Killing People

Killing People


It all began the first time when my wife and I were leaving a popular eatery. We walked by a large lady sitting off by herself, and I had this incredible compulsion to help her. The table top was covered with appetizers, two or three entrée, diet colas, and salads loaded with cheese and walnuts and low-calorie dressings. I had to stop and tell her; something came over me. I shouldn’t have been staring at her. I should have been minding my own business. I walked directly over to her big round table and stood there shaking my head, watching her chomp. She sensed my presence and looked up at me

“Give it up. Get up from that table and walk out of here. Leave it all behind.”

The music in the restaurant seemed to stop for a heartbeat. She looked at me at first curiously, then astonished, then a mixture of shame and deep gratitude on her chubby red face.

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

Right then and there, she got up and walked out the door. That’s the way it started.

My wife said, “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“I don’ know,” I said. “I don’t have a clue.”

Honestly, at the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was new to me, too. I felt myself being swept away in a river of empathy and righteous duty.

The next time it happened, I was driving down Main Street—an hour late getting back to the office since I’d extended my lunch break. It was a pleasantly hot summer afternoon when I spotted another would-be disciple standing outside a downtown office building. Our eyes locked for a split second as a cloud of blue smoke drifted above his head—an addict, a reprobate standing in his little smoking cluster seeking mutual comfort and support, taking a smoke break outside the bank. I could sense that he was the only one asking for help, in a way, calling out pathetically for my intervention. I sped around the block and pulled up right in front of the four-story brick edifice and slammed on my brakes. He was still there nursing cigarette number three. I felt an overpowering urge to help, so I walked straight up to him. The other reprobates parted the way and stared. I put my hand out.

“Give it to me.”

He knew exactly what I meant, but he looked me in the eyes and blinked. I curled my fingers in and out a couple times. I didn’t speak again. It was a test. It was difficult for him. I gave him another sign.  I nodded my head slightly. He held the cigarette out. His smoking buddies gasped. I took the cigarette from his trembling hand and tossed the stogie on the ground near his right foot. He needed to do this thing publically. He needed to make a public confession for his own edification.

“Now, step on it. Grind it into the pavement.”

His halting foot crossed the line and came down squarely on the smoldering coffin nail. I let him stand there helplessly for what seemed like an eternity while the hot coal bore a hole into his sole. The stench of burning leather wafted up into our faces.

“Now!” I said.

Whimpering like a whipped puppy, he smashed the butt into the pavement and wouldn’t stop grinding until I placed my hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”

“Yes,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “Thank you. Thank you.”

After that incident, I took to staying out longer and longer during my lunch break. I cruised the downtown streets searching for the helpless and downtrodden. One day—following an extraordinarily long lunch break—my boss called me into his office to ask me what was up and that my fellow workers were murmuring and complaining like the Children of Israel in the wilderness. I assured him that everything was okay. I tried to explain what I was doing, but to no avail—the fool. So, right then and there, I walked out of the joint! I was already considering resigning. His outlandish demands pushed me over the edge! When I stepped outside onto the sidewalk and felt the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, it was like being enveloped in freedom. It was like being unfettered. Free to save Mankind. I immediately jumped into my BMW and drove out to the suburbs. New territory! Alas, I didn’t make a contact that day. When I got home and told my wife the exciting news, she panicked. “You did what?” Then she packed a suitcase and left—presumably to go to her mother’s to stay. No matter. Now, I was truly free to follow my calling!

The next major encounter took place at a Franklin Grayhouse revival meeting. I sat in the front row at the baseball stadium and waited patiently, paying more attention to the crowd than the preaching. At the first note of “Just as I Am,” I ran into the astonished congregation accosting sinners and wayward saints alike, forcing them to come forward and bow down at the altar. It was the biggest “response” Pastor Grayhouse had ever witnessed, though he confided in me later over dinner that he wasn’t completely comfortable with my tactics. “Hell with the tactics,” I quipped. “Consider the outcome!” I could hardly control my zeal. I continued, “Let my frail detractors accuse me of trying to eradicate free will. Nothing could be further from the truth. As long as there’s a left hand and a right hand, there’s going to be free will—the one immutable in the Universe. By Job! No, that’s not the plan. My plan is to eliminate choices. It’s simple—eliminate the object of sin and you eliminate sin. Shake all the apples from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and cast that pesky fruit into the bottomless pit!” Pastor Grayhouse dropped his fork in midair and ran out of the restaurant. No matter, at that very moment, as fate would have it, I spotted a drunkard in a business suit sitting at the bar, sloshing down a cold one. I got up deliberately and moseyed over to the despicable lush. Our eyes locked in the lighted mirror behind the bar. He held onto the bar rail like a life raft.