Pastor X Read online

Clouds had been gathering for quite some time- against all official weather forecasts and bush predictions. Now the heavens opened up and a heavy downpour pounded the city. Not a deluge, but something akin to it. In retrospect, it was the most vicious flash floods downpour that Pastor X had ever been caught up in. Lucky him! He was in a Prado. The small fry in small ram-shackles that they called cars were experiencing the full wrath of the angered gods of rain. Their low clearances meant instant doom, their carburetors flooded just like the streets. Stalled cars -some of them so old their headlights had cataracts, littered the lanes, the streets, the roads and the avenues, especially The Avenues – the leafy side of town closer to the city centre.

  For Pastor X, that was another pertinent reason for him to stick with the Prado. The immediate problem was how to get out of the mammoth traffic jam! He had chosen the centre lane- since he was proceeding right across the city and had no intention of deviating to the left or right any time soon.

  As he approached a major intersection in the central business district, he found himself moving at a snail’s pace. Ominously, it was blocked in every direction except up. He could not proceed, change lanes or reverse. Stuck was the word. The catch-22 was still in effect. Period.

  Still, the downpour continued, incessant. While his head spun around looking for answers, his stomach rumbled, also looking for answers. He turned uneasily to check what was afoot behind him and caught something with the corner of his eye: a packet of biscuits on the back seat. He snapped that up while pondering- not quite sure what he was pondering on. Actually, it was Dono’s man, Fred, who had forgotten the packet of biscuits there. Bless him. What had Fred been pondering about?

  At any rate, darkness found him right there in the middle of the highway, surrounded by stalled cars and angry drivers, enraged all the more by their own rash or irrational conduct and total lack of courtesy as road users. Looking at them one would have thought that the roofs on their cars were leaking and they were attempting to get to dry land, before a tsunami hit them.

  He had forgotten a certain minor affair to do with the battery, but the battery had not forgotten. As they say in that part of Africa, the rat forgets, the trap does not. Now his lights started to dim every time he took his foot off the pedal. So he switched them off.

  The street lights had either delayed entry or had decided not to appear at all. He had been pondering all the time or perhaps intermittently and had not noticed that the robots had also given up. In fact, the whole city had been plunged into darkness. He checked in every direction. It was the same- a city-wide blackout! Only vehicular lights lit the streets intermittently.

  ‘Holy Mary!’ he exclaimed, inwardly. ‘What a calamitous day! Get me home Lord; just get me home- somehow!’

  After that pithy prayer, he rubbed his eyes and closed them again. He leaned back. A minute passed; then another. Abruptly he opened his eyes. If God were going to send help, how was he to know with his eyes closed?

  He looked out but his vision was blurred by vapour on the windshield. He turned on the wipers. They had jammed probably from exhaustion. He wanted to turn on the heater but he hesitated. Prado was not the ally he knew. He rubbed the windshield with his hands- to little effect. But he saw some movement or what seemed like motion ahead. To ascertain, he switched on the air conditioning… or maybe not. He switched on again. Silence.

  In a combination of rage and frustration, he banged on the steering wheel with both hands. Then he remembered. He had switched off the engine to save something… the coolant, maybe, after he convinced himself that the battery had charged sufficiently. He was wrong; a fact he soon ascertained. In fact, he was back to square one, if not slightly further back. Again and again he banged on the steering wheel as he cursed in his native Shona tongue.

  “What the hell!” he yelled, as the drivers at his rear hooted and hurled abuse at him. They, too, had noticed some movement ahead and did not want this clown of a driver of a big-for-nothing fake car to bangle up their opportunity to advance.

  By now the rain had got tired of pounding the city. At the moment, it was caressing the city with a softer version of what were still pretty substantial showers. Thus those not completely knocked out, began to snake their way ahead, opening up opportunities behind. Pastor X was irreversibly one of those who could not grab the opportunity to advance. Prado had called it a day; or so it seemed.

  A motorist who thought he had recognized Pastor X’s vehicle, gave it a second glance. His doubts evaporated. It was indeed his friend’s car. He stopped beside it and hooted. Pastor X ignored the nuisance, as he now called it. The man hooted again. This time Pastor X turned and noticed faintly that it was someone he knew or ought to know. He motioned in the dark that he was stuck. His friend cut in ahead and stopped. Faintly through the windscreen, Pastor X recognized the car. Brother Jethro! At least, there was a friend he could rely on.

  After waiting for quite a while for the showers to ease, Brother Jethro jumpstarted Prado and Pastor X was again able to rejoin the snail-speed traffic snarl-up- wet, hungry, but back in the middle of the highway going nowhere in particular.

  Another small window of opportunity came in view: a petrol station. It took him forty minutes to reach the entrance. At last, Prado’s other problems could be attended to. However, an ill-advised attempt to jump the queue resulted in a row that escalated for another twenty minutes. He had slightly dented a Nissan Hardbody belonging to a young man, who appeared to have consumed a crate of Castle beer and stocked some more in the back seat to keep him company. He kept on repeating, “If you can’t see where you are going, then don’t go there. That’s standard. It doesn’t matter how much beer you have drunk.”

  When Pastor X objected, the young drunk retorted, “I know! That is what everyone says, but it’s not true. It’s a lie. Everybody drinks.”

  “Hey, watch your mouth, young man,” Pastor X protested.

  “And you- watch your driving!” Then, remembering, added, “and your drinking!”

  The rain had reluctantly abated and stopped. Far in the distance, rumblings of receding thunder continued, as the rain abandoned the city for the rural expanse beyond. Probably, it had designs of going to reinforce the Zambezi and Lake Kariba. It was time for the city to take stock of the damage and hopefully get home and crawl into bed and sleep, hungry or otherwise.

  In the end Pastor X got to the pumps, now being operated manually as the blackout persisted. He added petrol, bought and added distilled water in the battery cells. There was no way of standardizing tyre pressure. He topped up the radiator water.

  “Anything else, boss?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He settled his bill and fought his way out of the mad place the station had become with both entrance and exit routes blocked by rowdy drivers shouting and bad-mouthing each other. His mind solely on one thing: the hunger gnawing at his insides. Nando’s, Steers, Pizza Inn, Chicken Inn- all were closed ‘due to circumstances beyond our control.’ He headed home, feeling deeply wounded by fate. Not really, he muttered by way of second thoughts. But he was definitely thoroughly discouraged by everything that had happened to him that Sunday. Could it be the work of darker forces, the devil, tempting him? Could it be a reprimand, a reminder, perhaps, of the helplessness of man- even in small things? This was definitely the bleakest Sunday he had known.

  But maybe not! It had its flipside, too. Dono’s chance appearance at his side, Brother Jethro’s timely intervention- these were acts of mercy. Even the bunch of soccer hooligans was a godsend, he thought. Not to mention that hefty farmer and his companion. No, it was…

  His train of thought was cut short as he turned into the Close that served his residence and two other houses. His was at the outer side of the cul-de-sac. The big bushy tree at the entrance to the close had been struck by thunder or lightning or both. It was lying across the road completely blocking it. He stopped just short of hitting any of the branches.

  Even before he could
take in the full import of this scenario, another car stopped behind his. It was his neighbor. He, too, had been detained by the elements beyond his usual check-in hour. They descended from their vehicles at the same time.

  “Good God,” said the neighbor. “When did this happen?”

  “I wish I knew, neighbor,” replied Pastor X, “but it must have something to do with the deluge.”

  “No doubt! What do we do now?”

  “Nothing before morning, if you ask me!”

  They did the logical thing to do: locked their cars and clambered over the tree trunk and got inside the Close. The neighbor had a man servant detailed to keep watch using his master’s car as the command post.

  Pastor X entered his compound with trepidation. He had no torch, not even the light from a cell phone. Cautiously he moved from memory, until he got to the front door. He inserted the key and turned it. It would not open.

  ‘Can’t be the one,’ he thought, almost whispered. He tried the other one. No way. He re-tried the first one. No highway.

  They are the right keys, for sure, he mused. So why do they not open? He traced his way to the back door. The key could not even enter the keyhole. Somebody must have been here, he resolved, a thief or thieves. He tried again. Nothing doing. Thieves. They messed up key locks, but left with nothing. Frustration. They took it out on my locks!

  Slowly he went out, locked the gate and walked back to Prado. He called out to the neighbour’s man servant. He did not hear him. He had slept. So much for acting ‘Guard’!

  He opened Prado, got in and sat, leaving the driver’s window slightly open for air. His brain was revving dangerously. Slow down; slow down; SLOW DOWN! He tried and tried.

  ‘Keep on trying,’ a voice seemed to be saying. He responded slowly at first; then he engaged the slow gear in his head. He reclined the seat and lay back. He slept; fatigued, hungry, overcome. Normalcy only came just before dawn. He dreamt but one dream, a dream he remembered vividly. Several pastors had been rounded up by angels and brought before a panel of heavenly judges on the Mount of Olives. The aim was to recruit twelve disciples. They posed only four questions. How much wealth did Jesus Christ amass on earth? How many believers did he leave behind, when he ascended to heaven? How much wealth do you wish to amass? How many believers do you wish to convert before the great rendezvous?

  ‘We do not want an answer now,’ said the justices. ‘Go. When you come back, the answers will be written all over your faces. You will be judged accordingly.’

  A loud knock on the door woke him up. It was the police on patrol. They had noticed the two vehicles and the fallen tree. They wanted to find out whether anybody had been injured.

  “We just wanted to be sure,” said the leader. “When did this happen? Did you call the police? Did you sleep in the car? Are you alright now?”

  They had many questions, none of which mattered to Pastor X.

  “I slept here because someone tampered with the door locks at my residence. I could not open to get in. If you don’t mind, I would like to have a look now and see what can be done.”

  They went to the house together. Pastor X tried to open again but in vain. They went round the house checking. There were no other damages. The police decided it was time to move on. They had so many places to visit.

  “Don’t you have private security?” they asked before leaving.

  “I don’t know what happened last night.”

  “Must be the torrential rains.”

  “Yeah! Must be.”

  “Anyway, sort out with security.”

  Alone outside his house, Pastor X began to sort out in his head what had to be sorted out in fact. First, the house- he had to enter the house. Second, the phone had to be charged. Lastly, the bank- he had to go to the bank. Everything else depended on his success on those three fronts- the house, the phone and the bank.

  Fortunately for him, the day security detail arrived before he decided how to approach the house issue. They examined the locks and decided to turn the key to the front door more forcefully (Pastor X’s idea really) than the police and Pastor X had done earlier. Using pincers the front door key managed to open.

  “That will do for now,” Pastor X said, grateful. “I need to go somewhere very urgently. I will call you when I get back.”

  The daytime guard stayed behind. The others left. Pastor X got into the house. In the kitchen he made a four-slice sandwich, with a generous application of margarine, honey and peanut butter, and proceeded to the bedroom munching while holding a glass of juice on the other hand.

  He found the bunch of keys exactly where he expected them to be, that is in the clothes he wore for Sunday Service the previous day. He put them in his pocket. He went to the bathroom and helped himself. Back in the bedroom, he decided it would be better to change clothes, at least. When he undressed he decided to freshen up a bit. Back to the bathroom he went. A dry bath at least, he mused. Vital areas only! The most durable freshener. Brut. And a shave! ‘I look awful!’ he observed.

  Twenty two minutes later, and armed with another four-piece sandwich, Pastor X was on the way out. At the gate he stopped. He checked the keys- the small bunch, all were there. The phone – yes, all were in place. He went out. By the time he got to the fallen tree, he had finished the mega sandwich.

  ‘With hunger, I will take no chances again,’ he resolved. ‘God, I almost starved to death!’

  Chapter 5- The Road to Damascus