John Frum The Reluctant Messiah

What Did I Just Do?

"From where?" Max laughed at his own clever catch.

"Funny you should ask because many believe that's exactly how their messiah got his name. One of the GI's supposedly introduced himself to the chief saying, 'Hi I'm John from America' and voile', it stuck. John From. The fact of the matter is, he was probably black."

"Solid!" Ethan proudly exclaimed. "Now dat's what I'm talkin' about!"

"Solid?" Jay's face screwed up. Ethan rose to his own defense.

"Yeah, ya' know, kinda Mod Squad- like us." Everyone quickly picked up their beers to stifle their laughter.

"That's stupid. They've been waitin' for over seventy-five years for their guy to come back?" Max asked. "Morons."

"Christians have been waiting for their guy to return for over two thousand sooo... jes sayin'," John added.

Ethan suddenly stood, his beer raised above his head and in his best black Baptist minister's voice proclaimed, "Ya gotta have faitha, my brothas and sistas, Faitha!! Cause if lovin' the lawd is wronga...."

After a long, exaggerated gasp of air everyone joined him in unison.

"I don't wanna be righta! Amen!! Thank ya' Jesus!"

Jay felt a compulsion to add, "Arsenio Hall, Coming to America!"

"So, we film their reaction after we drop a bunch a' trinkets and crap out of an airplane," Ethan mused. "Which, of course, is pretty much impossible for us to pull off, come to think of it."

"No! No! No! This is good!" Max said. "This could work!" He turned to Jay. "Doesn't your dad still use that Boeing 314 Clipper; you know the flying boat to move his stuff around?"

"How do you remember all that?" Jay asked.

"And what about that lunatic pilot that worked for him?" Max continued. "The crazy-ass, Keith Richards lookin' old Brit-"

"That used to buy us cigarettes and beer?" Ethan asked while pointing his beer at him.

"When we were twelve?!" Max added laughing.

John looked at them, not amused. "Aiden," he said.

"Aiden! That's right. Kinda scary," Max said. "I mean, the guy looks like a burnt-out building."

Everyone burst out in laughter. Even John had to smile at that one because as descriptions go, it was pretty accurate. Aiden had led a 'colorful' life to put it mildly and the evidence of that was written all over his face- even on a good day. John had spent a great deal of his childhood in Aiden's company and considered him a favorite 'uncle,' so it was hard to go along with all the poking fun at him. But he did have to admit, that was funny.

"Man, my dad would kill me," contemplated Jay.

"He's gonna kill you anyway when he finds out how you're wasting his money here at grad school." quipped Ethan.

Suddenly the band ripped into its first set. The music was deafening, killing any chance of continuing the conversation. With bass bins in the speaker array the size of small apartments, it was no surprise when everything began to magically move across the worn laminate tabletop. The crowd began to head towards the dance floor and breathable air was now becoming a scarce commodity. John threw back what was left in his rocks glass, winced, and began to get up. Jay looked at him with a rather puzzled look.

"Just goin' for some air," John said.

Jay, yelling over the music, "What?"

"AIR!" John yelled while pantomiming a deep breath. "Besides, the drink price just went up," nodding towards the band.

"Told you not to mix dark with clear."

"What?"

Jay motioned to never mind. John turned and made his way through the steamy, gyrating party goers that had now crowded onto the tiny dance floor. He headed towards the front door and as usual, admiring glances were cast his way by a few of the prowling, Cosmo-sipping ladies as he attempted to slip by. Jay and Max tried to follow him out, stopping to address one of the female admirers.

"Bitch, do not be eyeballin' my man!" Jay snapped. Her mouth dropped open, taken aback at what she just heard but then turned to laughter as Jay snapped his fingers in her face, turned and with hips in motion, sashayed out the front door.

Once outside, John moved away from the noisy front door and leaned against a convenient FedEx drop-off box. Instinctively, he pulled his phone from his front pocket to check it but was quickly distracted by a sound coming from the darkened alley in front of him. Squinting to clear both his vision and his brain, he made out the silhouette of a large man pinning a much smaller woman against the wall. It became clear to him that the sounds he was hearing were not those of inebriated partiers, rather that of someone in distress- a woman that wanted no part of what was about to go down.

"Hey!" yelled John instinctively. 

The man stopped and turned to look at John and in so doing revealed a bit more of himself in the shadowy light. He was all of 6'7", almost as broad with large garish features. It was just enough of a distraction that the woman was able to break away from him and run out the other side of the alley. He started to walk towards John, the reason for his lost prey, and he. was. pissed.

"Oh, shit," breathed John. 

He could have run, but the same alcohol-fueled bravado that caused him to call out in the first place still had hold of him. Stand your ground, he thought. By the time reason had a chance to seep its way into his marinated brain, it was too late. This monster of a man was upon him, his face gnarled into a rabid, animal-like countenance. John assumed a fighting stance and grimaced in the expectation of the first pounding blow. But it never came.

Suddenly, not two feet from him, the beast's face had a look of sheer terror. One last look of astonishment towards John and without warning, he was violently whisked into some sort of invisible vortex. It seemed to stretch his body backward like a Saturday morning cartoon of being sucked into a giant vacuum cleaner. The snap-back of the closing of this portal sent a shock wave so great that it lifted John and threw him to the ground, flat on his back. Max and Jay exited the noisy bar just in time to witness John falling backward to the ground.

"Did you see that!? Tell me you saw that!!" John exclaimed.

"Yeah!" Max said. "Looked really stupid."

"No! no! no! I mean..."

Jay interrupted. "What did I tell you!? Don't mix dark with clear! Bad shit happens when you do that. C'mon, let's go back inside before you really hurt yourself."

"Wait, wait!" John protested. "There was this huge guy and..."

Jay and Max hauled a protesting John back into the bar where John continued his attempt at explaining what had just happened, but the music was so deafening all they saw was a fully animated, wide-eyed, hand flailing John mouthing the words and half acting out this bizarre event. Halfway back to the table they were met by Ethan.

"C'mon, we're movin' this party to Abby's apartment," Ethan said. "We lost our table. What's with him? Looks like he just saw a ghost."

"Oh, man! Do you know how hard it is to get that table? That table? The one that's right by the only path to the ladies' room?" Max whined.

"What!? You guys took off and they bum-rushed me... and there were a lot of them... and they can smell fear," Ethan sheepishly replied.

A look over his shoulder revealed their much-coveted table now overrun with hot club chicks and male worker bees buzzing around the newly formed hive.