Jeremiah rubbed his fingers together. Ben didn’t need to turn to see what he was doing.
“I feel you, brother,” Ben said. “Every morning I wake up, I’ve got a new pain somewhere.” He looked up. “By the way, I saw Baruch about a week ago.”
“Is he still doing OK?”
“Thin, like the rest of us, but in remarkably good spirits.”
“I always admired that about him,” Jeremiah said. “It took way more than normal to get him down. An optimistic spirit dwelled inside him. Faith at a measure I wish I possessed.”
“You?”
Jeremiah nodded. “He’s a good man. I’m not sure if that’s why God spared him, or if it’s another thing to be confused by God about.”
“I don’t follow.”
“If he is such a good man, why didn’t God remove him before this hell started?”
“Right.” Ben fell silent for a moment. “The Lord is not a God of confusion, but, boy, am I ever confused by him sometimes. On the other hand, it was you who brought him back to health.”
“I gave him food and water,” Jeremiah said. “Nothing else. Other than a place to stay, I suppose. Kind of felt like the old days when we were running from the law together.”
Ben smiled. “A couple of regular John Dillingers, huh?”
“More like Bonnie and Clyde with two Clydes. I enjoyed those four weeks he stayed with me. Probably the only good weeks in the last year and a half.”
“Did he ever talk about what happened outside the wall? I’ve tried a couple times, but he always shuts the conversation down when I do.”
“Once. He wrote it down in his journals and showed it to me. It was rough. Most of it was hard to read.” He looked towards his friend. “Did you know he kept a record of pretty much everything I did and said. He wrote that book about me, as you may recall. What I didn’t know was that he kept going, tracking my life through Jehoiakim, our time on the run – which I asked him not to share, mainly because it was dreadfully boring – all these years under Zedekiah. During those four weeks together, I wondered why he kept asking about my time when we were apart. I assumed he liked the way I told stories, but I should’ve known better.”
Jeremiah grew quiet. Memories of the journal Baruch shared returned to his mind. One thing in particular weighed on him. A comment, almost a poem, stuck in the margins. ‘Woe to me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am worn out with groaning and find no rest.’ Baruch saw him reading it.
‘What do you think the Lord would say about that?’ Baruch asked.
This is what the Lord says: I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted throughout the earth. Should you then seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them. For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.
A similar promise had not been made for him. For all that the Lord had showed to Jeremiah, his own future remained the greatest mystery. He grew aware of the silence and continued.
“Baruch explained the most pressing question too, which is how he arrived at my place with no shoes. Said he ran out of one of them and tossed the other at a bear which was chasing him. Hit the bear so hard it had no choice but to run off. The second part of the story sounds a little fishy, but he’s sticking with it.”
“That’s not what happened,” Ben said. “He confessed that part to me one night over a beer.” He licked his lips in remembrance of cold beers.
Jeremiah’s eyebrows raised. “He did? So, what happened?”
“Sorry. He swore me to secrecy. Said if you ever were to ask, I should keep mentioning a bear.”
“Sounds like him,” Jeremiah said. He let out a slow breath. “I’m glad I kept an old pair of his shoes. Never understood why I didn’t throw them out but kept lugging them with me from place to place.”
“He was lucky you had moved back to your old apartment.” Ben quickly added, “I know. Luck had nothing to do with it. It’s just an expression.”
“An unfortunate expression,” Jeremiah said.
Ben laughed at the failed attempt at a pun, not at the pun itself. “Do you think we’ll laugh in heaven?” he said.
“I’m sure of it.”
“What kind of sense of humor does the Lord have?”
Jeremiah chuckled. “What’s a word that means sardonic but not mean with a dose of resignation and un-evil mischievousness?”
“That sounds more like Mel.”
“Mel’s about as close to Jesus as we’ll see in this world.”
“He is a good guy,” Ben said. “Not that I’d let him know. I wouldn’t want it to go to his head.”
“I don’t imagine it would,” Jeremiah said. “Talk about a man of great faith.”
“And courage,” Ben added. “There’s nobody I’d want more in the trenches fighting beside me.”
“I could sit and listen to him talk for hours,” Jeremiah replied. “He’d let me listen too. Never at a loss for words. Ninety percent of them talking about how good the Lord is.”
Ben nodded in agreement. “Even in these times, I often hear his voice booming down the halls, talking about what the Lord has done for him, persuading people to read the Bible, follow its words. I gave up trying to convince people years ago. Not him. Day after day with that smile on his face. You wouldn’t know if you just saw him standing guard. One look from him during guard duty and a lion would stop in its tracks. But during lunch break, outside at the guard shack, on the street, he doesn’t rest. Most people ignore him. Some curse him to his face. It never dissuades him. That light, the passion inside can’t be hidden. It forces its way out like an eternal fire, joyful, hopeful. I don’t know how he does it. How he maintains his optimism, much less his sanity.”
“Yeah, but what else has he done?” Jeremiah said.
“He saved your scrawny butt,” Ben said.
“Which time?”
“True,” Ben said. “I’m talking about the main time, a few months back.”
“You mean when he brought me to the Presidential Palace.”
“He did much more than that.”
“Really?”
Ben nodded again. “Knowing him, he didn’t tell you the other part.”
“No. He didn’t. I suppose you will, though.” Ben looked around. “I guess he wouldn’t mind. Let me know if he pops his head in, though.”