Salvation Gridlock
By Gene Aronowitz
Charlie Sawyer finished answering the last of many questions during his slightly prolonged lecture on macroeconomics. He bolted out of the NYU lecture hall, ran down three flights of stairs to the basement, unlocked his bike, brought it up on the elevator, and pushed it out to Washington Square Park, shocked because he forgot about the Greenwich Village Street Fair, which always drew large crowds.
It usually took him twenty minutes to ride to his apartment on Tenth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. It was already four-thirty, and at five o’clock, his wife, his three young-adult children, and a few friends would begin gathering to celebrate his forty-eighth birthday. The park and the adjoining streets were packed.
As he pushed his bike through the crowd, his tire clipped the calf of a gaunt-faced, lanky man carrying a sign that read Repent. Charlie apologized, but the man turned around and looked at him like birds do when you come near their nests.
Charlie shrugged and tried to push past two young men standing next to the sign-holder. They wore white shirts, colorful ties, grey pants, and blue jackets with badges on each breast pocket identifying them as Elder Smith and Elder Johnson. Elder Smith said, “I want you to know that our Heavenly Father loves you and has prepared a way for you to return to him after you die.”
“Glad to know that,” Charlie said and tried to move ahead.
“We’re all sinners,” Elder Johnson interjected. “Through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, we can all be cleansed from sin.”
“Listen, guys,” Charlie interrupted. “I’m in a big hurry. Anyway, I haven’t sinned since sometime in the last century, and I can’t even remember what I thought was so terrible.”
Elder Smith chuckled and moved aside, but the frown lines between Elder Johnson’s eyebrows erupted.
Charlie left the park and crept along until he faced a woman in front of a display of recent issues of Awake! And The Watchtower. “Good afternoon,” the woman said. “I’d like to share an important message with you from the Bible.” Charlie tried to walk past her, but the woman stepped in front of him and said, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life… What do you think about that?”
“To tell you the truth,” Charlie said, “I don’t think God would do such a thing. I certainly wouldn’t do anything like that with my children.”
The woman pursed her lips, “Yes, but Jehovah …”
Charlie stopped her, asked if he could have the copy of The Watchtower she was holding, walked about a block, tossed it into a trash can on the corner, but was then halted by a large crowd of onlookers. Sitting in front of them were two orange-robed men, each with a pigtail on otherwise bald heads. One was playing the harmonium and the other, a two-sided drum. Completing the circle were four women in colorful saris, clanging hand cymbals. All six were chanting the Hare Krishna mantra repeatedly with frozen toothy smiles. One of the women walked over to Charlie with a pamphlet and said, “Please read this. It will turn your life around.”
“Really? Turn my life around from what?”
“I’m sure you’re content with your life,” she said, “but haven’t you ever wished for something deeper?”
“Deeper than what? You know nothing about my life,” he exclaimed as he pushed his bike around her and walked two more blocks where he turned onto Greenwich Avenue. Soon, he was blocked by a large white vehicle with the words Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank on the front. He wondered why it was called a “tank” rather than a van or a bus, although the word made a certain amount of sense to him, given all the bloody battles that have been waged in the name of religion.
Next to the vehicle stood three young men with black pants, white shirts, black beards, and yarmulkes. One walked over to Charlie and said, “Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish by any chance?”
“No…………. Not really,” he answered.
“Oh, I see,” he said, his voice rising on the word “see.” “You, like many others, have chosen to walk away from your heritage. We hope you’ll soon return. It will enrich your life.”
“My life doesn’t need enriching. It’s just fine the way it is.”
“You only think it is. You have no idea the joy you would feel in the presence of God.”
Charlie shook his head, trudged further up Greenwich Ave and was passing through Jackson Square when the front wheel of his bike nicked the knee of a bearded man, about Charlie’s age, sitting on the ground in a lotus position.
“Oh, sorry,” Charlie said and sighed.
“That’s OK. Don’t worry about it,” said the man. “You look a little down. Is everything OK?”
“Oh, I’m just frustrated, trying to get home.”
“Seeking salvation is never easy,” the meditator responded, “but you may be able to find your way if you look within.”
Charlie tilted his head, hesitated a moment, was about to clarify, but noticed that Eighth Avenue was practically empty. He looked at his watch and saw he would be very late for his birthday party. Fifteen minutes later, he was in front of his apartment building. While chaining his bike to the gate, he felt that sense of emptiness brought on by recent birthdays, usually interpreted as some sort of midlife thing. But this time, that feeling, that emptiness, was considerably deeper and much more troubling than it had ever been before.
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