Chapter 19

The Reverend Leroy Jones sat on a heavy duty camp chair drinking a cup of Arabian coffee. The thick sweet liquid was strong, but the cup was tiny. The bottom of the cup was filled with finely ground particles of coffee bean. In all, there were about four sips of coffee in the cup. Shaking his head, he wished that he had a cup of American coffee. Sighing, he said, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this coffee.”

“I have never gotten used to the weak swill that you Americans call coffee,” Imam Abdel-Malik said from his seat on the wheelchair. He held up his cup and took a little sip from it.

“I still prefer tea,” Rabbi Teitelbaum said. He looked at the little cup and took a small sip.

Chuckling, the Reverend said, “Look at the three of us. We are supposed to bring peace among three religions, but we can’t even agree on a beverage.”

Laughing, the Rabbi said, “There’s always Coke.”

“I like Coke,” said the Imam gesturing with his one good arm.

“Same here,” the Reverend admitted.

The Rabbi grimaced. Noticing the pained expression on his face, Imam Abdel-Malik asked, “How’s the stomach?”

“It is good enough to get through the next two days,” the Rabbi answered. He had cancer and it was progressing slowly. Despite the fact that it wasn’t growing rapidly, it was still painful. His stomach wanted to reject the food that he ate. Shaking his head, he said, “I was never meant to live this long. I’m an old man.”

“My son is an old man,” Reverend Leroy Jones said looking down at his twisted hands. His arthritis made getting through the day a painful ordeal. The hands were bad enough, but his back made walking around very difficult. He sighed and said, “I’m nearing ninety years old. I’m ready for the end.”

“This broken body of mine is barely holding together,” the Imam said.

“We don’t sound much like holy men, do we?” the Reverend asked with a snort of laughter.

“I thought I knew what a holy man was like when I was young. I thought that I understood many things when I was young. In hind sight, I didn’t understand much of anything. I don’t feel much like a holy man and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act,” the Imam answered. There were times when he wanted to slap around some of the young hot heads who wanted to control the world through false religious words and real bullets. What made it worse was that he had been one of those hot heads at one time.

“Do you regret being called to serve?” the Reverend asked.

“Not at all. The Koran tells us that we are to serve Allah. That I have been able to do so for so long has been a real honor,” the Imam answered. He sighed and said, “To tell the truth, I’m surprised that I was called. I wasn’t a very good man when I was younger.”

“I was a preacher who tended to mix politics, civil rights, and religion when I was younger. I was very judgmental about people, often blaming honest mistakes on far darker motives. I fear that I was a bit of an ass at times and my actions may have hurt the lives of more than one man,” said the Reverend.

The Rabbi shrugged his shoulders and said, “I thought that God wanted us to have Israel so much that any action we took was justified. I know now that many of the actions that I took were not justified.”

“My body paid the price for my sins. After the rocket hit me, I spent months in the hospital recovering from the wounds. I could just feel the hate fester in me. After being released, I spent months planning my revenge. I went to the Mosque and climbed out of my wheelchair. With bandages still covering the stumps, I prostrated myself on the floor asking Allah to support me. For the first time in my life, I opened my heart to Allah and surrendered totally. Of course, I was hoping that he’d support me in the decisions I had made, but the support he gave me was of a very different kind,” the Imam said remembering back to that day.

“My wife and son had been killed in one of those rocket attacks that were common at the time. I went to the synagogue filled with righteous anger. I stood there and questioned God. I asked him why he would allow my wife and child to die like that. I was a respected Rabbi doing his work. I demanded that he explain it to me. He did,” the Rabbi said.

“My son married into a group marriage. I thought it was wrong on so many levels. One of the men who would become a husband to my son sent me to a church. He said that my God wanted to talk with me,” the Reverend said.

“Group marriage?”

“Your son’s husband?”

“Yes. My son’s husband was John Carter.”

“Oh. That’s a group I don’t even pretend to understand,” Imam Abdel-Malik said with a shake of his head. He still didn’t understand why a Druid, with the blessings of his Gods and Goddesses, would act to create peace among three religions that had done everything in their power to destroy them over the past centuries.

“I stayed at their College for a year and I don’t understand them. I like them and I think highly of them, but I can’t say that I truly understand them. On one hand they appear not to take anything very seriously. They laugh and joke. They play childish games. They walk around naked and have sex right in front of you.

“It is almost impossible not to be convinced that these people do not respect any of your values. All of that stops when they see someone harming another person. All of a sudden, they are the most serious and intense people you can ever encounter,” Rabbi Teitelbaum said with a shake of his head.

Nodding his head in agreement, Reverend Leroy Jones said, “They take their two rules very seriously. If it harms no one, then do it. Protect the weak from the strong. Some of their activities may offend, but they do no harm. It is a very different kind of world they are creating,” Reverend Leroy Jones said.

To say that discussions of nudity, public sex, and men married to men didn’t bother Imam Abdel-Malik would have been a lie. Islamic law was very clear on where it stood with respect to those issues. On the other hand, events in Saudi Arabia suggested that even the conservative laws of Islam were changing. Maybe it was for the best. He knew that more than one young male slave was used for sexual purposes rather than for labor, and that often there was real love involved. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know what to make of the sex stuff. Even Allah has allowed the laws about clothes to be relaxed. The women who travel with the Druid were attacked because of their attire and public behavior. A Saint protected them. The world is changing. In a way, I’m glad I won’t be here to see the results of our work.”

“You can say that again,” Rabbi Teitelbaum said.

The Reverend said, “We are old men. We have lived long lives. It is up to younger men to carry on the good fight.”

Oscar drove the Land Roamer through the hard shadows cast upon the hard floor of the twisted canyon. The rose red walls of the canyon towered high above them. It was overwhelming. A building became visible in the narrow slit at the end of the road called the al-Siq. Oscar smiled and said, “There is the bank.”

“That’s a bank?” Georgia asked. She looked at the building and said, “This is where they filmed that movie about the quest for the Holy Grail.”

“That’s right,” Oscar said with a smile. As he stopped the car in front of the building carved into the canyon walls, he added, “Welcome to the city of Petra.”

Debbie looked around at the sights that surrounded her. Awed, she said, “This is magnificent.”

“Yes, it is,” Oscar said. The energy that it had taken to construct this city was almost impossible to imagine.

“It reminds me of the Church of Saint George in Ethiopia,” Debbie said. The color of the stone was different; but that feeling of something splendid having been released from stone was there.

“Yes, it does,” Georgia said. She turned to Oscar waiting for him to start waxing philosophical about the march of time. Instead, he was preparing to drive on. Curious, she asked, “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to meet some of our friends,” Oscar said pointing down the way a little. The route was called the Street of Facades. It was a fitting name. The buildings carved out of the rock were impressive from the outside, but rather small and rough on the inside.

They drove past a closed restaurant. Stalls from which trinkets were sold to tourists were empty, the sellers off somewhere else and their wares locked up. The entire area was locked up. The signs that this was normally a very busy area surrounded them, but there wasn’t a person to be seen. Frowning, Debbie asked, “Where is everyone?”

“It looks like no one decided to come out here today,” Oscar answered.

Georgia looked over at Oscar skeptically. She knew that this was a major tourist site. Almost a thousand people a day usually came to see it. That all of a sudden no one, not even the people who worked there, would show up was inexplicable. She asked, “Don’t you think that is a little strange?”

“Not at all,” he replied with a half smile. He winked at Debbie and said, “The Powers That Be work in mysterious ways.”

“You can say that again,” Georgia said with a roll of her eyes. Hundreds of little decisions made by thousands of people had to have been influenced to bring about this situation.

“Ah, there they are,” Oscar said pointing to six Land Roamers parked in front of the amphitheatre. There were a dozen tents erected in front of the Land Roamers.

“Six Roamers?” Georgia asked wondering who had come out here to see them.

“The Amphitheatre?” Debbie asked thinking that it would be nicer to sleep inside one of the other buildings.

“The other buildings are tombs.” Oscar answered the question that she would have asked next. He asked, “Would you rather sleep in a tomb or center stage?”

“Center stage is fine,” Debbie answered with a shiver.

Parking the Land Roamer next to the other six, Oscar said, “We’re here.”

Oscar stepped out and walked over to the three old men seated in a circle. They watched him with heavy eyes.

The Reverend said, “Hello, Oscar.”

“Hello, Oscar,” Rabbi Teitelbaum said. He turned to look at the Imam knowing that the two men had never met.