James Frey - The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

We had a car waiting. We had gone first-class. A long black stretch limousine, with a driver in a uniform and a hat. Just like my daddy used to ride in sometimes. We had three Bibles inside and hoped to read with Ben as we drove back. We had chilled water and juices. It was first-class all the way, but Ben did not want to get in the car. He wanted to walk back to Queens. He wanted to walk across the Devil’s Island and breathe its polluted air and mix with its deviant citizens. We tried to talk him out of it, but he just walked away. There was no choice but to walk with him.

It was a mighty powerful thing, brothers and sisters. Walking the streets of the Devil’s playground with one of the two men ever created powerful and pure enough to do combat with him. He walked slowly. He didn’t say a word. We walked on either side of him. He moved his eyes slowly as he walked, looking back and forth. He was clearly seeing everything, hearing everything, knowing everything. Every now and then he would close his eyes and take a deep breath through his nose. Every now and then he would take a step in the direction of someone, usually someone who was poor and dirty, more than one of them a homeless drunk or drug addict. He would lift his hand very slightly towards them. I saw him do it towards a crying woman. A man in a suit on a cell phone. A cop in the middle of the street. A woman in a nurse’s outfit running down the sidewalk. An Arab hot dog vendor and some Africans selling fake handbags. He would do it to children. He did it to all of the children he saw.

It felt like hours and hours we were walking. Brothers and sisters, my feet and legs were hurting. We went up the east side of the island. We went through Chinatown, the Lower East Side, the East Village. There were freaks and sinners everywhere. Drug addicts and homosexual perverts. Caleb and I each held our Bible in our right hand. We wore crosses around our necks. We stayed close to Ben. He did not speak, so we did not speak to him. We walked through Union Square, up Park Avenue, through Grand Central Station, where hordes of sinners got off trains to indulge in their foulest fantasies. He kept lifting his hand, just a little bit. Always towards people who made me sick, who were clearly in legion with Lucifer. People I would have avoided; people I believed the Lord would have condemned. I was happy when we came out of the station, which felt like the bowels of Hell. I was overjoyed when I felt God’s light on my face again and could breathe God’s air.

We turned east and started walking towards the Queensborough Bridge. There was a big wind coming off the East River, as if it was keeping the fumes of evil away from Queens and Brooklyn. We entered the walkway to the bridge on Second Avenue and started crossing. It runs along the south side, facing all of lower Manhattan, the towers rising with all of Satan’s menace. The walk is a simple sidewalk. There’s a stone wall three or four feet tall, with a chain link fence built into the top that is about ten feet tall. The wind was blowing fierce, brothers and sisters, whistling. Caleb said he believed it was the echo of the Lord’s trumpeters announcing the return of his Son to the one true church, our church. And that was what it felt like. We were crossing the river. The Messiah, the Son of God, who we had just saved from the clutches of the government and the Jews, and who had walked through the city, a newer version of the valley of the shadow of death, spreading blessings and grace, was leading us. Of course the Heavenly Father, the Lord Almighty, the Ruler of all there was and ever will be, was heralding our return. It was a righteous moment, a truly righteous moment. One of the most powerful any man, woman, or child on this earth has experienced. I can’t imagine anything greater. Praise be to the glory. Praise be, brothers and sisters.

As we got close to the middle of the bridge, and the stench of Manhattan was fading, and the Lord’s trumpets were blowing, Ben stepped towards the wall. Before we could say a word, he had climbed to the top of the chain link fence. I swear I saw him jump onto the wall and climb the fence, but later, after everything else, Caleb said he floated up, like a gust from Heaven lifted him and placed him there. And there he stood. On a wire a quarter of an inch thick running through the top of the fence. He was a couple hundred feet above the river. His hands were at his side. He closed his eyes and he just stood there.

We didn’t know what to do. I was terrified he would fall, though I also believed that if he did he would not die. Caleb got down on his knees and started to pray, saying Father God, I kneel humbly before you in Jesus’ name, thank you for allowing me to serve you, Father God, and please show me a sign, Father God, so that I may serve you as you wish. He stared at Ben, said it again and again. The wind started gusting, and I joined him on my knees, and Ben just stood there. He shouldn’t have been able to stand on that fence. He shouldn’t have been able to keep his balance. The wind should have taken him away. The sky was blue above him, clouds drifting slowly past. Cars were blowing by behind us on the bridge and we could hear them honking and people yelling from their windows. The quiet drift of the river was whispering beneath us. And the wind, still there, was heralding his presence. It was the most beautiful moment of my life.

I don’t know how long he stayed there. It could have been two minutes or two hours. I joined Caleb in prayer and I lost myself in the power of the Holy Spirit, which we could feel around us the way you can feel joy at a wedding or pain at a funeral. When he came down, he didn’t say anything; he just started walking again. We stood and followed, and neither of us said anything. Like I said, brothers and sisters, sometimes words just don’t work.

His family was waiting for him at their apartment. Our brother in Christ Jeremiah was with them. The women, as was their duty, had prepared a meal. A simple meal. A meal just like what we thought the Big Man, JC himself, would have eaten: rice, fish, bread, water, and wine. Caleb and I were dead tired when we got there. Ben didn’t seem any different; he was fresh as a daisy. I wished he was in nicer clothes, or cleaner ones, but the Savior makes his own choices. I did not believe I was one to question them. He reached for the door, which was always locked with three locks, and it opened. He stepped inside. It was the first time he had been inside his family’s home in sixteen years. His mother immediately started crying. He stepped forward and put his arms around her and said I love you, Mother . She started sobbing. She put her head on his chest. He put his hands on the sides of her face, and lifted her face and looked into her eyes. He said it again, I love you, Mother, and I am happy to be home. He stepped away and towards his sister. She was looking very, very nervous. Her hands were shaking and her lips quivering. He smiled and said hello, Esther, I love you . He kissed her on the forehead and gave her a long hug. He stepped away and looked to Jacob. Jacob was very somber, and very serious. He looked very much, brothers and sisters, like the young man of God that he was. He was wearing a suit and a tie. He knew he was greeting his brother, his flesh and blood, but he also knew he was greeting the most important person to walk the earth in two thousand years. He was greeting the Son of God. Ben stepped forward and hugged him and said hello, Jacob, I love you . Jacob put his arms around him and hugged him back. Hugged him strong and tight, like a man should hug the Lord. It was the first time, in all the years we’d prayed and worshipped and studied the Bible together, in all the years, brothers and sisters, that Jacob and I had been preaching the gospel together, that I ever saw him show affection for anyone other than Jesus Christ. Ben pulled away and asked if he could take a bath. His mother said of course and went to show him the bathroom. Jacob led us into the living room, where me and him, Caleb, and Jeremiah sat down. We related the events of the day to Jacob, and then we got down on our knees, arranged ourselves in a circle, and we prayed.