Disaster Among the Heavens - Don E Peavy Sr (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

side of the fireplace. The President instructed his audience, “We’ve already wasted twenty-four hours authenticating the Assistant’s message. We should take advantage of this opportunity to strengthen our forces. Mr. Army General, I want you to inform all National Guard units to stand down. I do not want another fiasco like we had in Chicago with that bungling idiot Colonel Bull Whiff.”
“Yes, sir. Should we start making plans to intern Negroes until this thing is over?” The Army General asked.
The President threw his hands up in the air and answered, “Where in the hell are we going to put over twenty-two million people? No, the Director is going to fix this problem, and then it’s just a matter of rounding up a few strays.
“We’ll bring some of the Green Berets home to carry out that task. Gentlemen, in twenty-four hours this problem will be solved and we can turn our attention back to more pressing matters overseas. In the meanwhile, I want you to start giving our coloreds from the South more visibility and keep those damn Northerners out of the public eye as much as possible. Southern coloreds know how to keep their own under control. We haven’t had the riots and lawlessness in the South that you’ve had in the North and on the East and West Coasts.”
Undeterred, the Army General tried again. “Mr. President, we are facing a real crisis here. We need to take strong measures to keep from having a colored uprising.”
Realizing the persistency of the Army General, The President turned to face him and decided to give him what is popularly called “The Treatment.”
“General,” said the President in a stern voice, “The more you stir shit, the more it smells. Have you learned nothing from the ill fated measures of General Custer who in trying to stop an uprising with a show of force caused one?”
The Army General leaned against the fireplace as a frown covered his face. As for The President, in a perfect about face he turned and said to no one in particular, “Get the Senator in here.”
Closest to the door was the Admiral who had remained silent where observing and listening to all much like the hawk which is silent until it swoops down and snatches its prey with deadly claws. Without saying anything, the Admiral stood up and left the room. He returned within seconds with the Senator.
“Mr. Senator, I want you to get with my Chief of Staff and draft a Presidential order summoning the Congress to return,” commanded The President.
He turned to face the Army General and continued, “General of the Army, I want you to work with my Chief of Staff to make sure every member of Congress is back here no later than in the morning. Take whatever means necessary to get them here. I don’t want disaster to strike because some MOC is laid up with a broad!”
“Yes, Mr. President. You can count on me,” said the Senator.
The President flicked his cigarette butt into the fireplace and turned and left the room. He made no effort to hide the anger and confusion on his face. He was already taxed beyond measure by the conflict in Southeast Asia which with each new day was becoming increasingly unpopular. He was having great difficulty finding the strength to wrestle with this emerging domestic crisis.
As he walked slowly out of the room, it was apparent to all that he strained to carry the weight placed on him, much like faithful Atlas who carried the whole world. The President was followed by the others, who left single file.
The Director, who was next to the last one to leave, was glad that this morning had come to a close and he could now get to his apartment and spend time with His Woman. His body ached. Only His Woman could ease that pain. A fire burned inside of him. Only His Woman’s Martinis could quench it. And so, with what strength he had remaining, he made his way out of the room and out of the White House and fell into the back seat of his limousine where he pulled the curtains, doing so enclosed him in darkness with his thoughts as he exhaled that he was finally en route to his apartment. He knew not how he was going to accomplish the mission that had been entrusted to him.
At this moment, he didn’t even care. All he thought about now was getting to his apartment and to the arms of His Woman. America might be on the brink of disaster but it would have to wait. The world might be in jeopardy of being destroyed. So be it! For this man, this tired and battered Director cared only for His Woman and his drink. With his curtains drawn, he did not notice that there was a Black Marine at the gate. Nor did he observe that as the vehicle snaked its way out of the White House encampment and entered Pennsylvania Avenue, the Black Marine grabbed the telephone, dialled a number, and gave some quick instructions. The Director saw none of these things. He rode on, oblivious to the disaster that was brewing among the heavens.
. . .

Chapter 3
We humans live our lives either on the verge of a storm, in the midst of a storm, or coming out of a storm. With all of our philosophies and theologies, we have not yet envisioned a way to live our lives without constant awareness of our finitude – the most terrifying of the existential terrors we all confront.
Many of the great tragedies of human existence have been born out of vain attempts to escape the inevitable. We are born, we suffer, and we die. Even though we might believe in something or someone beyond ourselves and something or somewhere beyond this place, we live our lives weary of living but afraid to die because in the words of that soulful prophet Sam Cooke, “We don’t know what is up there beyond the sky.”
Oh, there are those who have hinted at a place called Heaven. But what exactly is Heaven? Where is it? There are as many pictures of it in the Bible as there are chapters! How many heavens are there? Did not the Apostle Paul speak of being carried as far as the third one? Dante confirmed the confusion in his great comedy. Stand on any street corner and ask passers-by at random and one will no doubt find empirical evidence to confirm the wisdom of Sam Cooke – when the chips are down, we really don’t know what’s up there beyond the clouds!
Nevertheless, whether or not there is a metaphysical reality or what many call a spiritual universe, one thing is certain – beyond the clouds of earth is a vast reality of stars and planets and other entities which, as the Cosmologist taught us, affect our lives and our fragile planet earth. There is a correspondence between us and the heavens to which Jesus hinted when he declared that whatsoever “shall be bound on earth shall be bound in heaven …”
Neither ignorance of nor ignoring this vital fact will shield us from the harm which is surely to come as the Director was about to learn. For as he left the White House, the Director, enveloped in darkness in the back seat of his limousine, concerned himself neither with the potential disturbance on the Moon nor with the storm in whose clutches he found himself so tightly confined; no, though he should have been thus occupied; on the contrary, the Director reflected on the one shore of tranquillity to which he could sail away from the storm -- his apartment where His Woman awaited his arrival. He sought no comfort, no vision beyond his apartment and his immediate need to see His Woman.
Where do you go when this “old world starts getting you down and people are just too much for you to stand?” Some people climb up on the roof, others go walking on Broadway, many go down town, while still others seek refuge on the dock of the bay. The Director did none of these things. Caught between the pressures of public service and the rigours of responsibility, he went to His Woman.
Ah-hhhh, His Woman – Fredda Turner, a five-foot, seven-inch bundle of joy from Barbados who weighed 145 pounds that were well proportioned. Her breasts were voluptuous and firm. He smiled when he recalled the many times he rested his head there for hours and hours. She had beautiful, luscious brown eyes that glistened and reflected joy whenever he peered into them. Her long black hair, which she wore in flowing curls, draped her broad shoulders and seemed to come to life and hold his face next to hers whenever her soft hands caressed his body and revived areas that he had long thought to have been dead. She was all that he had heard Negro4 women are and more.
Whenever he was in her arms, he could understand with historical clarity why the white Southerner would steal away to the slave shack at times and dig into this well of prurient delight. He could sympathize with the loss of that pleasure. With all her beauty and refinement, the white woman lacked the physique and inner spirit needed to provide the type of sensuous stroking that Negro women do.
The Director remembered the embarrassed reception of some fellow agents one night when he’d had far too many shots of The President’s Jack Daniels and said, “She has a round and firm ass that gives you more bounce per ounce!” Though he regretted having said this when and where he did, he always prided himself on this rare moment of poetic inspiration. Even now he smiled as the thought floated through his mind.
Negro she was! She was not one of those light-skinned mulatto pretenders to whiteness. She was black as night. He remembered reading the report of the agent whom he had sent to investigate the social activities of his assistant and the section where the agent kidded his assistant about being with such a dark-skinned woman when all the other Negroes in the CIA school preferred light-skinned women. “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice!” the Assistant replied. It was the only time he could remember his Former Assistant making him laugh.
“How sweet she is!, the Director thought as he recalled the passage. He smiled at the thought. How strange he thought it at first that her being a dark-skinned Negro did not bother him. He was equally surprised when an agency report stated that she was a prostitute.
Of course, she was no longer a “lady of the night” and he took pride in that fact, for it was he who had broken her and made her a “one-man woman,” in his words. He had even had her watched and followed in the beginning to make sure she did not have a relapse. Now, he did not bother, for the quality of their relationship assured him that she was his and only his.
Why would she not be? What use could she possibly have for another man? He provided her with a lifestyle worthy of a queen. As he so often reminded her, other men can call her a queen but he has made her one! Her apartment he rented on the floor directly