«CHAPTER THREE»
Ten years ago, in the spring of 1989, the dry heat and sweat stuck to my skin in the Judean Desert. I sat on a huge round rock with my arms wrapped around my knees gazing into the distance at the mountains as I thought about my purpose in life. What divine plan did God have for me on this earth and what was it that was manifesting inside of me and consumed my dreams? I wanted it to be big, like solving life’s biggest problem, death, and disease. I wanted it to surround my passion, plants because my granddad owned a vegetable garden. The smell of fresh water grass, and the wind brushing through trees calmed me. A lot of medicines come from natural substances, and that is why studying plants seemed purposeful. I felt the sunshine upon my face, and I imagined it was God approving my purpose in life. I meditated on Dad and me exploring the hills in the distance.
I saw the sun’s shadow slowly creeping over the land, and the caves in the distance began to vanish. I envisioned ancient armies traveling on foot during the night to take over palaces while the villagers slept. The next morning, three thousand warriors stood outside of their gates ready for battle.
“Grab the wood!” someone yelled in the distance.
No wildlife. No sign of life at all except the hotel in the far distance, the chatter from the camping ground, the buzzing from the bugs, and the bubbling and salty fragrance of the Dead Sea. Nothing that I hadn’t seen already. I toyed with a rock inside of my hand, and then threw it at the ground. Thump. It echoed back, and my imagination went wild again.
The red rock covered the Judean Desert for miles and miles and what lay underneath it interested me. Explorers found lost cities and ancient artifacts all over Israel. My heart thumped with excitement as if God led me here for a reason. Maybe He wanted me to find something great on this ancient land.
“What are you staring at?”
Someone’s knuckles tapped the rock that I sat on. I turned around, and It was my cousin, Aaron. He was several inches shorter than my five feet seven inches, but when he stood next to me, his broad-shouldered and muscular chest made me look like a tall, bony beanpole.
“The mountains. They don’t have any vegetation, no green, no plants.” The words slithered out of my mouth with pain because I hoped that when Dad and I explored, I would find a plant to take back home. However, the rays of the sun slowly shifted, and the moon and stars came into sight. I fixed my blue tank top and wiped my sweaty hands on my blue jeans.
“I bet they have a lot of rocks. Ancient people used rocks for everything,” Aaron replied. He tapped the rock that I sat on with his knuckles. “This one is solid.”
Wheatly, with a high-pitched and less mature voice, said from the left side of the rock, “I wondered if ancient people used chemicals?” Wheatly collected dirt into his hands. He wore blue jeans, hi-top sneakers, and a bright green T-shirt that said, ‘I love Israel.’ “If we create a fire, then maybe we can perform an experiment on something around here.” Wheatly jumped up, throwing the dirt into the air, and I turned my face from it.
“Hey,” I said, ruffling his wavy hair. “Dad is not going to let us create our own fire experiment. Besides, we’re going to be too busy exploring,” I grunted and pushed the white T-shirt wrapped around my head up.
“He’s never going to go exploring in the dark,” Wheatly said, and he was right.
I rolled my shoulder back and said, “If you want to find an ancient rock for your rock collection, Aaron, if you want to find something to experiment on, Wheatly, and if I want to find at least one plant species in this desert, then I say let's go exploring without Dad.” They jumped with excitement. Then I said, “Aaron,” while gesturing that I meant that he and I should go, but not Wheatly.
“What! Come on.” Wheatly widened his arms, disgusted and mad.
“You’re too young, and you will hold us back.”
“No, I won’t. I promise I won’t. Please let me go.” He fell on to his knees and begged.
“No, Wheatly.”
“Welly, it's dark. We will get lost or something.” Aaron shivered.
They squabbled on and on, and I asked, “Guys, do you even know your purpose in life?”
“What?” Aaron squinted, and Wheatly scratched his head, wondering what purpose meant.
“Go figures. For example, God wants me to own my own plant scientific company that cures diseases.”
“How do you know that?” Wheatly yelled.
“Shut up!” I snapped. “Because I feel it, I want it, and I know it.” I cleared my throat, “Why can't I find out a way to stop diseases from happening?”
“Oh, me next!” Wheatly waved his hand as I pushed his hands away from me. “I want my purpose to be a hero . . . a superhero. I want to save the world.”
“You can't be a superhero without powers, Wheatly!”
“Sure I can. What if I haven't discovered my powers yet?”
“Boys!” a voice shouted. Dad stood outside of the camping ground as the teenagers behind him gathered wood from the truck.
“Saved by the bell,” I puffed. He motioned us to come over.
“Geez, Uncle Robert’s going to give us the talk again.” Aaron pouted. He never liked being in trouble, especially from my father.
I hopped off the rock, and we all raced to Dad who stood with both fists glued to his hips.
He rested his massive arm on my shoulder and said to us, “Boys, I need you guys to participate in the activities.” He eyed us. “Please?” he begged us as we gave him a pleasant grin.
The rest of the youth group participated in the activities. Each year, Olive Baptist Church planned a ten-day camping expedition for the youth boys to explore the ancient sites where Jesus traveled.
A farmer discovered the scroll of Isaiah in the Qumran Caves a few miles from Masada and from our camping site. During the ten days, we visited monuments and then prayed. We visited museums and then prayed.
We visited Christian’s homes and then prayed. Rode camels and blah blah . . . then prayed. Then there was Dad’s famous campfire story on the last night, that he trapped me into performing every year.
“Is everything okay, Robert?” Youth Pastor Patrick joyfully waved his hands at us, and we all waved back. “Yeah! Just having a talk with my boys.”
“Say cheese!” He snapped a quick picture of us smiling together before walking off.
Dad, an elder at Olive Baptist Church, and one of the leaders of this expedition said, “Participate. Make friends. Less science talk,” he grumbled and pushed Aaron and Wheatly forward while holding me back.
“Wellington, you promised me that you would try this year. This whole trip you were grumpy and antisocial.” He crossed his arms.
“Maybe because you said we would go exploring and find cool desert plants this time around.”
“We will.”
“When? We leave tomorrow,” I whined, and Dad lifted his head.
“Okay. Once we finish setting up, we have an hour to kill before the sunlight completely fades. Just you and I, but we can’t go too far.” He smiled and moved me towards the campsite, and I staggered to the rest of the group.
Wap. Wap. The wind slammed against the tents making them bounce in and out.
“I guess it’s going to be a windy tonight. Let’s make sure our tents are tied down, or we’ll be sleeping in the caves tonight,” Youth Pastor Patrick joked as he pointed to the caves in the hill.
No one could see them, but I curiously wondered if cave men lived inside and watched us like ants at night as during the day, we viewed the hills being covered with black-polka-dots—caves. Do caves have hidden treasures or plants? I pondered
“Don’t worry. I’m sure the mad black scientist would save us,” a squeaky voice from a few feet over cracked a joke. A red-curly-haired boy named Christopher Forrest hit fists with his friends as they laughed at us. The other teenagers made fun of us and called us geeks, nerds, and weirdos. However, they didn’t call us punks. I took my finger and outlined my throat as Aaron took his fist and smashed it in the palm of his hand. Christopher’s giggles went to quivers as he quickly tied down the tent.
“I kind of liked the name Mad Scientist,” I said to Aaron and Wheatly.
“Yeah, it makes us sound crazy for science.” Wheatly rolled his head around in a circle.
“Christian scientist,” Aaron spoke up. “Because science can prove things.” We fist bumped in the middle and made a secret handshake. Wheatly immediately ran off to help with setting up the tents as Aaron collected rocks from the fire pit.
“No sense of letting this burn,” he murmured as he used the bottom half of his shirt to carry them back to our tent.
A few people carried firewood from the jeep and dumped it into the fire pit as some helped with setting up the tents. They sorted bags of food on the navy-blue blanket: hot dogs there, buns here, and marshmallows, gram crackers, and chocolate for the dessert over there. They placed the thicker logs twenty feet away and around the fire pit for us to sit on when we sang and shared stories.
Our time had come to an end in Israel, and from what I heard, everyone enjoyed touring King Herod The Great’s abandon palaces, and seeing ancient monuments, hearing stories of King David, and praying where Jesus stood. However, I did not care because I had experienced it, seen it, tasted it, and felt it for the past five years. I begged Dad for me to not to come on the trip, but he convinced me that Wheatly and Aaron would make this one more exciting.
“Hey Wellington, give us a hand over here,” Pastor Chris called me. He had a hammer in his hand, and one kid held down a large nail.
I headed over to him, and he said, “Hold on to this rope, we want to make this is tight and steady.” I grabbed the rope as Pastor Chris hammered. The kid released the nail and watched it go deeper and deeper into the ground. A big gust of wind scattered the plates, cups, and a few hats around the camping ground, and without warning, the rope popped, and a piece of strand deeply punctured my hand.
“Ah!” I cried. I held my hand tight to stop the pain from raging, but blood oozed out, and I panicked. The adults quickly ran over to me and tried to comfort me. The kids tried to explain what happened.
“The wind, then pop,” A kid stuttered. But my hero, Dad, ran over with a first aid kit and a water bottle. He poured water on to my wound, poured alcohol, which stung, and then bandaged my hand.
“Hey, you’re all right, big man. Just a small cut.” He patted me on my shoulder and left just like a superhero completing a heroic act.
“Wellington.” Pastor Chris’s hand rested on my shoulder. “How are you? You’re hanging in there?” he questioned, feeling sorry for almost chopping my hand off with his lousy tent.
“Yes, sir.” I smiled and positioned my hand awkwardly on my lap.
“Great!” He began to walk away.
“However,” I said. “Repetition on ancient grounds is an aspiring boy scientist’s worst best friend.” I grinned, hoping to lure him into an enticing conversation.
“Is that right?” He stopped, knowing I wanted to share more.
“Of course. The same routine of visiting the same places. Gathering wood to add to the bonfire. Setting up the tents in a circle, resembling our own colony is boring. What we should be doing is exploring the grounds.”
He squinted with amusement. “You firecracker.” He hurried away.
“I can’t find a shrub anywhere!” I was forced to come here and agitated that I left my plant collection in the hands of my mother at home. I thought of how thirsty my plants might be.
“Where are all the cactus, right?” I yelled louder, hoping that someone would agree with me. However, they ignored my plea.
Gary Foster tapped me on my shoulder. “So, you’re going to college next year. Which school?” He beamed from ear to ear.
“I am not going to college.”
“You're not? I would think you of all people would—”
“I applied to the Elite Scientific Program,” I bragged, referring to the most highly respected federal government program. They developed and trained aspiring scientists to use their knowledge and skills to help the Federal Government and The Scientific Alliance Agency to make the world a better place through science. They prepared trainees to study environmental cases that are indescribable and considered unknowable to the public.
“Oh cool. Sounds super hard,” Gary said.
“Only if you're not smart.” Silence remained between us for a moment as he waited for me to ask the same question.
“Umm. Did you get into college?” I asked.
“You’re funny. Of course, I did. I’m going to Old Dominion University to study law and criminal justice. I want to be a detective someday,” he proudly declared as he tapped an imaginary badge.
“Good for you.”
“I would ask you the same question, but I think I know you’re going to study earth science.” He cringed and hoped he guessed right.
“Just plants.”
“Oh, so is it a program or a college program thing?”
“Both. I will be working for the government while studying plant paleobotany or plant morphology.” I paused, giving him an opportunity to leave the conversation.
He quickly sighed, “Oh . . . okay. I’m going to help out over there.” He pointed.
I nodded and whispered, “Yep.”
He hurried away to join the campfire games.
“What you talking to him about?” Aaron asked. He and Wheatly shared a log. Aaron already had a plate of food on his lap with a half-eaten hot dog and chips.
“Nothing much,” I said because Aaron’s attention span couldn't handle my plant theory.
“Oh, you’re thinking about what to study in college?” He took another bite and munched. “Study the traveling one.” Ketchup squeezed out the corner of his mouth.
“Study paleobotany?” I turned away from him for getting the name wrong. “That would be my dream to study historical plants.” I thought about my purpose as an archeologist traveling the world digging up lost and forgotten flowers and trees fossils. To know that these plants once dominated the earth’s surface millions of years ago until the weather turned on them, forcing them beneath the soil and rock, smashing them like gum on the sidewalk.
“No! I like the genetics and slimy stuff. You can be a hero if you create medicine.” Wheatly leaned over Aaron and reached his dirty hands toward my face. I smacked them away and explained, “Studying plant morphology will be my better solution because I'll be able to explore plant species’ genetic similarities.” I imagined myself discovering medicine on a petal that can cure a rare disease or studying why diverse leaves have the same genetic coding.
“They are both my dream jobs,” I confessed to the both of them.
CLAP CLAP CLAP. “Amazing Grace how sweet is the sound . . . ” The youth leaders sang and motioned everyone on the logs.
“I once was lost, and now I am found.” Dad’s singing voice vibrated the air and overshadowed the other leaders' voices. Dad, more mature and wiser than the bunch, always shared stories of the good ole days in summer Bible school.
“Dad!” I grunted. He pointed to his palm and mouthed, Sorry.
“Your hand is hurt,” Aaron translated his message and my heart sunk. Another wasted trip, and I refused to participate in the group activities.
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