BP 252
As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, I will be sharing an excerpt from each of my fiction books in my Jack Sutherington series over these next five weeks. Today’s excerpt comes from book two called Pursued By Light. In this book, the second in the series, we enter the scene where Jack and his good friend, Armando, are in LA to share the gospel with the gang leader who killed Armando’s half brother eleven years earlier. Read on to see what happens to these two young men . . .
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Ten minutes after leaving the Mexican restaurant in La Puente, the ex-gangster and the young man from Colorado are parked three blocks from Sniper’s house in Valinda. The world around them is very dark—possibly for more reasons than one. They have just finished praying one last time and are about to get out of Julio’s Maxima when Jack sees Armando bend down and reach under the driver’s seat. A moment later, his hand emerges with a small handgun.
“Insurance,” Armando states gravely as he glances over at his friend.
“Whoa! Seriously, dude!” Jack exclaims. “You’re not bringing that with you, are you?”
“Why not?” Armando replies with challenge in his eyes. “You know I’m licensed to carry.”
“We’re not here to kill,” Jack insists. “We’re here to bring life.”
“The Walther is just in case things get out of hand,” his roommate says coolly. “I will only brandish it as a last resort.”
“Don’t you remember what we talked about last night?” Jack asks his friend. “We’re not here to rely on our own strength but on God’s. Remember the verse we prayed: ‘Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit, says the Lord.’ Besides, we’ve come tonight as an act of obedience and trust, not self-preservation.”
“We’re here to meet with Sniper, the boss of Nuestra Familia Valinda,” Armando parries. “He and his gang members are cold-blooded killers! Don’t be a sheep among the wolves, Juan!”
Jack turns and looks out the passenger window. He shakes his head and bites his lower lip. Then he looks back at Armando and says, “There’s one thing I didn’t tell you about Jim Elliot.”
Armando ejects the 8-round single stack magazine from the gun, briefly inspects it, then drives it back into the handgrip. It clicks into place, steel on steel. He looks over at Jack and raises his eyebrows, cuing his friend to share his thoughts about the missionary to the Auca Indians—if he must.
“I didn’t tell you that Jim Elliot and his four friends agreed before they flew into the jungle to find the Auca Indians that if they were attacked, they wouldn’t use any guns to protect themselves,” Jack says.
“So, they did bring weapons,” Armando comments, pressing his point.
“One handgun, I believe,” Jack concedes. “But they agreed not to shoot the Indians because if they killed any of them, they reasoned that they would be responsible for sending them into eternity without a saving faith in Jesus.”
Armando lays the gun in his lap and turns to look at Jack’s face that is striated with dark shadows. “So, they had a gun in their possession but didn’t use it when they were attacked?” he snaps, raising his voice. “They were surrounded by Indians wielding spears and they just stood there and did nothing to protect themselves?”
By now the young man is yelling. He is as angry as Jack has ever seen him.
Armando is not done. “Was it Elliot who had the gun?” he yells even louder, “and he just stood there and watched the Indians drive spears through his friends’ stomachs and hearts?”
Jack takes a deep breath, fighting to be patient. “As I already said,” he explains quietly, “all of them agreed in advance not to harm the Aucas.”
“Even if the Indians were attacking them?” Armando screams, hitting the roof of the car with his fist. “Only a coward would watch his brother being murdered!”
A realization dawns in Jack’s mind just in time for him to say nothing. Instead of yelling at his friend to shut up and listen, he falls silent, hoping that Armando will experience a eureka moment.
Syko Loco, as he was once known in this neighborhood, is breathing quickly. Jack cannot see most of his friend’s face in the meager light of a nearby streetlight, but a narrow band of illumination frames his fiery eyes. They are filled with hate and possibly even murderous intent.
As Jack watches and prays, the wild, enraged eyes slowly soften.
Eventually, Armando turns away from his friend and his body slouches in the driver’s seat. Jack notices that his roommate is shaking, and he feels a sudden surge of compassion flow through him for the young man who had witnessed the slaughter of his half-brother.
There is an extended silence. Armando does not say a word. He sits quietly for a long time, unmoving. Eventually, he reaches down and slides the gun back under his seat. His movements are slow, weighed down with reluctance. Then he stares out the windshield into the darkness that hangs over the neighborhood like a black shroud.
“I hate Jim Elliot,” the ex-gangster finally says, breaking the silence. His voice is trembling with emotion. “I hate Stewart Olson . . . I hate anybody I perceive as weak. I hate all cowards! Most of all . . . I hate me.”
Armando leans back in the driver’s seat and closes his eyes. He sighs several times loudly. “If I had been Jim Elliot . . . I would’ve shot those Indians,” he mumbles bitterly. “I would’ve shot them all because I could never allow myself to be perceived as a coward who forsakes his friends. I would’ve killed them all not to save my life or the lives of my friends but to preserve my rep and slaughter those detestable Aucas.”
He pauses for a long time and then spits out the words, “I’m such a selfish man, Juan. I wish I could believe that I brought this gun along to protect my brother. But it wasn’t altruism that motivated me.”
Jack remains silent as he reaches over and rests his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Armando opens his eyes and grips the steering wheel with both hands. He looks sidelong at Jack and says, “I still haven’t forgiven myself.” Then he turns and stares out through the windshield again into the night.
Jack finally speaks. “You were thirteen years old that night in the alley, bro. You were just a kid. Don’t you get that? You weren’t even shaving yet much less driving a car.”
His friend continues to stare out into the night, so Jack adds with growing intensity, “You were outnumbered something like twelve to two, right? You were scared to death and bleeding all over the place. You thought you were going to die, Armando! You thought you would never see another day on this planet!”
Armando leans forward and drops his head on top of his hands that are still white knuckling the steering wheel.
Finally, Jack says something that penetrates his friend’s stubborn self-condemnation. “Don’t you remember that in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus and his disciples were outnumbered maybe fifty to twelve. And do you know what the disciples did in the end?”
Armando lifts his head an inch and mumbles, “They ran away.”
“That’s right,” Jack affirms, nodding his head vigorously. They all ran away—every single one of them. And we’re talking grown men, not thirteen-year-old boys.”
Armando sits up straight in his seat but does not look at Jack. He says, “Like cowards, they all abandoned the God of the universe, and yet . . . Jesus loved them.”
“Exactly right, again,” Jack says with growing excitement in his voice. “And later, after Jesus rose from the dead, do you remember what He did? He went out of his way to comfort Peter, the same disciple who had denied Him three times during His trial. At least one of those denials was within earshot of Jesus himself.”
Jack pauses and then says, “Jesus forgave his disciples for running away from him at the hour of His death. Will you forgive your thirteen-year-old self for running away from Sniper and his gang when your brother was already dead?”
Armando finally looks over at Jack with eyes that radiate awareness. “You’re right, Juan,” he admits in a voice not much louder than a whisper, “I need to let go of what happened that night. I need to stop listening to the voices that accuse me of being a coward.”
“Especially tonight,” Jack admonishes his friend. “If you’re going to share Jesus with the man who killed your brother, you need to get this figured out right now or we’ll have to abort our mission. Think about it, Armando! You’ll never be able to forgive Sniper if you can’t even forgive yourself. Maybe if you can have mercy on that thirteen-year-old boy, you can have mercy on the Miguel Herrera boy whose father beat him every day.”
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Thanks for reading this excerpt from book two in the Jack Sutherington series. If you enjoyed it, I invite you to check out the entire series beginning with book one, The Rumbling Beneath. This series is God-honoring, integrates faith and psychology in a realistic manner, and is built on deep character development. Check out my author website at Davidgkirbyauthor.com for more details about all five books.
13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
16 the people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
on them a light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” ~ Matthew 4:13ff.
