“It is impossible for someone who has not had a personal experience of God, that deep-down heartfelt transformation, to accept that laws can be truly eternal. And without this belief born of personal experience, law will remain something to scramble around, rather than something to strive to uphold.
“It is impossible for anyone to remain totally within the law. The Bible is full of this fact, as anyone who has studied it can testify. It is a three-thousand-year legacy of man's weakness. But with an acceptance of God, we can be assured that man will at least try to follow the law. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all we can hope for. That man will try.
“Man has developed a myriad of terms to describe a government without God seeking to rule a people without God. And how many words are in our vocabulary because of man's inhumanity to manâcommunism, pogrom, anarchy, dictatorship, military coup, Stalinism, concentration camps, civil rebellion, prisoners' suicides. How many of us are doomed to a hell on earth because of the absence of God from our lives?”
There were fifty people who listened to the professor that first class. By the time the next class met, forty-three of the students had opted for other courses. One of them had made his opinion very clear in a conversation that TJ had happened to overhear. What's the point, the student had told a friend, of listening to five months of some religious nut? His friend had agreed and added, it's hard enough to make a living out there anyway, without carrying around this extra burden of guilt.
****
On their way to lunch, TJ listened with half an ear to Blair's determined chatter. The people moving past them were mostly male, mostly white, and most looking urgently important.
The cafeteria was a clutter of noise and people and tables of various sizes. Blair led him through the serving line and over to a larger table that still had two empty places. From the expression on Blair's face he clearly knew everyone.
TJ set his tray down, but before Blair could follow suit a large woman with bright red hair shouldered past him and jammed her tray down with a clatter. Dull eyes in a face caked with makeup dared him to argue.
Blair hesitated, his confidence clearly shaken. He said, “It's okay, TJ. I'll see you after lunch.”
TJ watched his only acquaintance in the room turn and walk away. He decided to excuse himself and follow, but the other black man at the table stood and extended his hand.
“Carter Williams,” he said. “You look about as lost as I did my first day here.”
“TJ Case. Nice to meet you.” He shook the proffered hand. “I'm sorry it shows.”
“Don't apologize. Everybody's got to start sometime.” He looked at the redheaded woman who had taken Blair's place. “Right, Bella?”
“Don't ask me,” said a voice made from equal parts gravel and boredom. The woman did not even look up from her food. “I just work here.”
Williams gave the top of her head a sardonic look and rolled his eyes at TJ. “Come on, sit down. I'll introduce you so you can get busy and forget everybody's name.”
Swiftly he introduced the other six around the table, giving brief anecdotes about their background and positions. TJ saw a group of intelligent, carefully casual people who inspected him intently. No instant judgment here. Just caution. They were all good at what they did, he was positive of that. Very good.
“And this is Bella Saunders,” said Williams, completing the circle. “She's one of the top OMB liaisons with White House staffers on that most important of policy instruments.” Carter was giving special emphasis to his words, his eyes losing their gleam as he gave TJ a warning look. “I'm talking about money.”
“Without which nothing gets done,” a woman across the table added, her eyes carrying the same warning.
“I see,” TJ said noncommittally.
They were clearly not satisfied with his reaction. “The OMB approves all the funding proposals coming out of the various agencies,” Williams continued. “Including the White House and all OEOB policies. And anytime a White House staffer,
like you,
has to testify before a congressional committee, your testimony has to be approved first by the OMB.”
“Extremely powerful,” a young man said from the far end of the table, speaking into his coffee cup.
“Bella's been here longer than anybody, haven't you, Bella?”
“I've seen 'em come, watched 'em go.” She looked at TJ with eyes as devoid of emotion as her voice. “Thomas Jefferson Case, late of Raleigh, North Carolina. Seconded by senatorial recommendation to the position of Special Assistant to the President for Educational Affairs.”
The man on the other side of Bella snapped his fingers. “Case. Yeah, now I remember. You're the guy who switched parties to help that congressman with his campaign. What was his name?”
“Silverwood,” TJ said, impressed with their knowledge and feeling even more the novice.
“Yeah, that's it. Silverwood.” The man said to the others, “Brought over half the black vote. First time in history we've got a Republican congressman from that district.”
“Special emphasis on education of gifted children,” Bella went on in her whiskey-and-cigarette rasp. “Answers to Mason Whitfield.” She turned to TJ. “Bet you haven't even met the man yet.”
“Bella knows everything about everybody,” one of the women broke in. Her voice laid the compliment down heavy, but her eyes were saying something else entirely.
“It's my job to know,” Bella said.
Thankfully the conversation turned to lighter topics, and TJ did what was clearly expected, which was to watch and listen. He felt it was all a theater put on for his benefit.
“I saw a good one today,” said the young man seated across from Bella. “A sign on somebody's desk over in Commerce says, âThe First Law of Bureaucracy: The first 90% of a job takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes the other 90%.' ““That's nothing,” said the woman across from TJ, shaking her head. Her spiky brown hair, stiff with mousse, didn't move. “I had to go over to Senator Jenson's office yesterday, and his secretary's got this sign that says, âThe more garbage you put up with, the more garbage you're going to get.' ““Yeah, I know her,” Bella said. She had the weariest eyes TJ had ever seen. “She tried to steal my coffee cup the last time she was in my office.”
“The one that says âThe first guy who makes a sexist remark gets this hot coffee in his lap'? ““Yeah, I love that little grin the lady on the mug is wearing,” someone remarked.
“And that line on the reverse side, âHave a nice day.' It's perfect. Where'd you ever find it?”
“It's a limited edition of one,” Bella replied smugly. TJ glanced at the other faces, realized they were paying her homage.
“You still liking your new job?” someone asked the woman across from him.
“It's great,” she replied. “I landed in a real California-type agency. I feel totally at home. It's so laid back you'd think the receptionist was passing out Valium.”
“Wow.”
As TJ listened to the empty banter, a change came over him. It was so gradual, so quiet in its approach, that he was not even sure when it began. But he did not question its arrival. It felt like a milder form of the sensations he had known that morning on the lake.
“It's totally broke,” the woman was saying. “We get these daily memos asking if anyone wants to take early out, get pregnant, or sign on for a year's leave of absence.”
“Sounds incredible.”
He was having difficulty concentrating on the conversation around him. His chest filled with some silent powerâa living presence, a sense of higher awareness so strong that the scene before his eyes withdrew to a vast distance. The empty faces, the calculating eyes seemed like a dream. Only the sense of power growing within him was real.
“Yeah, just goes to show,” Carter Williams said, giving TJ a wink. “Dreams really do come true in Washington.”
“I guess it's too early to ask what you'll be doing?” one of the men asked TJ. The question was placed casually, but all eyes were on him now, ready to probe, study, and judge.
“I'm not exactly sure what my responsibilities will be,” TJ replied. He had real difficulty in saying the words. There was something else that needed to be done. He understood a growing purpose, a calm urgency, a need to be fulfilled. It did not matter that the sensation was illogical. The presence of the Holy Spirit was real. Guide me, Father, TJ prayed, and waited.
Bella finished her coffee and set her cup down with a clatter, as though demanding that attention return to her. “Well, you've just joined the only organization on earth that doesn't discriminate,” she remarked.
The group was locked into an immediate embarrassment. Carter Williams looked straight at TJ, said nothing.
“Oh, there's discrimination, all right,” one of the men said, trying to make a joke. “In Washington, though, it's based on who's got power and who doesn't.”
“That's not discrimination,” Bella declared flatly. “That's politics.” She refused to see that she was making everyone thoroughly uncomfortable. “Black people here are just like anybody else. We don't follow the slave mentality you still find in the rest of the country.”
Silence engulfed the entire table. The Presence within TJ reached out to Bella in unearthly tenderness, searching for her heart, seeking to fill the void mirrored in her eyes. It was as gentle as it was powerful, and the words simply came to him.
“Discrimination doesn't begin with white against black,” he said quietly. “It's a basic part of American society. The white lawyer looks down on the white truck driver. And the truck driver needs to look down on someone else just so he can feel a sense of worthiness too. You don't have to go back to slavery to find the basis for discrimination. It's everywhere. Here. Today. If you see yourself as superior to someone else for whatever reason, then you're discriminating. If someone covets power as a means of showing superiority, he is discriminating.”
The table seemed frozen solid. TJ had the impression of several faces staring at him in openmouthed surprise, but all he could be certain of was the love he was feeling for this poor woman. The Presence within him simply poured itself out.
“The answer lies in the Bible,” he continued. “The apostle Paul tells us that we are all equal. All of us. If we can't abide by this, then we are sinning. And the very worst kind of sin is the one which we don't or won't or can't admit to.”
He stood and picked up his tray, and he felt all eyes at the table follow him. Before turning away, he said quietly, “It was nice meeting you all.”
As he was walking out of the cafeteria, Carter Williams caught up with him. “Man, I really admire what you said back there. But if you're not out to commit professional suicide your first day on the job, you got to find some way to apologize to the Dragon Lady.”
“I have nothing to apologize for,” TJ replied.
“Did you hear me say anything about a cause? No, you didn't. I'm not talking about logic here. I'm talking about revenge.” The man was clearly worried for him. “Bella's been here since before the Civil War, and her only love in life is making hamburger outta staffers. Somebody told me she even did in a deputy secretary back in the Carter days. Absolutely neutered the guy.”
“âAnd they went their way,' “ TJ quoted, “âjoyfully proclaiming their thanks for being able to suffer in the name of their Lord.' ““What's that? Something from the Bible?”
“Acts,” TJ said.
“Yeah, well, all I got to say is, you better have the funeral service down real good. âCause if you don't find a way to get back on Bella's good side, you're gonna need it.” He patted TJ on the shoulder. “Be seeing you around. That is, if Bella leaves anything besides the bones.”
After supper that evening TJ told Jeremy what had happened during his first day on the job and about the doubts that were now working their way to the surface. He did not mention the unusual sense of God's presence he had experienced in the cafeteria. Now that it was no longer evident, it was hard to believe that something unseen could have felt so real. But he did tell Jeremy about his encounter with Bella Saunders.
“I wonder maybe if I should have avoided it,” he concluded.
“Don't seem to me you had any choice at all,” Jeremy replied.
“I could have stood up and walked away. Or just sat there and kept my mouth shut. I could have done a hundred different things, all but stand up and beat my chest.”
“If you came up here plannin' on buryin' your head in the sand, yeah, I suppose you coulda run away. But I recollect there bein' somethin' else that needed doin' up here.”
“What's that, Jem?” TJ ran an uncertain hand over his cheek. “Can you remember what on earth we're doing up here?”
“Far as I remember, it had somethin' to do with followin' His lead.”
“I feel about as out of place here as a fish on dry land.”
“Seems to me the Bible says somethin' about blessed is the man who doesn't feel like he belongs here on earth.”
TJ smiled. “You've got an answer for just about everything tonight, don't you?”
“âBout these things there ain't much room for doubt, old buddy,” said Jeremy. “While I was listenin' to you talk about that scene at lunch, I was thinkin' to myself, man, I'll bet you there's been a lotta times the Lord's tried to work through people like He did through you. Tried to get in there and help somebody. But we're just too busy listenin' to the voices of the world to pay any attention. Too worried about our jobs or our reputations or what people're gonna say behind our backs. So whoever it was that needed help right then got nothin' but empty words. You know, if I was God, I'd be kickin' holes in walls right about then.”