The Pretend Pastor

The Pretend Pastor

A gunshot. They say if you hear it, then you're not the one who's dead. Why, then, am I lying on the ground?

I was on my way to a costume party, a Halloween Party. Why do people dress up for Halloween? I was dressed as a Pastor. A funny joke for a known atheist.

The man ran past me, grey jacket, grey sweater, unshaved, jeans, shiny black shoes reflecting the bridge lights. He was clearly terrified of what was behind him. I turned to look, but before I caught a glimpse, the gunshot. And I am lying on the ground.

The night was dark. I could see the dark girders that formed the railings of the bridge. I was on a bridge crossing the Chicago river. My head was turned slightly towards the railings.

"Are you OK?" It was a woman's voice. She was wearing bright blue shoes, black stockings and a black dress under her black coat. A man was standing next to her. I could not tilt my head enough to see her face. Or the man. Or I didn't try to tilt my head.

She repeated, "Are you OK?" I heard sirens. "Can you talk?"

"You should step away." The man's voice.

I was lying on the ground. I was standing, turning, and then I was shot to the ground. But now I knew I was not dead.

"Stay awake," she said as she moved, or was pulled, back. A police woman, black, looked down at me. Was there any time in between these two moments? "Don't try to move," she said. "You've been shot."

- - -

I was sitting up in the hospital bed. My friend Eli was there.

"You were shot," Eli said. I opened my hospital gown to look at the bandage on my chest, right over my heart. "But the bullet never penetrated your skin. Just a big, nasty bruise."

He was repeating what had already been explained by the doctor and nurses. And the police who came to visit. I was somewhat out of it, painkillers, but I knew that I was mostly unharmed. The bullet had hit the cross. The sturdy metal cross that must have swung over my heart as I turned.

"They told me not to make you laugh," he said. Then he made a farting sound, which made me laugh for a split second. The pain stopped the laughter fast.

"You're a true friend," I said.

"He speaks," Eli declared. "Funny thing," he added, "You were saved by a cross."

"And a bible."

"Huh?"

"And a bible," I repeated. I pantomimed reaching into the jacket pocket of the costume. "I had a bible in this pocket. A red, leather bound one."

"That's weird," he said softly.

"Weirder still, I stole it from a hotel room while I was walking over to the party."

He did not even smile. He said nothing.

"I forgot to bring a bible and then I was walking by a hotel and figured I could sneak in and grab one. It was pretty easy, actually. They had a small stack on the maid's cart."

"You were saved by a fake cross and-"

"It was a real cross."

"Not with you wearing it."

We were both staring down at the untouched dinner tray on my lap table.

He reconsidered, "Maybe it was a real cross."

"Says the Jew," I added as a joke, but neither of us laughed.

After a longer pause, he said, "I wonder what the shooter is thinking now?" I cocked my head slightly, curious. "He shot a priest. I wonder if he thinks he killed you? Killed a priest?"

- - -

I'm home now, an apartment overlooking a typical Chicago city street. I can see a group of people, about my age, standing outside the bar, smoking. Shooting themselves with very, very slow bullets.

I look over at my side table, which used to hold magazines and books and holds only a cross on top of a bible. The cross looks like, well, like it was shot at by a bullet. An angled crater, nestled in the NW corner of the cross. The crater has a fissure crack at its bottom and paint chips torn off around the top edges. The bullet did not get all the way through, deflecting off. Perhaps the movement of the cross pulled it away from my body?

The small bible, about the size of an iPhone, looks like it was hit by a hammer, the top fake leather cover pulverized on the spine. The pages inside also pressed down, the back cover bent and cracked, but only barely. It was a brand new bible, likely never opened until I checked to see what the bullet impact had done.

My black jacket was unscathed on the front, but torn and dirty on the back, from my falling to the ground and possibly skidding along the bridge sidewalk.

Yes, of course my lack of faith has been tested.

The nurse handed me back my clothes in a clear bag, but the bible and cross she handed to me directly, fit together like a puzzle piece, as they are now. As he handed them to me, he said, "Damndest thing I have ever seen. Someone was looking out for you."

Someone?

- - -

I expected a media barrage, but it never came.

It was the "Fall of Bullets" in Chicago, which took place two years after a Summer that was called "Murder Season," so a non-fatal shooting didn't even make the news.

The details about the cross and my pastor costume would have been front page news, since it was the perfect combination of bad, good and religious, but the cross part wasn't leaked. So it was one of 62 shootings that week, a week in which six people were killed, one an eleven-year-old boy. The prior week the numbers were slightly higher. More than eighty shootings and an even ten homicides. A shooting in Chicago, without a morgue or an ICU in the mix, was simply not newsworthy.

But here I am, staring at the cross and bible on the side table wondering about the "someone" who was looking out for me, knowing that if this would have been a big moment for the Church and for many folks who believed in a higher power. Many who would wonder why I lived, an undeserving atheist.

I considered myself lucky for living. Unlucky for being shot. Luckier for being basically unharmed.

- - -

Eli was over. Or, more accurately, he and I were sitting at the bar I can see from my window, each staring at a pint of 312. His glass had a Bears logo on it. Mine was clear. Luck of the draw.

"So?" he asked.

"So?" I repeated. "So, have I been born again?"

He smiled as he took a sip of his beer. "Kind of what I meant."

"Nahh," I said. "I stared at the ceiling for a few nights wondering and then realized I simply couldn't make the jump, the non-intellectual leap. Or, more accurately, the intellectually-suppressing leap. I couldn't even consider the thought experiment of believing."

We sat and drank our beers in silence for a bit.

I asked, "What about you? Would you have switched to team Jesus?"

He laughed. "I'm no Asher Lev. I'd never have worn that get up in the first place." I laughed along, wondering how many people in the bar, how many people south of Skokie, would even get the reference.

Suddenly he turned to me, serious. "Meaning I would be dead now. Shot through the heart."

More drinking. More silence.

"And you're to blame," he added softly.

I turned to him curious. He did not look up from his beer, but I saw that he was smiling. Suddenly I got the joke, which made me I laugh so loud that the entire bar turned towards me.

Then together, too loud and probably nowhere near the proper key, "Darlin', you give luh-ove a bad name!"

The End.