The Chief

At six-years old he sat in an old rocking-chair in the living room watching his mother lying on a couch across the room.  "Poppa, " he'd called to his father who lay on the floor in the kitchen, "mama's dawdling on the couch again."
"Don't bother me, Mr. smarty pants, I'm having a wet-dream," his father had answered from the kitchen floor and mumbled, "that boy's headed for ruination."
One night coming out of the back of a lady's house where he'd been celebrating his nineteenth birthday he thought of jumping a two-foot fence separating the small yard of the house from an alley.  "You're a little groggy from drinking too much," he told himself, "just continue walking and step over it." Instantly, it became a challenge and he started to trot, intending  to stride over it, but the tip of  his left shoe struck the top of the fence and he plummeted, his head hitting the cement.  Much of the impact had been absorbed by his right hand, injuring a couple of knuckles.  He, however, had a headache for three days and started seeing flashes of light, hearing a voice in one say, "I want you to be my Chief. Go to a church . . ."

"What church . . ?"
"Any Church, and this is what I want you to do . . . ."
The following Sunday he burst through the door of a church and strode down the aisle, going toward the pulpit, shouting,  "And that man lived in the belly of a whale three days and nights . . !"  Abrupt silence muffled the church as all heads jerked toward  him, but he continued, ". . . didn't have no electricity down  there, no stove, no food, and no TV to watch football and basketball, and he came up out of there -- and if you take that literally, then this is the place where you should be learning about your culture, as other people do in their religious institutions --!"
"Blasphemy . . !" several shouted from the pews and two broad shouldered deacons rushed toward him.
"Don't touch him with impure hands, the Spirit is on him . . !" the preacher called out from the pulpit.
"Mockery . . !" screamed many from both sides of the aisle, and a stout black woman, straightened the blonde wig on her head, pushed to her feet and threw a Bible at him, but hit someone in the  pew next to him who jumped up and threw a Bible back at her, but hit someone else and Bibles began flying on both sides of the aisle as if they were Molotov Cocktails and a thunderous uproar filled the church, men, women, and children screaming and hollering and flinging whatever could be lifted, even straining and groaning to overturn the heavy pews as if they were in the streets over-turning cars to set afire or struggling to come out of shops with huge TVs or cases of beer, wine, and whiskey. The foundation of the church shook and chandeliers fell on people and pews and the  ceiling and roof trembled, scaring people half to death as they scrambled, running and tumbling on each other, their bodies jamming the route out of the church, and ceiling and roof caved in on them.
"Man, the preacher must have been really kicking it in there,"  an observer on the street said to a friend, as if he were talking about a hot, foot-stomping jazz performance or any other kind of entertainment.
"And not a cloud in the sky," his friend commented.  "Just beautiful sunshine.  Ain't never seen or heard of anything like that happening to a church before."
"Like they say, 'One man's pleasure is another man's poison.' "