to his prayers." Loris Holt watched the sheriff's face slowly brighten as if with some hidden, malicious fire, What did she really know about the origins of that tape and what was he seeing on it? "Ms Holt, would you do me a favor?" "I never have, sheriff and I don't think tonight is the time to start." "Not even if it meant saving Ben's poor miserable scared-rabbit life? It's just a little favor. Don't you want me to owe you one?" "It's never been my ambition." "Cmon Miss Holt," Caleb begged, "all those guns and everything, they could kill Ben tonight." "Ben!! Son, they've got enough artillery to put half the town six feet under --- Live on CNN, scuse me, Dead on CNN." The sheriff turned his most insidious look on Loris. "That boyfriend of yours with his little bullhorn is making himself a pretty good target, you know. He might be the first one to drop." "Just what do you want me to do?" "Take Caleb and this camera over to the coroner-- he's blathering away in front of my office. Floyd'll protect you, don't worry." Caleb frowned with disbelief as Floyd pulled out a huge gun and waved it around. "Not now, Floyd, we don't want any toes shot off yet." "Why don't you just take it yourself." Caleb snapped back. "Why son, I believe I have an interview, here. And I never disappoint the media." Caleb frowned with disgust at his father and left with the others. Lucas turned to Susan. " Well. . .Miss . . .Astar? Now that you've got me, what're you going to do with me?" ****** Against the competing chants of "Jews must die" and "No justice, no peace", Dr. Crower tried to make himself heard on a bull horn that was more squeaks than sound. Sabbath stood next to him, she owed that much to Loris. "I know we're all trying to find some justice here tonight, but we can't do that by condemning an innocent man." "Send his Yankee ass back home." "Give us the murderer!" Crower shouted louder over the crowd "Now you heard the coroner say that the bullet that killed Irving Cohen couldn't have come from Ben Healy's gun." "Nobody found the bullet, doctor." A striking black woman stepped to the front of the crowd, putting herself in front of some lean shaved and tattooed Covenanters who raised their rifles and aimed them directly at her. Althea ignored the sharp click of several safety releases. "Unless something concrete turns up right now, more people are going to die than that Cohen boy." Loris Holt ran over to the podium, and pushed the coroner up to the bullhorn. Staring at Sabbath, she whispered, "Don't worry." "Two black bitches with one shot, anybody bet me I can't do it?" The coroner adjusted the squeals of the bullhorn. "Nobody else is getting shot! Another video has been discovered," he held the camera high so everyone could see, "proving that the Cohen boy did indeed have a gun." Dr Curtis Webb was sweating buckets in the cool light. He hated being a hero. "I got a gun, too, fatboy, and I intend to shoot somebody tonight." Althea grabbed the video camera away from the coroner and viewed the tape quickly. "You haven't told us everything, have you doctor." Well, no he hadn't wanted to with several guns trained on him, but if ever there was a time to fess up to courage, it might be tonight. "No maam, I haven't. That tape also shows the flash of a high powered rifle coming from behind Ben Healy. And then that Jewish boy goes down. I told you all before, the trajectory of the entry wound was at too high an angle and the bullet far too powerful, to have come from Deputy Healy's gun." "You accusing the true white defenders of Trinity of this, fatboy." "Stand by the Covenant!!" "Let the Sword strike! Let the Blood Flow!" Althea turned to the crowd and looked out over the faces, every one of them riding on the ecstasies of rage. She saw Martin Zadowski, the man nervously holding the gun that Cohen let fall, wondering whether he should go down shooting, a martyr to the cause of Jewish justice. "Give me the gun, Martin." She said quietly, and he did, hardly knowing why. "Now go home, all the way home to Houston Street, it's over." She handed the gun to the coroner. It was evidence now. "Hell no, it ain't over, bitch." The cry came from a Jeep cherokee fitted out to looked like a tank. "Let's go one on one, best man wins." "Let's do just that, Wayne." The slim black woman was silhouetted against the setting sun. "Wayne Jefferson Monroe, was Irving Cohen the first person you've ever killed? Did you see his face in the targets you've been blasting away at up in the hills? Did you see his blood?" She slowly walked through the crowd of placards and guns and as she passed the implements of chaos and destruction fell and were for awhile forgotten. Face to face with the real killer, his gun pointed at her chest, she smiled with calm victory. "We know who you are and what you have done. From the walls of Beth Shalom to the streets of Goat Town, your deeds stink to heaven. Go home, Wayne, and let justice come for you in its own way." Wayne ker-chunked a bullet into the chamber. The unnatural green of this black woman eyes annoyed him. One shot, just one and it wouldn't matter what she said. The moment passed and so did the thrill of his anger. "You ain't worth it." The jeep backed up and sped off through the remains of the crowd that was milling around aimlessly, dissolving into the rapidly approaching night. In only a few moments, the streets were nearly empty. The rage had dissipated. "Why did you let him go?" Matt Crower asked. "My job is to stop him, not arrest him. Only the sheriff can do that. I need to see that Lucas Buck personally to make sure every last scrap of justice is done today." The last rays of the setting sun shone in Althea's bright emerald eyes. "I know you need to see the sheriff, but the day's almost over, at least by your clock." Loris glanced up into the heavens. "Aren't you running out of time." The evening star pierced through the darkening night sky. ****** As the night sky shone with three bright stars, the Holy Sabbath began. Sarah lit the Sabbath candles. Jacob sang the ancient song welcoming the Sabbath Bride to the community of Israel --and Ben was right there, a yarmulke bobby-pinned to his head, humming along. There had been no phone call from Buck. "You seem very calm, Ben. We could try to call your son again to see if he's all right?" "I'm not worried, Rabbi. I've decided, once in awhile, God does watch over Trinity." His eyes meet Tamar's and the smile between them shined brighter than the evening star. ***** The candles flickered on Miss Coombs dining table, Ben Jr licked his fingers. "I never had homemade pizza before." "I'm shocked." Selena watched the minutes, hell, the seconds tick off the clock. "What's for dessert?" "Humble Pie, if I'm not mistaken." "I don't think I've ever had that before either." "Live here long enough, you'll eat plenty of it." ***** Yet another candle, by the side of a bed. Susan was wrapped up in the covers smiling at whoever was beside her. "Oh my, that was Heavenly." "That's the problem with reporters," Lucas said, "they never get their facts straight." "We do have mysterious ways, don't we?" END DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual AG-Season Two is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions,and CBS (apparently). The characters added to support this concept, and the storylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!