Speeding through the darkness of Highway 21 in Garden City we talked of injustice that had occurred in our lives. Not the gross sweeping social unfairness and greed, but the purposeful spite of some. Tears rolled down my face and when we stopped at the red light at Grumman Road, she wiped them away.
"Zacchaeus," I said out loud.
Knowingly, she nodded.
He was a "Publican", someone who cared about himself more than anyone else ... his race, his family, everything was about him. A lover of money and saving his own ass at everyone else's expense, he collected taxes from his fellow Hebrews for the occupying forces of the Romans. He was a Son-of-A-Bitch mercilessly taking money from his brothers and his sisters, swearing Pagan oaths ... whatever it took to get ahead. He care less who he stepped on, forced out and justice was a foreign concept to him. He just didn't care about anything other than himself.
For many years, I was blessed to work with great men and women: Ben Barnes, Carole Beason, Herb McKenzie, Philip Solomons, Archie Davis, Joe Daniel, Saul Rubin, John Carpenter and others.
Then one day, I didn't.
I worked with Zacchaeus.
He was fond of telling stories of how he got ahead.
A banker, he was known for arriving hours before the bank actually opened to prove that he was more than anyone else. His work hours became the stuff of legend. Co-workers asked how he did it? His supervisors took notice. His rank rose.
One morning, the President of the Bank decided to arrive in the wee hours of the morning to see for himself what the hard working Publican did. When he arrived, Zacchaeus was asleep at his desk.
When I heard the story it was delivered with laughter and boastfulness. It was the lone day that this had ever happened. In spite of it, his career continued.
Then one day, he noticed a loan that too large that had been granted and the interest payments were lagging behind. He drove to the farm of his customer to demand why payments were not being made. After long confrontations, he learned that the farmer was making no money, had fallen behind in everything, borrowed as much as he could so that his family that he loved so much would not know.
"Well, rules are rules," he was told. "We're going to have to foreclose."
That night the farmer committed suicide.
When I heard the story, he concluded by explaining, "I feel bad about it, but rules are rules."
That's the kind of man Zacchaeus is ... little, narrow, small ... yet determined to prove to everyone that he is superior, confident, always right ... especially when it comes to numbers and how things are to be done.
We were doomed together ... oil and water ... the Angel wrestling with Satan ... love and hate ... peace and war.
Except it didn't end in a draw, like in the Biblical story. The Son-of-A-Bitch won. There was nothing fair-and-square about it. It all happened in private meetings with his attorney Best Friend, phone calls made demands that couldn't possibly be met, flimsy reasons given and ... Zachaeus got what he wanted.
Just like he always does.
In the Biblical story, Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see what all the commotion was about. He had to. The crowd hated his guts for the things he'd done to them and would have beat the shit out of him.
Then Jesus looked at him and said, "I want to go your house."
Jesus would go most anywhere and he didn't care who he was seen with. That's one of the things that made him Jesus.
According to tradition, the little man saved himself in the end. Hung around Peter, went to Rome where the Romans that he'd collected all of that money for ... killed him. For some reason the Church recognizes him as a Martyr.
I wonder about the farmers and the peasants he pushed out of the way to climb that tree. The ones he'd taken money from. The ones who killed themselves because they couldn't pay. The penniless families that were left behind.
Finding a space in the airport parking lot, she looked at me and said, "I believe that it all comes around. In the end justice prevails.'
We sat in silence but love filled the car.
"I believe that too," I said.
Then we hugged in the darkness.
Zacchaeus though, is an usher at church this morning. Making his way to ... wherever the hell he wants to go.
