Story – a timeless messenger

The old prophet sat just inside the village gate. Shrieks of lasciviousness and absurdity could be heard behind him.

They must be starting early tonight, the old man thought to himself.

How often he had regretted coming to live in this godforsaken town. He yearned to return to his uncle in the rolling pasture lands – but he had made his choice.

As he pondered his fate and murmured an unintelligible prayer heavenward, two men entered the village through the main town gate. They were only a few feet from where the old prophet sat.

Immediately, Lot sensed that these were righteous men. They looked neither to the left nor right, but straight ahead. They seemed to be on a mission.

As was the custom of the day, Lot bowed with his face toward the ground. “Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and you shall rise up early and go on your way.”¹

“No. We shall take our rest in the street all night,” one of the men answered.

Lot knew that this would not fare well for the travelers. Their lives would be greatly in danger to stay in the street all night. The people of the town took pleasure in pursuing the evilest of deeds. Lot couldn’t leave these men to such a fate.

With much persuasion, he finally convinced them. He prepared for the two men a feast and they ate. Although they barely spoke, Lot sensed that they were men of great devotion. Unfortunately, their sudden appearance in Sodom had not gone undetected.

The men of Sodom had seen that Lot had hurried away the two travelers into his home. As nighttime crept across the village, the men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house.

“Where are the men that came to you today?” One of the leaders bellowed near Lot’s front door. “Bring them out to us so we may know them!”² The men all cackled and guffawed at the last sentence. Some made lewd gestures.

Lot stepped out into the night and shut the door behind him. “Brothers, please don’t do such wickedness,”³he called to the group of men. “I have two virgin daughters – do what you will to them, but don’t harm the men who came under my roof for protection.”

The men of Sodom jeered at Lot and closed in on him: it seemed that they would crush the old prophet and shatter the door as they pressed closer and closer.

Lot felt a hand that seemed to possess superhuman power pull him back into his house and then close the door.

Suddenly there was moaning and cursing from outside. The men of Sodom were struck with blindness. They tore at each other and flayed their arms into the air. They no longer had any sense of direction, and they were unable to find Lot’s front door.

Lot felt his whole being quake from the presence of the two visitors. They weren’t just travelers. He knew in that instant that they were special messengers from Yahweh.

The messengers warned Lot to take his family and flee the village. The two men had come to destroy Sodom and its sister village, Gomorrah. “Run, flee, don’t look back!”

As Ruth crouched in a small birthing stall in the back of the barn, she prayed. As she prayed, the Bible story of Lot from a Sunday school lesson a few weeks ago kept returning to her mind. The words her pastor had said, “Run, flee, don’t look back!” burned across her mind.

“Ruth, where are you?” Henry called with garbled words. “You’re my wife. You will do what I want.”

Ruth remained frozen in silence. She already had a swollen eye that was quickly turning purple, and a trickle of blood had dried at the side of her mouth. She knew that if she went back into their farmhouse, Henry, her husband, would subject her to whatever perversions entered his drunken mind.

When Ruth had first been courted by Henry Cass, she thought herself to be the luckiest girl in the county. Henry was the only son of John Henry and Leona Cass. They owned a farm of more than 100 acres. In 1935, that was a gold mine, and Henry would inherit it all.

Yet only one week into their marriage, Ruth knew she had made the worst mistake of her life. Of the crops that Henry Cass grew, it was the grape vineyards that only mattered to him. The other fields were mostly neglected as Henry made wine that he stored in large barrels in the barn. Every day, he would disappear into the barn until he was “drunk as a skunk” as they used to say. Then he would come into their home and expect Ruth to perform sex acts that were atrocious to her. She had no choice.

Not tonight. Not anymore. Ruth prayed more fiercely. “Please don’t let him find me. What should I do?”

The story of Lot kept floating back across her mind. “Run! Flee! Don’t look back!” It were as if a special messenger was delivering these instructions to Ruth in the darkness of the barn.

“But, Lord, how?” Ruth whispered back in prayer.

It was 1941 and scandalous for a woman to leave her husband … for any reason. The small rural community would be shocked.

The Lord seemed to answer back, “Trust me.”

Ruth waited until she heard the screen door slam and the inside wooden door slam even harder after it. This was her chance.

She got up from her crouched position in the dried cow manure, and quietly walked to the barn’s main door and peeked out through the rough slats. Everything was quiet. She started to open the door and it loudly squeaked. Although it was a frosty October evening, a cold sweat broke upon Ruth’s body. She paused. No sound. Then she swung open the door with a power from on high and ran down the dirt driveway. Once she reached the gravel county road, she heard the slurred voice, “Ruth – get back here!”

Ruth knew that she dared not run on the road. She could hear Henry starting his 1932 Ford coupe. She hiked one leg after the other over some loose barbed wire – just one of the many fences Henry neglected to fix. She began to run through the overgrown fields. Thorns tore at her flimsy coat and bare legs as she scrambled through uneven, rain-soaked terrain. Once her shoe came off and she had to go back and dislodge it from the muck.

“Ruth! I’m sorry, darling! I won’t do it again!” Henry called from his coupe as he slowly cruised the county road. How many times had Ruth heard that flimsy promise?

“Don’t look back!” she remembered the powerful message from her Bible lesson. Lot’s wife had looked back and became a pillar of salt. Ruth wasn’t going to make that mistake. She continued to run.

It was about two miles from the Cass farm to the Peyton home, the home where Ruth had been born and raised – the home where her parents were. They would help her. They knew the torture she had been enduring. They had told her to leave Henry Cass, but her pride had always stopped her.

To hell with pride! She had been beaten and forced into horrific sex practices for six years. Never again. Her parents would help her. She’d get a job at the shoe factory with her sister. She had been daydreaming about leaving for years. She’d get herself a job and live just fine without Henry Cass.

A horn honked and brought Ruth back to her current situation. “Ruth, honey – come back!”

Never.

“I know, I know. You’ve told me this story about a hundred times,” the young woman said. “Jeff isn’t like Henry Cass.” Her mother, her own sacred messenger, was unable to convince the young woman.

Throughout the years, everyone in the family always called him “Henry Cass.” It was never dad or grandpa, but he was referred to as “Henry Cass,” as if he and Ruth had never been married.

After Ruth left Henry Cass, his life had splintered like the glass beer mug he had once thrown at her when he saw her in town one day after she left him.

He had numerous auto accidents due to his habitual drunken state. Many said the accidents were what caused Henry Cass to deteriorate. He had started fights that had left him bloodied and broken. In his home with Ruth, he had always been the dominant figure who used violence to get what he wanted. In public, he was no longer the biggest figure in the crowd; actually, he was small in stature. He would erupt into a drunken rage at one of the taverns where bigger men would easily beat him into submission … usually unconsciousness.

When his parents died and his farm was failing, Henry Cass chose to leave this life in the same violent manner that he had lived it. Cass relatives found him in the family home, bloated and with a bullet through his head weeks after he had committed the deadly deed.

However, Henry Cass would leave one last impression on Ruth’s life. What she didn’t know that night as she escaped through the fields is that she was carrying a daughter in her womb. Thankfully, that baby would be the one blessed contribution to society that Henry Cass ever produced.

Ruth raised Betty Lou meagerly, but in a home with love, not hatred and violence. Because Ruth had never divorced Henry Cass, she inherited his farm when he died. She sold it and that money was used to pay for Betty Lou’s college education and for her wedding to the kindest man on earth, my dad.

Henry Cass never did see his only child, my mother. The baby had been kept safe from his drunken presence. My Grandma Ruth never married again. When asked about the possibility of a second marriage, she always hissed, “I don’t want another man!”

It was my mom, Betty Lou, who warned me about Jeff. Yes, Jeff was a drinker. True, he drank frequently and quite a bit, but he wasn’t violent as Henry Cass had been. Or so I thought.

“The World Health Organization estimates that 55% of domestic abuse cases are the result of alcohol,” the professor looked around the classroom as she walked the aisles. “Women with habitually drunk male partners are four to seven times more likely to suffer partner abuse. It’s called ‘Intimate Partner Violence’ or IPV.”

The students seemed mesmerized after hearing the story. The professor continued, “One in three women are affected by IPV at least once in their lifetime.”

The professor finished her walk around the entire lecture hall and stood at the podium. “Your assignment is to choose some form of oppression that in some way touched your life. The teaching assistants are passing out examples and directions for how this paper is to be written.

“I want whatever oppression you choose to be personal. I want personal anecdotal story somewhere in your paper. I also want facts regarding your chosen oppression. The examples I just gave are a small sampling. Use at least five statistics regarding your chosen oppression. I want all statistical facts well referenced in an annotated bibliography.

“A thesis paper is also being passed out for an example; it was written by the young woman who thought that ‘Jeff’ would not be a problem like Henry Cass,” the professor continued. “The young woman was wrong.” She paused. “I was that young woman twenty-three years ago. I wrote that paper when I was still an undergraduate. Since this is a graduate-level course, I expect your papers to be more thorough and better cited than mine. Any questions?”

A young woman from the first row of seats raised her hand.

“Yes, Kasey?”

“What happened with your marriage to Jeff?”

“I can tell you that it didn’t last six years like it did for my grandma; but we’re living in different times. Divorce and separation are commonplace now.”

“How long did the marriage last?” an anonymous male voice blurted.

“It didn’t even last six months,” Professor Spurlock shot back.

“Because I had heard the story of my grandmother, I wasn’t about to let the same situation go on any longer than when I realized my mother had been right – that was my first and only black eye.

“That’s the beauty of story. Your story might influence someone fifty years later, a hundred years later or even a few thousand years later. When you include statistical facts, as we can these days, it only enhances the authenticity of your story.”

The digital wall clock flashed the magical time of three o’clock and students began to rise and head for the door.

As they surged out to partake in the weekend, Professor Spurlock called out, “With the talent in this class, I’m expecting everyone to get an A on this paper … if you need help, email me!”

One young female student stayed behind. 

“That was a beautiful story, Professor Spurlock,” the young woman said with admiration.

“Do you think so?” the professor asked. “I think it’s a rather sad and ugly story – however, it’s full of lessons.”

“Maybe it’s the way you tell it. I was strongly moved throughout your narrative.”

The student bit her lip nervously yet seemed determined to ask one more question.

“Professor, whatever happened to Jeff?” the young woman asked wistfully.

Professor Spurlock smiled, “I don’t know – I never looked back.”

¹ Holy Bible. King James Version, Regency Publishing House, New York, 1976.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.