After I received the Second Baptism on the banks of the Wakarusa River, I wedged myself back into the backseat of the Morris, and Ger, Randy, and I continued our trip to Topeka. We spoke in tongues and talked about Jesus and sang hymns of praise all the way. By the time, we drove into town, it was nine o'clock.
We pulled up in front of a two-story house with a wraparound porch and tall rectangles of beveled glass in the front door. Light was coming through the glass panes in gleams and prisms. The window curtains were pulled open, and I could see people standing around and holding paper plates. Two girls were sitting in a porch swing and rocking it back and forth with their heels. A golden retriever sat up and said, "Woof," and wagged her tail. Several cars were parked in front of the house and down the side street, but Ger parked in the open spot where the sidewalk met the street. I grabbed my guitar, and Randy carried my backpack. As we walked up the steps, we could hear chatter and laughter from inside. I glanced at the girls on the swing, but they paid me no mind. One of the girls was pretty with a thin braid of yellow hair that ran around the crown of her head. She was wearing a tee-shirt with a hand pointing upward and the words ONE WAY printed below. She also wore shorts, and she had long legs. I don't remember the other girl so well.
Randy didn't knock. He just opened the door, and we went inside. A lot of people my age and a little older turned to look at us. Most of the men had long hair and a couple of the girls wore prairie dresses, but the other girls wore shorts and jeans. Everybody hugged Randy and Ger—they all seemed to love Randy and Ger—and then they hugged me as if I had been an old friend. Randy told them the story about how he and Ger had picked me up on the highway and baptized me in the Spirit, and the people started clapping and saying, "Praise God," and "Welcome, brother," and "Blessings on you."
I liked that.
A man who looked like he was maybe forty came up and introduced himself as Dr. Roy Brandon. I said I was Otis Bulfinch, and he looked startled.
"Otis Bulfinch? I knew an Otis Bulfinch back at Union Seminary. Is that a family name?"
I said, "I don't know. I don't think so. My dad's name is Ray, and my mom's name is Julia, and they never mentioned another Otis in the family."
Dr. Brandon smiled and said, "Well, there are no coincidences in the family of God."
I asked him what happened to the Otis Bulfinch he knew, and he said, "I think he lost his faith and moved to Alaska. That was the rumor."
"Oh," I said. "Interesting." But it sounded too coincidental and very ominous to me.
"You hungry? There's burgers and chips in the kitchen."
I said I was, and he pointed me to the kitchen door. On the stove was a big pan of hamburgers covered with aluminum foil, so I grabbed a couple and some chips and went back into the dining room to get a Coke and started looking for a place to sit down. From another room, I heard a guitar being strummed and people singing, so I went in there. Randy was playing my guitar, and the pretty blond girl on the porch swing was sitting cross-legged next to him on the sofa, which pulled her shorts up even higher, so I had to look away even though I didn't want to. Also, I didn't know what to say. Randy hadn't asked me for permission to play my guitar, and that guitar was everything to me.
Here's a very brief digression:
I was playing and singing on a park bench at White Rock Park in Dallas, and a dark-skinned man wearing a Hawaiian shirt came along, listened awhile, and said, "Good morning, my friend. Did you know there's mana in those hummingbirds?" Remember, this was 1968, and you never knew what would happen or who would say what.
"What?"
"The hummingbirds on your guitar have mana, a special power, almost like a spirit. If you listen to your mana, it will give you words, words with meaning. So, treat your guitar with respect!" Then he said, "You don't play particularly [he enunciated each syllable] well, but mana does not care. Mana is harmony and love, the place where words find their power. Never, ever sell your guitar, okay? Respect it!"
"Yessir. I will. Thank you."
"Hold your mana against your heart!" The man tapped his chest and walked away.
Now my guitar case was lying open with a paper plate and wad of aluminum foil in it, and Randy was messing with my mana. I sat on the floor and tried to figure out what to do next. The blond girl turned her hands palms up and let them rest on her knees, and then she started rocking back and forth.
I sat eating my burgers and trying to sort it out. If I said anything, I would almost certainly disturb the vibe. If I told them about the mana in the hummingbirds, they might think I was crazy. But if I didn't do something, I would feel as if I was too weak to stand up for myself. Randy should've asked me first, even if he had baptized me in the Holy Ghost and driven the demons away. I was just raising my hand to speak when the blond girl started singing in tongues, and her sweet voice and the meaningless syllables were beautiful. The only French I'd ever heard was in "Michelle, Ma Belle," but the blond girl sounded like she might be singing in French or maybe Italian. The room grew quiet, and people started lifting their hands and praying in tongues: a whispered susurration of sincerity and wild longing. The windows were open, and the curtains lifted with the breeze.
Randy began speaking as he played. "I have a Word from the Lord."
In a low murmur, "Amen."
"'Behold,' says the Lamb, 'I am coming soon. The Day of the Lord is drawing nigh when all things will be fulfilled. Maranatha.'"
Whispered "hallelujahs" and more "maranathas."
"The Day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night, and the sky will be rolled away like a scroll. The moon will turn blood red and the stars will fall from the sky. Then Jesus will appear. How do we know the ancient prophecies are being fulfilled? Look around. The Spirit is being poured out, and the old men are dreaming dreams, and the young men are seeing visions." The strumming became louder and more intense. "Addictions are being broken, relationships are being healed, minds are being restored. A new age of love has begun, and we, the Children of Light, are being sent forth into a World of Darkness. Have you heard the summons?"
Whispered "yesses" and "amens."
"Will you go?"
Louder now. "Yes, Lord, I will go." "Send me." "Hallelujah."
As Randy spoke, his playing became even more aggressive, more rhythmic, more intense. People began to clap and to cry out, "Hallelujah!" Randy said, "Now is the appointed hour of salvation! The Day of the Lord is at hand!" He chanted the words like an incantation, and I felt a power fill the room.
And that's when I first heard a strange clunking noise and saw with horror that Randy's wristwatch was slapping against the sunburst face of my guitar. He had one of those big metal watches with a clasp on the back. The clasp had come undone so that the watch was flapping up and down on Randy's wrist and scratching the finish on my guitar. I could see the scratch marks even in the dim light, and I gasped. Randy heard me and thought I had been moved by the Spirit. He asked, "How about you, Otis? Will you go?"
I was stymied at first but found my voice. "Yes, me and my guitar will go. With the Lord and my guitar, I will go anywhere."
"Will you share the Word?"
"Yes, if you give me my guitar."
"Do not put conditions on Jesus."
"I'm not. But Jesus wants me to have my guitar. Give it to me."
The susurrations ceased. The strumming stopped. The curtains hung limp. You could hear people sweating, it got so quiet.
"What?"
"I had a word from the Lord, and he told me to tell you to give me my guitar. It's mine."
Randy strummed one last time, hard and surly, and gave me a vicious look.
"You value your guitar too much. It's an idol to you."
"You don't value it enough. Give it to me."
"Take it then." He handed the guitar to a skinny guy in front who passed it back to me. Then Randy shook the wristwatch off his hand and glanced at the face. "It's getting late anyhow."
I looked my guitar over, and sure enough, the sunburst and pickguard were scratched.
The pretty girl had stopped singing and was looking at me full in the face but without expression: no interest, no amusement, no contempt, nothing. Not even indifference. Never had I seen a face so impassive. It was as though I wasn't even there, as though none of us were there. I gave her an apologetic smile, but she was gazing into a world beyond.
Those were my first impressions of the Spirit-filled life: A man playing my guitar without my permission and scratching it up in the process; a pretty girl who didn't see me; and a bunch of people praying and moaning. But I had also experienced an initial acceptance of sincere welcome by people who celebrated my spiritual awakening, and I possessed a hope that I had found something more exciting than Sunday School and more tangible than church: not only a peace deeper and more maternal than any I had ever experienced but a possibility that I might mean something in this world. Then, I looked at the long scratches on the hummingbirds, and I knew my mana would never be the same.