Cole Fire, page 5
Cole picked up the Fed Ex envelope and waved it over his desk. “With what you found, and a little help from a friend in Washington, I think I’ll have enough to get me going. Thanks for getting to this so fast.”
“Ours is to serve and obey.” Randy gave Cole a very unmilitary salute and was gone.
“Well, Jesse, what’s your story?” Cole said aloud, tearing open the package from Carter Washington.
Most of the biographical information on Jesse Monday was well documented and part of his public presentation. Jesse’s mother Marcia was an unwed mother-to-be, of seventeen, when her parents shipped her off to live with an older cousin in Sacramento. The cousin was another black sheep who hadn’t fallen in line with the strict tenets of the extremely rigid off-shoot sect of the Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Marcia and her cousin Billie hit it off immediately. They both had broken with the strict teachings of their denomination. The Elders, who would have led the congregation to believe they were wanton women, were far from the truth of who they actually were.
Billie worked a part-time job at a fabric shop. She also had a fiancé, Zack, who worked in the building trades and helped with the groceries. Marcia cleaned, cooked, mended and washed Zack’s clothes. Since Zack supplied most of the food he was a welcome addition to their dinner table.
There were strict rules of the house and Zack was banished after ten o’clock. This seemed strange to their circle of friends, since one of the girls was already pregnant. There was a moral code and strong sense of propriety the girls lived by. They still attended a small church near their apartment and neither smoked, drank or used drugs.
One evening Zack brought his friend from work, Joel Monday, to the apartment for dinner. Joel was a tall redhead, ten years older than Marcia, with skin sunbaked and rough as dried leaves. He was smitten with Marcia from the start.
Marcia explained to Joel that the father of her unborn child was a traveling gospel singer who did a concert at her church. Her parents brought him home for dinner and offered him a room to help save on his expenses. All through dinner he paid close attention to Marcia and once slipped his hand onto her thigh. That night when the house was quiet he slipped into her room and had taken her. She knew nothing of men and was flattered by his kisses, but was ashamed and confused by what he had done to her. When her belly began to swell, she understood better, but her parents called her “Eve the beguiler” and sent her away.
Marcia and Joel were married six weeks after they met. Joel took his new bride to a small town ninety miles south of Sacramento called Keyes, where they would live out the rest of their lives together.
Jesse Joel Monday was born shortly after midnight on September 29, 1985. He was by all accounts a happy, well-adjusted little boy who loved to follow his dad around and mimicked his use of a measuring tape, saw, and hammer. JJ, as he was nicknamed, loved to go to Sunday School at the little church his parents attended. Although he was a bright boy, he tended to daydream and was never considered a great student. Jesse frequently received poor marks because he seemed to be able to turn any assignment into a religious argument.
Shortly after his twelfth birthday, during a children’s Christmas pageant, Jesse put aside the prepared text he was supposed to read and gave a fifteen-minute sermon. Marcia and Joel sat in stunned disbelief as the congregation called out support and encouragement to the freckled kid at the pulpit.
From time to time, Jesse was called upon to speak at youth meetings and on several occasions stepped into the pulpit when the pastor was sick or on vacations. On all occasions the response was one of surprise and respect for the wisdom shown by one so young. Jesse finished school and followed Joel into the family business. Monday Construction did well, and were highly respected house framers. With all their success, though, Jesse was restless and often spoke of a higher calling.
He began to give “spiritual talks” during lunch breaks. More and more frequently the men would be late getting back to work because they were more than willing to listen to Jesse’s stories. Joel found it increasingly difficult to excuse Jesse’s crew for not meeting deadlines. Although never confrontational, always repentant, and begging forgiveness, Jesse knew that he could not continue the life of a construction worker when he felt such a strong calling to preach.
Somehow Joel always knew there would never be a Monday & Sons Construction. When Jesse decided to strike out on his own and try the life of a traveling preacher, Joel wasn’t all that surprised. Truth be told, he was surprised it took as long as it did.
With the help of his pastor, Jesse was able to get a few speaking engagements around California and Nevada. Soon the pulpits of small churches and “preaching to the choir” lost their appeal. Along with a rough-and-tumble Arkansas transplant, Skeeter Evans, an ex-con farm hand from the neighboring town of Hughson, who was part carnival barker and part security guard, Jesse began to hold the first of his outside meetings. Usually they happened at parks or bus stations where homeless people gathered of an evening.
Standing on a bench or picnic table, Skeeter would begin calling out to the people in the area to gather around and listen to what his friend was about to say. Whether they gathered or not, Jesse would begin walking around and in a loud, clear voice, begin telling a story that, in the end, was a fable designed to teach a spiritual lesson. His “wandering” style never failed to attract a crowd. Before long, the “storytelling preacher” was attracting big enough crowds that the police would regularly show up and try to disperse the crowd.
Since his message was a positive one, the police usually caught on and let the impromptu meeting continue. It was during a roll-up by the police that Gary Timmons first heard Jesse speak. The next week he left the Stockton Police Department and began to travel with Jesse.
In the early spring, word spread of a large anti-war protest that was planned at the gates of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, a large weapons development facility nestled in the coastal range not far from San Francisco. Jesse, Skeeter and Gary arrived just as the protesters started arriving and Jesse began to speak to them.
“There once was a farmer who had a small flock of sheep. The sheep were his pride and joy. In fact, the farmer was so fond of the sheep he gave them all names. His children played with the sheep and the farmer’s wife used their wool to make socks and sweaters for their family. The sheep were never killed for food.
“One night a pack of wolves came and killed one of the sheep. When the farmer found ‘Belle’ lying dead the next morning, he was grieved as if it had been one of his children. The whole family stood around a grave the farmer dug under a big oak tree to show their respect for the lost sheep.
“A few nights later the wolves got ‘Sam the Ram.’ Again the family wept and buried their friend, the sheep. The wolves were running wild across the countryside killing sheep and chickens, ducks, turkeys and even dogs.
“The farmer’s wife asked why nothing was done to stop them.
“What can be done?” the farmer replied.
“I would think the wolves must be killed to stop the slaughter of our animals,” she answered.
“But I have nothing to kill them with, except a shovel or hoe.”
“Then that will have to do,” the wife replied.
The next night the farmer waited, and sure enough, as the moon rose to light the night sky, the pack of wolves attacked the flock. The farmer took his hoe and ran against the wolves. He hit several with the hoe but they turned on him and savagely attacked him.
In the morning the farmer’s wife found him on the porch of their farmhouse. He had bled to death from the wounds he received from the wolves tearing his flesh.”
“What’s the point?” yelled a grey-haired woman with a sign reading ‘Make Peace with All Men.’”
“The point is, countries must defend themselves and just as ‘Saul slayed his thousands, and David his ten thousands,’ in days of old, we have enemies that would destroy us. Shall we let them attack us with bigger and better weapons? Will we attack with just a shovel or hoe? I tell you this, it is far more important to assure your place in heaven than to worry about the ‘what-if’s’ of the next war. There has always been, and always will be, wars. It just seems a waste of energy, protesting something you cannot stop.
“We should be more concerned with the hearts and souls of our enemies than what the government is doing, which we have no power over. We should grieve for our enemies kind of like the farmer’s sheep. If we really love them, we should be concerned with where they’ll be if we should find them dead in the morning. Perhaps we should all go out and share our love across the ocean. It would probably bear much more fruit than this protest, don’t you think?” Jesse smiled at the woman with the sign.
“Sounds good, but...”
“There are no buts that can’t be overcome if we really love our fellow man.” Jesse turned his palms up in a gesture that asked, “So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m no religious fanatic,” a man in the crowd yelled out.
“That’s fine. Start with just being a fanatic. Seems you got that down.” Many in the crowd laughed. “Now try turning it on the wolves. Who knows, your faith may grow from the love you share. Listen, if we really love our fellow man and are truly against war, let us start with changing hearts. We could all probably use a change of heart of our own, couldn’t we? Then let’s work on our enemies so they will become our friends.”
As Jesse turned to walk to another large group of people, he was approached by four young men wearing cowboy hats and dusty boots.
“What kind of preacher are you?” the youngest-looking of the four asked.
“Best I can be,” Jesse replied.
“I never heard anybody put things the way you did. Kind of made sense to me.”
“We’re the Fischer brothers. We’ve been talking, and we would like to join up.”
“Join up?”
“Yeah. We believe in what you said and all and think we should do something to spread the word.”
“We got a truck, too. We could haul stuff for you,” another brother offered.
“Well, this is all the stuff I have.” Jesse held out a backpack. “But I think you four would be a great asset to our merry band.”
* * *
Cole flipped over several pictures and read the caption attached to the back. The black-and-white surveillance shots showed Jesse preaching to the crowds, climbing into the back of a pick-up, and with his hand on top of the head of a homeless man with matted hair and a scraggly beard. The captions identified the date, place and several people in the shot.
A sheet of paper clipped to the last photo stamped “CLASSIFIED” caught Cole’s eye. The document contained an FBI field agent’s report on “curious activities” going on at one of Jesse’s meetings. Several faces were circled in red felt-tip pen. All were dark, heavily bearded and looked Middle Eastern.
The paragraph read:
Several members of a radical Muslim cell known as The New Al-Nusra Brigade, were in attendance at a rally held 3/13/14 on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. The speaker, Jesse Monday, made no direct contact with members of the Brigade, however, two of his entourage met with Brigade members after the rally. One of the men, known as Skeeter Evans, has been linked to various anti-government, white supremacist militias in the Southern United States. The other man is unknown to the Bureau.
Cole closed the folder and leaned back in his chair. On the occasions he was near Jesse Monday, or attended one of his meetings, there was never an overtly anti-government message. It was always the same frothy, peace-love-truth message draped in Jesse’s “aw-sucks” parables.
Skeeter always seemed to Cole as not quite in step with the message. Bristly, unsmiling, and almost hostile most of the time, there was little if any manifestation of Jesse’s “Truth” in him.
Cole pulled the picture out of the folder again. Three faces in red circles, and not more than ten feet away, looking in their direction was Skeeter. The idea of Muslim terrorist joining forces with red-neck radicals seemed silly at first. As Cole pondered the possible benefits for each, he kept returning to one common goal, bring down the government of the United States.
Jesse Monday had morphed into something far afield from the freckle-faced boy in the little Pentecostal church where he grew up. Could he have been behind the anarchist leanings of his right-hand man? He had strayed from Christian doctrine but could he swallow the Seven Pillars of Islam? What was this truth he so generously spoke of and offered up to his followers, yet never defined? It seemed a far stretch for Cole that this man of peace, and teacher of a better way, could be building an army of followers hell-bent on overthrowing the government.
Then it struck him. Maybe it was everyone’s plan but his. What if Jesse was just a means to an end for Skeeter and his band of “don’t worry, we’ll take care of it” handlers. Cole sat up straight in his chair and spread the contents of Carter Washington’s files across his desk.
“This could really be a story,” Cole said, scanning the documents in front of him.
Draped in the metaphorical robes of Jesse as a holy man, forces of an entirely different kind of belief system had been using Jesse Monday. The voice of peace and “truth” was simply the means of drawing a crowd; the other message would come later.
Cole rubbed his forehead. Did Jesse know about it, was he in on the ploy? Or did he get wise to what was being planned in his name and object?
“Come on, Sage,” Cole said, staring at the material in front of him. “You’re way out on a limb here.”
Participant or pawn, one thing certain about Jesse Monday. Either way, he was dead.
FOUR
From his early days as a cub reporter on his high school newspaper, Cole kept a small spiral notepad in his pocket. It was now as much a part of his daily dress as putting on shoes or double-checking that his wallet was in his pocket. The evolution of his “memory checker” progressed from the ten-cent original to his deeply scarred, yet ever-faithful, leather-covered version that Ellie had bought him as a birthday present in college.
To anyone else Cole’s filing system would appear to be a disheveled mess of file folders, report folders and little spiral note pads, but to Cole it was moments away from providing him with instant memory and recall. In the great scheme of things, going back three years to track Cole’s coverage of Jesse Monday was a simple task. As he flipped through the note pads he stopped to read his notes on other stories he’d covered. The mayoral race, a Noe Valley arson fire, the reopening of the DeYoung Museum, quotes from the governor, the President of Chile’s visit to San Francisco, three or four movie star interviews about global warming, the ramblings of a couple of aging rock stars, and a “religious rally in the park.”
The strange thing about Cole’s notes was the way they seemed to transport him back to a place or time where he could almost relive the moment. Jesse Monday and his band of religious street people were nothing new by the time of the “Great Golden Gate Rally,” as it came to be known, and his notebook offered a familiarity that took Cole back to one of the strangest events he ever covered.
By all estimates, nearly five thousand people showed up to hear Jesse “give the truth” in Golden Gate Park. The forecast was for rain, and the clouds that rolled in from the Pacific were so black, it seemed like they would drop from the sky with the weight of the moisture they carried. At ten o’clock Cole decided he would stay in his office and do some research on a piece he was working on. News of the planned purchase of nearly a block of North Beach apartments and businesses raised the ire of everyone from the Mayor to the North Beach Merchants Association.
Paradigm Engineering, a firm known for demolition of old San Francisco neighborhoods, and the creation of newer “soulless” modern structures, proposed a new round of their “into the future” projects. Cole was given the file and asked to do a multi-part article on preserving San Francisco’s neighborhoods and architectural heritage. Around eleven-fifteen, he headed for the rest room, and caught a glimpse out the window. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. He could still make it to the rally. Why not? Cole thought. There’s no fear of coming back soaked.
The atmosphere was more like the buzz before a concert in the park by an over-the-hill rocker, trying to bring back the Summer of Love, than an outdoor church service. Cole parked behind Kezar Stadium and walked to Speedway Meadow. The meadow and side of the hill were covered with a patchwork of blankets and people. A huge banner that proclaimed, “The Truth Is Free” formed a kind of gateway to the meadow. The crowd hummed with excitement as Cole made his way to the edge of the crowd, as close to the front as he felt he dared press.
Jesse Monday took the makeshift stage within minutes of Cole being seated. There was no warm-up, no introduction. One moment the stage was bare, the next Jesse stood, hands in his back pockets, looking out over the crowd.
“A lot of you came here today because somebody told you, ‘This guy’s got some good things to say.’” Jesse began. His voice was strong and seemed to roll across the meadow like San Francisco fog. “Some of you heard that a blind man was healed and threw away his white cane and gave his Seeing Eye dog back. But I am here to tell you that many of you are as blind as he was.”
The silence that fell over the crowd was broken by a wave of murmuring that seemed to move from back to front.
“This isn’t about nice words and clever stories. Chico the blind man healed himself. Power comes from faith, faith comes from Truth and I am here to show you the way to Truth. Are you sick? You want to get well, be healed, get better, whatever you want to call it, it’s yours right now. Trouble is, you don’t believe. The Truth is in each of us.
“I am here to tell you that if you have reached the end of the line, if you are hanging on by the last thread in that rope, if you are without hope, you are the lucky ones. All you need to do is look up to heaven; it’s yours for the taking. You realize that Truth is your only way out. When your spirit is bankrupt, heaven is your reward.
