Children of the Barn

Children of the Barn

Chapter 2

People were mainly arriving in their own cars and trucks, but the next day Pete heard an earth-shattering horn of an old Greyhound bus trying to make a U-turn on the road. A quick mental calculation put a smile on Pete’s face. That day he also gave his first ever interview to a local cable news network. He was a bit starstruck seeing that awfully pretty reporter Gale Anderson for the first time in real life, but he handled himself well and even talked a bit about his own faith, how he thought he lost it and how the image in his barn helped him find God again. It felt surprisingly good to be listened to.

Meanwhile, the fame of the Jesus of Belle Plaine was spreading like wildfire, mainly thanks to several very active Reddit and 4chan groups, Facebook and Youtube, where vloggers started posting videos from the barn. Videos went viral and thousands of people started asking about the owner and his role in this miracle. Pete’s phone was ringing nonstop and he couldn’t keep up. By the end of the second week he had to ask around the Wichita State campus for some decent “computer guys”. In a matter of days a new website www.JesusofBellePlaine.com was created and an automatic booking system took care of the visits and ticket sales. Pete was charging 20 dollars a pop and was fully booked from morning to evening. After three days he raised the price to 30 dollars and was still overbooked.

On Monday of the fourth week, he finally called Westlake Ace hardware store and quit his day job for good. Jim wasn’t too surprised to hear this: many people in Wichita have heard about the Belle Plaine miracle by now.

Pete was usually trying to avoid going into the barn when the “tourists” were there, but that day he needed to take some measurements inside. Man cave plans were put aside, Pete’s mind was now sharpened towards merchandise, postcards and paid photographs. A whole new businessman Pete has been born, and although still struggling to comprehend the gravitas of the situation, he seemed to be enjoying the sudden burst of attention towards himself, his “discovery” and the financial benefits that attention brought.

When a group of enthusiasts saw him in the barn they started applauding and then shouting “Speech!”. A new level of awkwardness was quickly breached when Pete got onto the newly built podium (for future paid photographs with Jesus), cleared his throat, looked up into the rafters and proclaimed something about healing in the cruel modern world, the need for the community to come together, acts of compassion towards each other and a fair new world for the ones who truly believed in it. The ovation was deafening, many people were filming.

The next day hashtag #childrenofthebarn appeared out of nowhere and took Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by storm. Pete’s speech was reposted, retweeted, shared and liked hundreds of thousands of times and by the end of the day the ticket booking website crashed spectacularly and the phone started ringing off the hook again.

For the first time since his high school days Pete went to the local library and took out books on public speaking, Christianity and bookkeeping. He also dug out his father’s old dusty Gideon’s Bible in the upstairs bedroom, but found it excruciatingly boring and mind-numbing and kept falling asleep barely making it through the first 50 pages.

Autumn came, with its regular warm showers, virtuosic starling murmurations, confident eastern wind and dancing maple leaves. There was a noticeable shift happening to Pete’s new found glory as well. He was giving many more interviews and talked to vloggers and podcasters travelling all the way across the country, from places as far as Duluth in Minnesota or Tampa in Florida. Cable news kept coming back with a fresh set of questions, now ranging from political agendas to views on gun ownership, capital punishment, cults, white supremacists and police brutality - the classical American topics of fierce interest.

After reading several books on eloquent speaking Pete was getting better at expressing his thoughts and opinions. First interview on national news went to CBS, quickly chased by ABC, CNN and Fox. And while for many journalists this was yet another mundane roadside attraction and its quirky owner in the God-forsaken town of the Tornado Alley, many of the visitors kept coming back and soon became devoted followers. Many of these liked to camp outside the barn and see Jesus first thing in the morning, ask him for something, then go home, then come back again next week. Pete even allowed some of the visitors to sleep in the barn, charging a hefty premium for such a privilege.

Amongst the regulars was a girl named Emily. Unlike so many others who were in their 40s and 50s, Emily looked fresh out of college, had a beautiful smile, sky blue eyes and shimmering curly red hair, unrestricted by any form of hairdo and free to fly high in the wind.

When Emily first arrived, Pete showed her around and they talked for a bit. She was local and it appeared that they went to the same middle school in Belle Plaine many years ago. Unlike Pete, who considered himself an atheist till recent events, Emily attended the local Methodist Church, knew a whole lot about the history of religion and could quote the Bible on the fly.

There seemed to be no topic that Emily couldn’t pick up and discuss in great detail, from modern arts and international politics to the occult and evolution. Visitors found her storytelling fascinating and very soon she was staying over in the spare bedroom at night and acting as a tour guide at the barn in the day. It was only a matter of time before Pete fell head over heels for her.

The biggest surprise for Pete came when Emily reciprocated his shy and awkward signs of affection and kissed him one beautiful October evening, just before a thunderstorm took out its swords and rattled the skies with vigour. He was lost for words, but she didn’t need words, just another kiss. That night was the happiest night of Pete’s life.

Their long conversations about the strange world on planet Earth usually lasted well into the small hours and Pete completely forgot about his man cave plans, or the game shows he used to watch on Fox, or the thrill of a blackjack win. He even forgot he used to be an alcoholic.

Pete found new meaning in the simplest routines, like mowing the lawn or grilling sausages or hiking out in the nearby woods - as long as Emily was nearby. He also learned a lot about history and religion from her and found himself fascinated by Vasco da Gama and Columbus travels, the Civil War, the suffragette movement and the French revolution.

“You are the best thing that ever happened to me” - said Pete one time, after a particularly cosy evening on the couch.

“Don’t be silly! Jesus in the barn is the best thing that happened to you, I just came as a bonus” - smiled Emily and gave Pete a loud and wet kiss on his scruffy cheek.

“That too…”

“People come here from all over the country looking for a miracle - and they find it in your barn. Isn’t it beautiful? The modern world is filled with relentless stress, agonizing choices, mundane jobs, uncertainty over everything. Lack of moral values drives people into the deepest darkest trenches, where they are left all alone, addicted and desperate, ready to chew on any bone they are thrown. The sense of community is evaporating, replaced by anti-social media, faceless online conversations and fake friends and followers, likes and dislikes. Have you seen those smiles today? Have you heard those songs and those whispers of admiration? These people need this more than they know. They need you to guide them, to give them hope for a better world, to listen to them so they can be heard. I think there is a reason why your man cave will never be completed. I think you need to unite Children of the Barn - and lead them out of their dark trenches and onto the fields of acceptance, compassion and empathy. You are a kind soul, Peter, and I believe in you!” - Emily had tears in her eyes. Those were tears of pride and joy.

That night Pete’s parents came to visit him in a dream. This rarely happened before, mainly because Pete was trying really hard to forever forget their faces, so he can live his life in peace. Mum and dad were both well-dressed and looked sober. They were standing on the podium in the barn when Pete came in. He wanted to say something, but his mouth wouldn’t open. His parents were silent as well. They just looked at their son, smiling and with their hands spread wide. They waited for a hug, but Pete couldn’t find the stairs to the podium, and the more he moved towards it, the further it appeared. The barn was stretching outwards, but Jesus was growing bigger, until his face consumed the whole wall, from floor to ceiling. Parents were gone and Pete was suddenly on the podium, with a congregation probably counting a couple of hundred people sitting on makeshift deck chairs right in front of him.

He woke up thinking about buying some deck chairs. While at the hardware store in Wichita that day (not Westlake Ace, he never went there after he quit his job) Pete got an A4-sized picture frame, made out of pretty amber-coloured knotted pine. It was time to put his parents’ picture back on the wall, where it used to be. He also bought 20 foldable aluminium chairs, not yet entirely sure for what purpose, but he thought these might look swell in the barn.

Pete had plenty of other errands to run that day, including depositing nearly 10 thousand dollars to his bank account. It was the third time this month that he appeared at the Valley State bank with a rucksack full of cash - and the novelty didn’t wear off just yet.

That evening, after the last bus of elated and ecstatic tourists left the premises, Emily was in the kitchen doing dishes and listening to the radio. Pete was still in town, probably picking up groceries by now.

There was movement just outside the kitchen window and at first Emily thought that it must have been a rabbit or a chipmunk, or maybe even a small deer. But then she heard the back door squeak and her heart dropped. She quickly turned off the faucet and picked up a kitchen knife from the drawer. It was cold to the touch and the handle was coming loose on one side.

A rough-looking man, probably in his 30s, was standing in the living room and taking pictures with his phone. His hands were shaking and he was muttering obscenities under his breath, probably trying to stabilize the image in the dim-lit room. He looked at Emily standing in the doorway, hiding the knife behind her back, gave her a long and measuring stare, his pale blue eyes like deep wells, and went back to the task at hand.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what to do and what to say, so she just stood there, rigid with fear, clenching the knife tight in her right hand.

“I am not gonna hurt you, I just wanna see how you live” - suddenly said the stranger.

Before Emily could find something to say, she heard Pete’s truck at the gate. The stranger turned around and went out the back door, leaving behind a faint trace of cheap cologne.

Pete came in 5 minutes later to discover Emily sobbing quietly on the couch. He spent the next morning dismantling and carefully cleaning his hunting rifle that was locked upstairs in the wardrobe.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3...