Can children born into a cult escape the only world they’ve ever known? “The Children of the Children” is available in paperback, Kindle, or audiobook (character list for audiobook listeners). Learn more, or read the first 3 chapters below for free.

Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

Prologue:

On a sunless morning in the fall of 1989, Jenna Swenson gazed out the window of a café near the American embassy in Prague at a ragged teenager who shivered on the sidewalk outside. They had spoken twice at the embassy, where Jenna worked. He’d said little that would help his case. The teen hunched his shoulders against the cold as a waitress set coffee on Jenna’s table. The embassy could be so impersonal. Jenna motioned for him to join her.

She peered at the crowds. After forty years of communist rule, East Germans were pouring across the Czech border and into the West German embassy up the street, demanding entry to the West. The prospect would have been unthinkable a few months earlier. But Hungary had opened its border with Austria and was calling for free parliamentary elections. Anything was possible.

There was something wild about the boy, too, an anger held in check. He claimed to be an American who had never set foot on American soil. Jenna suspected he was an East German who, tired of sleeping at the West German embassy, was attempting to enter the United States by deceit. But no one picked up English that well.

The lanky teen made his way through the bustling café to her table. His eyes were heavy with fatigue. Dealing with him firmly was going to be difficult.

“Still no passport?” Jenna said.

“I can’t get it.”

“You managed to cross the border.” She raised a porcelain cup to her lips. “No birth certificate either, I suppose.”

The boy’s eyes strayed to her steaming coffee. “I told you. They won’t let me have them.”

“You’ve told me a lot of things, David. It is David today, isn’t it? You couldn’t get your name straight at the embassy.” His jaw tightened. “I give you credit for speaking English like a native, but it won’t get you into the States. I can help you if you don’t have a passport, but I can’t help you if you lie to me.”

“I’m an American, Mrs. Swenson, raised by Americans. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because you know nothing about the country. You don’t know any history and can’t name half the states. Even missionaries educate their kids.”

“I didn’t say they were missionaries.”

“Tell me who you are. I won’t ask again.”

She gestured to the empty chair. He dropped his tattered backpack on the floor and sat.

“Come on, Mrs. Swenson, you know who I am. I’m the kid handing out leaflets, the ones you throw away when my back is turned.”

Jenna nodded. She had seen such children.

“You wonder if the money you give us is all we have to live on, and what happens behind our locked doors, and if we’re as happy as we say we are.”

She had a bad feeling about this.

“And, once in a while, you wonder if the world really is going to end in 1993. Or ’95, or ’98, or the end of the millennium, or whatever we’ve got printed on our literature that week.” The boy dragged a hand through thick, dark hair. “You wonder for five seconds. Then you go back to your hot coffee. You go back to your world and we go back to ours.”

Jenna set down her cup. “You’re in a cult.” He stared. “And your name?”

He had stumbled over the answer before. Today, his voice grew eerily calm. “My real name is Geoffrey Calvert. Growing up, I was David. Like David, I would slay our enemies. God gave us authority to tread upon these serpents. We were the wheat He would gather into the granary, but the chaff He would burn with unquenchable fire.”

A low rumble rose from the street. “I was educated through the Bible,” he said. “As I got older, I stole books from kiosks. I read them under the covers at night, memorizing passages like I had memorized my Bible verses.” He hung his head, as meek as a scolded child. “Now I have to live in a world I know nothing about. I’m American. My parents are American. But I’ve never been there, and it’s foreign to me.”

Forbidden books. Children hungry for food and knowledge. These things happened in Eastern Europe, not Western, where the boy said he’d grown up. 

“David, none of this proves you’re American.”

“But it’s an American group.”

“What’s the name?”

“Father Joseph calls it World Ministries, at least that’s what’s on his Letters, but we use an older name among ourselves.”

“What name?”

He hesitated. “The Fishermen.” Jenna’s mouth opened. “You know them?” he asked.

Twenty years faded away. She was at a rally in San Francisco, waving a banner against the Vietnam War. Then she’d heard singing. Through the angry mob came thirty or forty youth, smiling and waving, oblivious to everything except the scrawny man who led them. He wore a long black robe, as if he might swallow any light that came his way. Jenna never forgot his eyes. She could have sworn they looked only at her. The force of the man’s personality compelled demonstrators to let him through. He held a large sign: FOLLOW ME, AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN. Matthew 4:19.

Later came stories of isolation and abuse, parents mourning a lost generation.

Was Father Joseph the man Jenna had seen at the rally?

“You know them?” the boy asked again.

“My God, yes. They would tell total strangers ‘I love you’ and ‘Jesus loves you.’ Things like that.”

“We were loved, all right. If I had a Deutsche mark for every time some phony told me he loved me, I could repave the Autobahn.”

“They dropped out of the news,” she said.

“They left the U.S. in 1971. I was born the next year.”

Jenna’s coffee had grown cold. “There must be other American children in Europe. How many?”

“Hundreds of children were born into the Fishermen.”

She ordered two coffees and a plate of kolaches. “And your grandparents? If we call, do you think they’ll help?”

“Mrs. Swenson, I’m not sure my grandparents know I exist.”

Jenna needed that coffee. “There’s still the matter of your passport.”

He took a document from the pocket of his thin jacket.

“So you do have your passport.” She studied the name, picture, and birthdate. He had just turned seventeen. “I wondered how you had gotten to Prague. Why did you tell me you didn’t—”

A well-dressed, middle-aged man rapped on the window. I shouldn’t stop at the same place every morning, Jenna thought. She watched as he, too, squeezed through the packed café.

“They marched in Leipzig again last night, Jenna. Thousands.” The man glanced at the teenager beside her. “Honecker sent troops, but they didn’t fire.”

“Jesus.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll be at the embassy as soon as I can.”

The middle-aged man left. Kolaches and coffee arrived. Jenna took a fresh cup.

“Have one, David,” she said. “And a kolache.”

He wolfed down a fruit-filled pastry, sipping, then gulping, his coffee.

“How did your parents get involved with the Fishermen?”

“My father got messed up in college.”

“A lot of students did. What happened to him?”

The boy snorted. “I’ve heard this story a million times at Devotionals, but I think it was a fluke. He was driving down a road in Texas and he saw some lights.”

Chapter One:

For now we see through a glass, darkly. I Corinthians 13:12

Danny Calvert was running out of time. Two lights glowed in the distance. He glanced at the speedometer and saw that he was going ninety. He had passed a pickup but remained in the left-hand lane. The pickup had faded behind him. He was alone on the narrow, twisting road west of Austin, alone except for the brilliant stars, the lake sparkling tranquilly beneath them, and those two bright lights, which grew closer every second.

He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t remember getting into the car. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept or eaten, but he recalled the sound of Owen cocking the hammer that morning. Face down on the floor, sprawled among the filth in his tiny apartment, Danny was too stunned to breathe, too numb to think. He stared at the dirty jeans under his bed as Owen put the gun to his ear and said, “I’m a patient man, Calvert, but you fucked up. You’ve got two days to get the cash.”

Danny had smoked pot to open his mind to the awesome wonders of life. He couldn’t believe it had come to this. Terror seized him when he realized he had to get two grand in two days.

He had started his second year of college badly. In August, his father had loaned him thirteen hundred dollars to get his car out of the shop. Danny had given the money to Wayne, a fellow anti-war protester, to leave town for a while.

A month later, still on thin ice with the University of Texas about last year’s grades, Danny had raised his hand in class, then waved it, at the professor who was trying to ignore him.

“Yes?” Dr. Cohen said warily.

“Sir, I’m having a hard time starting this term paper you assigned about pivotal events in twentieth-century history.”

“What’s the problem?”

“There are so many topics to choose from, sir. Jim Crow. Vietnam. The bomb.” Students snickered.

“Pick a bright spot,” the professor said.

Danny couldn’t think about the paper as long as he didn’t have his wheels. One drizzly October night, he made his first sale of pot, from a stash he’d bought from Owen. Owen scared the hell out of him, but the sale was so smooth, the profit margin so steep, that he bought more, resold it, and bought and sold more. Owen said he had a great future, but Danny worried about the path he was on.

In November, Wayne resurfaced—not with the money he owed but with a bold, new plan. Hippies crowded into Danny’s west-campus apartment.

“Half a million must have marched this weekend in Washington,” Wayne said. He gestured to a poster on the wall, which Danny had printed, advertising the smaller rally held in Austin. “It’s not enough. You know they’re blowing up shit in New York?”

A bank, a federal building, and an Army induction center had been bombed. Several people had been hurt, too. With thousands dying in Southeast Asia, and the massacre by U.S. troops of unarmed civilians at My Lai making the front page, everyone in Danny’s apartment agreed that those in power got what was coming. Revolution was in the air. Cheers rose when Wayne suggested they blow up the most-hated building on campus: the football stadium. The university had bulldozed dozens of trees recently to make way for its expansion, the administration going so far as to call in law enforcement to pull protesters out of trees. Student emotions were still raw. The anti-war movement was changing. Deep down, Danny not only knew that bombing the stadium was wrong, he knew it wouldn’t work. The system was too big for a bunch of young, fumbling revolutionaries to bring down.

Danny walked to the body shop after class the next day with thirteen hundred dollars from the pot he’d sold, outraged to discover he owed another three hundred for the months his car had been sitting there. He stalked back to his apartment. The country ran on greed.

Lost in thought, he didn’t see the two beefy police officers outside his front door. Instead of producing a search warrant, they frisked him. All they found was the thirteen hundred. That was bad enough.

“How’d you get this?” said an officer.

“Selling Girl Scout cookies,” Danny said.

The second officer punched him in the gut.

“You’re real funny, Calvert,” the first officer said. “That kid we’ve got downtown loves a good joke.”

Danny bent over, wishing he hadn’t mouthed off. “What kid?”

“Joe Del Wallace. Shame to put that nice boy behind bars. Don’t worry.” The officer gave him back his money. “He’ll strike a deal soon.”

Joe Del was a freshman Danny had coaxed into climbing the trees at the stadium when the bulldozers arrived. The son of an oil worker, Joe Del had gotten into college on a football scholarship. Danny, who tutored him in English composition, had introduced him to the movement. The others thought he was spying. Why would an athlete protest the stadium?

Danny was forever getting himself or someone else in trouble. Inspired by his antics, another friend, a boy in high school, had protested the dress code and gotten expelled. Danny couldn’t turn his back on Joe Del now. Despite the risks, he had to see him. After a bigger hassle at the jail than anticipated, a cop took him to Joe Del.

“They found some joints in my dorm room,” Joe Del said, “but I swear they ain’t mine.”

The pigs had probably planted the joints, Danny thought. “Have you called your dad?”

“I can’t tell him I got kicked out.”

“They won’t kick you out.”

“I’ll lose my scholarship over this. If I ain’t in school, they’ll send me to Vietnam.” Joe Del cast sleepless eyes at the cop, who picked his teeth outside of hearing range. “There’s something else. They’re asking about you. They say if I tell what I know, they’ll let me off.”

The pigs would make Joe Del rat on Danny, then bust Danny and make him rat, too. If he ratted on Wayne or Owen, he could kiss the university goodbye, along with his freedom, and possibly his life.

“I’ll think of something,” Danny said. “I promise.”

Darkness was falling when he left the jail. He wondered where his fervor for life had gone. Even as America had unraveled, he’d clung to the belief that the world would get to a better place. Perhaps he’d lost hope when he saw peasants running from homes burned by American soldiers, and children writhing under jellied gasoline. Maybe the Kennedy and King assassinations had tipped him over the edge. Like thousands of Americans, he’d taken to the streets. All he had to show for his life were debts and bad grades.

As Danny strolled up Congress Avenue that November evening in 1969, he remembered his father asking, when the university had put him on scholastic probation, if he wanted to go to Vietnam. He’d said no, because college made more sense than war. But nothing made sense anymore. He couldn’t tell a World War II veteran, a self-made man, that he was ashamed of being born, on the fourth anniversary of Hiroshima, into a country that waged war on the weak. A country where police officers beat protesters who condemned that war, and gun nuts bumped off national leaders who spoke against it. He couldn’t explain that the American dream meant nothing, that a job designing better ways to sue people, or cut them open or rip them off or blow them up or fake them out, wasn’t for him. You’ve never stuck with anything, his father would say. Danny only knew there had to be more to life than getting a degree and making money.

If he could free Joe Del, he could salvage something from the past year. He headed for the office of Ray Mitchell, the attorney who had gotten him off for destroying Army recruitment signs the previous fall. Ray was locking his office west of the Texas Capitol.

“I don’t do pro bono work. My retainer is a thousand dollars. I charge a hundred an hour.”

“This kid hasn’t got any money,” Danny said.

“Then he can get a public defender.”

Danny wasn’t going to be responsible for another friend not graduating. He pulled out the thirteen hundred, relishing the attorney’s expression.

“What are you doing walking around with that much cash?”

“Are you taking the case or not?” Danny said.

Ray looked at his watch. “I’ve got dinner reservations and a busy week. Come back in a few days.”

The bills flapped in the breeze. Danny needed double the amount in his hand. In fact, he needed triple the amount, because he still owed his dad. And he had to get the money soon. His parents were expecting him next week for Thanksgiving.

With this in mind, he made Owen an offer so breathtakingly foolish only desperation excused it. Relying on Danny’s reputation, Owen turned over the last of his pot. Danny mixed it with the grass in his own apartment, intending to sell all of it for four thousand dollars. He promised Owen two thousand, which would leave him enough for the retainer, the extra three hundred for his car, and a start in repaying his dad.

He netted forty-three hundred dollars, a phenomenal sum. He celebrated getting his car out of the shop by getting high. But, when his head cleared, the remaining money—including the cash for Owen and the retainer for Ray Mitchell—was gone. He vaguely recalled someone coming into his unlocked apartment, someone bold enough to steal from under his stoned nose. Fear swept through him. His life spiraling out of control, he hoped Owen would get busted or killed before the week was out. But Owen had put a gun to his head.

It was while sprawled on his apartment floor that Danny thought of a new guy, Nick. Something about the man bothered him, but he was out of options. Nick agreed to purchase whatever Danny had, and suggested they meet outside a downtown nightclub. Later, Danny would attribute not getting arrested to divine intervention. What really saved his ass was that he arrived early. Safe in his car, he saw what Nick looked like when he wasn’t hanging around dopeheads near the university. Clean-cut. Joe Del had talked, or else Danny’s luck had run out. Either way, he was dead. Owen would blow his brains out for not getting the money, with a second shot for being so stupid that he couldn’t recognize a narc when he saw one.

Nick motioned to someone across the street. In a doorway, shuffling their feet to keep warm, and making little effort to conceal themselves, stood the two police officers. Just then, a boisterous group spilled from the nightclub, surrounding Nick. Shaking, Danny eased the car down the street.

Around midnight, he stopped at a phone booth. His father usually went to bed early. It was his mother he wanted to talk to. The semi-weekly newspaper his parents had purchased in a small town east of Austin, where Danny had worked his senior year, was turning a decent profit. He asked his mother for two thousand dollars. He didn’t mention the money he already owed them.

“Can I give it to you at Thanksgiving?” she asked.

“I need it before then.”

“Are you in trouble, Danny?”

He couldn’t describe how far away he felt from everybody and everything.

“Well, your father’s sending someone to Austin tomorrow for supplies. I’ll have him put a check in your mailbox.”

Danny rolled a joint. He drove west into the hills, furious at a country that outlawed pot but not napalm. He’d never felt this empty. Fear and anger were the only emotions he could sustain, and dope the only thing keeping either emotion at bay.

He passed a pickup, but, instead of moving back to the right, remained in the oncoming lane, dazzled by two lights near the horizon. Leaning forward for a better look, Danny unknowingly pressed the accelerator to the floor. The frantic honking of the approaching eighteen-wheeler sounded like a flock of distant seagulls. For one pot-induced moment, he felt immortal. Then sanity reclaimed him. He was on one of the most dangerous roads in central Texas, seconds from impact. The lights were not stars but angels of death. Like a screw unwillingly wrenched from wood, Danny’s soul was about to be ripped from his body. The hands on the steering wheel seemed paralyzed. The face in the rearview mirror was not his own. Yet part of him felt no more distress than an ancient spectator at the Roman Colosseum might have felt watching a lion devour a child. He knew he was going to die. The only puzzling thing was why it was taking so damn long.

At the last moment, Danny cried out to the God he didn’t believe in. As if by magic, his car moved to the right, and the oncoming truck whizzed harmlessly past.

It was to become the defining moment of his life. All subsequent events could be traced back to that road: the woman he would marry, the children he would father, the people he would meet, and those from whom he would become estranged.

Danny slowed the car, came upon an unexpected curve, and drove into a ditch. The car landed on its side, driver’s door above. Climbing out of the car was like trekking up Everest.

He crawled out of the ditch. When dawn broke, he was sober and very hungry. Lights and road blurred. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. He’d felt sure he was going to die. His confused, exhausted mind couldn’t figure out why he had not.

The beauty of the morning briefly lifted his spirits, but his spirits soon fell. The sun on the distant hills would expose the evil of the world. It was a world he’d wanted to change, but he’d failed. Only revolution could change the world, and the revolution was over.

A van appeared. Danny dusted off his jeans. Although he was convinced something unusual had happened the night before, at that moment he wasn’t looking for anything more than a ride and a cup of coffee.

Chapter Two:

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. Acts 2:44

The worn-out yellow van came to a stop in front of Danny. A small man with thinning hair rolled down the passenger window, his mottled face working on a smile.

“Going home?”

“Austin. Yeah,” Danny said.

“My friend, your home isn’t Austin. Your home is the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“The Kingdom of God is at hand,” came a voice from the van’s farthest seat. “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!”

Bible-thumpers, Danny thought. Just what I need. The thin-haired man looked around.

“Where’s your car?”

“I drove into a ditch.”

“Praise God you’re not hurt.” The man reached for the door handle behind him. “We’re on our way to Austin to witness for the Lord. Hop in.” 

A golden-haired woman strumming a guitar made room for Danny on the middle seat. He found a place on the floor for his feet among the backpacks and grocery sacks, as the van got underway.

“I’m Simon,” said the thin-haired man, talking to Danny over his shoulder. “This is Martha and Peter.” He indicated the woman, and a man beside her drinking coffee from a chipped thermos. Danny shook hands and gave his name.

“Jesus loves you, Danny,” Martha said.

“Jesus loves you,” said another woman and several men in back. Everyone looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, except Simon, who was perhaps thirty.

“You’re missionaries?” Danny addressed Martha. A dreamy look came over her. She seemed to float away. Peter passed him the thermos, opened a sketchpad, and began drawing a limestone cliff visible from the window.

“We’re servants of the Lord,” Simon said. “Have you been born again?”

The coffee tasted as bad as it smelled. “What?” Danny said.

“‘Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.’”

Danny thought most religions were bullshit. He tried to be polite.

“What church are you with?”

“We’re not with a church. We follow the teachings of Father Joseph.”

The idea of calling anyone “Father” outside his family amused him. “America’s churches are full of warmongers anyway,” Danny said. “Someday there will be a reckoning in this country.”

“There will be a reckoning for mankind.” Simon clutched the seat as the driver swerved to miss an armadillo. “Will you be ready?”

“I printed posters for the last rally at the university.”

“I’m talking about more than Vietnam,” Simon said. “I’m asking: ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’”

Danny had almost lost his soul last night. He was sure of it. His mind raced. Words had always moved him, hence his love of literature and music, and stimulants to enhance their understanding. He could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d been content to grasp ninety-nine percent of what he read, for he had a marvelous brain. Danny had seldom been content. That final one percent nagged at him. 

“If I had an answer, I’d be a tenured professor.” The coffee was starting to taste better. “Who’s Father Joseph?” 

“Father Joseph is the founder of our group,” Simon said. “A true disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God doesn’t need brick and mortar. He’s more powerful than any church man can create.”

“And God loves you!” Martha floated back into the van. “God loves you so much that He gave His only Son.”

“‘That whoever believes in Him,’” Simon said, “‘should not perish but have eternal life.’”

The bouncing words made Danny dizzy. He’d run out of things to say.

Simon studied the rugged landscape going by outside the van. “How did you end up in a ditch?”

The only answer made no sense, terrified him, or both. “I don’t know. I saw some lights. Next thing I knew I was in a ditch.”

“The lights were angels,” Martha whispered.

“Of the Lord or the Devil?” someone asked.

“The answer can only be found in prayer,” Simon said.

Peter’s cliff was taking shape on the sketchpad. “God doesn’t answer prayers,” Danny said. “He’s never answered mine.”

“Are you sure you didn’t call out to Him last night?” Simon said.

Danny shrugged. “I might’ve.”

“That explains it.” Simon twisted around in his seat and faced Danny. “Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for you, interceded with Death and tore you from the clutches of the Beast.”

What beast? Danny thought.

“God has given you a second chance. What will you do with it?”

His feeling of superiority was beginning to wane. “I don’t know.”

“Want to come to San Francisco? Father Joseph has a house in Haight-Ashbury where about sixty of us are staying. The only rules are no drugs and no sex.”

Bad rules, Danny thought. “I told you. I have to get to Austin. I’ve got a paper to finish and debts to pay.”

“A paper to finish and debts to pay,” Simon repeated. “Is that all there is to life? Why dedicate yourself to meaningless things when you can turn your heart to the Lord?”

Danny went over his mental to-do list.

“And to His Son, Jesus Christ,” Simon said.

Cash his mother’s check.

“Light of the World and Savior of Mankind.”

Pay Owen.

“Who suffered.”

Get Joe Del out of jail, and his car out of the ditch.

“And died.”

He could ask Simon to turn the van around and help him with the car.

“For you.”

No, Owen came first. And Joe Del.

“For if we reject Him,” Simon said.

Owen, Joe Del, car. Then he’d see about getting his life back in order.

“His blood be on us.”

Danny’s skin crawled. Whose blood?

“Come with us,” Martha said. “Fill your heart with the good news of Jesus.”

“Ask Jesus into your heart.” Words bounced again.

“Turn your life to the Lord,” a man said.

“Praise the Lord!” said another.

“Praise His emissary among men, Father Joseph!”

Peter was the only one in the van who hadn’t spoken. He leaned behind Martha’s back and said to Danny quietly, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

The advice seemed out of place. Danny had one more question for Simon.

“What’s the name of your group?”

“The Fishermen.”

Chapter Three:

He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes 1:18

The Fishermen let him out at a sidewalk café across from the university.

“We’ll be on campus if you change your mind.” Simon shook Danny’s hand. “Remember: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

The van disappeared, taking with it Danny’s good intentions. Emptiness set in. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and most students had left town. He bought coffee, a doughnut, and a newspaper. Bird droppings stained the table. At his feet, a hapless pigeon nibbled a cookie, its companions teasing and pecking. Danny shooed the birds away.

He was finishing his coffee when a pudgy, careworn figure approached.

“Getting a head start on the day, Calvert?” The pudgy man placed a coffee and two doughnuts on the table and sat. “Dr. Cohen? Twentieth-century History? I doubt you’d remember me. You haven’t been in class for a week.”

Danny recalled the long-neglected term paper. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Who the hell hasn’t?” Dr. Cohen’s beard moved up and down as he chewed. “I’m sorry about the trees at the stadium, but life goes on. Get your head out of your ass. The paper was due Monday, but I can give you another week. You’re not a bad writer when you put your mind to it. Your parents’ talent must have rubbed off. Have you finished the research?”

Danny twirled his cup. 

“Christ, Calvert, have you got a death wish? You were at the top of your high school class, for Christ’s sake. How long before Nixon sends you to Vietnam?” Danny rolled his eyes. “Don’t you want a degree? Knowledge is power.”

“The world doesn’t need to get smarter, Dr. Cohen. It needs to get better.”

“Another idealistic kid flushing himself down the toilet.” Dr. Cohen wiped his mouth. “Son, if you want to make a difference in this world, you’ve got to live in it and work in it, not turn your back on it because it pisses you off.”

“I’ve spent most of my life in school and haven’t learned a damn thing,” Danny said. “Maybe I’ll dedicate myself to something else.”

“I suppose you know what that is.”

Anger spilled over. “Tell me, Dr. Cohen, what difference have you made?” The professor flinched. “Knowledge doesn’t prevent atrocities. It just makes intellectuals out of those who philosophize about them.” Danny remembered hearing the man’s son had died at Hue, but he couldn’t stop. “We’ve had murder, rape, and torture for centuries,” Danny said. “Now it’s happening in Southeast Asia. The perpetrators are American boys not rich enough to go to college, or not willing to kiss ass to stay there.”

“Is that all you learned in my class?”

Danny tossed his cup in the trash. “That’s about it.”

“I’m sorry you learned so little.” Dr. Cohen’s chair screeched as he pushed it back. “Calvert, I once was a fair and flourishing professor but am now shut up in the iron cage of my despair. I don’t know how to solve the world’s problems, but I know it will take great minds to solve them, and greater minds to believe they can be solved. God gave each of us a brain, and yours is better than most. Don’t waste it.”

The professor waddled across the street. Danny regretted that he’d hurt one of the few people he’d run into recently who meant well. He needed another coffee but was too tired to stand in line.

Thick-brained, he opened the newspaper. He was hoping for an update on the investigation into the My Lai massacre. A front-page story, SCHOLARSHIP ATHLETE FOUND DEAD, woke him up:  

“A University of Texas athlete was found dead early this morning in jail where he was being held on unspecified drug charges. The apparent suicide victim, whose name was not released pending family notification, was found hanging around one a.m. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at the scene. A preliminary medical examination revealed he had been dead less than an hour, indicating he hung himself shortly after a midnight walk-through in which police say he appeared to be asleep. Officers wouldn’t comment on whether the student was despondent over his arrest but defended the Austin Police Department for not putting him on suicide watch. They also refused to disclose the contents of a note he left. Speculation was ripe as to how a scholarship athlete had acquired narcotics. One unconfirmed report suggests that, before hanging himself, the young man provided information that may enable police to zero in on drug traffickers who—”

There was only one person it could be. Too devastated to be afraid, Danny put his head between his knees and tried not to throw up. Why hadn’t he hired that attorney for Joe Del instead of getting his car out of the shop? This was worse than a high school friend getting expelled. This friend was dead. Everything Danny had touched had turned to shit.

A bum slept nearby, hairy toes poking from his nasty shoes. Castoffs littered the sidewalk. Junkies and winos. Ex-cons and illegals. Cripples, crazies, and the occasional character who simply didn’t get along with anyone.

Danny ran his hand through his dark hair. He had to get his mother’s check without getting arrested. Tomorrow, even today, Owen would come for the money.

The Fishermen. They could get the check from his mailbox while he waited in their van.

Danny crossed the street to the university and followed the sound of singing. South of the tower, three people strummed guitars: Martha, her hair shimmering in the sun, and a man and woman Danny recognized from the van. Clapping echoed off the stately buildings. The Fishermen collected money from the sparse audience. In minutes, Danny had told Simon the whole story.

“If I don’t pay Owen, I’ll be dead, too. My apartment isn’t far from here. The check may be there.”

The thin-haired man, quick with a response in the van, was silent. 

“I can’t think about this kid right now,” Danny said. “Not while I’ve got a drug dealer on my ass.”

“Don’t forget the two cops,” Simon said.

“I don’t need you to tell me how screwed up my life is.”

“If it’s screwed up, why continue it? Come with us to California. Hear what Father Joseph has to say about Jesus.”

Danny passed a weary hand across his forehead. “Simon, I don’t know if I believe in Jesus. I don’t know if I believe in God.”

“Why do you doubt Him?”

Danny pointed to the looming tower, which dominated the university. “Three years ago, a guy took a gun up there and blew away a dozen people. Where was God, taking a coffee break?”

Simon patted his pockets. “We ran out of Father Joseph’s Letters in Houston. Look, I can’t explain things as well as he can, but I can tell you that that,” he pointed not to the top of the tower, but to the entrance, “is the only thing worth knowing on this campus.”

Danny had walked by the tower a hundred times but never read the words above the entrance: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

“When I found Jesus, I found truth,” Simon said. “You’ll find it, too. Come with us to San Francisco.”

It wouldn’t hurt to get away, Danny thought, until he was sure Joe Del hadn’t talked. The car was important, but not as important as avoiding the cops. And paying Owen. He could hitch a ride back to Austin in a few weeks.

The Fishermen took him to his apartment, where Simon retrieved the check, then to the bank to cash it. Danny called Owen, said his apartment was being fumigated, and asked to meet at a 7-Eleven. Owen didn’t notice the Fishermen’s yellow van idling in the 7-Eleven parking lot. He counted the bills Danny gave him, and repeated that Danny had a great future.

Danny spent the night with the Fishermen in Pease Park, an evening of song and laughter like his early days at the university, before things got crazy. The Fishermen took turns describing how they had been saved. No one was in school or working, nor, it appeared, had family to go home to. Yet the youth gathered around the makeshift fire were fun. Relaxing.

Easy.

The Fishermen headed west the next morning. A passing rancher helped them pull Danny’s car from the ditch. To his relief, there was little damage. Simon suggested Danny ride with them in the van to learn more about the Lord. Peter volunteered to drive Danny’s car to San Francisco. Grateful for all they had done, Danny agreed.

They camped in the mountains near El Paso. Someone lent him a sleeping bag and he slept under the stars. Toward morning, he buttoned his jacket and followed a creek to a small mountain. He climbed, pausing often until he reached the summit. Pinks and golds bathed the desert. Beyond lay Mexico.

All day, the Fishermen sang and read Bible verses. He soon forgot about his car. He also forgot to call his parents to say he wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, or, rather, it never became convenient. By nightfall, they were nearing southern California. Another night would put them in San Francisco.

Only then did Danny realize his car was no longer behind the van. Simon said Peter knew the route they were taking. Besides, the car was part of the empty society Danny had rejected. Wasn’t Jesus more important? Unsure how he felt about Jesus, or anything the Fishermen had said, Danny let the matter go. He slept, lulled by food, singing, and the promise of something new.

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