CHAPTER 9
He began his ministry one week and one day after the day of his Christmas Eve announcement. I sometimes wondered if the event was set-up by Russo and Thompson. My knowledge of time and place came only from watching it on TV and reading about it months later.
New Years Day was more than the beginning of a new year. This was the first year that the street gangs of the United States were gathering for a conference. Chicago was the city of choice for natural reasons. I found it fairly hard to understand how a group of street thugs, murderers, drug dealers and various other criminals could so openly hold a conference. Political parties had conferences, doctors had conferences and even carpet cleaners had conferences but gangs? Their purpose was simple: unify all gangs for financial and bodily security.
The urban streets had a reddish stain in many of our major cities. The blacks attacked the Hispanics and the Hispanics attacked the Viet Namese and they in turn hit other oriental gangs. It was bloody. Many lives had been lost so they called for a conference.
Somehow, I didn’t picture this conference with red hats and drunken old men chasing young women of questionable character. The scenes on TV verified my guesses. Every door to the large conference room was protected by guards in black hats, black leather jackets and large black Uzzis. No one got in except those they wanted in.
The first day’s activities were filled with speeches from African American, Hispanic American, Viet Namese American and Caucasian social leaders. Major political figures addressed these young men and women. They called for a disarmament and peace for the cities.
The speeches were eloquent but pandering. Filled with phrases like, “You are the future of this country.” “You are the leaders of tomorrow.” They sounded more like commencement addresses. In a way, maybe this was a commencement or some type of beginning. We were going to legitimize the pain and suffering the gangs brought to our streets. With that, our nation would legalize their operations. It angered me as I watched. I probably should have turned it off but like all voyeurs of society’s decline, I sat in couch potato position absorbing the broadcast reality.
By evening, the gangs had called for some sort of unification. After another hour of see-saw yelling speckled with fist fights, the conventioneers decided to select a leader who would speak and act for them.
The lead figure was D-Boy Patterson. I snickered when the newsman covering the story moved into a split screen set-up. He gave a review of Patterson’s "career." I thought I was watching a political rally except for the crimes listed on Patterson’s sheet weren’t as white collar as those we would see on a politicians rap sheet.
Patterson was known as D-Boy. Many thought it was short for Devon, his given first name. It was for Dead Boy because he killed more people dead before he reached thirteen than any other member of his gang. The bodies that dropped around him after the age of thirteen range beyond the color commentator’s resource information. In other words, D-Boy was a killer. He enjoyed it. It made him money and it gave him power.
In an interview, D-Boy talked about killing. He felt as if he took the power from the person he killed and added it to his own. He wanted all the power he could get. D-Boy was feared but he was also followed.
He had become a folk hero to young inner city kids who had no father to look up to and a mother who had neglected them for the crack houses. When D-Boy hit the streets, the car was the finest, the clothes were the best and women were the most beautiful. He had it all in the eyes of a poor kid who barely ate once a day. He had fulfilled the American Dream or rather the American Nightmare.
The opposition in the gang leader election was only known as Mo. It stood for Mo money, Mo’ cars, mo’ drugs, mo’ fun, mo’… Mo was older than D-Boy. After years of negotiation with other gangs, he brought New York City a modicum of peace. Mo really was a community organizer only he did it with a gun. He was a very dangerous leader that usually got what he wanted or the opposition got what they least wanted.
D-Boy and Mo stood on the stage of the convention hall. D-Boy had only one thing in mind: taking Mo’s power in the only way he knew. He knew that if he lost, Mo was to be assassinated within one minute. D-Boy would get what he wanted.
This was no ordinary convention to begin with but it was the next event that brought it from a news story to be a significant point of reference in history.
D-Boy was elected president or leader. I don’t remember which it was. Mo congratulated him but we all knew the battle between the two would rage on but the scene was good for a photo op. The cable news stations would love that one. The past careers of Mo and D-Boy would be chalked up to the evils of a Eurocentric government and economic system by the more radical leaning commentators. One suspiciously ordained commentator had already tweeted that D-Boy was the new black messiah. They would be written up like they were the present day Jesse James and Billy the Kid. No, they would make the two killers look more like Robin Hood.
D-Boy began his address to the gathered gangs. He was aware that the last address of the night was coming from Jesus himself. In the interview he admitted that he accepted the plan to bring Jesus into the center of it all because of what he represented. To D-Boy, Jesus was a symbol of the white man’s religion. D-Boy had his own version of faith. It was the two pistols he carried at all times. In those, he could find faith to make it everyday and deliver unholy judgment on anyone who sinned against him.
To D-Boy, Jesus was also the most powerful man in the world. To have Jesus’ power would mean he was unstoppable as the leader of the nations gangs. He coveted what that would lead to. His plan was simple. As Jesus held up his hands to address the gangs, D-Boy would simply slip a barrel of one of his guns into Jesus’ side and shoot. Nothing clean about it but the job would be done. He would be powerful, he would be feared and he would be untouchable. D-Boy would be their god after Jesus was dead. Sure, he would go into hiding protected by gangs in every city of the country.
Jesus was flanked by Russo and two men. Later, their names and faces became very familiar to me. At that time, I only saw them as bodyguards. He touched hands, accepted worship and moved deliberately down the center aisle to the platform. D-Boy waited. His way to power didn’t have to occur now. It could wait a few minutes. The TV camera’s revealed an intensity in D-Boy’s eyes. I could tell from the close-up shots that something big was going to happen. Something very big. I was surprised that Russo would put Jesus into such a position.
Jesus took a few more steps and was stopped by a young woman who fell at his feet kissing them. She was weeping, her chest heaved with torrents of emotion, as Jesus reached down and pulled the woman to her feet. She stared at him and he spoke to her. I thought I could make out the words, “Your sins are forgiven.” It bugged me. If I wasn’t absolutely sure he was the messiah then how could he be so undeniably sure. He was touching her face with both hands when he said it. Jesus released her face and walked towards the platform. It was like he knew where he was going and what he was going to do there.
Jesus did know. His steps were deliberate and strong to the bottom of the stairs leading to the platform. He looked up. No smile was on his face but no smile received him either. The clone set his jaw and walked up the stairs. I could see D-Boy fidgeting with something under his jacket.
Jesus was on the platform. He rotated his head and looked into the camera. It was there that he smiled but it was the eyes that kept giving him away. People talk about the eyes being the window to the soul. What happens when you don’t have a soul? The eyes become a window to what?
He stepped across the stage to the podium. D-Boy stood blocking his path. They stood, face-to-face, eye-to-eye. I wish the camera angle had allowed me to see Jesus’ eyes. Or even D-Boy’s. The gang leader moved for something under his coat. His arm tensed as well as the entire crowd of conventioneers.
Thousands of miles away in my Switzerland home, my stomach knotted. I couldn’t believe that Russo put him into harm’s way. It didn’t seem like a thing Russo would do. He did it though, and I had to watch it.
Suddenly, a shadow raced across the stage. Maybe it was the camera or the lights I thought. I was sure it appeared to be a shadow of a human being. It dropped its blackness on each person on stage. They stopped and dropped back. It was like a confusion came over them. Some rubbed their eyes. One guy shook his head like he was tossing off a shroud. Then the shadow stopped. I wondered if I was the only one seeing it.
The shadow crept almost imperceptibly towards the two characters in their dead-locked stare down. D-Boy was still fumbling under his coat. Everything inside told me it was a gun. I tensed my muscles and clenched my teeth so hard that pain shot to my brain. I had to know, what D-Boy had and what was caused the shadow?
The shadow inched closer to D-Boy. His head jerked once. The shadow engulfed the gangsta’s head and D-Boy stumbled. He had lost his balance for a second and fell out of the shadow.
D-Boy’s head snapped in Jesus’ direction. His mouth twisted to a sneer just before the shadow made a broad leap across the stage covering the young man totally. D-Boy stiffened and his face quickly contorted. Then it relaxed and a new smile came over his face.
D-Boy’s arm relaxed. He let go of the bulge in his coat. His head dropped breaking the intense eye to eye glare. His tall body slumped. Something broke within him. Something snapped. D-Boy turned to the podium, he set his face towards the microphone and yet it wasn’t his face at all. The features were the same but the muscles moved differently across the bones.
“Brothers and Sisters, we gathered here to bring unity and to end the wars between our gangs. I was elected your leader. Today, I call for us to lay down our arms and come together to work for the restoration of the cities we have destroyed. I call for us to reaffirm our spiritual heritage and fall before the new messiah.” D-Boy’s voice was clear but there was a quivering, a shaking deep inside him.
Jesus turned and walked down the steps and towards the door. The world witnessed the most powerful display of peacemaking in history but had anyone else seen the shadow. It all looked like peace but I was beginning to believe that there was more behind it. Jesus strolled out the door. The bodyguards kept reporters away. He then slipped into his car and they were gone.
D-Boy moved away from the podium. The conference was over. The conventioneers cleared the room. The floor was covered with guns and the remnants of gang colors. I was shocked as I watched. The reporters were stunned. It was more like a work of fiction than reality. Actually, it was more like science fiction.
What happened? That was the big question. Actually, that seemed to be the only question. It wasn’t until months later that D-Boy surfaced again to give an interview. Not much had been heard from him or about him. He faded from the scene like a bad character in a sitcom. It was all clear to me when he said, “I looked into that Jesus’ eyes. We stared for a long time. It felt like eternity—my eternity. I saw deep in his eyes, the blackness, the emptiness and the lostness of Hell. If Hell was what I saw in those eyes then I didn’t want to go there. Then something grabbed my brain inside my skull. I couldn’t breathe, went dizzy and stumbled. Moments later I recovered only to be gripped again. That time it was my whole body, mind and yeah, even I’ll have to say it, my spirit. ‘If this is Jesus then as my grandmother used to say, ‘Jesus is God.’ If this is God, then I see a bitter hate inside him. That hate was directly focused on me. I don’t think I had much choice when I stood face to face and eye to eye on that platform. I don’t even remember making the speech asking for the gangs to put down their weapons and follow Jesus. Even when I watch the video of it, I see someone else standing there with my clothes on and using my face and my mouth to speak to the world. I saw the most intense look of hate and the reality of what God’s hate would do to me. I changed. I had to.”
This was the most revealing account of what happened. My eyes saw something that my brain didn’t understand. The information was collected and I logged it into my memory.