Karma

 It was a hot, sultry day and my parents and little brother were crowding into the blissful coolness of an air-conditioned church. It was my first time attending, and I can distinctly recall the throngs of people pressing in on me from all sides, threatening to crush me with their titanic size like an ant beneath a shoe. 

But the anxiety passed. A few moments later, after most of the desperate crowd finally managed to escape the simmering heat lurking ominously just outside the church’s open doors, a sight of surreal magnificence crashed upon my eyes. Vivid hues of red and gold danced and shimmered all around, framed by high, vaulted arches that sprung forth from the floor and into the air like towering oaks. Endless lines of wooden pews stretched as far as the eye could see, starting to fill with a healthy dose of early morning churchgoers. On the far edge of my vision, wreathed in a soft amber light, a gilded pulpit, engraved with a mesmerizing assortment of catholic symbols, stood proudly before a stooped, aging pastor. 

It was upon this man that my attention fell, grasping wretchedly at his kindly, crinkled eyes and smiling visage. Feeling as if I were ensnared within some type of trance, I sensed an aura of power, tempered by an inner warmth, an inner geniality, emanating from his very essence. Drawn to it, I gawked open-mouthed for some minutes, until my parents caught me by the arm and dragged me to our back-row seat. 

“Eliza, what are you doing?” they hissed through clenched teeth, their cheeks a dull shade of red, flushed with mild embarrassment at my holding up the line into the nave. “Stop your staring and act properly, okay?”

Nodding absentmindedly, I kept my gaze fixed on the holy man at the far end of this cavernous room, shining as he was like a gem in the dark hollow of a mountain. I couldn’t peel my hungry eyes off of him even if I had wanted to. Gospel readings, prayers, hymns, and an array of other subtleties that, at the time, seemed too arbitrary and unimportant to even consider, passed like quiet whisperings of the wind through a boundless prairie, lost amidst the glory of the reigning sun, the affable pastor himself. 

Over the course of the next hour, my mother and father launched a furious tirade of sharp, reproachful glances at my vacant countenance, but they bounced harmlessly off the hard shell of my ignorant exultation, inured to such mundanities as proper church etiquette. After a while, realizing it was futile to try and get me to pay attention to the pastor’s sermon, they capitulated, their anger dissipating into an ashy smolder. 

The only other memorable event from that morning that hasn’t dissolved into a soupy mixture of scrambled nothingness is when I passed along the center aisle of the nave at the end of mass to meet the pastor, marching between the sprawling maze of pews on either side, and to the upraised platform from which he had been delivering his teachings. 

A long, agonizingly slow walk it had been. My mind and body were wracked by ceaseless waves of nervous anticipation. I trembled with a barely contained excitement, my teeth chattering and my hands clenching and unclenching as if to relieve some of the profound tension beginning to well up in every cell of my being. I was with my parents, and as we inched closer and closer, I could feel a magnetic force drawing me inexorably onwards so that I was hardly able to stop myself from sprinting forwards at once.

At last, though, I was there. I raised a petite foot in a black dress shoe and began to climb the richly carpeted stairs to the pastor above. Each step felt like a thousand, so rich and impatient was my lust to meet him, to enmesh myself within his comforting embrace.  After what felt like hours, he stood wizened and bent with age before me. Hands wrinkled like sunbaked raisins ensconced my own, adopting their weight so that they felt as light and airy as wind-blown leaves. The gentle touch of his fingers was the scurrying of tiny feet on a wooden floor, or the fluttering sea-spray kissing the foamy crests of the ocean.

I stared into eyes sharp and keen, dark brown flecked with glimmering shards of gold, that peered wisely out of deep, ponderous wells. His brow, high and prominent, bespoke a quiet intelligence, a fairness like that of the kings or princes in the fairy tale books I used to read at home. A tiny, lilting grin curled his lips, accentuating the delicate tenderness in his hollow cheeks.

“Hello, Eliza- how glad I am to meet you! Hopefully I shall have the pleasure of doing so again and again. In fact, it is the Lord’s dearest of wishes that this be only the barest of tips in your long, fruitful relationship with Him. Here he took a small step back, allowing my hands to slink quietly out of his (I took no notice, however, being far too enamored with the pastor to pay heed to anything else), and bent down to retrieve a small, beaded rosary. Straightening, he reached and out carefully placed the long, slender chain within the seamless folds of my hand, so different they were from the creased, parchment-like texture of his own. 

“Now, Eliza,” he continued with an affectionate smile that, of course, revealed a set of brilliantly white teeth. “This will be yours to keep forever and ever, through life and death. Treasure it and remember His good will, for it is your duty to act in the Lord’s name and to carry out His vision for our beautiful world.” 

Steering me patiently towards the right end of the raised platform and another set of felt-lined stairs that led down into the nave, the pastor delivered one final benign pat on the back, a small, cheery wave, and then he was gone. 

The closing minutes of mass passed in a haze of disorientation and something else, something unfamiliar. Thinking. True thinking. Never before had I been so emotionally touched, so stricken and befuddled. I thought and I thought, plumbing the deepest crevices and obscurest alleys of my brain, searching, searching…

It was on the bumpy car ride home that I found what I was looking for. A sudden, instantaneous epiphany illuminated a dark blemish on my mind, a stain of ignobility that had been bothering me like a troublesome itch for the past twenty or so minutes. What is my duty? What is my purpose? What does the Lord want me to do?

These were a particularly vexing set of questions. My head ached from the toil of trying to unravel their hidden mysteries, and yet I felt no closer to discerning their murky depths. Glimpses of insight would appear like four-leaf clovers, amazing and unexpected, but their existence only intensified my search for answers, providing a tantalizing nibble off the edge of enlightenment. I quarreled and fought with these complex abstractions, viewing them merely as another open-ended puzzle in one of the thriller books I used to pluck from my father’s little library. 

However, it was not until a cold, dreary night in the closing chapters of Autumn that I realized what service the Lord had bequeathed to me, what vocation He expected me to fulfill. As curtains of icy rain lashed relentlessly upon the tired windows of my upstairs bedroom, I lay prostrate in bed, the stark glare of an overhead lamp revealing a forest of pale sheaves of paper tattooed with stiffly marching lines of ink. It was one of my father’s favorite novels, an account of a young man who, after working as a spy for the Soviet Union, becomes a prolific negotiator for the UN, working to dispel violence and dissuade Military leaders from engaging in armed conflict. He sought to distill peace from war, to quell anger with compassion, and was only able to do so because of the wisdom he had garnered as a spy, as someone who willfully instigates the shattering of tranquility and the commencement of destruction. 

I had just reached the climax of the book, where the protagonist is forced to order the assassination of a depraved warlord, when I froze. My eyes misted over as the internal cogs in my brain began to whirr and chug, clanking like the gears in a clock. The book tumbled from my limp hands, landing with a dull thud on the wooden floor of my room. Yes, of course, it’s so obvious now. This is what I am meant to do! This is how Pastor John and God Himself want me to change the world, to do my part. 

Jumping up, I threw my polka dotted covers to the side, racing across the room to where my desk sat empty and expectant by the door. I crouched down, reaching into a thin drawer at the very bottom of the desk, and groped with sweaty fingers for my most treasured of talismans, a symbol of love and sympathy and belief. My shaking fingers closed around a hard, sharp-edged box, the kind in which one might enclose a valuable piece of jewelry, like a ring or a necklace. 

Still squatting awkwardly on the marbled wood floor, I traced my finger reverently along the embossed insignia on the top of the box, feeling the smooth contours of its shape that wound and twirled like the deep trenches of the Grand Canyon. A shaky, uncertain breath stumbled from my lungs, carrying with it the creeping fears of impotence that had plagued my thoughts during the long months of not knowing. I was free, finally free! Unshackled from my fervent search for purpose, I felt the graciousness of God wash over me and I cherished it. 

That night, as the moon smiled down in the fullness of its celestial transcendency, in a cloudless, star-speckled sky, I lay quiet and content, a plainly adorned rosary peeping timidly above the collar of my shirt. Pastor John visited me as I dreamt, lovingly raising my supple hands to his pale lips as he bent and kissed them, one lone tear sliding bravely across a dimpled cheek. 

It was Monday, the third Monday of the month, and Eliza sat in a cold, metal folding chair, nervously fingering a wooden rosary, the same one she had received so many years ago on that fateful summer morning. A man embellished with a dense mosaic of ink- vivacious streaks and swirls that seemed to jump off his skin and into her face- sat across from her at a plain metal table, bolted sternly to the concrete floor. Attired in an orange jumpsuit with thick, slinking chains attached to metal rings in the middle of the table, Harvey Goodman leered unpleasantly at Eliza, baring pointy, yellowed teeth. 

In opposition to what his surname might suggest, Harvey Goodman was not a good man. Convicted of armed robbery amongst a litany of other egregious and morally reprehensible acts, Harvey was looking at twenty plus years in prison- a bleak, forlorn wall unrelieved by any splotch of hope. 

In spite of this, Harvey’s apparently indomitable sense of malicious humor remained, impervious to the daunting sentence that hung interminably over his head, a frowning precipice. It was as stubborn and heinous as he was himself, and at the moment, Eliza was beginning to detest its sour presence. His dry, croaking laugh, like reeds rustling together, had just subsided into a disquieting sneer reflected in the acrimonious light glinting mischievously from his green eyes, and she shivered uncontrollably.

“So, darlin’, what you got fer me?” A heavy, southern drawl traipsed silkily from his mouth, an innocuous sleeve masking the subtle devilry that laced his words. 

She didn’t fall for it. Responding in a hard, steely voice, Eliza said, “Nothing like that of course. I am here as a representative of the Oklahoma Criminal Reform Program and wish to try and help you get your life back on track through the guiding light of Christianity.” Rattling off this standardized response, the same one she told every inmate she worked with, was therapeutic somehow. It steered the conversation into a domain she was not only well acquainted with, but in which she thrived. Religion. Rehabilitation. Her duty. These were things that gave her both strength and satisfaction and right now, some of the angst that had begun to bubble noxiously in the pit of her stomach melted away. 

Offering a munificent smile, Eliza thought of her past and why she had chosen this as her job, out of all other easier, less volatile professions. Images of poor, helpless children and illiterate adults reeled through her mind, portraying the vicious cycle of destitution she hoped to stop by helping troubled inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Her mind steadied, her determination reinforced, Eliza turned her eyes to the hulking form in front of her. 

Standing at roughly six-foot-three and weighing close to 230 pounds, Harvey “Bigdog” Goodman was most assuredly one of her grittiest challenges to date. It’s always the big, tough one, she thought. The ones who view accepting help, especially help from a five-four, 120 pound woman, as a sign of weakness as opposed to acumen. Well, even if they did regard my assistance as a sensible alternative to staying locked up, her inner voice countered, assuming a cynical rationality at odds with her pious belief that all humans have a capacity for goodness and change, they may not accept, being from environments where perspicacity is deplored, not revered. No one wants to be a nerd, I guess.

“Ahh, ain’t that nice…so, you here to help me get out these chains, huh?” Harvey’s response yanked her roughly back to reality. His answer was jocular and although he didn’t laugh, his eyes did. She could see the contemptuous snigger shining out of them, blunt and conspicuous. He didn’t care if she saw because he wanted her to see- wanted her to understand who was boss. 

“Not quite, Mr. Goodman. I’ve been assigned as a case worker to facilitate your entry within a charity-based reform initiative, as long as you’re willing to participate, that is.” Her eyes, cool, clear ponds of opalescent blue glowing with an inner warmth, a kind-hearted nature, looked mildly into his, a clash of good and evil, of God and the Devil- or so presumed Eliza. 

“I ain’t int’rested in no charity, and that’s fuh sure. And there ain’t no God up above neither,” he added with an admonishing look, playing the role of stern school teacher. 

Eliza breathed deeply, folding her hands on her lap. “Whether that is or is not true is beside the point, Mr. Goodman. I am not here as a missionary, I am here to help.” She heaped as much emphasis on this last word as he could, willing her good intentions to pierce that gleaming, bald-headed skull of his. 

Harvey cocked his head, studying her with an expression she couldn’t discern. Finally, after a few minutes of tense silence, something extraordinary happened. Harvey simply heaved a great sigh and leaned back in his metal chair, nodding deferentially as if to say continue. 

Nonplussed, Eliza sat in shock during the infinitesimal gap between his response and her subsequent reaction. Never before, never, had Harvey Goodman employed even the slightest shred of logic when dealing with her. Never had he so much as acknowledged her objective in making the bi-weekly four hour round-trip from her quaint house in rural Dennison. Now, though, it seemed to Eliza that she had finally managed to get through to him, to circumvent the stolid, unyielding block of pride that stood between her and success. 

In her excitement Eliza blurted out, “Oh, why yes, I see that you, um, would perhaps like to, uh, explore your options within our program?” The fervor of her enthusiasm, of the dedication to her job, spilled out, drenching her words so that they seemed to flounder in the wake of her elation like swimmers caught in a monstrous wave.  

Harvey didn't make a soun, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on this whimsical little woman who might, just might, be able to help him out. 

“Well,” she continued, all in a fluster from her eagerness and the slightly off-putting intensity of Mr. Goodman’s face, “we usually offer the chance to assist in community service, like collecting litter or trash, and, in addition, we can provide personalized classes that train you in a specific trade or occupation in order to help you become employed once you’re released. Also, I might add that involving yourself in any of these opportunities can be very persuasive to the judge determining if you are eligible for early-release.”

Harvey still said nothing, breathing slowly through his nostrils as he considered the cards in front of him. What to pick, what to pick, he mused. 

An hour later, while the westering sun looked down upon a short, round-faced woman driving south in a beat-up sedan, Harvey Goodman slept as happily as a child. Eliza Huntsman had truly helped him out- something he would never forget.

Twelve years later, after having secured an early-release on account of “good behavior and a demonstration of willingness to work as a productive member of society,” Harvey Goodman left prison, and with the help of directions on the back of a business card handed to him more than a decade prior, hitched a ride to Dennison, Oklahoma. Late that night, while Eliza Huntsman prepared a chicken casserole to bring to the local homeless shelter the following day, an intruder crept in through the unlocked patio door and murdered her, taking care to leave the crumpled business card on the floor next to her lifeless body. 

As he left, Mr. Goodman pilfered an antique painting, grinning at his good fortune.