Heaven's Eyes

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I once lived with my parents in the city of X, where I was attending college at B…, in the seventies. My mother, whose name is Martha, had asked his brother Danny, who was at that time twenty nine years old, and still living in the house of her married sister, to run an errand for her. Danny was therefore my uncle; but because my mother did not show any respect towards him –especially when coming back from one of his alcoholic escapades–, I gave in to call him simply Danny. Mom gave Danny a message to deliver on behalf of his brother-in-law, her husband. The message was for my teacher, Ms. Frommer. I had been sick during the holidays, on a Thursday, which was the Fourth of July, reason for which I could not even make it to school on Friday fifth. Thus, you can imagine the content of the written message enclosed on a Hallmark envelope Mom had found in one of the kitchen drawers, placed there by herself since last Christmas. About the tenor of the letter, my uncle was not sure about its importance, for Ms. Frommer was to send on Danny’s return a photocopy of the homework I needed to be up to date with my current classes at school. My school was located a few blocks from Grove’s Park, which was located a mile away from our house. The school bus took me there every morning, and brought me back home too in the afternoon. Danny had to take the bus on that particular occasion. He took a People’s Magazine to read on his way which served the double purpose of carrying the letter in between its pages, and that of entertain him so he could remain alert. It was Monday, and Danny had been drinking the night before. Reading would get him out his slumber, or so he thought. He took the bus at 8:30 am, and yes, he could keep being alert most of the way without dozing off on his seat. Nevertheless, when he thought himself victorious, while on the bus, he did settled his head, uncomfortably though, on the side of the window. Obviously, Danny lost the station that would leave him at my school’s doorsteps, by the huge white, metallic gate with the school’s name: “The Triumphant Saints.” From that time on, it was not a secret around our neighborhood, or I could say, it became a voiced secret for many, especially our extended family, that Danny was a good- for- nothing drunkard, not even able to deliver a simple letter. Everybody knew that, and laughed about it, but nobody confronted Danny to criticize, reform or scold him for his negligence. Danny had a terrible temper, and yes, everybody knew that too. When he came to his senses, Danny was at the bus last stop, near the cemetery. He got down all scandalized by his mistake, and asking the bus driver on the possible ways to go back, the driver told him this was not a bus stop, but the Bus Repair Site. The driver had thought nobody was in the bus, and had taken the vehicle for his weekly mechanical check-up. “Yes my good man. I see the bus ride was so good that you fell asleep,” the mechanic said coming to meet the bus driver who was practicing a sardonic smile on his face. “The way back to that school is a couple of miles from here. Actually, there are no buses available to take you there. Yea, man, you are gonna have to walk.” II I had not mentioned that Danny did not sleep that Sunday night, not because of being so drunk that he went unconscious. On the contrary, that Sunday night he was home by 7:00 pm. He had been at the movies. Danny had gone to see “The Exorcist.” The movie was such a pivotal, even such horrifying experience that, as soon as he got home, in the afternoon, he felt the necessity to pray and read his old battered Bible. It was 11:30 pm, when he decided to go to sleep, and shaking all over, he lay down on the bed, still fully dressed. This was the reason by which he concluded, still under the spellbinding influence of the movie, with this thought: “I deserve this, I have sinned so much in my life; this a clear message from heaven, and it serves me well as a punishment for being such a sinner.” He spent most of his bedtime making connections between these two apparently unrelated events: his going to the movies and the firm belief that he was a sinner. Being in this dire dilemma, tossing and turning, he sat on the bed in the middle of the night, and turning his night table lamp on, let the yellow light of the lamp shock him with the realization he had to do something about his predicament. He went out the room, which was, on the second floor, and he started to pace the corridor. After going back and forth a few times, he saw the rich mirrors and the magnificent furniture under the balustrade; pausing a little, he then went downstairs –in the semidarkness of the moonlight, entering through the windows–, to the hallway and then the living room. Bumping somehow against the furniture, he pass the kitchen, and came out to the patio, completely illuminated by a gorgeous full moon. Around were the stars in their own little glory, titillating peacefully amidst the blue dome of the sky and the heat of summer. Suddenly, he went to the center of the patio and bowing down for all he was worth, his head against the floor, he felt the still incipient grass while he pronounced this cryptic sentence: “Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful upon me, a sinner,” and he said it three times. Years have gone by since then. Danny got a job and, even though more difficult to believe, he became the first Mormon in the family. He did relate the incident to me when I was a teenager, when he knew I was of age and I was beginning to have a few drinks, on social occasions. What stopped him on his tracks did the same for me, many, many years ago, as I have told you. Now that I am an adult, every time I have the opportunity, coming summer, I never miss the sight of the full moon, which sheds its light, and the manifest power of God upon my head, out there, in the blue and fresh of the night, whose stars are like the eyes of heaven. It is then that a tingling chill goes through my spinal column, bow down to earth in adoration before God, and saying loud and clear: “Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful upon me, a sinner.” Three times.