Gifts and Revelation

Thursday, August 14, 2019

John gave me the AfricaBox! It’s an old piece of shit (did they ever give these things out to kids in the Congo? They’re nearly indestructible and were supposed to cost a $100 or so, but you can’t even give them away nowadays – except to me, thanks John), the software is at least five years out of date and the case is day-glo yellow like something made by Matel instead of Intel. The capacitor is circling the drain, I’ve got to crank the charging handle every ten minutes or so, but it’s mine. I haven’t had anything of my own in ten years. I worked an extra two hours tonight after closing, scrubbing fryers and lugging the plastic buckets of old soy oil out to biodiesel reactor, just to make sure he knew how much I appreciated it.

“Don’t worry about it, Van,” he said. “I’ve got a whole stack of them in the closet.”

I don’t know, maybe its luck or maybe God really is looking out for me. I’ll say a couple of extra Hail Marys tonight.

Speaking of God, there was this crazy coot on the sidewalk today, in front of the café, one of those “End of the World” nuts. He didn’t have crazy eyes, long hair, a beard, or a sign. He was just some guy in a black suit, waving a bible and talking in a loud, reasonable voice about the Second Coming. With the quakes and the comet (or comet-like object to use today’s new term) I guess they’re coming out of the woodwork. From what I gathered, he’s a regular around here. The gist of this guy’s sermon was The Revelation of St. John the Apostle, what else? Apparently all the signs of the Apocalypse are now manifest. He had a whole list of them, signs that is, and despite a youth spent in St. Mary’s Sunday school and Wednesday catechisms, he had some I’d never heard of. The comet for one. The quakes. The War. The Draft. The Midwest drought and the dust storms and the recession and the dying polar bears and a bunch of other stuff I’ve forgotten. And apparently the President is the anti-Christ. Of course, a lot of people would probably agree with him there. Not me, I’m not saying shit, I don’t care if Stauch declared himself President for the Emergency. I think that’s a fine idea. Hear me, NSA? I just wash dishes.

The funny thing is – people were stopping to listen to the preacher.

After fifteen minutes, there must have been twenty, thirty people gathered around. With everything that’s going on, people are nervous, and it shows. And I’ve got to admit, he was getting to me, before the BlackRivers showed up and dispersed the crowd (In SoCal, a gathering of more than ten people on the street without a permit is a violation of the local Security Ordinance and the BR's could have started busting heads, but they didn’t). I thought they’d Taser the preacher though, for talking that way about Stauch, but they just looked through his bible and patted him down looking for IED’s or something. They must have been on their way home, or off shift, and didn’t want the trouble. Good luck for the preacher, I guess, or maybe God is watching out for him too. Or more likely, the BR's were just as nervous as everybody else. There is definitely a weird vibe in the air today.

Posted by VanDerDecken at 9:52 PM