Hard Case | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Hard Case | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gary Ritter
09/12/14
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Alert: Rough, violent story.

I knew how to take it to someone. The bartender handed me his dishrag and I wiped the spit from my eyes. When I could see again, I gave the guy who’d insulted me a tight grin. I half turned away. Then with the quickness of long experience in bar fights, I grabbed a beer bottle, whirled, and smashed the man’s nose. He dropped like an ox struck with a sledgehammer.

The place went quiet. I dusted myself off, dropped a five on the bar, and sauntered out. No one dared say a word. Though small, and seemingly an easy target, I had a reputation among the regulars. If a stranger came in looking for a fight, he’d usually gravitate toward me. It wasn’t often I came out on the losing end.

In my car I toked up and spun out of the parking lot. The road was a little hazy that night; alcohol and weed’ll do that to you. When I reached home I saw the familiar car. And here I thought I was done for the evening.

Sobered by the drive and what’d come next, I was ready. The door opened silently and I made my way to the bedroom. I shook my head at what I saw. Really asking for it. I pulled out my .38.

Both were naked, in the throes of passion. I leveled the pistol and shot. The bullet entered the headboard three inches above his head. He jumped like a kangaroo. My wife screamed, “Martin, you leave him alone!”

The man doing my wife scrambled for his pants, pleading, “Don’t shoot me!” I used the butt of my gun on his ear as he ran from the room. After I beat my wife, leaving her lying bloody on the floor, I went into the spare bedroom and sank into a deep sleep.

Cops roused me much too early. The judge later that week sentenced me, saying, “Mr. Campbell, I’ve seen enough of you in this courtroom. You’re out of control, a danger to everyone, including yourself.”

I emerged from prison three years later, by no means a changed man. My wife had divorced me, I’d used my meager savings on attorneys, and I harbored ill will toward the world.

I stumbled down the street that first day of freedom and wanted nothing but death. The church ahead was only a haven from the rain. Inside I saw the cross at the front. My parents had forced me to church as a child. I remembered a little, mostly the waste of time it’d been.

Just like my life.

The crush of how meaningless it all was drove me to my knees. I didn’t want or need God. How did I get here? I tried to stand, but a trembling weakness in my legs prevented it. Guilt overwhelmed me as my conscience flared to life. I did need help. Could it come in this place? I cried out, “I don’t know what You can do, God, but I’m lost.”

Before me the cross seemed to emerge from the shadows, illuminated by light. A Bible lay on the nearest pew. I grabbed at it but it slipped from my hand. I took the opened book and read the words that jumped out at me: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

His grace. And then the past came into focus: the mornings I spent in Sunday school. I guess I did absorb something after all. Behind this grace was His love. The cross stood before me, waiting. I saw the truth: Jesus was the embodiment of God’s love through the cross. I beseeched God, “Forgive me! Save me!”

In that moment I fell facedown, as though stricken. The weight of God and His glory came upon me. Strange words bubbled out of my mouth mixed with words I understood: “Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus.”

Later I felt a disturbance in the air around me as a door opened and whooshed shut. Footsteps came near me. Hesitation. A hand touched my shoulder. It lingered a moment and the man said, “The Holy Spirit is all over you, son.”

My joyful eyes met his. I said, “Yes. I’m born again, baptized in the Spirit, a new creation in Christ Jesus.”

The judge who had sentenced me said, “Now go, Martin Campbell, and bear good fruit according to your salvation.”

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