TRILOGY Bk I Ch 40 (Jackass for the Hour) Part 2

Jackass for the Hour

Yehezqēl jumped to his feet and ran, heading south on the train tracks leading away from Vatican City for two hundred metres. He jumped to other tracks forking away to the northeast, and ran along the rails, which would bring him to the opposite side of Vatican Hill. “I should be able to get out of the city before daybreak,” he thought, “at least as far as Fosso degli Ebrei. I can stay there. But this bulla will have to be read out to the cardinals before the conclave begins.”

After making his way through the tunnel under Vatican Hill – impossible in the dark except for the emotion driving him on – he crossed a bridge and went through another long tunnel. He turned and looked up toward Vatican City. Smoke was pumping into the moonlit sky. The police helicopters had returned, and there was much shooting. As he watched, a helicopter was caught by its landing skids in a heavy cable stretching between the radio towers in the northeast corner of Vatican Gardens. The helicopter started to gyrate uncontrollably. Its rotor-blades sliced the cable, but the craft was unable to right itself and fell, bursting into flames. Yehezqēl turned to continue his flight, taking hold of the Rosary Pope Tsur-Ēzer gave him before the Easter Vigil began. He started to recite the Glorious Mysteries, beginning with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. He ran when he was not in a tunnel. He passed a train, which was motionless on the tracks, are had the smell of death… “Pandemic victims,” he said out loud. Electricity for the trains had been cut immediately after the crisis began.

•••—•••—•••

Yehezqēl jumped the fence a hundred metres after passing the Grande Raccordo Anulare, and arrived at Fosso degli Ebrei just as the sun was rising, having run much of the way. No one had seen him on the train tracks, even when he passed near apartment blocks; everyone was either asleep or glued to the televisions of those who had generators. Heading west a short distance, he easily found the Fosso and a place to sleep for the day, out of sight. He looked in the direction of the Vatican, now in the far distance, and saw smoke still pumping into the skies as from an enormous furnace which had purified the gold of the King of heaven. An occasional flake of ash fell near him, the last effort of the fire in Circo Massimo. Though exhausted, Yehezqēl did not realize he had remained standing there for over an hour, looking in the direction of Rome. The majesty of the entire history of salvation, of the Risen Lord of History, with the wounds of slaughter still upon His risen Body, had overwhelmed him. The rising sun was unusually bright, blinding, even while continuing to bathe him in light, a weak analogy of the supernatural grace given by the Risen Son of that Easter Morning: it was too bright to be well appreciated in this life. He looked at his watch, uselessly, for it had stopped when he had fallen down the wall of Vatican City. But then he noticed his hand, clenched, locked tight into a fist around the blood-stained, now tattered bulla. He could hardly loosen his own fingers. The extra lengths of cord Mother Bernadette had tied around the bulla fell off the crushed document, so Yehezqēl unfolded it. Some of the blood of Father Alexámenos which had congealed upon it cracked off. He started to read the final paragraph, the code of conduct promised by Pope Tsur-Ēzer: “Pastore bono – cotidie exemplum Lepanti magnum S. Pii V die septimo octobris anno incarnationis Dominicæ M. D. Lxxi sequenti – rosarium beatæ Mariæ virginis…” He stopped reading halfway through the sentence. This was all he needed to know… “for now,” he thought. Filled with adrenaline, he clenched his left hand into a fist, and with his right hand, grasping his Rosary, he made the Sign of the Cross, saying out loud, “May You ride this jackass into battle, Lord. It’s Your Day… Dies Domini… the Day of every Jackass.” But then, after a few moments, he continued reading, skipping down some sentences, but only reading a few words: “…quia Malchus, pontificis servus, sanatus est…” He then read the words of Christ’s reprimand to Peter recopied in the bulla: “Converte gladium tuum in locum suum! Omnes enim qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt.” He stared long at the words. Pope Tsur-Ēzer praised both Pius V for the defensive battle in Lépanto, and also Christ for telling Peter to sheath his sword.

Yehezqēl then repeated his own words in view of Matthew 11,12: “May You ride this jackass into battle, Lord. It’s Your Day, Dies Domini. Thank You for laying down my life, our lives, as Your own, having me, having us take heaven by the force of the violence of Your death. Let me be, let us be Your Jackass for the Day.”

•••—•••—•••

After just a second or two, Yehezqēl felt an ever so slight breeze that complemented the warmth of the rising sun on his face. Next he heard the insects moving about. Then the singing of the birds filled his senses. He was not forgetting, from one moment to the next, anything that had happened, but he was now experiencing the whole of it being taken to another level, the whole of creation, groaning in expectation of the redemption of the sons of Adam, beginning to rejoice in the victory of the risen Christ. The sounds of nature around him seemed to intensify. “How good You are!” he exclaimed to the Lord. As he stood there, a wave of nostalgia came over him. A poem written by a Canadian cousin, a girl as young as he was at the time – so many years ago – came to mind. She would write to him in English about the forest in which she spent her days, until she died in a tragic car accident with the rest of her family. He would write back in Italian, always throwing in a few Hebrew words.

Hello to Eliyahu on September 21st
From we creatures of Eliyahu’s woods…
Clown eyes owl up high in very tall tree
Flying doe and mighty buck
Two sliding, black and yellow snakes
Tiny wrens and brown ducks
Brown-red under and grey upper-side squirrel
An acrobat!
Yellow/gold and red/green leaves
Acorns!
Warm wind…

•••—•••—•••

After many more minutes, Yehezqēl was about to lie down to regain some energy. He trusted, utterly, the will of the Lord for himself, and would have been soundly asleep almost immediately. But even as he looked about, he heard the chanting once again: “Behead the jackass and burn him! Behead the jackass and burn him!” He looked in the direction of the train tracks. A small group was running along the tracks. They had not seen him, but now he knew they had found Father Alexámenos, and had figured out that he had left the city by way of the railway lines. Instead of this getting him worried, he was more determined to get some rest. He folded the bulla, put it in his pocket, gathered some brush to pull over himself, and went to sleep.

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Epilogue coming soon…

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