[Clarification added 2/14/15: Before I took the temporary work assignment described below, I had never heard of Reverend Ike.]

After I moved back to Boston in March of 1987, I worked very briefly for Reverend Ike. The Reverend — if that was what you wanted to call him — had his offices — if that was what you wanted to call them — at 910 Commonwealth Avenue. I worked for that sly, dastardly meshuganah for three days. And if I am ever to meet my Maker at the bright, angel-infused gates of heaven with my heart unburdened and my conscience entirely in the clear, I will first have to atone for the transgressions I committed in the Reverend’s  flinty offices.

*              *             *

The Reverend’s offices sat on a lower floor of a nondescript building just west of Boston University. The building was maybe six or seven stories tall, with a plain, banal facade. To get to the building from my basement apartment on Beacon Hill, I walked up the shadow-soaked slopes of the twisting streets, up Joy Street, across to Beacon Street, and then past the glinting dome of the State House. Finally, I passed down the busy plain of Boston Commons to the Park Street entrance of the T.

I had been assigned the simple job of opening the Reverend’s mail. This was during the 18 months that I worked for one of Boston’s many staffing agencies. I lived in the apartment on Beacon Hill with Miles, my clever, dangerous cat whom the lady upstairs had slyly given me one day when I let my guard down. So it must have been sometime between March 1987 and September 1988 that I worked for Reverend Ike.

Why did I take the job with Reverend Ike? Why had I taken any job I had ever taken up to that point in my life? The question answers itself: I have never known what I’ve wanted to do with my life. The summer before I graduated M.I.T., I took a job at the school’s Physical Plant. I sat in a grey, windowless, sub-basement office, filling out work orders: Fix a broken air conditioner on the roof of Building 6. Open a window painted shut in the Student Center. A computer screen sat in front of me, displaying the current temperature on the streets of Kendall Square, which bustled just outside the building. When work was slow and the minutes passed like paint drying in a coat closet, I would watch the graph of temperature being drawn on the computer screen: the temperature rose quickly during the morning hours and fell very slowly during the late afternoon. I watched the temperature’s sly parabola with patience and fascination. I had no purpose; I had no sense of direction. In fact, M.I.T. was the start of my life-long problem of figuring out Who I Am and What I Want To Do with Myself. Which perhaps explains, in part, why I ended up at Reverend Ike’s dim, vexatious offices.

*         *          *

It was an enormous room I worked in. Windows high up. Floors covered with drab, artificial carpet. The only furnishings were long rows of linoleum tables: the kind of lax, chintzy fixtures you might purchase if you wanted to deplete your handsome, ill-gotten gains by the absolute minimum amount possible. As I have said, the room I worked in was enormous — but there were only a few of us pale, lily-livered whippersnappers working there: four or five, I would say. It was all very beguiling . . . trés mysterious. . . . We were spread out across the room, one person per table, as I remember. Our instructions were immutable: Here’s a stack of envelopes. The envelopes have been sent to the Reverend by his congregants.  The envelopes have been opened and searched once. Your task is: search the envelopes again.

Have I said it was a large room? There were only a very few of us! I remember the quiet rustlings of our efforts as we opened the notes and letters and cards that lay silently inside the envelopes, and carefully unfolded them.

Most of the envelopes came from the south, as I remember. Poor, forgotten villages and towns, I imagined: Dilapidated schools! Meats spoiling in corner markets! Leaky pipes in basements! Places where good, hard folk owned little more then four walls and a roof — and a leaking ballpoint pen, or a simple, trusted pencil, or a good, thick, crumbly crayon.

Dear Reverend Ike (one of the cards might say) —

My Mother has sickly. I will prey for Her. Can you help us? Hear are Twenty Dollars. –Sister Clareen Bell

Dear Most Honorable Reverend Isaac (another card might say) —

Thank you for your kindly note. I am humbled to learn you dreamed of me last nite. No one has ever dreamed of me before! And yes, you are rite. For many days now I have been wandering in the desert. At last, with yur note, I am found! And now I know what to do. It is as you wish! I am enclosing $10 to help your church. I prey for you evry day. –Beatrice Hardaway

Dear Rev. Ike (another card might say) —

My wyfe left Me. My onlee son dying. A meerakall you dreamed of me like u say. At just such a tyme. You are my Savyur. Just like you say in yur note.  Thank u for comforting me with Yur prays. It is a syn from God U are His grate helper. Will you take $3? It is all I have. — Brother Jerome Smith

ps My brother Wilyum is riting this letter. I am ill iterate.

*             *            *

I searched through, say, fifty envelopes a day. Scrawled, humbling notes, the intimate confessions of good, humane people. But Reverend Ike — that sly, genial mollycoddle; that suave and handsome  muttonchop — had already extracted the donations his adherents had extended to him. But on the second morning (as I remember the circumstances), after opening several cards, letters, and notes, and piling them up on the table, and watching the odds of my ever attaining the bright, angel-infused gates of heaven recede into the distance, out fell a $5 bill. This object — this neat, simple catastrophe — fluttered from the envelope, drifting through the air, landing softly on the dry, nettlesome surface of my tabletop.

*               *              *

Dear Sister Deborah: I have wonderful news. Last night Reverend Ike dreamed of you — a most wonderful, terrifying dream! The Reverend was lost in the desert. Yes, Sister Deborah — Reverend Ike was lost! He was wandering all lonesome, under a hellish sun. His body was wracked, the Reverend’s soul was exhausted. Soon, he came across a stream. He slaked his thirst, drinking mightily. When his strength was regained and he felt Our Maker’s warmth return to the muscles throughout his wracked and withered body, he crossed the river without a struggle. Immediately,  a rainbow appeared. It was a symbol of Our Maker’s hope, full of all the colors of His creation: gold and red…yellow and orange…purple and blue! Reverend Ike stared long at the rainbow, disbelieving his eyes. For at the base of the rainbow stood a mighty, old oak. And from behind the oak, even as Reverend Ike stared, you stepped out, Sister Deborah. Yes, you, Sister Deborah! Your hair was shining in the blaze of the sun — and you reached out, and you touched Reverend Ike’s silken robes. Reverend Ike turned to you and nodded, knowing you instantly. Suddenly, as you still were touching him, he turned into a bright, golden bird. And Reverend Ike flew off, high above you, up into the heavens. A thousand gold coins rained down at your feet. They rained and rained, until you fell asleep, a high pile of gold in your arms, and more gold on your pillow, and more gold inside the deep, warm folds of your blankets. Sister Deborah, this dream is true! It is true. But for it to be real you must pray for Reverend Ike. You must pray for Reverend Ike to have wisdom — to have the courage to cross that high, rushing stream in the desert and bring the riches of the Promised Land to his congregation. Reverend Ike needs your strength, Sister Deborah! He needs your faith to focus his power in overcoming the tyranny of Satan and fulfilling the promise of his congregation. People like yourself, Sister Deborah, whose dreams and fortunes await fulfillment: Reverend Ike needs you — and, his church needs you. Whatever amount you can spare for his vision will bring you closer to salvation, and Reverend Ike will be assured of fulfilling the dream and winning his battle against evil. Remember! The gold and riches of the Reverend’s dream are already on their way, as long as you help him!

*         *         *

Yes! Sister Barbara, Sister Roseanne, Brother Hubert, Sister Mary — they all received the same letter from Reverend Ike; sometimes they returned it in the envelope with the money they gave to his church…I reckoned the Reverend must have been a sleepy and soporific man — because he dreamed of them all. Fourteen or fifteen hours a day, I reckoned, the Reverend must have mustered enough energy to remain perfectly prostrate on his large, warm mattress and dream of his faithful congregants: Brother Isaac, Brother Robert, Sister Rachel, Brother William…Thankless, burdensome work, lying in bed for so many hours! Sister Anne, Sister Josephine, Brother Paul — Reverend Ike must have tired out his broad, strong wings, flapping around them so ferociously in his dreams, high above the desert, arms loaded with riches, dropping all that gorgeous, hard-won gold….

*        *         *

That $5 bill lay on the table before me. I can see it before me now — clean and venal, innocent and complicated.

And what did I do? Did I slyly pocket the money to return it to its rightful owner? Did I grab the $5 bill and bolt from out of the room?

No.

Instead, I signalled one of Reverend Ike’s handsome blokes who paced the enormous room, and turned the money over to him.

*       *        *

Nor was the five dollars the end of it. Several times that day and the next I found hard, clean cash in those envelopes. Five dollars. Two dollars. Ten dollars. Twenty dollars….I had been raised an educated and responsible man. I had enjoyed the privileges of a good education. I was attending M.I.T. I had loving parents. My health was strong; my mind was clear. But each time I found the money, I signalled the Reverend’s clever henchmen, and handed over the money.

*          *          *

Eventually, I called my staffing agency. “Do you know what they have me doing?” I asked.

Perhaps I was thinking of those bright, angel-infused gates I would eventually be trying to bust my way into when I made the phone call. I had worked three days for Reverend Ike. Twice (as I remember the circumstances) I had handed $20 bills to the henchmen. What shame did I feel? Each day I took the T home, walking up the plain of Boston Common, then down the narrow, gas lamp slopes of Beacon Hill, to my apartment. And there I sat, every day, just my lonesome, small self, and my dangerous cat, Miles. No shame, no gall, no embarrassment. Just an uneasy sense that somewhere between the devil’s basement and the delicious, angel-infused gates of heaven,  I would one day need to atone for my actions at 910 Commonwealth Avenue.