ing else hurt. That was when he noticed he couldn’t move his legs. He lost the strength to hold himself up on his elbows, and fell to his back with a thud. For a few eternal moments he lay flat against the crooked New Guinea earth. Words came to mind. Go ye into all the world, Jesus had said. And, I’ll be with you always, even unto the end of the earth. He wanted to curse again. Instead, he muttered a prayer for help and forced himself back onto his elbows. He began pulling at the pale green sword grass, ripping handfuls of foot long blades that he used to cover the wound as an attempt to ward off the sun’s drying power. The sword grass sliced his hands and would have made him wince were it not for the adrenalin pumping through his ravaged body. When he finished covering his abdomen he began using his elbows to slowly drag himself backwards toward a large, car sized rock he hoped would afford protection from the sun. Ten minutes later, and still a dozen feet away from the big rock, he heard the unmistakable sound of another pig snorting and scraping for food in the floor of the shaded forest. David swung his head round to see how much protection the stone offered. The move sent waves of pain through his chest so that he began to retch vomit mixed with blood. When the retching stopped he could see a large sow emerging from the trees and trotting hungrily toward the dead pig. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, harder now from both fear and the energy spent in quite literally puking out some of his guts. “Swine!” For him, the word was the worst he could use. David called himself a Messianic Jew. To get to that nomenclature he had gone down a path not any less rugged and twisted than the trail he lay upon. David Isaac Hewitt’s father was one of Chicago’s most respected rabbis. So was David’s grandfather. Before that his family was respected for their rigid orthodoxy back in the old country. Before that, well, they claimed lineage all the way back to the great medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides. When David got into gang-banging, his folks just figured he’d sow his wild oats and get over it. After all, it wasn’t the first time a Hewitt got involved in Chicago crime. David’s great uncle kept books for one of Capone’s works. Alas, when David left crime, he did so saying it was because he got saved. Saved by Jesus. His mother asked if Jesus was a Mexican friend. “No, mama. Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Christianity. Jesus the . . .” She never let him finish. She screamed and told him he was as good Manastash 2013
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