Deadline (57 page)

With a roar like a Lion and a quick brush of his hand, the Champion knocked each of these busybodies over the ropes, not bothering to see where they landed. He kept his eye on Jake, not out of fear—it was obvious he feared no man and had no reason to—but out of great personal interest.

Another jab to the chin. Another blow to the midsection. Here came a heart stopping haymaker right to the chest, splashing sweat two rows into the crowd. But Jake would not give up. He would not surrender. Ten count after ten count, he kept getting back up. Football and boot camp and Nam and thousands of deadlines had taught him how to keep going when by all rights he shouldn’t.

The stifling heat of the center ring and the sweaty smell of worn canvas threatened to overwhelm the queasy challenger, but he would fight until he could no longer lift an arm. Jake looked to see the steely determination and thirst for blood in the eyes of the Champ. It wasn’t there. He realized he hadn’t looked in those eyes before. He’d only imagined the Champ’s ill-will toward him, seeing what he expected to see, not what was there. Now for the first time he looked, really looked. He saw strength, incredible strength, but he also saw goodness, kindness, compassion. He saw strength under control—the essence of manhood. Omnipotence governed by goodness and purpose—the essence of godhood. He saw an opponent who did not want to be an opponent. An adversary who had declared himself a friend, who was fighting only at Jake’s insistence. One who wanted to be in Jake’s corner, if only Jake would surrender, would recognize and acknowledge him to whom the belt and the title already belonged.

But Jake had learned to fight, no matter what. To admit defeat was the ultimate insult, an unthinkable blow to his self-esteem. Jake heard voices in the crowd, many of them unfamiliar. It was like standing in the international terminals at Kennedy airport, hearing languages he’d never heard before. He caught a glance of people in robes, wearing sandals, some with no shoes, wearing tree bark on their feet. They had all colors of skin, all kinds of clothing.

Now another man stepped into the ring, wearing a collar, holding a black book. It appeared to be a Bible, but a very small one, which Jake intuitively knew had been edited down from the original to include only the sayings this man liked. He’d ridded it of all he found offensive. This time the Champ could not refrain from a comment. His eyes were full of rage, not toward Jake, but toward the minister-referee.

“You dare to try to soften the blows of the Almighty? You dare to edit my Book, to dilute my Word? To deceive and prolong the agony of this one I love? Stay out of the ring, you who would cross the sea to produce a convert and make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself. This isn’t about you, it’s about him and me. It’s between the two of us. Depart from me!”

With a flick of a hand, he knocked the man three rows back.

Jake took advantage of his opponent’s distraction and landed a solid blow to the Champ’s midsection. His hand and wrist burned. His opponent did not flinch. Jake had given his best shot, but the Champ was unaffected. The Champ’s eyes didn’t burn with rage now, but were filled with a cool sadness.

This opponent was like no other. Jake had defeated adversaries on the field, in debate, in the classroom, in the rice paddies. He had defeated writers and editors, candidates and sports heroes, ministers and judges. With pen and typewriter, computer terminal and phone call and column, he had made them all eat dust. No matter what they said, he always had the last word. Not this time, not with this One. This One would have the last word. This One was the last word.

Suddenly Jake noticed his opponent was bleeding, and from the strangest places—from his hands and feet and from a long wound in his side. Why? Jake had hardly touched him. Yet somehow Jake knew he had once joined others, a myriad of others, in a galactic-sized mob that beat this man senseless. These wounds were the reopening of old ones, ancient wounds inflicted upon the Champion before the dawn of time. He was bleeding profusely. It amazed Jake, and moved him, that one so powerful was capable of bleeding.

A wraith now dared to ring the bell and declare the round over, as if he had authority to do so. One piercing side glance from the Champion and the wraith frantically flew to the far end of the arena, cowering like a dog expecting a whipping, begging for mercy yet wanting nothing of mercy but on his own terms, pathetically drooling and slobbering. He wore an old sweat-drenched robe that declared he was champion of the universe.

A gang of equally wretched beings surrounded him and whined and whimpered continuous tales of how unfair and cruel the Champion had been to them all. The irony hit Jake with the force and sting of a bullwhip—a world full of little self-important gods, self-proclaimed champions. But only One was worthy of the title.

Jake retreated to his corner, looking for solace and help, but there was no one there. He’d been abandoned. Where were the coaches who said his teams were the best, his commander who said his company was the finest, his philosophy professor who applauded him, his psychology instructor who told him he was so competent, his journalism professors and editors and admiring public who had told him he was the best, that no one was better?

Where was Doc now? And Finney? He’d always counted on having them in his corner. Doc’s voice he could no longer hear, but Jake swore he could hear Finney’s voice. Yes, there he was, a few rows back. But he was saying all the wrong things, Finney-like things. He seemed to be rooting for Jake’s good, but he kept calling on him to throw in the towel and bow to the Champion. To lose his life that he might find it.

Jake’s arms fell limp, slapping against his sweat-drenched sides. Overcome with fatigue, drained of everything, he was finally willing to give up and die.

“Go ahead,” he spoke to the Champion. “You’ve won. Go ahead and kill me.”

Jake closed his battered swollen eyes, anticipating the blow from which he would never awake.

But the blow did not come. And now there was someone in his corner, a coach offering mouthwash and a towel and leading the blinded challenger to the comfort of the stool. A manager wishing him the best and willing to do anything to help him, to relieve his pain, to help recondition him and get him back in the ring fighting opponents of his own caliber in his own weight class. There was no shame in this, he assured him. Everything would be all right. Tears and blood and sweat blurred the manager’s image beyond recognition, but having been abandoned to his misery, any help was now welcome.

As his eyes were tended and cleaned, vision began to return. But wait, his comforter’s hands and feet were bleeding. What was
he
doing in Jake’s corner? Was there no escaping him? Who was this … this hound of heaven who relentlessly pursued him, who relentlessly pummeled him, who relentlessly loved him?

“No more. I meant what I said. I give up. I am so tired, so sick of myself, so tired of living life by my rules and not yours. You win. I accept your terms of surrender, whatever they are. Take my life … or use it, whatever you wish.”

Jake cried, at first in despair, but then with heartfelt relief. The coach sprayed the astringent over his swollen gums, lifted the Gatorade to his parched lips. He held Jake’s head in his strong hands. Jake’s neck muscles could no longer bear the weight, but he felt the Champion’s strength where he had none.

The irony pierced Jake’s soul. Of all people, the one helping was the One he had always resisted. Those who had claimed to be Jake’s advocates were nowhere to be found. Those who had heralded him and bet on his ability to win had slunk out the door, disgusted at his loss, yet powerless to help him win. Those who had tried to make the rules, to bend them, to tip the advantage to him, were all gone, caring nothing for him now that he belonged to someone else.

One voice and only one voice responded. “I have stopped, as I have longed to stop, for finally you have bowed your knee to me. You have turned from certain death and chosen eternal life. I am your God and also your friend.”

Jake’s eyes began to focus. No one was there but the One. He had the fierce strength of a lion, the vulnerable warmth of a lamb. He was all God and all man.

He carried Jake to the center of the ring and gently lifted his rubbery arm alongside his own.

“I have won for both of us, Jake. In the defeat that bloodied my hands and feet and side, there is victory for you. In the defeat that now bloodies your life you have entered into the victory I bought with my blood. I have redeemed you, my son. Heaven will be the place of our eternal celebration. Welcome to my family. In losing to me you have won the battle for life.”

And Jake, for one wonderful moment, knew that the dream was not a dream, or that if a dream, it was much more. It was a dream with a life of its own. A dream that had reached out to him from another place and touched him in a way that would leave him never the same.

Jake gasped, bolting up wide awake, as if he had not just been asleep, but held in sleep, and was now abruptly released. He was soaked. Certain he was dripping with his own blood, he grabbed for the reading light, but it wasn’t in the right place. He found himself instead pawing a lamp, then grimacing as its brightness harpooned his eyes.

No, it wasn’t blood. He was dripping with sweat, panting and exhausted. Why was he in the living room? And fully clothed? It was a dream, Jake thought. It was, and yet it wasn’t. As his heart began to calm from the great leap from one world to another, some of the dream’s vivid details began to leave him.

He looked at the clock on the VCR. 3:38
A.M.
, December 26. He’d never gone to bed. He’d fallen asleep reading in the recliner; he vaguely remembered turning off the light as he drifted into unconsciousness. He started to sit back down on the recliner, then instead slipped down on his knees in front of it.

He went back to his thoughts and prayers hours earlier when he’d read Finney’s letter, and the book by Lewis, and the verses from the Bible. His thoughts went again to his friend Hyuk, who had failed to protect his mother, wife, and child. Though Hyuk was not to blame, Jake finally admitted that in his case there was no one to blame but himself. He had been given the job of loving and protecting and leading his family. In failing to do so he had betrayed them, and also betrayed the one who had created him and assigned him the duty he had shirked. He would have died for his buddies in Nam, yet he had failed to live for those to whom his obligation was greatest, those who had needed him the most.

Only a coward would make a baby pay for his mistake. He confessed his sin of abortion. Only a liar would cheat on his wife and leave her. He confessed his sins of adultery and divorce. Only a selfish fool would fail to be there for a daughter who needed him. He confessed his sin of desertion. Only an ingrate would turn away from a mother who had made untold sacrifices for him. He confessed his sin of dishonor and neglect. Only a sinner would reject the truth and resist God’s grace to stubbornly live his own way. He confessed his sin of willful unbelief.

No amount of rationalization made it right to abandon and neglect and violate sacred promises to those it was his duty to love and defend and care for. He’d been wrong, dead wrong, and he knew it. No excuses. He didn’t have the goodness or the power to live right, and for the first time, he knew that too.

Jake, who’d never even admitted to his mother he’d smoked out in the tool-shed, now admitted far greater offenses to God. He took full responsibility and asked for the power to live right. There was relief in the confession. He wasn’t good enough to do life on his own. He no longer had to pretend to be.

In a place far away, yet very close, an old friend applauded and raced around wildly, hugging men, some whose names he didn’t yet know, and angels who marveled at the depth of human emotion. He yelled triumphantly and heralded the good news, incredibly wonderful good news. Finally, he fell on his knees in ecstatic praise, but soon was on his feet again, celebrating in uninhibited and unrestrained rejoicing, of the sort that no one who has spent his life confined to the dark world can begin to understand. Joining him were cadres of angels, rejoicing with him in a miracle that had never lost its wonder … rejoicing that one more child of Adam had become a child of God.

Janet and Carly had been at Jake’s apartment three hours, since 6:00 in the evening. It was a cold, white New Year’s Eve day, but none of them had felt so warm in years. They’d been engrossed in conversation, telling stories of the old days, including family camping disasters that now seemed hilarious, but which Janet and Carly reminded Jake hadn’t amused him at the time.

“Was I really that grouchy?”

They looked at each other, smiling like a couple of Cheshire cats, and at the same moment said, “Yeah, you really were.” They giggled like school girls.

“Why do I feel like you’re ganging up on me?” But he didn’t really. What he felt was something refreshing and startling, something old and yet very new. Something that brought into sharp focus what he’d been missing the last three years. Something connected directly with the events of the previous week, the dream and the things he’d said on his knees on this very living room floor.

“I hate to say it, but we’ve got to go,” Janet’s voice hinted she wanted to be talked out of it.

“So soon?” Jake asked, his disappointment obviously genuine. Janet was astounded. To feel wanted by Jake seemed so … foreign.

“How about I run out and get that gallon of milk so we can have some hot chocolate first?” Jake asked. “Mom always made us hot chocolate on New Year’s Eve.”

It sounded so childish, so vulnerable. So unlike Jake. He didn’t notice, but Janet did.

“Come with me, will you, Carly?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“Want to join us, Janet?”

“No thanks, you two go. I’ll stay where it’s warm. How about some eggnog too? That’s what we used to drink on New Year’s Eve.”

“Great. Eggnog it is.”

“Button up your coat, sweetheart.”

“Yes, mother dear.” Looking at Jake, Carly added, “If it wasn’t for Mom I’d never think to button my coat when it’s twenty degrees outside!”