The eyes of the Lord run to and fro
throughout the whole world…
Bob-O and I arrived at State Street in Santa Barbara around three in the afternoon. Bob-O assured me that we had plenty of time before getting to the Rescue Mission by the railroad tracks crossing State Street. I vaguely remembered the Rescue Mission from when Norm, Mary and I had passed through town. It seemed like ages and aeons ago. This didn’t look like any part of town that a Rescue Mission would be in. We walked past La Cumbre Plaza and the Peppertree Motel. Bob-O was confused and I saw no evidence of tracks crossing the street. There wasn’t anything like a Rescue Mission in sight either so we began hiking. Bob-O kept assuring me that the Rescue Mission and the tracks couldn’t be far… maybe around the bend up ahead. Then I remembered, “Oh, yeah, we aren’t anywhere near the tracks you are talking about, Bob-O. You mean where that big-assed fig tree is?”
“Yeah, there is a big fig tree near-by…”
“…and the highway has grass and stop lights, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, Bob-O, we have a long, hard, hike ahead of us if we’re going to make dinner at the Mission by six.”
And hike we did, only taking a break a few times, but it was at least three miles… maybe four to the tracks. We arrived just in time, as a line of winos were cued up and waiting for a mission stiff to open the door. As we got in line one of the winos sitting on the curb handed me his bottle. I thought it was a merely a friendly gesture. I was not one to turn down a friendly gesture even though I had no desire for a drink since I crossed the streets at Dana and Channing Way. I had no intention to quit drinking entirely since I threw up that prayer…. I lifted the bottle to my lips. The door to the Mission swung opened and, the regulars began filing in the door. As Bob-O went in the Mission Stiff stopped me, “I saw you hittin’ on a bottle.”
“Sure, but it was just a toke.” I protested.
The winos from the curb passed by me and entered the door.
“You ain’t getting’ in today, buddy.” The Stiff puffed up his chest. He was proud to catch a miscreant.
“Awe man, you gotta give me a break. It was only a toke… it was offered to me… I was just being polite. Isn’t there someone I can talk to?”
“You’ll have to come back tomorrow…”
Just about then a white haired, slightly balding man in a suite came up from behind the Stiff, “What is your name son?”
“Max, sir: I was in line and one of the guys handed me the bottle. I don’t even drink… I was only trying to be polite.” I thought was telling the truth. I hadn’t a drink in a few days and felt like I was sober for life.
“You haven’t been drinking?”
“No sir,” I paused while the kindly man peered into my eyes, “we just hiked a couple of miles to get here in time for dinner...”
So I got in the door and in the chapel with everyone else. I sat in the back row with a couple other old-timers, “You know who that feller is?” One of them queried.
“No: the manager or something?”
“That guy is Chuck Pope. He is the founder of this place. You’re lucky he was here because those stiffs don’t give nobody a break.”
The service before dinner at the Mission was tolerable. The hymnal was memorized by all the winos. They called out the numbers instead of the names of the hymns between each set. After a half-dozen songs were sung a guy with a thick accent in a suite, who called himself Brother something-or-other, preached. Rather, he told the story of his conversion. He was a tailor from Austria and he painted a vivid picture of his playboy life before his conversion. Standing at the dais before a stained glass window in yellows and greens of a praying Jesus, his story was one that I had heard before. He started out dry and slow but it reached a crescendo then, with a highly emotional pitch, it ended with an ‘altar-call’. The altar-call is an Evangelical ritual in which the lost are called to come forward and be saved. Being saved was a simple enough affair. All the prodigal son has to do is admit out loud to being a sinner and that Jesus died on the cross and rose again to forgive all his sins. After he confesses that he is saved. It is an evidently simple, but not at all short, affair. It was long enough to start me wondering when, or whether, we would ever get to dinner. Then Bob-O stood at the third plea and went forward. The good Tailor laid a hand on Bob-O’s head and asked; “Do you want to be saved?
“Yes,” Bob-O answered.
“Then say it, brother.”
“Yes, I want to be saved.”
Then they disappeared into a prayer closet. I had no idea what was going on in there. A Mission Stiff opened a door to the dining hall after one more from the hymnal; The Old Rugged Cross, and everyone stood as if on cue and lined up for dinner.
As we sat at the tables I asked Bob-O, “So, what happened in there,” referring to the closet, “anything?”
“I was saved.” Bob-O answered.
“What do you mean, saved?”
“Just like the man said, I confessed and believe… so I’m saved.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Yeh… sure.”
“Do you feel any different?”
“Naw.” He dug into his bowl of beans, rice and wieners cut up with a few carrots and added, “The food is better here than at the Sally.”
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