Manhattan Mission

Manhattan Mission

  By Darrel Bird

  Copy©right 2014 by Darrel Bird

  Bobby Grant was known in his biker gang as ‘The Preacher’, and his gospel was to deliver the drugs intact, and bring the money back or else. This particular day wasn’t Eddy ‘Banger’ Simpson’s best day, as he had left with the drugs in his saddle bags, and returned to the club just off 69th street empty handed. The club was located on Watts street in lower Manhattan; it was an old garage with dank concrete walls and in the middle of the floor in one of the back rooms, they had bolted a barber's chair to the concrete floor.

  This day Banger was strapped tightly to the seat with duct tape, but no one outside the building could hear him scream. The preacher reached into his mouth with a pair of water pump pliers, and snagged Bangers front tooth. Out came the front tooth as Banger screamed out his pain.

  “Where is the money for the drugs' Banger?”

  “I told you they took the druth, but they wouldn’t give me the money, the dirty bathurds cheated uth!”

  Blood was running down Banger's chin in rivulets. The preacher reached back in for another tooth, and as he squeezed the handles of the pliers, the other three bikers in the room heard the enamel crackle; Banger screamed again.

  The preacher heard a voice in his head, “What are you doing?” said the voice.

  “Who said that…who the hell said that?” He glared around the room.

  The other three bikers looked at one another, “We didn’t say nothin’ preacher!”

  The preacher looked around the room, and then reached back into Banger’s mouth with the pliers, and the voice said again, “What are you doing?”

  “I heard that, you sum-bitches better shut up, or you’re going to be in this chair!” He glared at the other three. A glimmer of hope came into the suffering Banger’s eyes on the slight chance that one of the others would take his place in that awful chair.

  The voice rang out in preachers head a third time, “What are you doing?” And the preacher knew the voice was in his own head. He just dropped the pliers on the floor and walked into the ‘Church’ and sat down in his seat at the head of the table. The ‘Church’ was the room where the inner circle of the biker gang held their meetings. They ruled the drug trade in lower Manhattan with an iron fist. He looked around at the swastikas and skulls that lined the walls.

  “What the hell was that?” He mumbled. He hadn’t seen Bobo walk into the room behind him.

  “I don’t know preacher, I didn’t hear nothin’”

  “Get out of here…get out, and stay out!”

  Bobo slithered through the door, and closed it as quietly as he could behind him, got on his Harley, and left for safer ground.

  “I gotta get my head straight… must have been some bad stuff we had last night.” He mumbled to himself. He got up from the table, and walked out the door to the large garage room, “Where’s my bike? Where is my damn bike?”

  “Its over there Preacher, where it always sits.” A biker by the name of Louie said. Preacher walked over to the Harley full dresser, straddled it, and angrily turned the ignition as the bike roared to life. The tires squealed as he left the building. He ran the bike up to fifty miles per hour on the narrow streets that led to the bridge overpass. He rode the bike under the overpass, and turned off the ignition. This was his thinking place with nothing but the cars' passing overhead, and the Sea gulls screaming out their quest for dinner.

  “I think I’m losin’ it.” And the voice spoke in his head again, “Go to the mission on third, and I will speak to you there.”

  “What the hell is this?” But the voice had gone silent. He knew where the mission on third was as they passed it regularly on their various trips into upper Manhattan.

  He sat on the bike thinking, and then, What the hell, I’ll just take a turn down there…can’t hurt. He threw his leg over the seat, and cranked the bike.

  When he got to the mission, he parked the bike in a no parking zone, and walked cautiously through the door, as a mission was not his normal habitat. He looked around at the usual wino’s, homeless, and the down and out as he walked into the room.

  There was an old man speaking at the head of the room, the people didn’t seem all that thrilled to have to hear someone speak for their dinner, but those were the rules. The man was going on about heaven, and hell when all of a sudden he stopped speaking, and pointed right at preacher with his long bony finger, “God sent you here mister man; I'll talk to you in a few minutes; you just sit right there, and don’t move.”

  Preacher froze in the man’s stare like a deer in headlights, What the hell? Was the first thing that went through his mind.

  “Hell ain’t what this is about son, you just sit there!” And Preacher didn’t dare move a muscle as he waited for the man to finish preaching his sermon on death, hell, and the grave. The people looked strangely at the man with a heavy beard, and doo rag that featured a devil in bright red. His motorcycle jacket’s silver brads gleamed in the dim light. They would have gotten up, and walked out if hunger hadn’t gotten the best of them. They weren’t afraid of him because they were nothing at the bottom of a well of nothing. The dregs of Manhattan sent stares at him like he was a ghost sitting in a chair where he ought not to sit.

  The man soon finished, and asked if anyone would like him to prey for them. A homeless man shuffled up, staving off his hunger long enough to be preyed for, and the man laid his hand on the fellow's shoulder, and preyed softly. Tears came to the homeless mans eyes, as he got up to go eat in the dining room of the mission.

  “Ain’t much different from us…church, and then eat.” Preacher mumbled under his breath. “Same song, different place.” Little did the Preacher realize that it wasn’t the same song, as the man walked back to where he sat.

  The man laid his hand on the Preachers shoulder, “God has a work for you son.” The old man said in a voice so soft the Preacher could barely hear him.

  “Whats does God want with me old man?”

  “That ain’t for me to know, he just told me he sent you down here. All I know is the gospel of Jesus.”

  “Whats the gospel of Jesus got to do with me? What can you tell me about this voice in my head?”

  “Why the gospel of Jesus has to do with everybody son, Jesus lived, died, and rose the third day to save us all. I ain’t privy to the voices in your head. What did the voices say?”

  “Voice, numb nuts, not voices. I ain’t crazy; I was busy pulling Bangers teeth with a pair of pliers when this voice in my head asked me what I was doing.”

  “And you don’t think that is a little crazy?”

  “I thought it might be, until the voice told me to come here, and it would speak to me again.”

  “Well, I ain’t into nobodies head; I can pray for you, but that’s about all I can do for you.”

  “How long will that take? I got to get back to the club. Bangers still tied up to the chair.”

  “Whose Banger?”

  “He took the drugs, but didn’t bring the money back.”

  “And you blame Banger for it?”

  “Well…he hauled the drugs.”

  “I think God has different plans for you son; he ain’t in the drug running business. Let's pray…”

  The man laid his hand on the Preachers shoulder, and began to let the hammer down on a prayer that sent shivers through Preachers soul. A warmth came over him accompanied by a power that left him weak, and shaking in the chair. His past life ran out of him like a bucket of puke, and when the man was done, the Preacher was a different creature than the one that had walked into that room.

  “I’m going to give you this Bible; it has everything you need to know in it son. That’s about all I can do for you. God
will speak to you as you read it.”

  “Hows he going to speak to me out of just words?”

  “You’ll see; by the way, what is your name?”

  “They call me the Preacher cause I’m the meanest mo…uh…man around.”

  The man smiled at him, “Well. It's apt son…its apt.”

  “I don’t know whether to thank you, or bust your face mister.”

  “Oh you couldn’t bust my face if you tried unless the Lord allowed, but thanks aren’t necessary either. Drop in and see me some time.”

  “I don’t think so, but well…uh…thanks anyway.”

  “Its all right. Its been…well…different.” He the old man said, smiling as he