FaithTripper

I sat cross-legged on the grimy, gum-matted carpet between the tall white bookshelves, the day’s selection of books by my side. I worked my way through Plato’s dialogues, the Tao te Ching, Aristotle’s dense lectures, Bulfinch’s Mythology, Gibran’s The Prophet, an assortment of Buddhist sutras, sci-fi pulp fiction, the peculiar prophecies of Edgar Cayce, and many more. Some of them were indelible classics, others mere flimflam. All of them chipped away at the boundaries of my self, altering the contours of my cosmos. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I’d have to buy a book frequently enough to keep privileges and not get permanently kicked out of the store.

To my young eyes, the Berkshire Mall looked from the outside like a giant spaceship, not one continuous and smooth shape, but like one of those vast ships from Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars, that rumbled on and on and seemed to be comprised of a million parts of differing shapes and sizes. I vividly recall pushing aside the doors at the entrance and beholding the glorious vision – Sweet William’s Ice Cream Shop. Those bottomless tubs filled with so many vivid colors of ice cream. The billowing heavenly clouds of whipped cream.

My favorite sundae was an upside-down cone in a dish made to look like a clown. It had one giant scoop of chocolate ice cream for the head, a generous puff of whipped cream for the frills around the neck, various confectionary bits situated to represent a smiling face, and a cherry pierced on the cone to top it all off. Not once did I ever reflect on the absurdity of eating the representation of the head of a Black clown.

I threw birthday parties, played endless hours of video games, and smoked my first cigarette at the Mall. The climate was controlled, the pathways smooth and perfectly even, the delights and comforts plentiful, the strains of Muzak playing gently overhead. From within those walls, the concerns of the maddening globe outside appeared distant, unreal.

In the middle of the Mall was a bookstore with giant glowing white backlit letters – Waldenbooks. And in the heart of that bookstore under the luminescence of florescent bulbs overhead was my sanctum – the Philosophy & Religions section. There, sitting cross-legged on the floor with books stacked around me, is where my decades-long, six-thousand mile journey began.

Walid, the Iraqi government minder assigned to me, was cranky that morning. In the two weeks I’d known him, he’d gone from suspicious to trusting. I’d even seen a smile or two form beneath that peppery Saddam-inspired moustache. But he wasn’t at all thrilled with the visit I’d planned that morning. As we approached the gate to the courtyard, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “I’ll wait here,” he said flicking his lighter. “Don’t be long.”

This was the culmination of my journey. A green light radiated faintly from the inner chamber, the room that held the one I had come to see. I delivered the traditional genuflections upon entering the mosque, then headed for the mausoleum. As I approached the threshold, just beyond the throngs of pilgrims within, I could see the silver bars of the burial vault, hands sweeping along or clinging to them. There were hundreds of people, men and women, old and young, circling the vault in a torrent, round and round in like a giant whirlpool. Their hundreds of voices calling out in unison, Ya Ali! Ya Ali! their hands crashing down on their chests in a somber rhythm. The thunderclap seemed to grow louder with each beat, louder and louder, until all the sounds in the chamber reverberated like the sound of a million bees. And there, in the center, amidst the tumult of the dark, circling whirlpool of bodies, I beheld it. I’d finally reached my destination, or at least what I thought was my destination.

This was the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, Iraq. About 6,149 miles from the Berkshire Mall.

There was not even a shred of a doubt in my mind – this would be night of my rescue. Surely my saviors were on their way. I lay there in the darkness, gazing up at the two-foot tall rectangular window high above my bed. I was supposed to be sleeping, but I was electrified with anticipation. I could see the glimmering lights out there, some of them suns, some of them planets, all ablaze with life. I clutched onto the lucky charm I won at the Boardwalk that summer, the magical talisman I’d used to summon them. It was round and green, with my name stamped across the top in a semi-circle, and a four-leaf clover emblazoned in the middle.

This would be the night, the night when the star people would come take me away. They would come and rescue me from this veneer of a world and return me to the real, a world high above this one, made of finer stuff. I thought of my mom and dad, how they would feel when they found my empty bed the next morning. But there was no way to explain it to them. Their minds and hearts were not prepared to understand or accept what needed to be done, and what great cosmic orb was pulling at me, drawing me closer.

I thought of them, and my little sister, and my pet hamster, Sally, and then I fell asleep with my small hand tightly wrapped around that charmed tin trinket.