The spirit’s face darkened even further. “He is not stronger than I, your worship. I will defeat this mortal and make straight the way for your rule over the mortal world.”
In less than an instant, the Deceiver zoomed to Lasting. His right hand was inside of Lasting’s brain and the spirit was lifted off his feet. A hideous scream came from Lasting. After a few moments, the Deceiver withdrew his hand and Lasting slumped to the floor, balled up and writhing in agony.
“You are a fool, spirit, just like all of the others who have battled these red robes. I have searched your mind and see no plan. Do you even know where the red robe is?”
Lasting, still shaking from pain, said, “Yes, your worship. He is a boy in America.”
The Deceiver again walked up to his throne and stood behind it. The throne’s back was high enough so that only the Deceiver’s head and shoulders were visible. When he lifted his hands and placed them on the back of the throne, they changed to long, razor sharp claws.
“Know this, Lasting the fool: if you fail to defeat this red robe, you will spend eternity cursing the instance you were created. Now, what is his mortal name?”
“Ruben James Barlow.”
Ruben Barlow
Hanford, California - 1966
Dang, thought Ruben, I forgot about the monkey bite.
“Ruben James Barlow!” Mothers always say your whole name when they’re really mad. “What is that thing on your neck? And I want to know right now!” Ruben could usually think of something to tell his mother at times like this. But, what could he say about a hickey to a Jewish mother who had seen it with her own eyes?
It was Saturday morning and he woke up to the smell of bacon frying. What seventeen year old, red-blooded American male could resist bacon on a Saturday morning? So he pulled on some Levis and didn’t bother putting on a shirt. Who could remember a shirt with the smell of bacon in the air? And now his mother had seen what sweet Georgia had given him. He worked hard to suppress a grin when he thought about the night before. Still, there was no lie he could think of to appease his mother. He was caught red-necked, so to speak, and forced to rely to the last resort of the American teenager - he had to tell the truth – well – at least a version of it.
“It’s no big deal, mom. It’s just a girl I saw after the dance last night. She was just having fun.” Ruben braced himself for his mother’s onslaught.
His apron-clad mother, fork in hand and bacon popping before her, assumed the indignation that can only be wielded by Jewish mothers when their perfect sons have been wronged.
“Who is she? I’m going to call her mother!”
Thinkfastthinkfastthinkfast. “Please don’t do that, mom. This only happened because I felt sorry for her.” The opportunity to mix some mitigating untruths with the damning facts presented itself. “She’s this kinda fat, ugly girl. After the dance last night, we were taking down the equipment and she was hanging around and following me everywhere, telling me how great I am and stuff. Her parents are divorced and other kids make fun of her.”
This was all a load of garbage but Ruben told his mother this for her own good. His mother, he knew with small pangs of guilt, believed everything he told her. She was like this pure angel put on earth by mistake and forced to deal with real people.
Ruben’s father, a big good-natured Texan with a great mind and better heart, died in a car accident five years earlier. A California Highway Patrolman ran a stop sign and plowed into him at seventy miles per hour. Three days later, with the whole family standing around Ernest Barlow’s bed, he died from a brain hemorrhage.
Now Ruben, the youngest of the four Barlow children and the only one still at home, was the sole recipient of the motherly talents of Naomi Grossfelt Barlow, daughter of Ruben and Naomi Grossfelt of Boise, Idaho.
Ruben felt bad about lying to his mother. Sweet Georgia Thompson wasn’t fat. She wasn’t ugly. Kids didn’t make fun of her. She was a sleek, red-haired, smoking-hot babe with crystal blue eyes and a dubious reputation. She was five feet, two inches of sex appeal with just the right amount of baby fat and the greatest legs in the tri-county area.
After Ruben’s incorrect description of Georgia, his mother calmed. He knew her so well.
“Well, I can almost understand that - almost. But I will not have my son walking around looking like that. You look terrible! What kind of a mother would raise a daughter who would do that? It probably wouldn’t do any good to talk to the mother anyway.
Thompson, did you say? I don’t know them.”
It was time to switch the subject.
“Boy, that smells sooooo goooood.”
There are two techniques used by Jewish mothers since the beginning of the Hebrew nation: guilt and food. If Ruben was going to get his mother’s mind off one, he had to use the other.
“You’ve got to be the best cook in the world, mom.” Ruben went to his mother; the time was right.
“I’m sorry, Mom (lie). I really wasn’t thinking (truth), and I really didn’t know she would leave a mark (not quite truth). I love you, Mom (truth). Let’s play horsy.” Ruben undid her apron strings and held them like reins. “Giddy-up, Mom.” That always made his mother laugh. She swatted behind her in a vain attempt to hit his hands.
“Stop that and sit down. Your breakfast is ready. And before you go anywhere put on something that will cover that awful mark. I don’t know what people will think if they see that. Remember, you’re a reflection of me. And wash your hands before you eat.”
If his mother had said that “reflection” thing once, she’d said it a thousand times. But, that was mom. She had all these great sayings: “straighten up and fly right” when he was bad, and “you and me are going to Fist City” for the same reason, and “you look like a hog on ice” when he did something clumsy, and “you’ve got your clothes scattered from heck to breakfast” when his room was messy, and “if you had a brain, you’d take it out and play with it” when he did something stupid.
But whenever Ruben came home from school, she was there asking him how it went. Whenever he was sick, she took care of him. Whenever he was sad, she cheered him up. Whenever he had a problem, she helped him. He never took any of his mother’s reprimands to heart because he knew his mother loved him beyond all reason. He also remembered the way she was with his father, and the way his father was with her. Nothing made his father angry like showing disrespect to his wife or daughters. He cherished women, especially his own. The Neverborne could not function in the Barlow household.
And all this was exactly why Ruben felt justified in lying to his mother. She didn’t comprehend Ruben’s position in the Hanford teenage society. Ruben had no misunderstanding about why sweet Georgia was with him last night. They hadn’t gone all the way, Ruben was saving that for marriage – a promise he’d made to his father in the hospital room before he died.
Ruben knew Georgia was with him for one reason, the same reason most girls wanted to be with him and most guys wanted to be like him. Ruben could play the guitar better than anyone.
In the time when all teenage boys dreamed of playing rock and roll, when teenage girls collected autographs of anyone who played in a band, no matter how rotten they sounded, when the Central Californian teenage world revolved around the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, Ruben was the king. He could play anybody note for note, chord for chord. Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Gene Cornish, Brian Wilson, he could play them all. He could double pick, chime, bar-chord, and play for hours without losing skill. He bought record albums and learned the music that sounded good to him. Ruben couldn’t read a note of music; he didn’t need to. His ear was so good that he could listen to a song once,