American Prophet

I wrote this scene for Senior spring quarter. For some reason, Jim, no matter how hard he tried, could not avoid having problems with law enforcement. This scene demonstrated that, and also showed that Bert would defend Jim as well. It was cut for space reasons.

One Saturday evening, Jim decided to have a date with Sheila. Bert wanted to go up to Maumee Valley Hospital as well, to make some printouts. He didn’t want to make them during working hours, since they were not directly work related. Bert was still learning about the Data General Nova 3 minicomputer in his charge, and he was producing printouts regularly for his own study.

Jim and Bert decided to “car pool” up to Toledo. Bert would drive up in his car, then Bert would get out at the hospital, and Jim would take Bert’s car to see Sheila. When Jim was finished, he would call Bert, and pick him up for the ride back to Bowling Green. That was the plan.

Bert drove with Jim in Bert’s little AMC Hornet to Maumee Valley Hospital where Bert’s office was. The hospital campus was divided into two sections, old and new, separated by almost a mile. Bert’s office was in the old section. Bert got out, and Jim left for Sheila’s parents’ house. Jim and Sheila had their date, and then the troubles began.

Jim called Bert’s office — and nobody answered. Jim tried again and again, and still nobody answered. Jim couldn’t understand that, but Bert had to be in his office. This was a problem, since Bert didn’t have Sheila’s parents’ home telephone number, and it was unlisted. If Jim couldn’t call Bert, and Bert couldn’t call Jim, then Jim would have to go back to Bert’s office. The office was big — sprawling — and the front door was locked, and there was no night watchman that he could ask for help. Jim had visited Bert’s office before and knew its general layout. The building had only one story, and was arranged like the branches of a tree coming off its trunk. Bert usually kept the curtains of his office closed, but there was a parking lot in back. Suppose Jim were to shine the lights of Bert’s car into those windows. That ought to get Bert’s attention…. Jim and Sheila got into the car and drove to Bert’s office.

Jim tried to get Bert’s attention by shining the headlights into the windows, even revving the engine to cause the lights to brighten. There was no response. Jim would have expected Bert to at least look out the window to see what the noise was about. Jim did get a response, though, but not from the building. A vehicle in a different parking lot turned on its lights and engine. Jim saw that it was a security vehicle, much like the campus police used at BGSU. There was a man and a woman in the vehicle. Odd that he hadn’t seen them earlier… or possibly not so odd. Well, he hadn’t actually seen them making out, so he wouldn’t bring up the issue.

These security personnel might just possibly help him, but his memory of the BGSU campus police worried him. He’d play this one very carefully. Maybe things would work out. Certainly they had access to the building. If he could explain the situation to them, the whole problem could be solved in a hurry. Jim would make no sudden moves, would keep his voice low, let them approach him. He turned off the engine, but left his lights on. The security vehicle approached from behind. They were undoubtedly running Bert’s license plates. They should see Bert’s Maumee Valley Hospital employee bumper sticker, then. They would know that this was a vehicle that had some reason to be on hospital grounds. Good.

The security vehicle rolled up beside Jim, and he rolled down his window as did the other vehicle. Jim found himself talking to the man, who was in the passenger seat. The first words out of his mouth was “Are you a doctor here?” Yes, he had seen the sticker. Jim saw something in his hands. It was a Springfield .45 pistol.

Jim spoke carefully, distinctly, “No sir. My roommate is an employee here, and this is his car. He’s inside this building, and I can’t contact him.”

The man seemed angry, aggressive. “You do not belong here. You must leave the grounds immediately.”

Jim had been afraid something like this might happen. He tried again, “Please, sir. I say again, my roommate is an employee here, and this is his car. As we speak, he is inside this building. I cannot contact him.”

The man profanely and obscenely ordered Jim to leave the grounds immediately, or be arrested. The woman added some physiologically impossible instructions of her own.

That did it. Jim would have to comply with their instructions, but he could register a complaint about them. He told them, “Very well. We’re leaving,” left the old campus, and went directly to the new campus. They followed him the whole way. Once there, he took Sheila (he wasn’t about to leave her alone) and went directly to the security department, found the officer on duty, wrote out a complaint. As usual, he memorized all the officers faces and badge numbers. One of the officers who had given him grief was badge 9, and the other was badge 16. Three squared and four squared, Jim thought. He got no help from the officer on duty, who told him that if he were found on hospital grounds again, he would be arrested.

Jim drove back to Sheila’s parents’ house. He didn’t have a clue as to what to do. Should he return to Bowling Green? Bert might eventually think to call the apartment… Jim and Sheila had been back at her parents’ house for only five minutes when the phone rang. It was Bert! Sheila had given Bert her parents’ telephone number, just once, and he had written it down and kept it on him, in his check book. Every now and then Bert really surprised him.

Jim decided to keep to the tactical situation. He told Bert that he would have to go to the road to be picked up. Bert said that he would be there, and Jim left alone to pick him up. Bert was where he said he would be, and Jim picked him up and drove back to Bowling Green. Driving had a tendency of helping Jim calm down. On the way Jim told Bert about what had happened, leaving nothing out. Bert was shocked: all he could say was, “Oh, dear.”

The reason that Bert hadn’t answered the telephone was that Jim had called the department number, which rang in Pam’s — the secretary’s — office. Bert had never heard it. Bert had a direct line in his office, but had never told Jim that number. Also, Jim’s plan to shine lights in the Bert’s window could never have worked, because Bert’s office didn’t face the parking lot. The confusion caused by a series of small miscommunications and misunderstandings was astonishing.

On Sunday morning, Bert decided to skip UC services and go up to Toledo, to clear the mess up. He would talk directly to the two officers and explain things to them. Bert did not want things to get out of hand.

He arrived at the hospital’s new campus and found the security department. It just so happened that the two officers were there. An officer asked Bert to wait a couple of minutes until they could talk to him, which Bert was happy to do. Then he added, “Don’t be afraid of them.”

That worried Bert. The clear implication was that the two were not liked. That a fellow officer would tell that to someone he had never before met concerning a complaint was not a good sign. Bert went to a nearby table that was out in the open and sat down. Because it was Sunday morning, no one else was around.

The two campus security officers walked out to the table. The man was better than six feet tall, and in good shape. Bert noted their badges: 9 and 16. Three squared and four squared, Bert thought to himself.

At first the conversation was mostly pleasantries. Then Bert explained that he had been in the building, just as Jim had said.

To this the male officer told Bert that Jim had not been very clear to them. Bert thought to himself that this was an odd statement to say about the smartest man that he had ever met. The male officer added that after Jim had left the campus, he had turned as if to come back, but when he saw their vehicle had made a U-turn. “If he had come back on campus, he would have been arrested,” he added.

Bert had nothing to say to this. Instead Bert asked him, “Did you really unholster a weapon?” Bert was careful not to say anything about pointing it.

The two officers laughed, and again alarm bells went off in Bert’s head. “This is a hospital. We are not permitted to have firearms on campus,” he explained. “He must have seen my radio.”

Bert had nothing to say to that, either. It was just possible that Jim might have mistaken a short antenna for a gun barrel in the dark. Highly unlikely, but possible.

Then the officers spoiled their defense. They told Bert that they would never curse or swear, or act in any way unprofessionally. Apparently they had seen the complaint against them that Jim had made, and had constructed answers to every point Jim had made in the complaint.

This time, however, Bert had the quotes that Jim had given him. Bert did not enjoy having lies told to his face and he quoted from a piece of paper what the two had said, not even using their names, but just their badge numbers.

The two officers did not directly reply, though Bert had just effectively called the both of them liars. Instead the male asked Bert, “What is your home address?”

Bert replied, “None of your business.”

The female officer used her radio and asked, “What was the license number of the car we investigated last night?” In a moment, the radio returned Bert’s license plate. “Look up the address of that plate,” she continued. The radio returned Bert’s Sixth Street address in Bowling Green.

Then they looked at each other, not at Bert, and spoke to each other. “We’ll need to get a warrant,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. They both smiled.

Then she turned to Bert, “I have better things to do than waste my time with this,” she said. “Go down to the security office, and make out a complaint.”

Bert was not going to take orders from either of these two, particularly concerning a complaint. Whether she was trying to anger him or intimidate him he wasn’t sure, but he was in full control of himself and his emotions. He replied, “I think I will talk to your supervisor instead.” Then he got up and left.

Bert’s visit to campus security had not helped at all. If those two officers were to believed, they were going to try to have Jim arrested. Bert would have to work under the assumption that they would make the attempt, and would succeed, if he could not derail it. If he could not stop Jim’s arrest, he would have to make sure that Jim was not held in jail, nor convicted if his case went to trial.

Bert decided to talk to the eyewitness to all this, Sheila. He met with her that afternoon, and asked her about the incident. Bert recorded the conversation. Unfortunately, despite the fact that she was in the front seat of Bert’s small Hornet during the whole incident, she had apparently not heard anything of the conversation between Jim and the campus police. Moreover, she didn’t believe that they would attempt to get him arrested.

Bert went back to Bowling Green nonplussed. Once there, he wrote down the incident, what he had heard, what he had seen and done, in detail, writing well into the night. Jim wasn’t concerned. He said, “I will simply never set foot on Maumee Valley Hospital grounds again.” He meant it, too. He never again went there. As to the allegation that he had made a U-turn in the road, he said, “No, I didn’t do that.” It seemed a very weird thing for the officer to have lied about. Well, Bert already knew he was a liar.

The next day Bert did not carpool, but drove his car to the office. There, he discussed the incident with his co-workers Pam and Walter. They, too, were of the opinion that it was just talk on the part of the officers. Bert made an appointment with the director of campus security for immediately after work.

Bert arrived for his appointment and was shown into a small, windowless room. The director sat behind a desk, and there were two other chairs. Another man sat in one of the chairs, slightly behind the chair that would be Bert’s. A witness, Bert thought. They’re being cautious. The director is making sure that he has someone to back him up.

Bert was not afraid for himself, but he was afraid. He started to visibly shake. The director immediately noticed, and said, “Relax. Please calm down.” He spent a minute or two soothing Bert, who gradually relaxed.

Bert’s first question was direct: “What are your intentions concerning Jim Kowalski?”

The director replied, “He must never come on hospital grounds again after dark.”

Bert said, “You realize that he was attempting to pick me up in my own car when this began? That I was locked inside that building in my own office? That he had personally dropped me off there just a couple of hours before? That his girlfriend was in the front seat of the car the whole time that those officers confronted him?”

The director stopped for a minute to absorb Bert’s statements. Then he said, “Nonetheless, if he returns to Maumee Valley Hospital grounds after dark, he will be arrested.”

Bert replied, “So noted. What about the incident of this last Saturday night? What do you intend to do?”

The Director did a double-take. Then he responded, “As far as I’m concerned, that incident is over, and I see no reason to pursue it any further.”

Bert let out a sigh. Then he spoke carefully, measuring each word as it came out. “Thank you. You have answered my question, and what I should probably do at this point is leave. However, there is something that I think you should know. As you may be aware, I met with the officers Sunday morning. During the conversation, they said some things, and I said some things. Finally, they looked at each other — not at me, they didn’t speak to me — and one said, ‘We’ll need to get a warrant.’ and the other said, ‘Yes.’ Never did they mention Jim’s name. Never. Everyone to whom I’ve talked concerning this incident believed that they were just pulling my chain, but I had to be sure. Thank you again, and goodbye.” With that Bert left.

Once Bert left, the director sighed and said to his deputy, “That could have gone a lot worse.”

The deputy replied, “What? I saw how he trembled at the start. If either of us had said ‘Boo!’ he would have wet his pants. He never raised his voice the whole time he was here. He thanked you before he left. Twice. Remember that woman last week who went off about her son? You didn’t bat an eye as she threatened lawsuits and federal investigations. What could you possibly be worried about concerning Bert Schmidt?”

The director looked at his deputy and shook his head. “Once, a long time ago, I dealt with a lawyer like that. Polite, didn’t threaten anything, just asked what I was going to do. Nothing else. Gave me no indication of what he was going to do. I didn’t take him seriously, and I’m afraid I was rather rude to him. The next day I was dealing with a lawsuit, with depositions, with court appearances. Technically I won since I never had to pay a cent, but he gave me a world of grief for nearly two years. All Schmidt wanted to do was confirm that Kowalski wouldn’t be arrested. Once assured, he left happy. He didn’t even ask me to take action against those two jerks who caused this mess. You can bet your ass he was telling the literal truth about what they said just before he left. Schmidt is an employee of a department that is near and dear to the president right now. Schmidt might have caused a lot of trouble if he wanted to, but now he doesn’t want to. Call them in from patrol, now. I’m going to have a little talk with those two. I don’t need any more grief about this.”

For Bert, that was the end of it. For as long as he worked for the hospital, he never dealt with badge 9 or badge 16 again.

Copyright (c)2016, Philip Hair. All rights reserved.

I wrote this scene for Freshman fall quarter. It was intended to be foreshadowing of Jim’s problems with campus security and certain other police forces, but was cut for space reasons.

Freshmen arrived the week before classes at Bowling Green State University started for “orientation,” a chance to become acquainted with the campus. That was the Wednesday before classes began. Jim Kowalski was temporarily checked into a room on the third floor of Kohl Hall, facing the Commons complex. A number of other freshmen were also (temporarily) quartered on the third floor, as well.

Jim had known from his campus visit the previous spring the size and layout of a dorm room in Kohl Hall, where Bert Schmidt and he would live that year. The university-provided furniture consisted of two beds, two desks, two chairs, two wall-mounted bookshelves, and two dressers. There were two closets for storage. Each room also had a wall-mounted telephone, which could be used for on-campus, local, and long distance phone calls. (On-campus and local calls were free, but long distance calls were handled by the local telephone company, which would send monthly bills for such calls.) The beds could be bunked, and the hall would provide the necessary hardware for doing that on request.

Orientation was exactly that: a chance for new students to become acquainted with the BGSU campus. There were walking tours of the campus, with advice from the upperclassmen guides on things to do on campus, and an introduction to the Student Union, the library, and the campus bookstore. After listening to the guides, one would get the impression that there wasn’t a town named Bowling Green in the near vicinity — everything that a freshman could possibly want was already on campus. Incoming freshman were also warned about “Drop-Add,” or the means at that time for changing one’s class schedule from immediately before the start of a quarter through the second week into that quarter. The universal advice was to avoid Drop-Add if at all possible.

Jim had already read all the college materials that he had received earlier that summer when he visited campus and signed up for fall classes. He had nearly memorized the campus map and had an excellent sense of direction. He quickly became bored, and ditched the rest of the afternoon. Instead he met up with a young woman who introduced herself as Eve. The two decided to go see the town that evening, to make a date of it. In the meanwhile, they would take their own “walking tour” of the campus.

Eve knew all sorts of things about campus, from the almost-tame white squirrels that would take food from one’s hands (if one was patient enough), to the cemetery that was in the middle of campus, to the open sewer just to the north of the university along Poe Road, known as Poe Ditch. She was also able to point out the Wood County Airport, which greatly interested Jim. Jim and Eve enjoyed several hours of just “goofing off.”

That evening the campus was very quiet and Kohl Hall was all but deserted, when Jim stopped back briefly with his date. He intended only to drop off some things he had picked up during the day, and then the two of them would walk off campus to a restaurant that she knew. That was the plan.

Since Kohl Hall was so nearly deserted, he decided (without telling her) that it would be safer for her if he kept her with him, and he invited her up to his room. They stepped into his room, and he closed the door behind them. It only took a minute to put things away, and then he was ready to go.

But when he tried to open his door, it wouldn’t budge. The door knob would turn, but he door wouldn’t move. He made sure that the door was unlocked. Still no success. Eve groaned, and said, “They’ve pennied us in.”

“What does that mean?” asked Jim.

“There’s a flaw in the locks,” she explained. “If a few pennies are jammed into the door, it becomes impossible to open. My father has told me many times how his students played pranks on each other by doing that. It’s easy to do, and easy to fix — if you are on the outside of the door.”

Jim did a double take. “His students… your father told you?” he asked.

“Didn’t I mention it? My father’s a professor here. I live in town. That’s how I knew a good restaurant.”

Jim did a second double take. “Aren’t you a student here?”

“Oh, no. I’m only a junior in high school.”

Jim started sweating. This was bad, very bad. She was under age — sixteen, maybe even fifteen if he heard her right — and her father, as a professor, would be able to do him a world of hurt if he wanted to do so. Jim tried to open the door again, and this time he put his strength into it. The door did not move.

Well, he could call for help. But when Jim picked up the receiver on the room’s telephone, there was no dial tone. “The phone doesn’t work,” he said, and hung it up.

Jim opened the window of the dorm room. There was a window screen, but that could be easily removed, which he did. There was no one in sight. He looked down, and saw that it was a good forty foot drop to the ground. He abandoned any thought of getting out that way. Fifteen or even twenty feet he could handle. If he dropped forty feet he’d break a leg or have internal injuries — if he was lucky.

Meanwhile, Eve had picked up the telephone receiver and listened. Then she hung up the phone with her finger, released her finger, and listened again. Then she hung up the phone with its receiver and turned to Jim. She announced, “The phones have probably been disabled so you can’t make long distance calls. Not until you have your permanent room assignment.”

Jim pondered aloud, “We can’t go out the door. We can’t go out the window. The telephone doesn’t work, and there’s no one for as far as I can see. I’m open to suggestions.”

Eve shrugged, “It would be bad if there was a fire, but for now we will have to wait until we see someone, and then ask them to get us help. The campus police could have us free in a minute, once they knew.”

That’s what they did. Unfortunately, the campus seemed deserted. A couple of times, Jim thought he saw someone, but when he called out, no one came. The evening wore on.

About 3:00 a.m., Jim finally managed to get the attention of a pair of campus police officers as they were making their rounds. At first they acted as if it were all a big joke, until Eve stuck her head out the window and told them, “Will you please get us out of here? My bladder is about ready to burst…”

They took one look at her and asked, “Are you Eve Hardy?”

“Yes I am, and my father must be having conniptions. Get up here and LET US OUT!”

The door was opened in less than three minutes. Eve almost ran down the hall to a bathroom, with one of the campus police officers trying to keep up. The other one got on his radio and called dispatch and informed her that Eve had been found at Kohl Hall on the third floor. Then he got in Jim’s face and demanded, “What did you do to her?”

Jim held his temper. “We were pennied in. You just opened the door yourself. I didn’t do a thing to her. When she gets back she can tell you herself. We’ve been trying to attract your attention for hours.”

“Don’t get smart with me. I asked you what you did to her. Tell me!”

From the open door Eve said pointedly, “Are you deaf? He was a perfect gentleman. He never even so much as touched me. Get me to a working telephone so I can call my father.”

The officer spoke to Eve, “He’s being informed as we speak. Nobody’s going anywhere until we get to the bottom of this.”

Within a few seconds more campus police officers had arrived on the scene. One of them was a woman. She put her hand on Eve’s hand and said, “You don’t have to be afraid any more, honey. Tell us what he did to you.”

Jim was controlling his temper, but Eve was close to losing hers. She looked at each of the officers in turn, and said, “Is there anyone here who speaks English as his or her first language? Jim here was a total gentleman, and he didn’t so much as touch me. We stepped in for just a minute so he could drop off some things, and we were pennied in. We’ve spent the last seven hours trying to attract somebody’s, anybody’s attention. WHERE WERE YOU?”

The woman campus police officer picked up her radio and called dispatch. She said, “Send a car to the back of Kohl Hall. We’ll be taking Eve Hardy to Wood County Hospital. Inform them to prepare a rape kit, and let her father know what’s happening when he arrives.”

Eve turned white. “A rape kit? Are you deaf, too? I will not submit to this invasion of my privacy.”

There was a hint of steel in the campus police woman’s reply. “You have no choice. You are underage, you have been reported missing for several hours, and you have been found with a man in a locked room. If you’re telling the truth, all this goes away. Otherwise we have to treat this as a kidnapping and rape.”

Eve went off in a car with the woman officer, and Jim, surrounded by the remaining campus police officers, went to campus police headquarters (only a half-a-minute walk) to fill out a report. In less than an hour, the results came back from Eve’s exam, and they let Jim go, without apologizing to him. Typical cops, he thought to himself.

Copyright (c)2016, Philip Hair. All rights reserved.

This scene took place in 2004, during Bert’s confinement at Wendover. It had to be cut for space reasons.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m., the day shift gathered in front of Bert’s cell, and he began his story, “I’ll call this one ‘David and Abigail.’”

 
OK, let’s start out with just a little recap. David had just spared Saul’s life, and while David, strictly speaking, was not at this time a fugitive from Saul, David no longer trusted him. That being the case, David, his 600 men, and their families stayed far away from King Saul, in a wilderness or desert area called Paran. After having to feign insanity while he stayed with the Philistines earlier, he did not want to be in enemy territory, so he stayed near an Israeli ranch owned by a man named Nabal. Nabal was a very rich man, with a hot wife named Abigail.

Let me break in just for a moment to tell you a fact about the Bible: it doesn’t deal an awful lot in physical appearances, so when it does talk about someone’s appearance, it is the exception, not the rule. For example, Saul was described as being tall, and David himself was described as being “ruddy,” or having a reddish appearance that was considered quite handsome. Women were seldom described at all, and when one was described as “beautiful,” that means that she was drop-dead gorgeous. That was Abigail, but she was far, far more than just a pretty face. She had an excellent mind too, as we shall see. I know what you are asking yourselves: was Abigail a trophy wife to a rich old man? Maybe. I don’t know. I do know that she was in charge of the household, so she had serious responsibility. My ex is in catering, and my guess is that Abigail ran a house as large as a modern catering house.

Moving on, David and his men provided security for Nabal’s flocks. Remember, while there was an Israeli army to protect against large-scale foreign invasions, there were also threats such as bandits and raiding parties, and there were no police as we would think of them. There were day and night watchmen in the cities, but that was not at all the same thing. Also remember that Israel was surrounded on all sides its by enemies, so David and his men were providing a real service. Moreover, David was not running a “protection” racket — his men respected Nabal’s herdsmen, and didn’t try to shake them down — a fact that was well known. David, having been a shepherd himself, undoubtedly had a soft spot for other shepherds.

Anyway, it was sheep-shearing time, which I understand is in the spring, about the time of the spring equinox. The more important fact was that it was a time of celebration, even revelry, sort of like a county fair. This was not a religious festival, but more like a party. Anyway, David sent ten of his young men to Nabal with a message that went as follows:

David sends his greetings. Peace to you, your house, and all that you own. It’s shearing season. We were good to your shepherds who were with us, not harming or stealing from any of them the whole time they were with us. Ask them, and they will tell you themselves. We would like to celebrate too, so please send whatever you can spare to your servants, and to your son, David.

The number of men that David sent suggested how much he thought Nabal might give, but he left the amount up to Nabal. He wanted a party for his people, and was asking Nabal to share the wealth. Considering what he had already done for Nabal and his men, he was not being unreasonable, and Nabal should have known it. This is Nabal’s reply:

Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants who desert their masters these days. Shall I give my bread, my water, my slaughtered animals intended for my shearers to strangers who gather at my door?

David’s men returned to David with Nabal’s message. Meanwhile, Nabal got roaring drunk. When David got the message, he gave a simple order: “Everyone, put on your sword.” David put on his sword, too. Then he divided his fighting men into two groups: a raiding party of 400 men, and a rear guard of the remaining 200 men, to protect the camp and the families of his men.

Meanwhile, what Nabal had said to David’s men had been witnessed by a household servant who had a brain in his head, and he went straight to Abigail and told her what had happened, even telling her how well David’s men had protected the shepherds. He must have been covered with a cold sweat as he begged her to do something to save their lives. He had no doubt what would happen. He knew David’s reputation as a warrior, and he had just listened to a highly insulting reply to a mild and reasonable request, as if Nabal had a death wish.

Abigail could add two and two together as well, and she must have run to the kitchen.

I can only imagine what she must have said to the help: “Load the pack animals with food!”

“How much?”

“All of it! Hurry! Pray that we have enough!”

If you think I am exaggerating, listen to the list of what she sent: 200 loaves of bread, 2 skins of wine, 5 sheep dressed for cooking, 60 pounds of roasted grain, 100 clusters of raisins, 200 cakes of pressed figs. She packed things that could be easily transported, but I strongly suspect she emptied the pantry. This was not the time for half measures.

Then she told her servants, “Get moving. I’ll be right behind you.” The one person she did not tell was her husband. She was too busy trying to save his life for an argument. She then saddled up her donkey and passed her pack train, trying to get to David before he got to Nabal.

David was more than ready to kill Nabal. He said to himself, “What a waste! I protected that man’s stuff in the desert, so that nothing of his went missing, and this is the way he repays me. May the Lord deal with me, however severely, if I leave even one of his men alive by sunrise tomorrow!”
“Major Winchester, when you got me this Bible, a King James version which was first published while Shakespeare was still alive, I considered asking for a modern translation. Not any more. I have read this passage before in other ‘modern’ translations and paraphrases, but they always read ‘man’ or ‘male.’ The King James Version of 1611 reads ‘any that pisseth against the wall.’”

There were chuckles from around the room from the men. Bert looked at the women and said, “Sorry, ladies. I did not mean to offend either of you in any way by that remark. Please remember that he had been a colonel in an all-male army, and this was undoubtedly the literal turn of phrase he used. It also tells us what kind of latrines they used in the Israeli army in that day. I’m going to have to tell you though, that’s just plain funny.”

 
Continuing, David was leading the raiding party headed straight for Nabal, and David was in a foul, foul mood. He and Abigail met in a ravine. Then Abigail did battle with David in a way that he was utterly unprepared for. She went straight for his stomach. His and that of every man with him.

David was intent on killing Nabal, and Abigail was intent on saving his life. She needed to beat the 401-to-1 odds against her. She did it by taking physical conflict right out of the equation. She saw David and immediately surrendered to him. When she saw him, she hurried to him, got off her donkey and fell on her face before him.

“It’s all my fault,” she said. “Please listen to me. Don’t pay any attention to that son of the Devil, Nabal. Even his name means ‘fool.’ I would have treated you better — but I did not see the young men you sent. Please, sir, do not shed blood or avenge yourself with your own hands. Let your enemies and all who seek to hurt you be as Nabal. Instead, please accept this gift from your handmaid to my lord and his young men. Please forgive my presumption, but I know you will be King and the start of a dynasty because you fight the battles of the Lord, and you have done no evil in all your days. Your enemies will fail because the Lord will protect you. When the Lord has made you King over Israel, let not this incident cause you grief because you shed blood without just cause or because you avenged yourself. And when the Lord causes all this to come to pass, remember your servant.”

With that, and the load of food that she had with her, Abigail conquered David and his men.

 
Airman Smitts laughed and said, “You go, girl!”

Bert continued:

 
David didn’t even discuss terms of surrender. He immediately sued for peace. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you to me, and blessed be your advice, and blessed be you. You kept me today from shedding blood and avenging myself with my own hand. Except for you, there would not be a man of Nabal’s alive by dawn tomorrow.” (By the way, he used the same expression as he used before for “man”.) Then David added, “Go in peace back to your house. I have listened to you and accept your gift.”

So Abigail went back to Nabal, who was feasting like a king, and was drunk as a skunk. Abigail said nothing to Nabal until the next day after he sobered up. Then she told him everything, and he reacted by stiffening up. The description in the passage makes it sound exactly like a stroke. About ten days later, he died.

When David heard about Nabal, he did not even pretend to be sorry. Instead he sent his servants to Abigail to ask if she would be his wife. She accepted his offer, and they were married. At that time he had two wives, and no, the other one was not Saul’s daughter Michal. Saul had given her to another man. It is recorded that Michal never had any children, which was considered to be a curse by Israeli women. Meanwhile, David started building himself a harem of wives, and having children with them. This would come back to bite him later, because for all the good things about him, he was not a very good father and he had a bunch of children.

 
At 5:30 p.m., the day shift left. As Major Winchester passed by Bert’s cell, he said to Bert, “You’re still a smartass, but can you tell a story!”

Copyright (c)2016, Philip Hair. All rights reserved.

Sometimes an author has to delete a character. I included Lily without really knowing what I’d do with her. She was intended for a (failed) romance with Bert, and comic relief in general. Unfortunately, despite the fun I had writing her, she did not add anything to the novel, and I ended up deleting her scenes. She appeared in three scenes: two from Sophomore summer quarter, and one from Junior summer quarter. Enjoy.

Somewhat to their surprise, Jim and Bert found that another UC member they knew, Lily Harriman, lived next door. She was staying with an older woman, acting as housekeeper and cook, in exchange for free rent. Lily had a scholarship that paid for tuition, and a local job that paid her other bills. Lily had what might be referred to as a “colorful past”: before becoming a Christian she had been a Wiccan, or what some might refer to as a witch. Both Jim and Bert knew this, but accepted that it was all “under the Blood of Christ,” or completely forgiven. Bert was sweet on her, but she had no romantic interest in him. (She had no interest in romance, period, at the time. To her, that would lead to, in her own words: “Married, in the kitchen, barefoot, in blue jeans, and pregnant.”) Eventually Bert decided to see her as the younger sister he never had. This mental adjustment allowed him to have a non-romantic relationship with her. Bert and Lily would keep in contact with each other thereafter.

The usual, normal thing for a new college graduate to do was to get a job, get married, start a family. Many students, both with UC and in the general student population followed this pattern, and Brusier encouraged it among UC members to the point of gaining the nickname “Marryin’ Sam,” from the minister in the newspaper comic strip “Li’l Abner,” which had been popular for decades. Bert, for all intents and purposes, didn’t even date. He seldom even had a meal with a woman, except occasionally Lily Harriman.

Bert’s relationship with Lily was as friends or perhaps (as he imagined it) brother and sister. They came from the same part of the state, and occasionally when he visited his parents’ home, he would give her a ride to her home from Bowling Green and back. One weekend, he took her back to Bowling Green, but stayed off the interstate and state highways, and instead took the back roads. Bert was traveling generally west, but didn’t have any idea where he was, just that he was heading the right way, due west. He was in a farming area, with field after field for mile after mile. The land was perfectly flat, as is much of Ohio. Abruptly, he came up to a small town.

This small town, or rather a group of houses, started immediately after a raised set of railroad tracks, which had been deliberately built so high to avoid any chance of flooding. The tracks were about four feet higher than the surrounding land. Bert had been traveling at the speed limit, 55 MPH, and did not slow down sufficiently before he crossed the railroad tracks. The impact broke off his muffler just behind his engine. His muffler, still attached at the rear of his car, was being pushed along the pavement. Bert quickly stopped the car.

It was late afternoon, and the sun would soon set. Bert did not have many tools in his trunk, and nothing that could remove the muffler from his car so that he could continue traveling back to Bowling Green. Silently, Bert cursed himself, and promised himself that he would never be without basic tools in his car again. Fortunately, they were at a group of houses, and went to one and explained their situation. The homeowner loaned them a couple of wrenches, and Bert set to work. He crawled under his car and inspected the tailpipe. He needed to loosen a “U” bolt holding the tail pipe to the frame, the only place that the muffler was still fastened to the car. Unfortunately, the nuts on the “U” bolt were pretty badly rusted. Try as he might, he could not get either one to move.

Lily stood by the car and watched for a while, then got tired and told Bert, “Let me in there.” Silently, Bert got out from under the car, and Lily took his place. She went to work on the same “U” bolt, with the same lack of success. Finally, with deep exasperation she exclaimed, “There is nothing more frustrating than a tight screw!”

Bert kept from laughing, kept his voice even, and replied, “Say again, please?”

Lily repeated herself, “There is nothing more frustrating than a tight screw!” Then she realized what she had said, and from under the car tried to kick Bert. Now he could laugh, and he did.

Eventually they got the “U” bolt off, and Bert placed the muffler and tail pipe in his trunk. The muffler was rusted and useless, but Bert wasn’t going to leave it as litter by the side of the road. Bert returned the tools back to the homeowner with his thanks, and Lily and Bert completed the trip back to Bowling Green. Bert was surprised that the now muffler-less exhaust system was not far louder than it sounded from within the car. The trip had taken an extra two hours beyond the usual travel time, and Bert had to call his parents and tell them that he was fine, just delayed. Jim had been concerned that Bert was late getting back, and had called their house asking about him. The next day Bert had a new muffler installed, but he also had a new story.

Lily was like that, able to say innocently things which came out wrong. She really outdid herself this time, though, and Bert had a lot of fun telling that particular story.

A friend of Jim’s, Charles Wilcox, needed a place to stay, so Jim invited him to stay at the apartment over the summer. Charles, like Billy before him, was not attending BGSU, but had become connected to UC. At that time, Jim had known Charles for more than two years. Charles had been adopted, and left home as soon as he reached his eighteenth birthday. He was very smart, but he only had a high school education, and he was trying to figure out what to do with his life. He tried various jobs, including selling insurance. Both Jim and Bert each bought a policy from him. Later, when Jim had an injury and tried to collect on his policy, he found out that the insurance company wouldn’t pay the claim. Neither Jim nor Bert renewed his policy the next year.

Once Charles, Lily, Sven, Jim and Bert had been in Jim’s car, driving around Bowling Green. Jim was driving, Charles took the front seat passenger position (also called “shotgun”), and Lily took the “sweetheart” position between them that women take when sitting in the front seat (between two men). Sven and Bert were in the back seat. Charles started speaking to Lily in French. Everyone in the car had at least a rudimentary knowledge of French, except Lily, who did not speak French at all. Charles kept speaking to her, and after a while, instead of telling him to shut up, she affected disinterest, saying “Yeah,” “Right,” or “Sure,” any time he paused for a breath. Jim, Bert, and Sven kept a separate conversation, in English.

There was a pause in the conversation between the three men, just as Charles asked Lily in French, «Voulez-vous se couchez avec moi ce soir?»

Lily did not notice that the whole car was silent, and she replied, “Yes.”

The whole car remained silent. Completely silent. After about five seconds she realized that something was going on, and she was the last one who had spoken. She put it together, turned on Charles, and demanded, “WHAT DID YOU ASK ME?”

Jim told her, “«Voulez-vous se couchez avec moi ce soir?» means ‘Do you want to sleep with me tonight?’” In the back seat, Bert and Sven were snickering.

Lily punched Charles in the ribs. The whole car dissolved into laughter, including Lily. When she got her breath back, she ruefully admitted that she should have known what Charles had said, since the words were part of the lyrics of a song she knew. It was a good gag, but Charles never spoke in French to her again.

Copyright (c)2016, Philip Hair. All rights reserved.