James Frey - The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Jacob showed up later. The doctors had called him because he was the family member listed as a contact. In between the call and his arrival, doctors came in and out of the room, checking Ben’s blood pressure and heart rate. I was no longer touching his mother when he walked in, but he was upset that I was sitting close to her. I told him what had happened, with every detail I knew, and he didn’t seem surprised or upset. He looked at his brother, and said let us pray, pray for the man who may be sitting before us. I didn’t know what he meant, and didn’t feel like I should ask.

Together we kneeled and we prayed, prayed silently until the sun rose and another of God’s glorious days began for us.

In the morning, Jacob took his mother home. She didn’t want to leave, but he felt she needed some time away, and she obeyed him because he was the head of their household. He asked me to stay and try to learn everything I could about Ben’s condition. The doctors kept coming in and out of the room, but when they spoke they did so in hushed tones, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Around lunch they stopped coming in. It was just Ben, who had not moved since his seizure, and me. I started reading my Bible, turning immediately to one of my favorite sections, Matthew 4:1-11, which is about the temptation of Christ by the Devil while Jesus was living in the desert, and about the food the angels of Heaven brought him after he resisted the Devil’s offerings. I often imagined myself in the position of Christ, resisting the Devil’s foul gifts, which I had spent so many sinful years indulging in, and someday having angels descend from Heaven, their wings shining with holy righteousness, to bring gifts for me. When I heard a voice, I thought my prayers had literally come true. I closed my eyes and I said thank you, God, thank you for rewarding my devotion to you. And then I heard the voice again and I stood up and I was scared to open my eyes, not knowing what to expect, and knowing that angels had extraordinary powers that humans could and never would understand. The voice again, and again. I opened my eyes, and there were no angels, but Ben was looking at me, which was almost like an angel was there.

He spoke.

Who are you?

My name is Jeremiah.

Where am I?

You are in a hospital in New York.

Why are you here?

I am here because your brother, Jacob, who is my brother in the worship of God and his Son, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, asked me to be here.

Jacob?

Yes.

He looked away from me, laughed to himself, looked back.

Is Jacob responsible for me being restrained?

No. The doctors did that because of your seizure.

My seizure?

Yes.

Take them off.

I can’t.

Please, take them off.

He looked at me, looked right into my eyes, and there was something about his eyes, which were black, jet black, and so deep they looked limitless, that made me feel weak and vulnerable, humbled me, and made me want to do whatever he asked of me. I understood why he was restrained, but also knew that there were many doctors and nurses very close by if anything happened. He said it again.

Please.

It wasn’t desperate or pleading, just simple and direct.

Please.

I set down my Bible, stood up, and took off the restraints. He smiled and said thank you , and he didn’t move, just closed his eyes and took deep breaths, one after another after another. I don’t know how I expected him to act, or what I expected him to do, but not that, not just lie there as if he were still restrained. I just stared at him, waited. After a few minutes, he started slowly running his hands along his body, feeling the scars, running his fingers along the length of them. He put his hands on his face, moved his fingertips all over, moved them along his head and the back of his skull. When he was finished with the back of his head, he continued moving them over his body and his face and he spoke.

What happened to me?

You had an accident at a construction site. A plate of glass fell and hit you.

How long have I been here?

A couple months.

How did Jacob find me?

Your sister saw you on the front page of a newspaper and visited you and she told Jacob.

Why would Jacob care?

Jacob has been looking for you for many, many years.

Why?

I don’t know. I only know he desperately wanted to find you.

You said he’s a Christian?

Yes, Jacob was born again and baptized into the ministry of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He’s a pastor now, a holy man.

When did this happen?

Many years ago.

And my mother and my sister?

They’re also Christians.

He opened his eyes and sat up and he turned to me and put his feet on the floor. He looked at me and the Bible I was holding, and again I felt this profound sense of peace and joy and love and contentment and humility. He reached towards me and put his hand on my forearm, and as soon as he touched me, everything I had struggled with, and tried to leave behind, my every urge and temptation, my need to sin and behave in a deviant manner, came rushing forward through whatever walls I had built to contain it. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I had wanted anything in my life, more than any man in my life. I wanted to take him, and him to take me, and I never wanted it to end. I closed my eyes and said please protect me, Lord, please protect me, Jesus, but nothing happened, nothing went away. His hand was on my forearm and I wanted him in my mouth and inside of me and on top of me and behind me. I knew it was going to happen if he didn’t let go of me, I knew I would ask him to satisfy me. Then I felt him lift his hand, and I opened my eyes and he was looking at me as if he knew, he knew what I wanted, and he didn’t judge me or hate me for it. He stared at me. He took a deep breath. He smiled. And something in him changed. His eyes were in the same place, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking beyond me, at something I could never know or touch or comprehend.

And then he exhaled.

And then the seizure hit.

I was certainly surprised when Jacob came to see me in my office at the synagogue, very surprised indeed. It had been many years since I had seen him, though I had never stopped thinking about him, or rather, I should say, I had never stopped thinking about his brother, Ben Zion.

Ben Zion was extraordinary from the day he was born, or more accurately, from the moment he was conceived. The circumstances were unusual, or confusing, or mysterious. There are a number of words one might use to describe it, and all of them would be appropriate. His parents had been trying unsuccessfully to have a second child, Jacob being their first, for several years. The night of conception, or what is believed to be the night of conception, they had been to a wedding together and had both most likely, though Ben’s mother claims not, had a few too many alcoholic beverages, which, as everyone knows, can affect behavior and memory, along with a host of other things. Ben’s father claimed that he did not have marital relations with his wife that night, while Ben’s mother claimed they did. It caused a terrible rift in the marriage, and in some ways ruined both of their lives. Ben’s father believed his wife must have been with another man. She hadn’t been. But she did, I believe-though I cannot definitively say-lie about having been with Ben’s father that night. He lived with a great resentment and anger, which was transferred to Ben Zion, and he never trusted his wife again, or loved his child as a father should, and she lived with a lie that she perpetuated for far too long. If both would have accepted and acknowledged the truth, regardless of how unbelievable it may have been, and it was, I believe, quite unbelievable, they would have had dramatically different, and most likely happier, and more content, lives. And I have always found that to be the case: if you can accept the truth and live with it, your heart will be at peace.