I'm trying to write this down, but my hands won't stop shaking, I'm not sure if they'll ever stop shaking again.

I never beat him in cards. He spoke a good game about freedom of choice, and one would assume that implies chance was involved, but after more than fifty games of everything from bridge to two card drop, I now believe otherwise. Maybe I'm trying to distance myself, but really, Milton probably had it down pat, somewhere, it is all just part of the plan. God, I hope so.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" 

These words were spoken two weeks ago, when I was still Jim Powelson, father of two, husband of none. The job was simple; the Stadium Authority had us checking the abandoned warehousers and other empty shells around the site. Demolition was going to begin in two days, and this was the second sweep to clear out the squatters and crack heads before they became part of the foundation of the new Ford Field. 

"I'm waiting," the man replied casually. We were on the fifth floor of the Duma Arms, originally an office complex built in the thirties, later converted to apartments, then, even later, converted to vacant dilapidation. "Playing solitaire, to be exact." He smiled at this last bit, and spread his hands above the card table before him. It was a comfortable smile delivered by a comfortable man.

He was obviously Middle Eastern, which isn't exactly something that makes you stand out in Detroit, but his accent was pure Americana; warm and friendly, the type politicians spend a lifetime trying to develop. The voice was also more than a little familiar. 

I walked into the room, already having violated protocol by not radioing in my location upon finding a squatter. It made one feel safer in these vermin infested hulks knowing that there were seven other guys just a click away if you needed help. The man was in his mid-thirties and was dressed in a running suit and shoes, what we used to refer to as sweats and sneakers. He had positioned himself in the center of what must have formally been an executive suite or a corner bedroom. There were two windows the boards had been cleared from, and mid day light cascaded into the musty room that should have smelled like decay and urine, but strangely didn't. Through the window I could see Comerica Park in the background, in a few months the baseball season would be getting underway and the old Corktown/theater district would come back to life in a big way. Once both stadiums were up and running, Detroit's resurrection would be in full swing, or so the company line went.

The card table before him was as out of place as he was. It was brand new, along with two chairs, looking straight out of the box from the local Walmart. True to his words, there were cards spread before him in the traditional seven card solitaire formation. As he spoke, his hands continued to dance across the cards, each three-card draw producing a flourish of movement, and each card dealt, finding a home before him in play. The card backs advertized the Motor City Casino, another site we'd worked that year. Which brought my mind back to the job at hand.

"Look, Buddy," I began. "This site is condemned, and scheduled for demolition by the end of the week. Whatever you're waiting for, this is a bad place to be doing it. The City of Detroit has granted me the right to inform anyone on the premises to immediately vacate for their..."

"Would you care to play?" the man interrupted, and once again I mentally kicked myself, trying to place that melodious voice. My mind told me to snag the radio from my belt and radio for assistance, but my legs were in major rebellion. I found myself walking into the room and sitting across from the man in the chair that seemed to be waiting for me. 

"You're quite right," the man quipped.

"About what?" my voice was now distant to me.

"The chair was waiting for you." The man's hands had completed the game before him. Four lines of cards were now on the table, all in suit, all in order. He'd won.

I was trapped inside my own body now. Not in some supernatural, zombie-fied state, but in the way one becomes riveted when watching a movie, when the theater fades away and the film becomes your reality. My heart was racing, and I forced myself to breathe deeper, as the doctor had taught me to do in times of extreme stress or excitement.

He swept the cards together and began to shuffle in a mechanical fashion, much like the dealers at the cards' namesake.

"So what's your game? Let me see," He paused and looked heavenward. "Hearts, you love to play hearts."

"How the hell did you..." Then it hit me, the voice, his voice, was my father's. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like my Dad's, it was his voice, filled with the same grace, knowledge, and affection that I'd last heard at his deathbed eight years before.

"Who are you, some sort of mind reader?" I was choking back tears now. Two hundred and thirty pound Jim, tough guy, wearing his plaid hunting shirt and blue jeans, tearing up like Clinton in an apology speech.

He shrugged, and began to deal. "Sometimes I can tell, sometimes I can't. There's too much free choice involved."

It seems important to let you know that I was never afraid during all of this, fear would come later, after it was all done. My lack of fear did not come from toughness, but from the man's disarming nature. I dare say I loved him from the start.

"We'll get to me in a bit, right now, let's talk about you." Now that I was sitting across from him, I could make out all his features. His face was olive complected, and his hair was a long black mane swept back from his face. His features were plain for a man of Arabic descent, but there was prominent scarring across his brow, as if he'd had a hair transplant operation go terribly wrong.

My mouth opened, apparently having joined my leg's coup de ta, and words began to pour forth. For what seemed like hours I told the man with my father's voice about my life, he would nod at times, as if some parts he'd already known. Sometimes, he would laugh with me, or grimace in shared pain, but the entire time we played hand after hand of every card game I knew, and some that I didn't. I told him of growing up in the city, about the congenital heart defect that stopped me from playing sports as a kid, and of the engineering scholarship to U of M, of meeting my wife, Lorainne, in a dorm cafeteria. Of failing out, and working my way up the ladder to becoming, eventually, a general contractor, of the lean years getting there that Lorainne stuck with me, watching the births of my two sons, Jimmy, who was now 14, and Craig, who was eight. I told him, through tears, of the lump that I found on my wife's breast while we'd been making love, and how watching my soul mate slowly waste away before me, a victim of lymphatic mutiny, had broken my mind. I told him how my sons' need for me was the only thing that had kept me sane, and how I'd taken the job with the City Engineer's office, cutting my pay to a fifth of what it had been, so I could work regular hours and be at home with the boys more. I grinned with pride as I talked of their accomplishments, and the love that I took from just rolling around on the living room carpet wrestling with them.

When I was done, the card game paused along with me. I looked out the window at the Copa; the field lights were on as the workers hurried to make the finishing touches for the April deadline. It occurred to me that it was past five now, and that none of the other men had been calling me, or come looking for me. I knew now, without doubt, that something amazing was taking place.

I felt like I'd just given birth to my entire life, and this man seemed like an old friend now. Actually he'd seemed like an old friend from the moment I'd walked through the door.

He was still smiling at me. 

"Go ahead, ask," he prodded me.

Rather than repeat my earlier question, I switched directions.

"You said you were waiting. Who for?"

"It isn't so much whom, as what." He slowly put the cards down on the table, pulled back on the sleeves of His shirt to reveal His forearms, and then He turned them over. Each wrist, just below the hands, had the most hideous scarring I'd ever seen.

"Buddy, if You we're trying to kill Yourself, You've got bad aim."

He laughed with me at this, but then said. "My Father has instructed Me to wait here for the end. The time of Tribulation is at hand, and My return will be taking place very soon. The specifics haven't been made known to Me yet, but the two thousand years are over, the time has come."

I went cold all over. I hadn't been sleeping every Sunday at church as a kid. I'd just spent the last few hours pouring out my soul to, and bonding with, a lunatic.

A sympathetic grin crossed His face, but I could still feel the love bleeding out from Him like a blanket of warmth.

"I know what you are thinking, but just to keep things in perspective, why don't you think of Me as J.C., for now?"

My legs were now back with the game plan, and I stood up. The old cliché kept playing in a loop in my mind, back away slowly, don't break eye contact.

"The choice to leave is yours," He told me as I moved toward the door. "Free choice has always been man's lot, that's how this whole game got going in the first place. But I wish you would stay at least a little longer, I need your help."

"Buddy...J.C... You seem like a nice guy and all, but those kids are waiting for me, and You need the kind of help only a trained professional can supply."

I'd made the door, and was about to make bolt for the stairs. Well, as much of a bolt that can be made when one is running across rotting floors. I was going to crucify the guys for having forgotten me up here with this nutcase. 

"Why do men always need proof?" He sighed toward the ceiling. "Doubting, doubting, doubting. Maybe this will help."

He stood up from the table, while sweeping His arms up from His sides until they met straight above His head. He then lowered them slowly, palms flat together in a prayer like position held before Him.

The room was bathed in light and I stopped in my tracks. As His hands descended there was a visible wave of light that flowed in unison with them from His head on down, continuing until it reached the floor. What it left in its wake was straight from the Last Supper.

"Is this what you need?" He asked without anger. Here was the golden hair complete with a halo, the blue eyes, the loin cloth. "Would you like to touch these?" He held out His hands again, this time the wounds were in the center of the palms, and fresh blood trickled from them.

I fell to my knees, not in worship, but so that I could disgorge my breakfast on the beaten floorboards.
 

Sometime later, I found myself sitting back in the chair across from J.C. again. The glamour was gone now, and He was back to being the man I'd first met that evening.

"I've gone nuts. How am I gonna support my kids from inside an institution?" I know I had been prattling on for a while now. My heart was pounding away inside my chest, and from the stiffness that was creeping into my left side, I had a suspicion that I wasn't going to make it far enough for them to strap a jacket on me.

"That's right, I'd almost forgotten," J.C. said while reaching across the table to lay a hand on my chest. There was glowing again, and heat, and I could actually feel my heart knit together inside my chest, like a leaky faucet being tightened down with a new washer.

"I know We don't have much time, James. The final battle is going to begin, and all of mankind is going to have to make a decision. This world of yours is about to peel away. All of your pain, man's pain since the time of the Fall, will be taken away."

"But my family..." I babbled on. "The boys...I've got season tickets this year. You should have seen them when they found out."

He shook his head. "It will all be swept away. There are far greater glories. The dead will rise up, and all of mankind will be given the choice to give their hearts to My Father, and be taken directly to the Kingdom of God, or they will remain here below and live through the thousand-year reign of the Adversary."

"But what about the free choice You were talking about? I love my kids, my life, and the people out there, there are billions of people, you want them to just walk away?"

He smiled again, a smile that said all would be well and just in the long run.

"When you see the glories of Heaven, all of this will be so moot."

My mind was clearing a bit, there was something that I needed to ask.

"You said You needed my help? What can I do? I'm just a man who builds buildings and knocks them down."

"You are going to be a builder of men's souls, the first of the ones who will help Me spread the good word, make the world realize the time is at hand. Sell all of your earthly goods, give the money to the poor, and follow Me." 

"A disciple? You want me to become a disciple?" I heard a crazy sounding titter escaped from me. Could He just as easily put His hand on my skull and heal my mind once it was gone?

"For lack of a better term, yes."

"What about my sons? Will they come along?"

He paused, looking toward the ceiling again, as if tuning into a radio station that no one else could hear.

"No," He answered. "You must give up your former life completely, to serve the Lord. They will be taken care of well, and will undoubtedly ascend to Heaven knowing that their father helped to save millions of men."

There was much talk after that, and it went on into the evening. He was able to share with me many of the details of what was to come in the next few days and weeks, of what was expected of Him. Of Us.

"The choice to follow Me is yours," He'd told me in the end, but I will need your answer tomorrow. Settle your Earthly affairs, and come join Me. He'd gone back to mechanically shuffling the deck again, and this time laid out a game of clock solitaire, Our playing was done.

Eventually, I found my way home for one last night in my bed that I'd shared with my wife for so long, for one last kiss upon my sleeping sons' brows. I knew that my old life was over.

Free choice, my ass.
 

I awoke next morning to the sound of Jimmy and Craig getting ready for school, eventually Craig came pounding into the room and bounded into bed with me. If there were any doubt in my mind about the night before just having been a pipe dream, they were erased when I was preparing to climb into the morning shower. When I paused to look in the bathroom mirror, I could see the imprint of a human hand burned into my chest above my heart.

There was no way I wanted the day to begin, I knew what I had to do, and dreaded it. Takesha, the woman who watched the boys for me during the day, was already getting breakfast ready for the terrible twosome.

The world went by quickly. I dressed for work as I'd always done, sidestepped Takesha's questions about my late night adventures the evening before, even going so far as to agree with her that it was about time that I started having fun again, and then hugged the boys, as I'd always done, and left.

At the site, I drove directly past the trailers not bothering to check in, and parked in front of the Duma Arms.

My mind was an emotional whirlwind as I climbed the flights of stairs. By the time I was navigating the hallway outside of J.C.'s room I was in full blown histerics, with the sobs racking my body in violent convulsions.

That is how I entered His presence. Through my tears I could see him sitting there at his table, a look of profound sympathy crossing his face when he saw my condition.

"James," He began. "This is a glorious beginning, not an ending."

Without a word, I raised my right arm, and fired the 9mm three times into my savior, all chest shots. Except for the circumstances, Dad would have been proud.

I ran to His side, but He was already coughing up deep red spouts.

"Not again," I heard Him say through the gasps, his words directed toward the ceiling, and the sky beyond.

"Jesus, I'm sorry," I blubbered, kneeling on the floor next to him. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't..." the words were lost.

A look of serenity came over his face once more, and I felt, but did not see the hand that He struggled to raise and place on my shoulder.

"I forgive you, My son," He told me in my father's voice. "It's what I do." Within a few minutes He was dead.
 

Two weeks have passed, and the world has not ended. My sons and I are getting ready for Opening Day; the boys are geeked about playing hookey from school, and I'm going to play hookey from the site across the street, but then, so is everyone else. 

Someday, I suppose, I'll be able to convince myself that none of it happened, but for now I still have the imprint of His hand sunburned onto my chest.

The Duma Arms went down on schedule. There's nothing but a crater left there now. The body was never found amongst the tons of rubble, I never really thought it would be. Who knows, maybe it vanished after three days.

If I'm damned, then I'm damned, but at least I can hold my children and look forward to watching them grow up, and grow old.

I'm sorry.