April 19, 2010--Snowbirding: Rapture (Part One)

I am having coffee with Rob Roberts and Mike Maloney. Rob, 77, is an ex-Marine; and after serving in Korea had a series of jobs in Eastern Europe that were a cover, we suspect, for an association with the CIA. He won’t talk directly about any of that but very much enjoys dropping hints about what he might have been up to in Berlin and Warsaw during the Cold War. He’s put on some weight since those times, “fun times” he calls them, and has had a couple of stents installed; but he retains more boyish joie de vivre than someone half his age, and still sports the buzz cut he had when he was slimmer and engaged in various forms of service.

“So I was trying to sell these Polish guys some telephone equipment,” he confides in us, “I could tell they were more interested in pumping me for info about these electronic switches that were just being developed. Not that we could sell these characters the latest stuff. That was all classified. Whatever they could manage to get from us they would send on east to you-know-where. But,” this is when he would wink at us, “but they didn’t know what I was tryin’ to learn about their business. If you get my drift.”

We do get his drift.

Rob is a good guy--a really good, harmless guy as only someone his bulk can be--and he’s also a gold bug. He has a couple of Samsonite briefcases filled with Krugerrands and is getting ready for the Second Depression, which he claims will make the first one look like “a walk in the park.” “I don’t have any plans to sell apples like my old man. Those times killed him before he ever got to be 50. Worked his ass off, played by the rules, and those banks screwed him. Mark my words, just like these days. This ain’t gonna happen to me. No how, no way.”

Mike, who is still in his 50s, drives a grocery delivery truck and also thinks things will get much worse. But in his case another Great Depression would be the least of what for him would define much worse. In fact, he sees things as getting so dire that he’s stocking up on survival supplies. He has a two-car garage, he tells us, filed with hundreds of gallons of bottled water and at least twenty, 55-gallon drums packed with rice and dried beans. Between now and when everything crashes, in his case literally crashes, his main worry is that Florida’s legendary humidity may cause the beans to swell and burst their plastic containers.

The crash, the end Mike is waiting for is the big END. The final one. Not the Mayan 2012, but the Apocalypse. The one he says that is prophesized in the Bible. So when he listens to Rob going on and on about stashing gold, he says, “What good will your gold do you when the Rapture comes. Nothing from this world at that time will be worth shit. Not a penny, not even a Cougarrand.” At this intentional malaprop he unleashes his high cackle of a laugh. He may be a bit morbid but he never fails to like his own jokes. And he enjoys having a little fun with Rob.

Rob looks at him like he’s crazy and wonders out loud, “Well, if my Krugerrands won’t be worth nothin’ what good will your rice and bans do you?”

To me, both Mike’s and Rob’s are good questions.

“Tell me more about the Rapture,” I ask Mike. “I’ve done some reading about it, but I’d like to hear how you see things unfolding.”

Rob swivels his stool away from both of us, he has heard enough over the years of what he considers Mike’s craziness, and resumes his struggles with the Sun-Sentinel crossword puzzle. “What’s a six-letter word for ‘Sneak,’” he says to no one in particular.

Mike pulls his chair closer to me both to get some distance from Rob and to assure he won’t be overheard. I feel myself surrounded by covert operatives.

“It’s like this,” Rob begins, holding onto my forearm. I slide my coffee mug to my other side, to my free hand. I feel certain I’ll be needing more caffeine to fortify me. “All the signs have to be right before anything big can happen.” He sneaks a glance toward Rob to make sure he is fully preoccupied. He has no need to be concerned. When Rob is into his puzzle, nothing distracts him.

“First, they say, there has to be a world government and a single currency. And I’m not talking his gold Cougars.” He nods his head in Rob’s direction. “I used to think that way about the UN. Up there in New York. But that wasn’t what we were waiting for. We were wrong about that. But take a look at what’s happening in Europe. They have that Euro now, don’t they? No more Francs or Dotch Marks,” he smiles at another of his locally famous slips of the tongue, “or whatever they had in Spain. Pesos, I think. This is feeling to me what’s prophesized. The Signs, we call them. Signs of the End.”

“I’ve heard about that,” I say, though I decide not to correct the specific details of his eschatology. “What else, what else are you keeping an eye out for?”

“Well, most important, is the Rapture. You know about that?”

“A little.”

“It’s when the folks God wants to save right away, the best people from his perspective, get brought right up to heaven. To live there with Him forever. It will be like one day they will disappear without a trace. Except that since God takes them as naked as the day they were born, the only sign that they were here will be a neat pile of all their clothes and whatever else they were wearing at the time. Even their watches and eyeglasses. Right there all neat on top of the pile. Because they won’t be needing them where they’re going.”

“Incredible,” I say, “But what about everyone else? Those not Raptured, I mean?”

“You mean like me and you?”

“I assume it won’t include me, but why not you? What are you expecting?” He looks around to make sure no one was listening or could hear. It was nearly 10:00 o’clock and the place had pretty much cleared out. The only ones on our side of the counter were Mike and me and Rob, who was still totally absorbed in his puzzle.

“What’s a five-letter word for ‘Talk Show Host’? Begins with an O,” I hear him ask one of the waitresses.

“’Oprah,’” Lucy says as she races by with a long line of dishes balanced on one of her arms.

“I’m not expecting to be in the first wave of the folks whisked up to heaven. I’ve tried to live a good life,” he shrugs, “but I’m not too good at all the holy-rolling required. I get to church for most of the holidays and try to live the straight and narrow, but I know my weaknesses. I’m no Tiger Woods, mind you, but, like I say, I have my weaknesses.”

“So what then do you think will happen to you? After the Rapture I mean?”

“Nothing good. But as the Good Book says, I’ll have my second chances. Actually, one last chance. When the Antichrist shows up—who, by the way, may be already here,” he whispers right in my ear “but there’s no need to talk about that right now. And the whole world goes to war. That’s when I might be able to do myself some good.”

“I’m not following you? Do yourself ‘some good’?”

“Yeah, by getting with the right side and helping to bring about the Millennium. When Christ returns for a second time—we call it the Second Coming--when there will be 1,000 years of peace. That’s what ‘millennium’ means—a thousand.” I nod. “And then all those who have been good, from His perspective of course, will get a final chance to join those who were Raptured a long time ago. Before the Days of Tribulation and things like that.”

“And you . . .?”

“I’m preparing for those days. The Tribulation ones.”

“By?”

“By packing in all those staples. Like I told you. In my garage. Ones that won’t spoil.”

“The rice, the beans, the bottled water?”

He smiles at me. “Them and more. I figure, if I can get through those days, I got a chance of straightening out my life and then have a shot at the biggest thing of all.” He points up toward the water-stained acoustical tile ceiling. “Up there, I am saying. And when I say ‘up’ I mean ‘up’ with a capital U and a capital P.”

I get his point and hear Rob over my shoulder ask, “What’s a three-letter word for ‘The Dark Side’?”

“’Yin’,” Lucy says, exasperated with him, as she clears a table, “You know, like from ‘Yin and Yang.’ How’s it you’re doing the puzzle and I know all the answers?” Rob doesn’t bother to pick his head up or even glance in her direction.

“You should come by one day and see,” Mike whispers conspiratorially.

“See what?” He has lost me with his own, idiosyncratic version of the Rapture and End Times

“My garage. Where I have all the stuff stashed. Not as glamorous as his gold coins, but what we’ll all really need when those days arrive.” With that he leans even closer to me and mouths, “And they could be sooner than you think.”

“Actually, I don’t . . .”

“I suspected you’d say that. But don’t you like to think you have an open mind? If you come by my house I could have some of the other people there who are also getting ready who could tell you better than me what’s going on.”

I was in fact curious. All I knew about the Final Days was from reading some of those Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. And from other books that are more objective critical histories about the people who have led the effort to convince people that the signs are gathering for the Rapture and what will follow. Paul Boyer’s work, for example. When the Times Shall Be No More. Books that are more my kind of source.

But just reading paled in comparison to having the chance to talk with Mike and seeing what he was up to at home. So I say, “Actually, I’d be happy to come by when it’s convenient for you. But if it’s OK, I could take a pass at meeting your friends. Maybe another time. Right now being just with you is enough for me.” There was a limit to how far I wanted to be drawn into this.

So, with Rob still not done with the crossword puzzle, Mike and I agree that I would come by later in the week.

To be concluded tomorrow.