HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

CHAPTER 16

ARIEL

BEHOLD, NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME; BEHOLD, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION (2 Corinthians 6:2)

            It was the day after I accused Eli of impregnating me, and he suggested marriage. Band practice had ended ten minutes ago. I had just returned from the restroom after an emotional breakdown as the last song they played concluded. My mental turmoil was both positive and negative.

            The song was an acoustic cover by the band Pearl Jam. They said it was called something like ‘Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.’ Why the long, strange title, I didn’t know. But the song moved me in an unexpected way. Whether my interpretation of the lyrics were correct or not, I don’t know. But it spoke to me of former young lovers reacquainted many years later.

            Eli and Arlo played acoustic guitars, while Ethan displayed his deep rich voice. Amy, the band’s drummer, sat next to me with her daughter on her lap. The song made me think about Eli reentering my life after a two decade absence. But then the last refrain that my son sang soft and melodious several times went ‘Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away.’

            This part made me think of the passing of my second husband half a year earlier. That’s when I lost it. But it was not only grief, but guilt. How had I moved on so quickly? Was it Eli back in my life? Was it the fact that during both of my marriages, I loved, but wasn’t in love with both of my husbands? What was the defining line? What was it about Eli that bound my heart to him so much stronger than the two men I was actually married to?

             Ethan, Amy, Penny, and Arlo were sitting around a card table, probably in deep discussion about this coming Saturday. The four were going to be baptized, and Penny and Arlo were to be married afterward.

            On the other side of the large room, Eli gave our little five year old granddaughter Crissy a lesson on her small acoustic guitar. Her little tongue stuck out from between her lips as she concentrated, following Eli’s instructions. He was so patient with her and eyed her adorningly as she strummed.

            She spotted me watching her and said, “Look, Gammy.”

            “I see, Sweety.”

            “Do you think I’m good?”

            “I think you’re wonderful!”

            Eli looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, and I felt that heart flutter that no other guy had ever given me. Was it because he always seemed so elusive? I was even more drawn to this forty year old version of Eli than the seventeen year old version.

            Whereas the teenager was cocky, cool, turning girl’s heads with his macho strut and long flowing mane of dark hair, the current Eli was distinguished, like an aging movie star. He was gentle, relaxed, and surprisingly humble.

            Another thing that had changed about him was his world view. When we would talk into the night as teenagers, he would express teenage angst and atheism. I would counter with God’s love. In particular the fact that God became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.

            Fast forward two decades and Eli was not only is expressing love for God but parroting, what I then perceived, as legalism via the influence of his old, dear friend, Arlo Aldo. Who would have thought that the former bass player from ‘The Sons of Molech’, who looked like a professional wrestler, would also be able to sway my sister?

            Penny was smart, rational, and had graduated at the top of every phase in her academic career. She was a doctor and a successful, gifted veterinarian surgeon. But now she was joining what I had viewed at the time as a Saturday cult. Why a cult? Well, the majority can’t be wrong, right? I mean, ninety plus percent of Christians view Sunday as the sabbath, don’t they?

            The foursome being baptized in a few days stood and held hands. Arlo was about to lead them in prayer, and he invited Eli and me to join. Eli accepted, but I initially made no reply. Eli joined them, and the chain of arms and hands accumulated one more link.

            I tried to gather my granddaughter onto my upper legs as sort of a human security blanket. But as I tried to gather the little energy bundle onto my lap, she squirmed away and petitioned, “Can I pray too?”

            “Of course you can, Sweet Pea!” Arlo said delightedly.

            Feeling left out, I gave in. “Can I pray too?”

            “Of course,” Arlo replied happily.

            “Aren’t you gonna call me, Sweet Pea?”

            Arlo grinned. “I’ll leave that to Eli.”

            I blushed and glanced at Eli. Everyone in the circle knew I was with child. They also knew the embryo was created in sin. Yet Arlo asked for a blessing upon my unborn child and me. Then he followed by asking the same for Amy and Penny, who also were pregnant. As he  finished the prayer, he asked God to be with all those getting baptized, and to be with anyone who might be on the fence. I thought this was directed at Eli, and I felt a flash of annoyance at Arlo for what seemed like presumptuous zeal.

            After the prayer ended, Eli and I lingered in the parking lot, and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves alone. He leaned against his truck and pulled me into a reverse hug. As we admired the night sky, bright with being only two days past a full moon, I expressed my irritation with Arlo. But typical of cool and calm Eli, he simply shrugged, and an easy smile played on his lips. “My old pal is just worried about my soul.”

            “And you’re not?”

            “Sure I am. One of the Bible verses I have memorized is Philippians 2:12. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

            “It doesn’t seem like you fear and tremble over much.”

            “If you only knew,” he chuckled. “It’s easy to keep it together when you’re not alone. But you don’t realize how many nightmares I have had and still have over my association with occultists. The guilt over all the impressionable minds our band influenced.”

            “Is that why you’re not getting baptized with the rest of them?”

            “That and you.”

            I stepped out of his embrace, spun and looked at him. “Me? You mean because of…”

            “Fornicating,” he finished.

            My jaw clenched and my eyes narrowed. “Well just so you know, Mister, we’re done fornicating. You putting a bun in my oven was the rebuke I needed for giving in to sin.”

            “Hey, you opened the oven door, and your warmth drew me in.”

            “Well, this oven door is staying shut from now on.”

            “So marry me and lets start a bakery.”

            “This is the last loaf of bread coming out of this oven.”

            “I agree that we don’t need any more loaves of bread, but we can still bake, though.”

            I crossed my arms and kept a steady gaze on him. I didn’t want him to know just how close I was to accepting his offer of marriage. Plus, I really did want to turn my oven on again, metaphorically speaking.

            I shifted the subject away from loaves of bread and how they are made. “So these nightmares you speak of. Did they happen to Arlo too?”

            “Some, but when he became a Christian, they subsided. More than the rest of us in the band, Arlo was the most uncomfortable with the satanic imagery and the dark lyrics. But, like me, he justified it by telling himself it was just an act and that we were similar to Alice Cooper. Which I suppose we were similar. But it became harder to deny that Izzy, our singer and writer of lyrics, was in fact a satanist who was obsessed with Aleister Crowley.

            “Couple that with the fact that both Izzy and our drummer Kyle were spiraling downward in their drug and alcohol addictions. I had my own problems that way, but I still functioned. Then when they both died, it was a wakeup call for me to get sober as well. Once sober, I was impressed with how Arlo changed his life.”

            “Was Arlo steeped in addiction as well?” I asked.

            “No. Oh, he partied plenty throughout the years, but he was never a daily drinker. And never did drugs, other than an occasional joint.”

            “So it was Arlo’s conversion that led you to become a seeker as well?”

            “That and something he said that you had said when we were kids.”

            This took me by surprise. “Something I said?”

            “Yeah, you probably don’t remember. I was talking about the meaninglessness of life…”

            “You did that a lot,” I interrupted.

            He chuckled. “Yeah, but this time you said, if life had no meaning, we wouldn’t know that it had no meaning. That stuck with me. In the aftermath of Kyle and Izzy’s deaths, Arlo and I were talking. Although I was impressed by Arlo quitting the band and changing his life, I wasn’t convinced enough to do the same. I was half drunk and told Arlo that life was meaningless. When he replied with the same exact words as yours, I sobered. Literally, I went into rehab the next day, and Arlo gave me a copy of the book he got quote from.”

            “C.S. Lewis’s  book ‘Mere Christianity,’” I told him.

            “That’s it,” he replied happily.

            “So reading that made you became an Arloite?” I said, trying to sound lighthearted rather than cynical.

            “An Arloite?” he laughed. “No, it didn’t. I still couldn’t get past one doctrine, and you might recall what that was. You and I went round and round over this topic more than anything else.”

            “Hellfire,” I replied immediately. It had always been a bit of a stumbling block for me as well. I always thought that by faith we would learn in heaven how a loving God could torment even the most wicked with no end.

            “Precisely,” Eli returned. “After Arlo began studying material from ‘Amazing Facts’ ministry. (Amazing Facts is a real ministry. You can google them or find them on YouTube.) The first Bible study I did with him was on the subject of hell. Hellfire is more like an event rather than a place.”

            “As much as I hate to, I beg to differ. The book of Matthew, chapter 25 clearly says that the wicked go to everlasting punishment.”

            “Correct, punishment, not punishing. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. I think you’d agree that the wicked don’t inherit eternal life, so how could they be alive in hell forever and ever? Also, the book of Jude, verse 7 refers to Sodom and Gomorrah suffering eternal fire. But let me ask you. Are Sodom and Gomorrah still burning today?”

            “Well, no, of course not.”

            Eli retrieved a Bible from his truck. He pulled a piece of paper from it, and unfolding it read. “This is the main note I took on the subject. Does the word hell as used in the Bible always refer to a place of burning? No. The word hell is used 54 times in the KJV Bible, and in only 12 cases does it refer to a place of burning. It is translated from several different words with various meanings. 31 times from Sheol, which means the grave. 10 times from Hades, which also means the grave. 12 times from Gehenna, which means the place of burning. 1 time from Tartarus, which means a place of darkness.”

            “Look at you, Mr. Bible scholar,” I said, dumbfounded, yet truly impressed. I also felt guilty for participating in intimacy without the commitment of marriage.

            “I’ll read one more note I took on the subject,” he said and then grinned. “Then I’ll stop boring you with my Biblical acumen.”

            “I’m not bored.”

            “Then why does your face look like you’ve been driving hours down a long desert highway?”

            “Because I’m stunned to be getting a Bible lesson from Eli Endor.”

            “Alderson,” he corrected with a slight edge to his voice. “Endor was a stage name, never ever my real name.”

            “Sorry,” I said, making my eyes wide and innocent.

            “Just setting the record straight, Sweet Pea Senior.”

            I giggled. “Okay, finish your lesson.”

            “Here’s a list of scriptures that indicate the wicked are destroyed, not tormented forever and ever in hell. Romans 6:23, the wicked suffer death. Job 21:30, they suffer doom, in other words, destruction. Psalm 37:20, they will perish. Malachi 4:1, will burn up. Psalm 37:28, will be destroyed. Psalm 37:20, will vanish away. Psalm 37:9, will be cut off. Psalm 62:3, will be slain. Psalm 145:20, God will destroy them. Psalm 21:9, fire will devour them.”

            He looked at me. “One more thing. Ezekiel 33:11 says that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And Isaiah 28:21 says that the destroying of the wicked is a strange act for God.”

            My head was spinning when I went to bed that night. It is said God works in mysterious ways, and I never realized that more than that night. Eli had always moved me carnally. Even when I spotted him in a rock and roll magazine. Even as I despised him on those glossy pages, I thought of him as sexy, ridiculous goth get up and all. But since he had reentered my life the previous autumn, he had been moving me more spiritually than carnally. For the most part.

            The Spirit moving the people I loved to get baptized this weekend was like a personal, mini day of Pentecost for me from Acts chapter 2. Only instead of three thousand people being added to the church, four were being added to Cotton Creek Cove Fellowship. I was convinced I needed to make it five. With a phone call to Eli, possibly six.

            In my excitement of feeling spiritually drawn away from the present world, I didn’t consider the time. It was very early in the morning when I heard the alarm in Eli’s voice. “Ariel, what’s wrong!”

            “Nothing’s wrong, Eli,” I said and then cringed. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

            “Or early,” he replied mildly. “Depends on your perspective. So what’s up?”

            He was hard guy to rattle, I have never known a more laid back, go with flow person in my life.

            “You know when we parted ways last night, you decided you that you might just get baptized.”

            “Yeah,” he replied, and I’m pretty sure he yawned.

            “Will you get baptized if I do too, you know this…” I referred to Saturday this way for the first time. “Sabbath?”

            “Really?” he answered, and I could tell he perked up. “Sure, I mean, yeah, yes.”

            I giggled. “One more thing. Do you think Penny and Arlo would object to making it a double wedding? I mean, I know Penny wouldn’t, what about Arlo?”

            I think I heard him sitting up in bed. “No, I don’t think he’d object at all. As a matter fact, when we ask, he’ll probably pick you up, spin you around and yell ‘Yee Ha!’”

            I laughed and then felt happy tears on my cheeks. “Good.”

            “Good,” he repeated, and I could visualize his sexy smile when he said, “Well I ain’t getting back to sleep tonight, but sleepless will have never been more worth it!”

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

CHAPTER 3

PENNY

THEREFORE SUBMIT TO GOD. RESIST THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. DRAW NEAR TO GOD AND HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU (James 4:7,8)

            My sister looked stunned as she stared at Eli. I’m sure I looked stunned as I stared at my sister.

            “Elijah?” Ariel had said with a baffled tone in her voice. “Eli Alderson?” Then she spoke a little more heatedly. “Or should I call you Eli Endor?”

            Eli didn’t speak, but he looked at me as if for direction. I felt my jaw clench in irritation that he looked more amused than concerned. “I can explain,” I tried.

            “Can you?” my normally even keeled sister said with a low angry voice. She folded her arms abruptly and I noticed her hand trembling. What had I done!

            “You see… I…. Well, you know… It’s like this.”

            “Oh, okay, I understand now,” my sister said sarcastically. Sarcasm from my meek, sweet, lovely sister was something you rarely saw. Her next words included something I never heard from her lips before. Profanity. “Just what in the (blank, blank) are you doing here, Eli?”

            As people began to look over their shoulders, the amusement left Eli’s face. But he was still amazingly calm. He even reminded me of an old time movie star as he stood.  With a charm that at the time I cynically wondered if it came from the devil,  he said, “Please Ariel, I mean to cause no trouble. If my presence here bothers you this much, I will start heading west as soon as I eat my supper.”

            Then something amazing happened. Ariel’s angry concerned demeanor transformed right before my eyes. Despite her long salt and pepper hair, and the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, she morphed into that dreamy teenager that let this goodlooking charmer create my nephew Ethan in her uterus.

            Ariel sat next to me in the booth. Roxy, our waitress, approached with a side salad for me along with a glass of ice water. She also had a side salad for Eli, but his glass of ice was tainted with Coca Cola. Roxy smiled at my sister and asked, “What can I get you Ariel?”

            “Oh… Just a cup of tea, Roxy.” Then she looked at Eli with a neutral expression. “I’m sorry I overreacted, but what in fact are you doing here?”

            “Like he said, he’ll go back home,” I piped up. “I think that would be best.”

            Ariel turned a cool gaze onto me. “Obviously he is here because of you. So what did you tell him?”

            “I didn’t tell him anything… I wrote to him.”

            “Like I said,” Ariel spoke slowly, as if to a child. I guess I will always be her baby sister. “What did you tell him in the letter you wrote to him?”

            My tongue felt like it was stuck, so this compelled Eli to speak in my behalf. “She told me I had a son and granddaughter. I wanted to see if that was true. But as much as I want to see them, I don’t want in any way to make you uncomfortable or disrupt your life.”

            “How unselfish for a satanist,” my sister replied casually.

            “I’m not satanist, and I never was,” he responded. Then he frowned as is he doubted his own statement.

            “Is that right?” Ariel asked. “So what was all that music you created all about? The pentagrams, goat heads, and demons on your album covers? The sex, violence, and paganism you promoted?”

            “I wrote melodies and riffs. Izzy wrote the lyrics and created the image.”

            “Melodies?” Ariel said with a sarcastic snort. “So, you just wrote guitar parts? You didn’t wear gothic makeup and point like this as you played a guitar solo with one hand?”

            Ariel did what I believe was known as a satanic salute as she pointed with her index finger and pinky. It was an odd sight to see on my deeply religious sister.

            “I was playing a role,” Eli defended. “Eli Endor was like a character in a play. My legal name is still Alderson.”

            “You played a role alright. During a time of desperation in my life, my son found out you were his sperm donor. Then he tried to emulate that so called character you played.”

            Eli’s face froze, and he actually looked horror stricken for a moment. “Ariel, I’m truly sorry. Not only for your son, but for the role I played with God knows how many impressionable souls.”

            “God? Souls?” Ariel asked, not mockingly but with an inquisitively arched eyebrow.

            “I’ve thought a lot about my past life over the last year or two.”

            “You mean you’re regretful?”

            “Yeah,” he shrugged.

            “So your mouth said ‘yes,’ but your shrug said ‘no.’”

            Eli chuckled. “Let me put it this way. I’m regretful for the use of dark spiritual imagery. But on the other hand, I enjoyed not having a nine to five job.”

            “And also making a truck a load of money,” I piped up.

            Eli glanced at me for a second and then turned a thoughtful gaze back to Ariel. Just like as a kid, I felt jealousy over the way Elijah Alderson looked so adoringly at my sister rather than me. Nothing had changed. My pretty, feminine sister pulled her long braided ponytail over her shoulder, and her delicate hands with manicured fingernails began to gently stroke it.

            I looked at my hands with my nails cut short  to better minister to animals. Then I ran one of them through my short brown hair with blonde highlights. The short pixie style was due to convenience. My sister’s subtle makeup enhanced her pretty features. Would it do the same for me? Her eyes, which looked identical to mine, looked all the more adorable due to the long mascara enhanced lashes.

            Even the way we were dressed. Her tight turtleneck revealed an alluring, ample chest. My loose flannel covered my smaller, but perky chest. Her tight black leggings revealed the fact that she stayed fit. My jeans were worn and ripped, but wasn’t that hip? Even our footwear. My dirty, well-worn cowboy boots, compared with her cute pink running shoes. Forgive me, but I was a little jealous.

            “What did you mean by your son trying to emulate me?” Eli asked.

            “He took up the guitar, and grew his hair long,” Ariel replied. “Thankfully his sweet, mostly wholesome girlfriend steered him away from the occult garbage.”

            “Is he good?” Eli asked.

            “Yes, he’s a fine young man. He has made some mistakes, sure, but he’s a truly good guy.”

            “I meant is he good at guitar?” Eli asked.

            I couldn’t help my guffaw. Both of them looked at me, and Eli seemed to know the reason for my outburst. “I already assumed a son of Ariel’s was a good man. But my guitars have always been the love of my life.”

            “So your regrets,” Ariel asked cautiously. “Does that mean that you’re not in the band anymore?”

            “I don’t know how closely you followed ‘The Sons of Molech.’ But we are no longer a band. Two are dead, and Arlo Aldo became a devout Christian. You remember Arlo?”

            “How could I forget?” she asked with a slight edge to her voice. “He’s the one that talked you into going west to start a band, right after I gave in to, you know.”

            “Gave in to what?” Eli asked, and I marveled that he couldn’t read between the lines.

            “You know,” Ariel repeated, but this time she blushed. “The thing that created Ethan.”

            “Ariel,” he said breathlessly. “It was a two way street. I tried to resist you.”

            “I know,” she acknowledged, then redirecting the subject. “So Arlo became a Christian.”

            “He did. And he takes it seriously.”

            “And you?” Ariel asked with an arched eyebrow.

            “I don’t know what I am.”

            “Do you know Jesus?” Ariel asked.

            I felt my toes curl. Although I considered myself a Christian at the time, I wasn’t nearly as devout as my sister. I was considered the bold one of us two. Yet it was she that would talk to total strangers about Jesus. But it’s hard to talk to people about faith when your own walk has been crooked.

            Although Ariel had relationship problems, it was I who had a relationship infidelity. For I was the catalyst that ended a marriage, as well as a career. Although I confessed my sin and repented, it left me forever tainted.

            “I’ve never met Jesus,” Eli said cynically. Then with utter seriousness he added, “But I have met the devil.”

            “How did that work out for you?” I piped in.

            Eli smirked. “He’s a roaring lion, seeking to devour. But he sometimes gives you the world first to lure you into the lion’s den.”

            “Jesus is the only way out,” Ariel smiled warmly, taking his hand. He returned his own warm smile, and it caused the green eyed monster to pinch my cheek.

            Why did I feel this way? Eli was just a schoolgirl crush for me, and he fooled around with my sister, not me. Plus, as tainted as I still felt for committing adultery, Eli had probably been with hundreds of women, done tons of drugs, and no matter the degree of his intentions, he had made some sort of pact with the devil that clearly affected him. Did Arlo Aldo truly get victory in Christ after his own involvement with a prominent satanic band?

            “I believe you when you say that,” Eli replied to my sister. “Arlo’s been beating me over the head with a Bible. He has repeatedly told me Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Also that He stands at the door and knocks, and I just need to let Him in.”

            “Why haven’t you?” Ariel asked.

            “A side of me wants to. I guess the door’s stuck.”

            “Keep reading the Word and praying, and the door will get greased.”

            Eli gave her hand an extra squeeze, and Ariel put her other hand on top of their already joined hands. I thought about pulling them apart. I thought about reminding her that she’s married, although my sister would never cheat despite the fact that her and her husband’s intimate life was permanently altered due to his paralysis.

            “So Ethan came out of his rebellious faze?” Eli asked.

            “Not before he got his girlfriend pregnant when he was only seventeen.” Then she leaned in toward him and with a low conspiratorial tone. “Like father like son.”

            Now she was calling Ethan his father!

            “Oh!” my sister jerked excitedly and dug in her purse for a wallet. “I have pictures. Penny, would you be a dear and switch places with Eli?”

            The year was 1999, and there were no smart phones, so Ariel pulled out her oversized wallet and began to show him pictures of his son and granddaughter. Our food arrived and Eli became so absorbed in looking at the offspring he never knew he had, he let it get cold.

            I had somewhat lost my appetite. I didn’t understand why. I slowly nibbled my food as I watched my sister and her former hedonistic boyfriend huddle together in shared delight.

            “Man, he’s a goodlooking guy,” Eli enthused.

            I couldn’t help snorting. “That’s pretty narcistic since he clearly resembles you.”

            They both looked at me. Eli gave a quick casual glance, and then turned back to the pictures. Ariel frowned and shook her head. I was troubled. Somehow Eli had won her over her, and I didn’t know what to think. Should I be happy? Should I raise caution flags? Then what I both feared and longed for happened.

            “Do you want to meet them?” Ariel asked.

            “Sure, if you think you’re ready. If you think Ethan would be ready.”

            “Yes I do, I truly do. But how about tomorrow? I’ll talk to him tonight, so he can have time to get his head around it. I’m sure he’ll want to meet you, but don’t get your hopes up either.”

            “Great!” Eli declared. Then he looked at me with an air of satisfaction.

            What had I done! My night of intemperance with a bottle of wine and a pen had brought a devil worshiper into our midst. For I feared Eli Endor still held Eli Alderson captive.