Hal shook himself. “Anyway, seeing you reminded me that I have a present for you.”
He picked up a football-size box from the bag between his feet and placed it in Dan’s hands.
“What’s this?”
“A gift. From the past...sort of.”
Dan hadn’t expected a gift, though God knew his spirits needed lifting after last night.
“Well, don’t just stare at it. Open it.”
No ribbon or wrapping to remove, just a plain, oblong wooden box. Dan lifted the lid and stared.
“What...?”
“Your own Dead Sea scroll.”
Dan glanced at his friend. He knew Harold was kidding, but this thing looked so damned...real.
“No, really. What is it?”
Harold launched into the explanation. A fascinating story, during which a pair of thin, dark-haired, mustached men seated themselves on the far side of the black woman; each began drinking his lunch from a brown paper bag. Dan listened to Hal and sensed the mixture of excitement and disappointment in his voice. When he finished, Dan looked down at the loosely rolled parchment in the box on his lap.
“So, you’re giving me a first century parchment filled with twenty-first century scribbles.”
“An oddity. A collector’s item in its own right.”
Dan continued to stare at the ancient roll of sheepskin. He was moved.
“I...I don’t know what to say, Hal. I’ll treasure this.”
“Don’t get carried away—”
“No, I mean it. If nothing else, the parchment was made in the early days of the Church. It’s a link of sorts. And I’m touched that you thought of me.”
“Who else do I know who’s so nuts about the first century?”
“You must have been crushed when you found out.”
Harold sighed. “Crushed isn’t the word. We were all devastated. But I tell you, Fitz, I wouldn’t trade the high of the first few days with that scroll for anything. It was the greatest!”
Just then a woman dressed in satin work-out pants and a red sleeveless shell top walked over to the bench and stood on the other side of Hal. She was middle aged with a bulging abdomen. Dan noticed that she wore red slipper-socks over red lace knee-highs. She’d finished off the ensemble by wrapping Christmas paper around her ankles.
Hal looked down at her feet and said, “Good Lord.”
She smiled down at him. “Ain’t blockin’ yer sun, am I?”
Hal shook his head. “No. That’s quite all right.”
She then pulled a bottle of Ban deodorant from her pocket and began to apply it to her right underarm—and only to her right underarm. Dan and Hal watched her do this for what seemed like five minutes but was probably only one. During the process she also managed to coat half of her shoulder blade as well.
She was still at it when Dan turned back to his gift and spotted a legal-size envelope tucked in next to the scroll. He pulled it out.
“What’s this?”
Hal dragged his eyes away from the woman with the deodorant. “The translation. I know you’re pretty good at old Hebrew, but this will save you from risking damage to the scroll by unrolling it. And as jumbled, paranoid, and crazy as it may read, you can rely on the accuracy of the translation. The folks who did it are tops.”
“As usual, Hal. You’ve thought of everything.”
An elderly man in a shabby blue suit slipped past the Ban lady and seated himself next to Hal. Immediately he began untying his shoes.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he said in an accented voice as he slipped the first one off. “They’re really sweaty. I need to air my feet something awful.”
“Be my guest,” Hal said, rolling his eyes at Dan as the odor from the exposed feet and empty shoes began to rise. “We were just leaving. Weren’t we, Fitz.”
“Gee, I kind of like it here, Hal,” Dan said in his most guileless tone. “Why don’t you save our seats while I run up to the corner and buy us a couple of hot dogs. We can eat them right here. You like sauerkraut?”
“I’ve lost my appetite,” Hal said through a tight, fierce grin. “Let’s. Go. For. A. Little. Walk. Shall. We?”
Dan hadn’t the heart to play this out any longer. After all, Hal had just given him a first century scroll.
“Sure.”
As they left, the Ban lady took their spots and switched to her left underarm.
When they reached the sidewalk on Avenue A, Hal said, “I think I preferred living under the threat of a Hamas attack.”
Just then a very pale woman with very black hair, black blouse and black stretch pants walked by balancing a loaded green plastic laundry basket on her head.
“And sometimes I wonder if I’ve truly left the Middle East.”
Dan smiled. Poor, fastidious Hal. “You should be at Princeton or Yale.”
“Yeah. I could have been. But I thought I’d like New York. Don’t they get to you?” Dan shrugged. “Those folks are like most of the people I hang out with every day, but considerably more functional.”
“How do you do it? You all but live with them. And you don’t have to.”
“Jesus hung with the down and outs. Why shouldn’t I?”
He noticed Hal looking at him closely. “You don’t think you’re Jesus, do you?”
Dan laughed. “Hardly. But that’s what being a priest is all about—modeling your life on the J-man, as he’s known around here. Truth is, we don’t know much about His life.”
“Well, we do know that he rubbed the higher-ups the wrong way.”
“I’ve done my share of that.”
Dan thought of his long-running battle with Father Brenner, St. Joseph’s pastor, over his soup kitchen in the basement.
“It got him killed.”
Dan laughed again. “Not to worry. I’m not looking to get my palms and soles ventilated.”
“You can’t be too careful, Fitz.” Hal glanced back toward the plaza. “A lot of these folks are more than a few bricks shy of a full load.”
Dan nodded. “I’m aware of that.” He thought of the couple of occasions when some of Loaves and Fishes’ “guests” got violent, mostly screaming and shouting and pushing, but one had gone so far as to pull a knife during an argument over who would sit by a window. “And I’m careful.”
“Good. I’m sure there’s a place in heaven for you, but I don’t want you taking it just yet.”
“Heaven’s not guaranteed for anybody, Hal. Sometimes I wonder if there is such a place.”
Hal was looking at him strangely. “You?”
He didn’t want to get into anything heavy so he grinned. “Just kidding. But how about lunch? It’s the least I can do.” He pointed to Nino’s on the corner of St. Mark’s Place. “Slice of Sicilian?”
“I’ll take a rain check.” Hal extended his hand. “Got to run. But I want to get together with you again after you’ve read the translation. See if you can make any sense of it.”
“I’ll do my best. And thanks again. Thanks a million. Nice to own something this old—and know it’s one of a kind.”
Hal frowned.”Not one of a kind, I’m afraid. Shortly before I left, an Israeli collector came in with another scroll identical to this one. The parchment and the writing carbon dated the same as yours—about two thousand years apart.”
Dan shrugged. “Okay. So it’s not one of a kind. It’s still a great gift, and I’ll treasure it. But right now I’ve got to get back to the shelter for the lunch line.”
Hal waved and started down the sidewalk. “See you next week, okay? For lunch. I should have my appetite back by then.”
Dan waved and headed back to St. Joe’s, wondering how many these weird scrolls were floating around the Middle East.