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Chapter 10: All the Way to Penetanguishene

  “And when ye come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.” Matthew 10:12-15

  After leaving Chair, Luke had been forging his way north towards the military Kingdom of Penetanguishene, on the salty banks of the Crimea River. “If ever there was a place that needed peace, that’s the one,” he told himself, hoping to pull his concerned citizen routine and convince them to knock off all the warrin’. “Any place that even puts ‘anguish’ in their name, needs somebody to bring them peace and happiness!”

  Stumbling through the thickness of the forest, he suddenly found his path blocked by a tall chain-link fence with concertina wire up top. Having no desire to cut himself up going over the fence, Luke followed the fence around for a while, looking for a gate. He didn’t find one, but after a little while he came across a wooden sign mounted on the fence. It was written in black permanent marker, and it said, “Penetanguishene. Keep out. Trespassers would hafta be brave and crazy.”

  “Brave and crazy. That’s me,” Luke bragged. But he wasn’t quite crazy enough to risk climbing the fence, so he pushed his way onwards through the brush, along the fence, until he found a place where a tough, free-spirited dog named Max had tunneled under the fence in order to go play in the woods with his friend Shoppity. Luke got down and wriggled under the fence. Then he stood up and dusted himself off, safe and sound in Penetanguishene; Voila.

  Then a sniper with a crossbow shot a quarrel at Luke’s head, and it lodged in his white rawhide Stetson and made him look like some colonel from an old Cowboys & First Nations movie. Luckily, Luke himself was not injured, although the bolt did part his hair quite neatly. He was a little ashamed to have been so easily detected, but not much, coz it’s hard for anyone to stay stealthy and subtle while wriggling.

  “Yikes!” said Luke. “Hey, hold up.” Two sharpshooters with rugged camouflage clothing and coonskin caps and dark beards stepped out from behind a couple of big maple trees, and approached Luke cautiously, with their crossbows leveled at his chest, and their swords ready at their sides. They looked pretty tough, actually.

  “Why have you come to Penetanguishene?” asked one of the border patrolmen softly, as his mean-looking, keen-looking, green-looking eyes scanned the woods for signs of other intruders.

  Luke said cheerfully, “Why, I thought I might make friends and influence people. Did I come at a bad time?”

  The tough border patrolman looked Luke in the eye and said sharply, “What are you, a wise guy? Well it wasn’t very wise coming here. You nearly got yourself killed.”

  “Still could,” the other added menacingly.

  Discerning his peril, Luke shrewdly followed his married father’s maxim: “When facing someone who can smell out a lie, you’d best make up something true.” So, carefully choosing the word ‘important’, rather than the word ‘official’, Luke presented himself: “Howdy. I am Luke the Hun, from Hun-Country, eldest son of Otis the Chief. I have come on an important mission of peace. I must meet with your King, the Right Honorable Scrapper Jim.”

  Now, the two patrolmen were kinda taken aback by this latest news, because they really hadn’t expected an important international figure to come crawling under their fence like that. One of them asked suspiciously, “Okay then fella, if you’re really a diplomat instead of an invader, why did you come crawling under the fence, instead of arriving by the road and checking in with the troops at the gate?”

  “Road? I didn’t know there was a road from Chair to Penetanguishene! That would have made my journey much easier, though perhaps less scenic.”

  “Yeah, well, see, there isn’t any one road that can take you from there to here, so I can understand your confusion. But it can be done--the quickest way is to go north on The 401 as far as The Kingdom of Camlachie, and then take Highway 12 north and west through Candlemeria and Schultzhagen. (Now that place is messed up),” the picket explained helpfully.

  “Thanks. Next time I’ll know,” said Luke appreciatively. “But it was prob’ly just about as fast my way anyway, since I don’t have a bus to drive or a horse to ride, and since, as you know, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

  “Speakin’ of which, let’s make a beeline to Fort Frances to see King Scrapper Jim. If you are who you say you are, you’re too important to be standing around in the rain, getting directions from the likes of us. Let’s go,” said the soft-voiced soldier. They started towards the Fort. Then he thought of something. “Hey wait a minute. You’re not ta-rickin’ us or anything, are you? You’re not really an assassin, I hope.”

  “Gosh no,” Luke said innocently, “I am a Good Ol’ Boy.” (The two are incompatible, see? To be an assassin, you have to be a ‘terrible man’, whereas the other requires that you be, well, a good ol’ boy.)

  That answer seemed to satisfy them, and the soft-voiced soldier blindfolded Luke so as not to espy their defenses, and escorted him to the Fort, while his partner went back to lurking.

  Fort Frances was quite a fearsome citadel. The whole countryside for miles around had been cut up into a huge maze, where tunnels of doom and trenches of fury were flanked by thick stone walls and underground bunkers and hideouts, so that anyone trying to get to the Fort could be shot down at the defenders’ leisure. The Fort itself was a castle on the top of a hill at the center of this nasty terrain. It was big and dark and imposing, of course, with towers, turrets, buttresses and barbicans, and an eerie storm cloud permanently swathed around its top. There was even a moat dug out around the castle, and filled with piranhas, and topped off with oil that could be set on fire in case of emergency.40 Luke was lucky, however, and he didn’t get shot down or eaten away or burned up, because he was being escorted by one of Penetanguishene’s own, so everyone knew he was okay. The soldier who was accompanying Luke called to some guys inside the castle, and told them some passwords, and they let down the drawbridge and raised the portcullis so that he and Luke could enter. They went inside, and he showed Luke into a waiting room and told him to wait. So Luke sat down on a loveseat and read a magazine.

  After a while, an athletic guy with a red shirt and blonde hair came into the waiting room and said, “Are you the emissary from Hun-Country?” Luke nodded yes. “The King will see you now,” said the blonde-haired herald. Luke got up and followed him, and was shown into a big old office, with paintings and a bookshelf and a balcony. A banner on the wall proclaimed the Penetanguishene motto: “Bones must be broken!”41 There was a sturdy fella with long black hair and a mustache and a crown, sitting at a desk. The blonde guy with the red shirt announced, “His Majesty, the Right Honorable Scrapper Jim!” and then he left.

  The sturdy fella with the crown got up and shook hands with Luke. He had a hard grip, to match his iron eyes and his ferruginous face. “Howdy, guy. You’re the ambassador from Hun-Country, I understand.”

  “Yes sir. Luke the Hun, Man of Peace and Dreams.”

  “Well, it’s swell meeting you. So how can I help you?”

  Luke smiled and suggested, “Well your honor, I was hoping I could convince you to mend your ways, and not be so warlike.”

  The black-haired guy from Penetanguishene looked startled. “Well now, that’s kind of an unusual demand. You’ll have to give me a minute to decide how to respond to that.” He offered Luke a cigar, lit one himself, then turned his back and walked to the balcony and stared out into the stormy nighttime sky, puffing and pondering. After a couple minutes, he came back from the balcony, walked right past Luke without saying a word, and left the room.

  A moment later, the blonde guy with the red shirt came in and sat down at the desk.

&
nbsp; Luke was confused. “What’s up?” he asked. “Did I do something to offend His Majesty?”

  The blond guy laughed. “Oh no, of course not! Sorry to mess with you like that. See, I’m the King. Scrapper Jim at your service.” He leaned over the desk and shook hands with Luke.

  “So then, what was that other guy all about?” Luke wondered, still not getting it.

  Scrapper Jim laughed again. “Oh, that’s just our way of guarding against assassins. See, if you were any kind of a bad guy, you would have taken a stab at my man Pedro while his back was turned. So now we know you’re harmless! I know, it seems shabby to let Pedro be the one to take the risk, but believe me, he lives for that kind of thrill. Besides, I’m the King, eh! If I can’t stick someone else with the dirty work, what kind of King would I be? Anyway, like I said, he doesn’t mind: he can take care of himself, he’s a big-time kick-boxing champion. Big-time.”

  “You guys worry a lot about invaders and assassins and stuff, huh?” Luke observed.

  “It comes with the territory. We get in a lot of wars, you know. So you always have to be ready for someone to strike back. Now in particular, since we’re at war with Cuba, and they have some first-rate devious assassins. There’s a master of disguise named Macmillan who’s said to be particularly sly. And we just captured his partner Bloedell, so we’re on high alert right now, and I can’t take any chances.” He pulled back the collar of his shirt to reveal that he was protected by a gleaming rathmantite vest. Then he continued, “But enough about all that; let’s get down to business. I hear you have come to get me to mend my ways and be peaceful.”

  Luke smiled and nodded excitedly. “Yeah! How ‘bout it?”

  Scrapper Jim shook his head. “Sorry, fella. I’d like to help you, but my hands are tied. I’ve got a job to do. Responsibilities. I can’t just back out of all these wars we’re involved in. It’s all about commitment, son. In for a penny in for a pound; if you cut and run they’ll run after you; and so forth and whatnot. But don’t worry too much, Luke: we’re not figurin’ to get into anything with Your People anytime soon. Those Huns are some dedicated scrappers, so we leave ‘em alone! Besides, you folks are usually dirt poor; even when you steal some treasure it’s soon squandered. War is a money game. Needs a payoff.”

  “Well thanks, I appreciate the gesture, but all people are my people. It troubles me when anyone is suffering.”

  Scrapper Jim might have been touched by the gentle sentiment, if he hadn’t been so astounded and amused by the irony. “Oh really? This from the next Chief of the Huns? Take the beam out of thine own eye, brother. You could bring just as much peace if you got your Huns to try being peaceful! Don’t you think you should try that first? Perhaps? As heir to the throne?” Luke was silent, hung his head, reddened a little. The truth was, he was scared to try, and sure that Huns would never go for it anyway. Much easier to talk peace to those for whom war is a business, than to those for whom war is their nature. Businesses often go under, but tigers never change their stripes. Scrapper Jim laughed bitterly, “Besides, have you forgotten your history? Penetanguishene wasn’t always the famed military power42 you see today. Remember? For a while there we were a humble agricultural nation--until the Huns came along and kicked the crop out of us! A peaceful people, until the year when the Huns beat the peace out of us!”

  Luke gulped, remembering now the glory-stories he had heard as a boy, of the Third Year under General Strike, the year that the Huns had captured the Bus Station in Winter Park--and how they had subsequently cut a dashing image riding into villages, smashing through stick huts, and then offloading hundreds of husky Huns to sack each defenses-down town (until the buses had finally run out of gas and been cursed, kicked and abandoned, like a child who couldn’t fight.) The year the Huns had acquired the favorite rallying cry: “All the way to Penetanguishene!”

  “So, that’s quite a noble sentiment, Luke,” Scrapper Jim continued. “And hey, I don’t like suffering either. But these things happen. In a perfect world, there would be no war: but I can’t make this a perfect world. We’re human, eh. ‘As long as there are men, there will be war...’” he quoted. “No matter how nice a guy you are, someday, somewhere, someone isn’t going to like you. And they might even try to do you harm. So we don’t bother being nice guys anymore. It’s safer to be tough guys.”

  “Except, no matter how tough you are, someday, somewhere, someone will be tougher. And that’s when this whole dirty business will come back to haunt you,” Luke warned prophetically.

  Scrapper Jim didn’t deny it. “True, true. Someday I will go down. But that’s a soldier’s duty. We’ve lost a lot of boys down in the Andes, and we had a nasty campaign against the Kingdom of O’Neil. I’ve held dying comrades in my arms, Luke, and it’s not pleasant. Not pleasant at all. I understand that. But everyone of ’em went out with the satisfaction of knowing that they’d served their country, and helped to win independence, safety and prosperity for the wives and children they left behind. That’s what this is really all about, Luke. If someone does me wrong, it doesn’t matter. But if they threaten those I love...” King Scrapper Jim held up scarred hands, as if to say, There’s no telling what I might do. He repeated, “It’s all about commitment. It may be well and good to turn the other cheek, but is it right to force my children to turn theirs? And anyway, we don’t look at war as the continuing cost of freedom. We look at it as a temporary evil, thinking, Hey, I hope someday everyone will know that we’re the toughest around, and will pay tribute instead of requiring conquest. It’s a philosophy called Peace through Strength.”

  Luke listened carefully, and then he drawled country-boy slowly, “Well, I’ve got a philosophy of my own. It’s called Peace through Bein’ Peaceful.” He paused to let that sink in, before continuing: “And you speak of your commitment to your family and your countrymen, but what about your commitment to everyone else? All those foreign soldiers you fight against, are they any less human? Is it any less tragic when they die in battle? Don’t they also have families and loved ones they’re protectin’? Aren’t we all connected? It ain’t right to go flyin’ your flag and pretendin’ you have to look out for your own, because we all belong to each other, and we have to go lookin’ out for everybody. I know you love your family, but you gotta learn to love everyone else’s family too. It’s all about love,” Luke countered. “I think maybe we gotta find ourselves a Bigger Love, that includes everyone, not just a few. Don’t be gettin’ nationalistic and drawing lines between yourself and others just because they speak with strange tongues, or live far away, or look a little different, or call themselves by a different name. It ain’t right, King. So cut it out.”

  Luke realized he was sounding idealistic and goofy. It was insufficient. So he leaned in, locked his gaze on the King’s steely eyes, and breathed slowly, adding the theme he had thought about throughout his tortuous years in Iowa. “No, it’s worse than ‘not right’. Killing is the worst evil you can do. Every time you take a life, you destroy your own equal. It’s an act of undoing. Unmaking. Everything you will create, every goal you will achieve, everyone you will love and honor and bring joy to for the rest of your life… is canceled out by what might have been done by the human being you have ended.” They regarded each other coolly in silence, one with guilt and one with annoyance, for a long moment after Luke finished quietly: “Tell me Your Majesty… how many lives do you suppose we’ve taken, between the two of us?”

  Unprepared to guess, unable to argue, but unwilling to change, Scrapper Jim finally looked away, and laughed, and wrote Luke off instead. “Hey, I like it; you’ve got some beautiful ideas about Peace, Unity, and Havin’ Fun.43 But until everyone else agrees, we’ll be keeping our guard up. Everyone wants peace, but everyone’s afraid to be the first one to lay down their arms! That’s the irony of the soldier’s life, Luke: we all hate war, but we’ll get into it whenever there’s an opportunity! Maybe it’s because strength is our most familiar way of solving ou
r problems? Or maybe it’s because we’re just plain fools! You’re right; we probably are foolish to fight and divide instead of loving. But then again...maybe it’s human nature to be foolish... And as long as that’s so, I’d rather be a live fool than a dead one! So I don’t reckon I’ll be demilitarizing Penetanguishene just yet, Luke. But thanks for tryin’. Who knows, at some level your advice might sink in and soften my heart, and maybe now I’ll be not quite so grim, and somewhat less likely to kill on a whim, (though in hoops I‘ll still take it hard to the rim!) No promises though. After all, I’m Scrapper Jim, and fighting is what I do best!” (Cracking his knuckles.)

  Luke wondered guiltily which was sicker: his Huns, for failing to even see that war was evil, or this nation, which seemed to know what war was, and justified it anyway. He shuddered in disgust and segued into disappointment. Then he looked out the window at the darkness and he sighed. “Hmm. I prob’ly wouldn’t have any better luck talkin’ to any of the other mean kings, would I? Any other advice on what else I could do, your Majesty?”

  The blonde guy with the red shirt and the chip on his shoulder tried to be helpful: “Well Luke, I’d say that World Peace may just be a little bit out of your power. But keep doing what you can! Be peaceful yourself, and keep talkin’ sense; but try to keep your mind off what’s inevitable. Maybe get a wife and kids and a house in the country in some peaceful out-of-our-way place. Oh yeah, and one more thing some people try: Pray for peace,” he suggested unsurely. Not that he had ever tried it himself, but it seemed that Luke might find it more comforting than his own military experiences and mercenary philosophies.

  “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind,” Luke said awkwardly, suddenly remembering that he was already supposed to have done that! He wondered whether forgetting to pray had cost him a golden opportunity here in Penetanguishene, or whether the cause had been beyond help. He could almost hear Hosanna’s voice, as he imagined what she might tell him--that no one is beyond help, and nothing is beyond God’s power! Luke suddenly regretted the way he had approached his whole Peace Crusade: First he had tried to wield power, and then he had tried to talk sense. Instead of just talking to the One who supposedly had the most sense, and the most power! So Luke sighed again and was sad.

  The Right Honorable Scrapper Jim got from his desk put his arm around Luke’s slumped shoulders, and led him out to the hallway. “Come on,” he told him. “We’ll fix you up in the guest room tonight, and I’ll have them bring you some dinner.”

  He showed Luke to his room, and then the servants brought Luke a big, tasty dinner: lettuce, peanuts, oatmeal, fish sticks, raisin bread, spinach stew, an apple, a bologna sandwich and a tumbler of milk, plus an ice-cream bar for dessert. Luke was real hungry because he hadn’t had too many square meals while roamin’ through the forest between Chair and Penetanguishene. So he ate it all up, licked his lips, read his Bible, felt a little better, and went to bed.

  As soon as the door was closed, however, Scrapper Jim instructed his soldiers: “Give him till about five in the morning. Then sneak in, seize him, and throw him in the Instinkerator.” (That was the Kingdom’s garbage disposal: cheaper than lighting an incinerator, and it paid for itself twice over--after letting the garbage compost for a while, they could sell it as fertilizer to farmers just across the border, at exorbitant prices, kind of like charging protection money. Also, it made a handy dungeon, carrying a public shame factor, sorta like being placed in the stocks, coz everyone in the kingdom could smell out who the deviant was.) Scrapper Jim gave a bitter laugh, coz the only thing he liked better than getting somebody, was pretending to be their friend and then getting them. Later on, he passed the word to his generals: “If they’re sending us this guy, the Huns have gone soft! Circle the date in red on your calendars: next spring we march on Hun-Country!” Even so, perhaps Luke’s forthright appeal was already sinking in--there was a time when he might have followed an even more sinister impulse, to ‘give the voice of peace a tracheotomy’.

  Meanwhile, Luke was having a great dream, that everyone was happy and peaceful and there was a rainbow and a shinybright sun and the houses were made of gingerbread. He also had an even better dream where he was given a kiss by a calm, funny, pretty blonde gal named Trilby! Want overwhelmed him. Longing filled his heart. Unfortunately, Luke woke suddenly from sweet dreams into drab granite, where he realized both dreams were just fantasies and was sad.

  Something--he was not sure this time if it was his Hun instincts, or something better--was telling him it would be dangerous to linger. So he got up and snuck down the corridor into the King’s office, found a letter opener in a drawer, and carved a peace symbol into the expensive oaken desk: There. “For a memory,” he grinned.

  Then Luke moved quietly out to the lobby. But here, with a chill, he realized the severity of his plight: he had been allowed in, like a squirrel into a trap; but going back out, with no escort to see him safely through the Penetanguishene defenses, might be a tricky business indeed, even for a Double-Secret Super-Scout Warrior.

  There was a guard at the drawbridge, with his back to Luke, peering out through a small window into the night. Luke could feel a rush of adrenaline, and Hun instincts proposing a solution: ‘Take the easy kill, get out of the castle, and run the gauntlet.’ His feet remembered the way he had come, even though he had been blindfolded. With any luck, he could sprint by a few of the sentries before they even caught on, and then could hope not to be struck by more than a few arrows on the way out. Huns have thick skin and hard hearts, maybe this would be enough protection to allow survival and escape. Wouldn’t it?

  He drew his blade for a strike on the broad back of the gatekeeper, but then hesitated, as the horror and hypocrisy of this plan struck him. Strike down an innocent fellow man? (A man with children perhaps...) After having already confessed, repented, and forsaken that wickedness? Luke sickened at the idea, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to do the right thing--surrender, and possibly forfeit his own life--either. So he put away the knife, and paused awkwardly, trying desperately to think of a better way.

  In the moment’s pause, the keeper moved. He had sensed Luke’s presence. He had divined his intentions. And now he moved his hand quickly towards a lever beside him...

  Seeing the motion, Luke gasped--thinking it was an alarm, believing himself undone! Then gasped again as he saw the drawbridge drop open!

  The gatekeeper turned and explained calmly, “You have come in peace, so you should leave in peace.”

  Surprised and suspicious, Luke asked hopefully, “These orders are from the King?

  “I owe allegiance to the King of Penetanguishene. But I owe greater allegiance to the King of Heaven. ‘I had rather be a door keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness’, you’ll remember,” he quoted. “I must do the right thing, and it’s not right to see you made a prey, just because you trusted our ‘Penetanguishene hospitality’. Come, I can help you.” The gatekeeper tugged Luke’s arm, and led him out over the drawbridge.

  “Can you just do that? Leave your post? Leave the gate wide open?” Luke worried that desertion of duty could mean death for a Penetanguishene soldier. As anxious as Luke was to leave, he balked at accepting his own safety at the expense of a friend’s.

  The gatekeeper was fearless, calmly accepting the risk: “We are called to show the same love as Jesus, who said, and proved, that ‘there is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ But hopefully, it’s a decision I’ll get to make more than once: I’m not going far...” They reached the first sentinel. “Here is Murphy. A fellow Christian. He’ll take you the rest of the way, blindfolded again, and it will look to everyone like this is from the King. (Which it is, just not the one they mean...) And when they ask me about it tomorrow, I’ll just tell the truth: Since your business was completed, we saw you out with an escort, by the book. At worst they’ll consider it bad judgment, not treason.”

  Luke tried to thank the gatek
eeper before they parted, but the man was already on his way back into the castle, with a smile and a wave, and a cheerful, “Pray for us!”

  Luke had to honor the request. After Murphy guided him swiftly and silently through the labyrinth and towards the border, Luke said his first prayer since childhood: “God? If you’re there? Protect these your faithful servants, and let there not be too angry an investigation! (please.)” He wasn’t sure if it even went through, but he hoped.

  Then Luke journeyed on, with no destination save destiny, on a misty-bright early morning.

  The air (like God’s children, Luke decided gratefully), was pure and good.