The Last Clinic

The Last Clinic

1

Morning Vigil

It was 6:00 a.m. and still dark when Reverend Jimmy Aldridge dragged the seven-foot pine cross from the back of his oversized SUV. He leaned the cross against the rear door and examined the spot where the two spiky poles intersected. The rawhide cord that held the stakes together was wrapped three times and tied nice and tight. He fumbled around in back of the SUV until he found the rolled-up poster with a photo of an infant with a quote asking “Aren’t you glad I was born?” He carefully unrolled the poster, pressed it flat to the cross, and whacked it with the staple gun four times. Top, bottom, right, and left.

He reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat and came out with an envelope bulging with money. He locked the envelope in the glove compartment behind an official state map of Mississippi. Feeling behind the front passenger’s seat, he removed a brown gunnysack robe from its hanger. He lifted his arms and slipped the robe over his suit, letting it fall until it reached his shoe tops.

Next he leaned his back against the SUV and pressed onto the cross, lifted his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around the beam. Bending at the waist, he hoisted the cross upward so that his back supported its weight. Then, step by step, he plodded up the hill a quarter mile until he reached the entrance to the Jackson Women’s Health Clinic.

He positioned himself next to the gate, placing the bottom of the cross on the sidewalk and holding the staff upright with one hand. With his free hand he took a small flashlight from his pants pocket, flipped it on, and angled the light upward toward the poster, illuminating the photo of the infant.

A set of headlights popped up over the hill. A truck, a twelve-wheeler, rumbled his way. He lifted the cross a few inches off the ground and shook it at the driver.

“Christ died so babies may live!”

His robe flapped in the breeze as the truck roared by, the driver failing to react.

A second vehicle, a Jackson school bus, followed. “The health clinic is a death clinic!” he yelled. This driver, a middle-aged hippie type, gave him the finger.

“Have a blessed day, brother,” he called out to the disappearing taillights. Then added, “You baby-killing son of a whore.”

The sun peeked over the horizon. A black SUV wheeled around the corner and came to a halt across the street, directly in Reverend Jimmy’s view.

“The unborn have a right to live,” he shouted to the occupant. “God’s work must be our own.”

The window on the driver’s side rolled down.

Reverend Jimmy’s face broadened into a smile. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

The driver said nothing.

Still smiling, the preacher propped the cross against the fence, clicked off the flashlight, and started toward the SUV. Two steps later, he saw the barrel of the shotgun pointing out the window at his groin.