The Five-Fold Path to a Fateful Meeting
Every day in the United States of America, as it occurs in other parts of the world, someone dies from something that a little extra money would have allowed them to get appropriate treatment for.
What makes it so hard for the survivors of these someones in the United States is that everyone sees that money is available, but knowledge about how to legally get money in the 21st century economy is unevenly available, and of course, old prejudices and agreements yet limit ease of opportunity for poor people in general, and for people whose ancestors were assigned a chattel- or removal-class status.
What is especially bad is when someone loses a someone who is his mother, after his whole family could not get the money together to save her.
Doubly bad since this man couldn't get his share of money because he was a convicted felon trying to reform, but hadn't been able to find work.
Triply bad if someone had given him a copy of the 13th Amendment just then and explained that the way Abraham Lincoln left things, slavery was now an equal opportunity problem, and slaves couldn't do a thing for their families.
That is, the 13th Amendment, all the way back to 1865, had abolished slavery except in the case of felony imprisonment. Become a felon, and your rights reverted to that of a slave – and folks did not pay slaves for work. The law upheld this from coast to coast in allowing felons to be kept out of the majority of paid work even after they had worked for, say, 90 cents a day every day in making products for the country in the prison industrial system during their prison terms.
Quadruply (yes, we have had to create a new word to fit this man's situation) bad since this man thought his white-man status protected him from all of that after serving his time, but realized, too late, that it didn't, and he, too, like the Black and Latino people he looked down on, would now be saddled with this burden for life.
Quintuply (yes, we have had to create yet another new word) bad since this man once illegally had a profession and lifestyle in which money came easily, and had just gotten his invitation to go back from his old partners.
John Goodfellow, former high-end drug dealer, was in an existential crisis five levels of pain deep.
Mr. Goodfellow also suffered from the perennial human issues compounded by cultural ideas of what he deserved from both society and God. He had been good since he left prison – he had done all his programs, community service hours, and everything else. He had avoided responding to invitations to go back, although he was really good at what he had done, and had been caught only because he had slipped – but he had protected his partners in it, in his twisted sense of honor.
So: John Goodfellow felt he had done enough to earn forgiveness and a break from his society that tended to let white men slide, and also from God since he was flawless so far in a reentry program sponsored by Big Loft VA's Church in the Midst of Life.
However, redemption never comes by the works of man, or an individual man. God and society both had not accepted his works as sufficient, so Mama Goodfellow had died without the necessary treatment because her son couldn't get his hands on the money in a legal way.
This was the root of the existential crisis John Goodfellow was experiencing.
This is why he felt the need to go tell off Revs. Gordon and Baxter of the Church in the Midst of Life before going back to his life of crime.
And, maybe before that, one more game of pickup midnight basketball with the friends he had made in the program … especially the new pretty one.
Three weeks before Mr. Goodfellow's existential crisis, somebody new had joined the pickup basketball ranks – and boy, could Darcy Bowler ever handle a basketball!
Ms. Bowler was herself an existential crisis that already had found a place to happen. First of all, she was a self-aware narcissistic sociopath. That was nearly unheard of.
Second of all, she was a serial killer with boundaries: she had merely been completing a mission, and after it was done she wanted nothing more to do with killing.
Third of all: she had turned herself and her fellow Beauty Killers in, and since they had wanted to keep killing, she had killed them and packed them in her trunk to get turned in anyhow.
Fourth of all: when a transport to a county facility for criminals like her turned into a rape attempt, she – predictably – had killed her would-be rapist, but also brought back evidence of his 47 preceding crimes as she turned herself back in.
Fifth of all: when a transport had gone wrong a second time, she had not killed the criminals responsible, but incapacitated them so she and they could go back into custody.
Ms. Darcy Bowler was an existential crisis, five levels deep and too hot for the county's regular facilities to handle, so, a judge had ordered her into the custody of two people with whom she was as meek as a little lamb: Rev. and Mrs. Gordon had taken her into their home once she had been fitted with the appropriate tracking bracelet. They lived next door to the Church in the Midst of Life, having bought the lot on a downtown corner and built a four-plex and an event center-type building with a chapel, two kitchens, large and small dining areas, and many other spaces in which they did all kinds of service to the downtown community, whether downtown liked it or not.
Downtown Big Loft's bigwigs were not pleased with their new church neighbors at all; they looked for every excuse and thought they had a good one when the Church in the Midst of Life made part of their lot space into a basketball court. All that noise disrupting the workday! But no: Revs. Gordon and Baxter were too smart for that. Court hours were 6:00pm to midnight, thus not disrupting the workday. All members of the church's ministries and those served by the same were welcome to come and play, including the people in the church's re-entry program.
Darcy Bowler would never re-enter society, provided society figured out how to put her out. Yet as of January 2020, society had failed miserably, and would continue to fail as Covid-19 caused society to have to empty out prisons instead of putting more people in … so, in the little corner of society served by the Church in the Midst of Life, there she would remain.
Ms. Bowler was 39 years old, but had kept her athlete's trim since being a Division 1 basketball star in college. She was not out of practice, having played street basketball wherever she happened to be killing in the world, and so, with time to devote to the matter, she used drizzly days when no one else wanted to play to get back into top form. The other regular players respected that, although they knew she was crazy.
“Ain't nobody trying to get pneumonia over the game if they are sane,” said Tarik Gaines, redeemed armed robber and referee for the reentry game, “but you know, it takes a crazy kind of dedication to be a successful serial killer, and it's better that she put it into basketball.”
John Goodfellow thought she was crazy, but cute … Ms. Bowler was a Beauty Killer for a reason, a blonde bombshell still gorgeous into early middle age. He also suspected that while she seemed as meek as a lamb in terms of going to and fro from the parsonage to the church and helping out Revs. and Missuses Gordon and Baxter and anyone they directed her to, she would be a lioness on the court.
John Goodfellow had been away for 20 years … it would be fun to get into the paint and feel the energy of a woman like that on his body … and if he played his cards right, maybe there could be some other fun. Now, obviously, it would have to be with mutual consent – everybody knew she was an expert killer and what had happened to the last man who had tried to take advantage of her – but maybe, just maybe … he too was a highly skilled person, after all.
So, on the first day that it wasn't raining after sunset, the regulars made it to the court after the “family type people” had played in the early hours, and Ms. Bowler had taken her place with the newbies waiting to get a chance.
The regulars didn't pick Ms. Bowler right away; they wanted to see how she would react … and indeed she was a true athlete, who occupied her time jumping an imaginary rope (since she couldn't have such things, being a serial killer and all) and otherwise staying loose.
“Now just so you know, Blondie,” John Goodfellow finally said when the men decided it was all right to let Ms. Bowler in, “you know what you're getting into. This ain't the children's hour or the family hour or the community hour: this is the big bad criminal hour. We don't have to be nice to you.”
Ms. Bowler's smile was so sweet it could melt your heart, and her soft voice could carry you away if you didn't understand … .
“Oh, I know that, but I also know we all know where we are.”
Of course they were playing on the church basketball court, and you weren't supposed to do unholy things on sacred ground … but she was the only serial killer there. She had just reminded everyone of where they were, indeed.
The regulars swiftly learned to respect Ms. Bowler's game. She locked in first of all on defense, and a lot of teams she played with that first week won because she was shutting their opponents down.
More than one man thought he couldn't be guarded by “Blondie” only to be finishing what should have been a gorgeous move without the ball. More than one man had a ball slapped all the way to the fence. One man was dumb enough to try to muscle his way. Now Ms. Bowler was all woman, and did not get into frontal physical contests with men, so she just snatched the ball from his hand as she was getting out of the way, and let the pole of the basket win the contest with the man as she passed the ball down the court. There are no injury timeouts during the big bad criminal hour of street basketball; he just had to crawl off the court with Mr. Gaines' help and get replaced by someone else.
So, Week 1: Darcy Bowler's defensive chops secured her a place with the regulars of the big bad criminal hour.
“Yeah, but does Blondie have offense, though?” somebody asked in the second week on a day Ms. Bowler was not playing because she was helping Mrs. Gordon with a project. “She's such a Southern belle I don't think she wants to challenge our defense.”
Tarik Gaines heard this and put his head in his hands.
“Guys – she's a serial killer! She doesn't care anything about challenging your defense! George is still in the hospital after challenging her defense right into that pole – y'all crazy!”
But some people have to learn by doing … folks reconfigured their defenses so Ms. Bowler would be the only one open a lot of the time. That didn't last long as a strategy.
“That woman must have been lethal with a gun, for real,” one said to another. “You got to be a sniper to shoot like that from the field in the street game – I mean, just dead-eye accuracy!”
“Hall of Fame Game type stuff from the perimeter,” the other said. “We gotta get her into the paint, though, next time – she's going to get tired fighting us men for shots in there.”
Ms. Bowler proved to be too much of a lady to be fighting men for shots in the paint. She was a mistress of misdirection, and cleared paths for herself by having folks going entirely the wrong way.
“I can't believe that little six-foot-four-inch woman dunked on me!” one said to another that day.
“Well, we still came out better than Dean – that man all but vaulted himself into orbit trying to use his whole body to block her shot, only to have her pull that ball back and then make her shot after he crashed onto those poor newbies standing there. And what about Antoine? She crossed him up so bad both his ankles gave up the ghost and went right on to Hell with his pride in tow!”
Week 3: Ms. Bowler was a regular in the big bad criminal hour of basketball, with the full respect of the other players, and after that, it was just fun and games.
This was the week that John Goodfellow made it a point to be guarding Ms. Bowler. He trash-talked a little to see if he could get inside her head, only to be sweetly turned back by her wit and her ball handling … but sweetly. She outplayed him routinely, but she didn't create humiliating situations.
“You're wearing me out,” he playfully complained at a time when they both had gone off the court to get some rest and let some newbies in.
“Oh, no,” she said sweetly. “You're the one wearing yourself out trying to get to grips with me.”
“Ain't it the truth, though – I'm John, by the way, and I know your name is not Blondie.”
“Darcy,” she said. “Darcy Anne Bowler.”
“How did a gorgeous woman like you end up here in the big bad criminal hour and not in the WNBA?”
“It's too long of a story, unless you want to tell me how a smooth operator like you ended up here as well. Fair exchange is no robbery even among criminals.”
So they had ended up talking for an hour. At the end, one of John's friends came to shake some sense into him.
“Look, man, get it together – she's a serial killer, and you just can't fall for a serial killer!”
“Too late,” said John Goodfellow. “I'm a serial designer drug pusher trying to do better, and she's such an inspiration and so beautiful, and so sweet … .”
But then things had taken a turn for him – that's when the family had told him about his mother, dying for lack of money for treatment.
So, John Goodfellow had to go tell Revs. Gordon and Baxter off after she died in week 4, February 13, 2020, and tell Darcy Bowler something too. Maybe goodbye … but maybe she could come with him.
The thing was, he was trying to reform until he wasn't. She was redeemed. There was a big difference.
Five Things To Do When About To Mess Up Everything You Are Trying to Do
The first thing to do when about to mess up everything you are trying to do: get drunk. The Goodfellow family, combined, only had enough money for a cremation, but that left a little left over to get good and drunk. The funeral had been at 9:00am – couldn't afford even the 11:00 spot, but 9:00 – but that left time to be good and drunk and go tell some preachers off by noon.
The second thing to do when about to mess up everything you are trying to do: forget who you were about to speak with. This was easier when you were drunk, and didn't remember that the two preachers you wanted to tell off were not the effeminate, weak men your profane so-called friends liked to say all Christian men were.
The third thing to do when about to mess up everything you are trying to do: get lost because you are drunk. Timing is everything. Stumble around the wrong block long enough to get sober enough to realize you are stumbling around the wrong block – hours gone that would have been used elsewhere.
The fourth thing to do when about to mess up everything you are trying to do: talk loud and draw a crowd so that you can be totally humiliated before being tossed out.
John Goodfellow stumbled in to find both Revs. Gordon and Baxter in the office they shared, working on the next day's sermons. He unloaded on them, yelling at the top of his lungs about how he had left the life of sin and worked hard in the program and had no money and the devil had treated him better for his hard work than God had because Mama Goodfellow had died and no one had lifted a hand to help him or offered any money and he was going to go back to the devil and crime because it paid and all of them were weak and frauds and used faith as a crutch and to get money for their program and doing nothing real for people … that went on until he was literally breathless.
One huge tear of compassion slid from Rev. Gordon's eye.
Rev. Baxter crossed his arms.
“Did you ever tell us what was going on so that we could help you and your mother?”
Oops. John Goodfellow had forgotten that he had left all the sudden and had not told anyone why.
“Well,” he stuttered after several moments of embarrassment, “God is ommiscient or whatever that means – He should have told you or somebody!”
“Son,” Rev. Gordon said, “God doesn't work like that. He would have used your mouth, but clearly it does not belong to Him yet.”
“Bruh,” Rev. Baxter said, “you come in here drunk and disorderly, dishonoring everyone and everything that had been on your side, and you're mad because we don't read minds? You ought to be glad – we never would have let you in for you to leave like this. But see, Rev. Gordon is that father-type who is going to wait on the porch for the prodigals to come home. I'm the brother who will make sure you leave and don't come back until you are ready to repent – OUT!”
Two burly guys grabbed hold of John Goodfellow's arms and put him right out through the side door.
The fifth thing to do when about to mess up everything you are trying to do: sneak back to talk to the woman you think you love … but she's a serial killer.
John Goodfellow eased back in through the other side entrance at 8:00pm. The night crew cleaning up the kitchen and preparing for the next day's ministries did not know how Mr. Goodfellow had been put out, so he went on through to the basketball court. February 13, 2020 was a drizzly night … only one person would be out playing basketball on such a night.
Darcy Bowler was out in her waterproof tracksuit and hood, shooting shots, her long, tall form unmistakable under the lights.
“Hey, Darcy!” Mr. Goodfellow said. “Want to play some one-on-one?”
She bounced him the basketball.
“You ain't scared of no-bo-dy,” he said.
“Nope,” she said.
So they played for an hour, and he played the hardest and best ball he had ever played. He did have a slight strength advantage over his opponent, and he had to use it all. Not that it made much difference, as Ms. Bowler had five inches in height and two decades of skill as her advantages … but she knew the story of the day and did not add to his humiliation. A man had to have hope.
21-20 for the win for Darcy Bowler; John Goodfellow battled back to 20-20 before Darcy Bowler finally crossed him up (relatively gently) in the paint and finished the contest with a dainty layup.
“Well, it wasn't inevitable,” he said at the end. “I really did all I could.”
“Really great game, John,” she said. “I haven't worked that hard for a while, since you haven't been guarding me.”
He always tried hard. He couldn't guard her, but he always tried his best. It was what Mama Goodfellow had taught him … and all at once he started bawling and broke down and told Darcy Bowler the whole story of his mother's death and how he was going back to his old life of crime so nothing like that would ever happen to anyone he loved again because he didn't have money.
Ms. Bowler was a narcissistic sociopath and so could neither sympathize nor empathize, but she tried – for the first time in her adult life, she knew what she was aiming at although she could no more hit it than she could hit a shot on the moon from where she was standing. But, she tried anyway.
“I remember when my father died,” she said. “I remember how much that hurt me.”
“See, you understand!” he said. “How am I getting more love and understanding from a serial killer than I have from this whole world?”
“I don't know about all that, John.”
“Well, I do!” he said, “and that's why when I get good and situated, I'm coming back to get you! We can make it out of all of this.”
“Wait a minute, John. You can't go back to all that. Once God brings you out, you can't just go back.”
“Watch me – I'm going to make a good million working designer drugs for a year, and then, wherever you are, I'm coming to get you. We'll go where they can't extradite you, and be happy together!”
“If you try to run from God when He brought you out, where are you going?”
“Look, Darcy, you're the type of woman that will always be taken care of. You're beautiful and sweet and although you play hard basketball, there's this soft loving thing about you. Somebody will always see that and look after you. I'm a man, Darcy, and a white man, and a felon – I can't live like a slave in my own country! I tried to work! I tried to do things the right way! God didn't help me! I have to go back to what I know worked for me!”
“But it won't work once God takes you out of it. When the Father tells you to stop, you have to stop.”
“I don't acknowledge the authority of anyone who let me down when I needed Him the most!” he said. “But I do acknowledge that I love you, because you always play fair, and you took the time to understand what I'm going through.”
He embraced her tenderly, and she did not resist him.
“Tomorrow morning I'm going back to the Silver Dragon Kitchen to cook up a life worth living,” he said. “Give me a year, and I'll have it all together, and I'm going to make it so I can come get you.”
“Please don't try to do this,” she said. “With your skill, you can start your own legal thing.”
“That will take too long,” he said. “I gotta go this way to make it better for me – and for us. I love you, Darcy, and I gotta be able to protect and provide. I'll be back for you when I can. Keep folks honest on the court – yeah, I know it's the big bad criminal hour, but you know what I mean.”
She thought about this and dazzled him with her smile.
“We're still on the court – yes, I will!”
He leaned in to kiss her and she did not pull away … the sweetness of the kiss was a surprise to both of them. But he couldn't stay and she couldn't keep him – he left the court, forgetting he had told her exactly what to do, and not knowing how her mind was going to translate that with something else that had happened. Ms. Bowler had seen Mrs. Gordon crying and praying about Mr. Goodfellow that day, and although she couldn't feel anything, she knew Mrs. Gordon was really hurting.
“Lord, I know this happens and people go right back into Satan's clutches, but I'm always asking that You send Your angels and yank them back from the pit!”
Mrs. Gordon's prayer would be answered, although not quite angelically.
The thing about a world-class international serial killer: everybody knew she couldn't have sharp things and rope. Nobody had even imagined what she could do by 5:00am with just five items: chalk dust, mineral oil, a bedsheet, a basketball, and a streetlight.
The Church in the Midst of Life had chalkboards in some places. Ms. Bowler collected all the chalk dust she needed before going back to the Gordons' home.
“May I have some mineral oil?” she asked Mrs. Gordon. “I would like to put some on my skin after my shower.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Gordon said. “I wish you wouldn't play outside when it's drizzly and cold.”
“Okay,” Ms. Bowler said. “I guess this was the last necessary day anyway.”
Then she embraced Mrs. Gordon and started crying.
“I never had a mother who cared enough to tell me that!” she cried.
“I know, dear,” she said. “I recognize that you are 39, but I still am concerned.”
“I would do anything for you!”
Which is why what was going to happen between then and 5:00am was going to happen, because Darcy Bowler's comprehension of what constituted anything was different than most people's. Mrs. Gordon said an extra prayer for her just because she knew that, and it didn't hurt.
What Your Valentine Did at Five in the Morning
“Girl, I had to go to them – three times. These sleepy law enforcement officials in Lofton County have been shielding their favorite criminals for so long while hassling dark folks for fun that they can't do anything in my case.”
Darcy Bowler was sitting in a 24-hour Fedex in downtown Big Loft typing on a Discord chat, although the bracelet put on her to track her movement was comfortably covered up in her bed, minus a bedsheet. The sheriff's department had miscalculated; because of Darcy Bowler's prepossessing six feet four, they had put on the biggest bracelet they had.
But, Ms. Bowler was all woman, and tapered at the appropriate places. Warm, wet skin, mineral oil, and an athlete's ability to work even small muscles, and she was out of that bracelet and out of the Gordons' home while the guards for the night were still sitting out front thinking Ms. Bowler was asleep in bed.
Ms. Bowler was talking with a contact in the international underworld – Livia DeMedici – who had helped her with research during her career as a serial killer.
Livia and a whole bunch of other women had sent Ms. Bowler all kinds of money for her defense, because Ms. Bowler always paid well and took care of innocent bystanders and not-privy-to-the-actual-crimes assistants at a standard her Marine father, Captain Darius Bowler, would have been proud of. This is why there were women around the world who would have helped Ms. Bowler escape, had she wanted to do that. She was considered a tomboy version of a gentleman rogue in the underworld because of her standards, and there were plenty of people loyal to her.
“Yes, we have been observing this from London and just laughing our heads off,” Ms. DeMedici had said. “It would be like reading Inspector Lestrade trying to cope with Professor Moriarty without Sherlock Holmes anywhere around.”
“Lofton County has three men who can do the job,” Ms. Bowler said, “but they all are assigned to other matters at this point. They can't be everywhere, which is why I thank you for looking up Silver Dragon Kitchen for me here in Lofton County. It's probably some kind of drug lab.”
“Yep,” Ms. DeMedici said. “Seems that its top men were running high-end Asian fusion cooking out of the front during the day and designer drugs out of the back to Lofton County's high-end users during the night. 20 years ago it was called Dragon Chase Kitchen, but you know that is a more obvious reference to chasing the dragon and thus drug use. They have gotten more slick after all of them spent some time in jail, but it looks like the feds are closing in on them again, just hoping that all of them will get back together before putting them away for the rest of their lives.”
“Who's the contact in DEA?”
“Agent George Smalls.”
“Okay … please drop a line to him at 5:00am Eastern Standard Time that Big Loft's local police have moved in on the situation because of action at the lab.”
“All right … got a new mission, Darcy?”
“Yeah. New tools, but definitely a mission. Thanks, Livia.”
The beautiful thing about a FedEx computer; it wipes out everything from memory when you are finished using it, at least as far as most techs can discover. Darcy Bowler pulled out the debit card a friend had sent her from the card reader, went and got her printouts off the printer, put them and the card into her gym bag, jumped into a ride share, and was on her way.
Ms. Bowler marveled at the stupidity of Mr. Goodfellow's former associates, and of the local law enforcement once again. They had gone right back to the same location to do their mess … and local law enforcement and the feds had not seized and bulldozed the site so that would be impossible.
Still, the revolving door of criminality kept prisons full. The 13th Amendment had given a slave-holding country a new semi-permanent class of slaves, and everybody knows how reluctant a slave-holding country is to give slavery up. All the way back to Exodus in the Bible, that is known.
But, to the work of the night – as the hour of the “shift change” approached,” Ms. Bowler checked the pictures of the people she was after one more time, and then went to a pay phone and called 9-11.
“Hello – there's a whole thug thing going down outside with the drug dealers of the Silver Dragon Kitchen – help!”
She used her best frightened Southern belle voice, and because the assumption would be that these were Black drug dealers, she knew the police in Big Loft would get moving.
By this time, Ms. Bowler already had changed into her costume for the evening, cinching the bed sheet around her long, tall form like a Greek toga, and putting a handful of the chalk dust on her hair and face for whiteness. All that remained was for the men in question to come out at 5:00am and pass under the streetlight nearest them to confirm their identity, and for another streetlight to reveal a figure like an angel – or Athena, depending on your grasp of Greek mythology – wearing Nikes, holding a basketball.
7:15am – it was Rev. Baxter's day to unlock the church at 6:00 on Friday, February 14, 2020 – Valentine's Day – meaning that Rev. and Mrs. Gordon were listening to some amazing early news as Ms. Bowler came out of her room, gently toweling her golden hair dry after a nice wash in the shower.
“See, this is why smart criminals don't smoke their own dope – every one of them had a face full of powder,” Lieutenant Gregory Conrad was saying to a reporter. “That must have been some bad stuff, because they left all the lights on and all the evidence we'll ever need right out in the open in the lab while they just mugged each other out here. They were still so high when we got to them – talking about an angel with an orange globe of fire in her hand, or Athena with a basketball – crazy stuff!”
“We're mostly satisfied with the outcome on the federal level,” DEA agent George Smalls said. “We were hoping we would get all of them back behind bars, but, apparently, John Goodfellow, who used to be one of the main men, learned something in 20 years of hard time.”
“He didn't go back after all,” Mrs. Gordon said as she melted into her husband's embrace.
“I tried,” a very humble John Goodfellow admitted to Revs. Gordon and Baxter at 8:00 that morning. “I was on my way to get there at the shift change, and then all these police cars and helicopters and this and that started going that way and I realized: the bust was going down. I deserved to get caught up, but I didn't. And then I realized what you all have been saying about sin and how we hate God and run to sin to get our way in life, and how if we got what we deserved … .”
He shuddered, but then continued.
“I wasn't rehabilitated, but I am redeemed now. I settled all that walking back here. I am in Christ now, and although I was a complete fool the last time I was here, I'm just asking you to let me join the program again from the beginning, so I can really learn this time and not try to be doing just enough to get my way. If I got my way, I'd be in prison again or in Hell. I want to do things God's way, in Christ, now. Mama's gone, and all her life she had a fool for a son, but she was a Christian, and her prayers are answered at last.”
Rev. Gordon ran around the desk like the father of prodigal sons he was for his community, and embraced Mr. Goodfellow.
“Bruh,” Rev. Baxter said, and then uncrossed his arms and joined the embrace, forgiving Mr. Goodfellow as well.
Ten hours later, Mrs. Gordon knocked on the door of Ms. Bowler's room. She had gotten a light chill – “you were right to be concerned, Mama Gordon” – she had conceded before going back to bed. But Ms. Bowler was awake again and reading her Bible when Mrs. Gordon came in.
“I know it's not supposed to happen,” Mrs. Gordon said, “but, somebody wants you to be their valentine, Darcy.”
Mrs. Gordon presented her guest a dozen red roses and a card in an envelope that said “Darcy Anne Bowler.” The letter in the card read as follows:
“You were right, Darcy. I told you to keep people honest on the court, and you did – you told me the truth last night. You said I couldn't go back to the old life, and you were right. We're free now in Christ, free from the worst thing that could happen: going back to a life of sin to end in Hell.
“I told you I loved you, Darcy, but I'm not sure that I understand what that is. I'm a hardened criminal and it's been a long time since I saw people and even God as existing for themselves. I don't even know how to love you. But I can say thank you, and I hope you feel better soon. Happy Valentine's Day to the sweetest woman ever to play in the big bad criminal hour, and when you are feeling better, I'll be right here to pretend I can guard you again!”
Two days later, what everybody saw was Darcy Bowler doing some magical misdirection around John Goodfellow and leaving him frozen in place as the action headed down to the other end of the court.
“Come on now – even in the big bad criminal hour, that's got to be a foul!” Tarik Gaines laughed. “I don't care if you are a serial killer – you can't just be turning opponents to stone, Darcy!”
John Goodfellow wasn't complaining. While everyone else had been watching his valentine sink a basket from beyond half court, she had stolen a big kiss on him before running back down the court. Of course, they had no possible future together as a couple, but the idea that there was a future at all for either of them was an evidence of the grace of God.
“Don't mess this up again, Goodfellow,” he said to himself as he got himself back into the game. “20 years already gone, almost snatched up again – but instead, you're out here getting kisses from Darcy Bowler. God is too good. Don't mess this up again, Goodfellow.”
Darcy Bowler smiled as she heard that. Mission accomplished, thank God.