Steven Clark Bradley's Blog: Author Steven Clark Bradley - Posts Tagged "adventure"

Recently, I was a approached by a former publisher of mine to write my memoirs. I was, to say the least, surprised that anyone was interested, and who know, they may not be!I told my publisher that the problem with writing an auto biography was that I had to tell the truth. This has become a real adventure in itself and I have come to realize that if you are one of those who is smart and who still does stupid things at times, then you'll love my story. I hope you read this excerpt and let me know what you think.

This is a work in progress

Steven Clark Bradley - Author of
Patriot Acts Nimrod Rising StillBorn! Probable Cause

A Stranger Just in Time
Knox, Indiana,
May, 1974

It was going to be a great day. I got out of school early and started a journey that would totally change my life. I always find it strange today how a four hundred pound, fourteen year-old boy could actually look in the mirror and think he looked good. Yet, until I was almost fifteen, that’s exactly what I did.

I have developed the theory that the human brain has some kind of mechanism that makes the eyes inside of a fat body not see the real person reflecting back at them; at least, that was my case, after the expanse of my guts got bigger than it had ever been intended to be and when I took up more space than I was ever allotted to take up, I still thought I looked great. But, back in 1974, at the age of fourteen, going on fifteen, at four hundred something pounds, I felt just fine, until my mom stuck her nose into my fat problem. I thank God she did, and she knew how to get each of us kid’s attention. Geneva Bradley was definitely the smartest person everywhere she went.

One day, I was walking out of the high school and my mother was waiting outside to take me home. I was happy and bounded down the school steps. I got in the car and my mother looked at me and said, “Steven, you shake like a bowl of jello when you walk.” It was those words that had hit me like an arrow through my heart, and I had

repeated them over and over and they made me angry and determined which was why today, I was leaving school early on this May afternoon in 1974. The result of

that afternoon appointment at the doctor’s left me with a bottle of diet pills that would eventually take me from a forty eight inch waist to a thirty-two inch belly in the short space of three month and it almost killed me.

Those days were the moments when I first really started to work on writing out my experience of trying to stop looking like a giant human ball. I was taking three times more each day than the doctor had prescribed, and it gave me an overdose of energy and I could not sit still. So, I wrote down almost everything I did when my self-prescribed two pills a day regimen seemed to be doing the trick.

I literally stopped eating. Often, I got hungry, made something to eat and found it the next morning where I had sat it down because I was too busy racing around doing things to remember to eat it. I stayed in my room, away from my mom, because if I hung around her, she’d know for sure what I was doing, but I was determined to lose more fat.

Sometimes in the morning, I could not remember if I had slept or not. I have always hated to sleep anyway. I have never slept more than five hours a day anyway. I didn’t care; the weight was melting off of me. I talked nice to my mom, and I was genuinely happy, because I liked what I was changing into. I stayed in my room and exercised, wrote everything in my journal and listened to some awesome Pink Floyd and Grand Funk Railroad, and then there was Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Steve Miller…

I did some writing at home, but I did most of the recording of my experience at the library at school and downtown or wherever I could write about everything that had happened that day. I wrote it all down, from the day I went to the doctor to the day I replaced the pills with weed. I had a growing field of it, just growing wild and just waiting to be loved. I loved it and fertilized it and never had the Jones’ one time. I wrote it all in my

journal, which I had appropriately titled ‘The Happy Loser Diary,’ in tribute to all the weight I was losing. I recorded my movements, many of my thoughts, the excitement of beginning to finally looking human until the first day back at school right, after my fifteenth birthday. It was my way of making truth stranger than fiction. Here are some entries from my journal, The Happy Loser Diary.

Happy Loser Diary (301 pounds)
Entry 17
Friday, June 28, 1974 11:32 a.m.
Knox, Indiana

It was summer school. I’m not attending; I can’t be bothered with all that. I did have permission though to use the library in the mornings. I really liked the school library. The books cases are lined up in domino formation, or at least they were. The arrangement made it easy to see all the books. Earlier this morning, I was surprised to see the library full of students. There wasn’t an empty seat in the whole place. So, I just hung around.

At one table, to my right, there were four boys laughing it up, big guys, Juniors or seniors and much bigger than me. They were all looking into the end of a pen at some kind of dirty pictures.

Then, suddenly, they all got up and walked out. That was my queue, and I sat down in the seat at the end of the table just as the scholastic thugs returned and walked up to me. One of them had long brown hair. He walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, “Get out of chair.” I turned around to see who he was, to size him up and get an idea of what it would take to bring him down. Negotiation always buys time.

There would be no negotiations today; only reactive fury. I had been on the pills for two weeks at that time. My mind worked fast and I was used to giving off energy and I had a mother lode of it mixed with rage this morning.

I turned my head toward the high school big boy and he hit me in the face. That just could not be allowed and left me no choice. The pills were coursing through me now and forcing adrenaline through my head. I stood up fast and just let the rage rising up inside me propel me to almost want to kill the boy. I grabbed that big bad boy by all of his long hair and wrapped his girly locks

I wrapped his hair around my arm and pulled his face down on my knee. He was screaming and yelling. “My hair, let go of my hair.” I had to shown him that it was not wise to judge others by appearance. But that was not enough for the most intelligent of idiots. Then, I literally picked him up in the air and threw him against the bookcases in the library. One by one, every bookcase fell to the floor and thank God, no one was in the aisle. They were all watching me kick that bad boy’s butt.

I heard the noise of at least twelve rows of cases tumbling downward, one by one. I put my hands to my side and looked at the devastation and said, “Oh, No!” Everyone laughed, except for the librarian. I was kicked out of the upcoming first week of the new

school year. That was a deal of a lifetime. I must have scared the stupid boy’s male anatomy to death, because every time he sees me at school, he goes the other way. For me, I was of a mind to apologize, which I never got to do.

The Happy Loser Diary (292 pounds)
Entry 26
July 21, 1974 4:35 p.m.
Knox, Indiana

It was four-thirty; was it morning or this afternoon? I can’t be sure. I remember checking my watch. I felt like I had just awakened, but I had actually realized that I was outside, downtown in an alley and pacing back and forth. I couldn’t remember where I was, barely knew who I was or how to get out of the alleyway and back on the street. My brain still feels like it’s on fire. I couldn’t sit still and walked my reducing body of 292 pounds around in circles.

About the only thing that can get me to sit still for a while is sitting in the library reading World book Encyclopedias. I am devouring them and reading through them with almost religious ferocity. Reading through the volumes of information gave me a taste for the beyond, out of my realm of activity, to worlds so different than my own. The thought tantalizes me as an almost fifteen year old thinning boy who wants significance.

Then there was politics; I remember loving politics since I was a young boy in 1968 when Nixon was running against Hubert Humphrey. I crave information on the president, Watergate, the history and documents of the republic. During campaign season, I watched it all, followed each state and read every word of Time Magazine, Newsweek and US News and World reports. I have to know, to see it, to be able to speak to it and understand the way the rest of the world thought.

I remember sitting in the Knox Indiana City Library reading about Bangladesh. “It’s the poorest country in the world, and one day, I will see it with my own eyes.” I told myself. I opened the B volume to read the rest on the famished land of the Bengalis. I heard something and felt the library table shaking. My eyes glanced up and there was such a pretty face looking back at me.

Though, I truly cannot remember her name, a beautiful girl was smiling at me and said, “You know, you’re looking great.” That was nice. So, I smiled and looked at her and said, “You too.” She smiled and then frowned. I was not implying she had gone from fat to slim like I was doing. She looked down at the time magazines I had spread around me and the Newsweek magazine and three different World Book volumes open before me.

You’re smart aren’t you?” She said. All I could respond was, “I don’t know.” I had truly never thought or wondered about that. I just liked what I liked and hated what I hated, but it made me think. I was a boy who hated to hurt people and wanted to make them laugh, and to reach out and to do something significant.

I looked at the pretty face of this unnamed creature that was very wonderful to behold. I thought about my words and then said, “I don’t know if I’m smart, I might just be the most intelligent of idiots.” She smiled nicely and I think truly coolly turned around and said, “Is that going to be the name of your biography?”

Happy Loser Diary (207 Pounds)
Entry 27, Knox, Indiana
August 4, 1974, 5:49 p.m.

There was also another face I recall seeing in my drug-induced stupor. I can still see it looking down at me as I opened my glossy speeding eyes while sprawled out on the sidewalk. Earlier today, I was reeling and so nervous I thought I’d shake all my bones lose. I can see it all now so clearly. I kept trying to figure out how to get out of that cursed alley. It had crossed my narcotic-Laced brain a few times with the notion that maybe I had died and I was in hell; cursed to wander to and fro for eternity in that dark and gloomy alleyway. That was ridiculous since I do not even believe in God.

What if I walked to the end of the alley, if I can get to the street?” Nothing seemed real and my mind felt like it was suddenly in slow motion. My body was reeling from hyper activity for days on end and then a sudden shutdown of the energy made me feel like the medicine felt stronger than usual, probably because I had most likely messed up and taken three. There I was walking in circles but forced myself to move in one direction and I found the end of the alleyway and ended up on the city sidewalk, right in front of Chuck’s tavern. Everything looked hazy and my hands and feet were tingling and my legs felt like rubber. I sat myself down on the sidewalk just before everything went black. I remember, everything was gone except mere echoes.

I could feel someone breathing on me; someone was watching me as I lay on the cement sidewalk. My eyes opened and I caught a glimpse of someone, a him or a her, as my eyes flashed open and closed several times. Whoever it was grabbed me under my arms and lifted me up and walked me all around town to keep me awake and use up some of the mother lode of excess energy that three of the pills at one time had produced. I felt like everything was jumbled and somehow real but not. The bundle of nerves and thoughts and words I was no longer able to get out had induced a panic inside me that I was fading away. The stranger made sure I had revived, sat me down and let go of my arms.

“He was a stranger just in time.”

Happy Loser Diary (147 pounds)
Entry 32, Knox, Indiana
August 19, 1974, 6:32 p.m.

My first day back to school today was one of the most enjoyable days of my childhood. I had traveled from the world of the fat and ugly four hundred and twenty three pound me to the world of skinny and still ugly one hundred forty-three beautiful pounds.

Just yesterday, I saw my fifteen year old brother, Gary for the first time in two months. He had been caught doing a legal no-no and had been on a two-month retreat behind bars. My mom actually went to talk the judge. The honorable someone told her that he was going to put Gary on probation. My mom asked to lock Gary up for two months, which the judge approved. When I walked into the house, earlier today, Gary saw me but had no idea who I was. He had been … away while the pounds rolled off me. When I spoke and he heard my voice, he knew immediately who I was and his mouth dropped open. And, it got better.

When I walked into the school, after having almost hidden out for the whole summer, no one knew who I was. I was just learning about my new self as well. I remember one of my best friends, Peggy back, looked at me and realized it was me and started crying, hugged me and she said, “Are you dying?” My response was perfect. “Dying? I just started living!” The moment was and is precious.

Without a doubt, the most memorable part of the day is when I went into Mr. Ostreiker. He was for sure one of the very best, and his demeanor made me always want to go to his class. I walked in and found a seat close to the front. There would be no backseat numskull anymore. The Teacher walked up to me and looked up at the class.

Let me have your attention, we have a new student with us.” He looked at me and said my name wasn’t on the roster. “Welcome, what’s your name, young man?”

I could scarcely hold my laughter. “Steven Bradley.” I said. Mr. Ostreiker looked slightly befuddled. It was obvious he was having a moment of where his brain was deciphering conflicting information from the previous year; he smiled. “We have another Steven Bradley.”

I inhaled so not to kill the moment with laughter. He walked closer to me and looked at me. “Stand up, young man.” He told me. “It is you; everyone, give Mr. Bradley a hand.” It was embarrassing and perfect.”

As I read a new these early records of my life, I can see place after place where God placed his protecting hand on me and saved me from arrest, from danger, and that day, from certain death. I never learned who this stranger just in time was, but I have a good idea where he came from, but why send a stranger in time to save the most intelligent of idiots?

You can read it with photos at:
http://stevenbradley.blogspot.com/201...

Have you ever been in a situation when you knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it posed great risk to your very life? That is exactly what I was facing in August of 1991 when I looked at the huge Kharbour River bridge that lay out ahead of me. Take a look at my excerpt from my memoirs, The Most Intelligent of Idiots. It will stir your emotions...

A Bridge To Cross

“There are two ways to enslave a people. People do not give up their Freedom. They naturally take it for granted. The search for Freedom has always been the driving force that has risen bowed down and beaten men and women up from the ashes and transformed them into warriors of their people. It is the final understanding that no person can make me free, but the realization that I am altogether and utterly free, such liberty having been breathed into the nostrils of the first man and woman by God.”

Steven Clark Bradley

A Bridge To Cross
The Most Intelligent of Idiots
The Memoirs of
Author Steven Clark Bradley

Ankara, Turkey

July 23, 1991

Thank Goodness for the Guney Express. The word ‘express’ truly was a misnomer for this train. The Guney Express, which I boarded on July 23rd, took me all the way to the Eastern border of Turkey in a rapid time of four days. It was not that I boarded the wrong train but rather that I choose this train for a journey that gave me a tremendous look at the culture of Turkey, from the modern center of the country to the rustic and tough Eastern portion.

I felt many eyes on me; the foreigner seldom seen on such archaic forms of travel as the slowest train in the Turkish rail system. By the time I arrived in Diyarbakir, the capitol of the east and the unofficial capitol of Kurdistan, I had seen the fields being prepared for harvest, the towns that were continually rattled by sand storms and a people rough and hardened by a life that is mean and laborious. Nevertheless, I could not but respect these people for their determination to ilk out a very good life in the sand of a moderately desert lifestyle.

Diyarbakir, Turkey
Train Station
3:15 p.m. July 27, 1991

Diyarbakir’s appearance was nothing short of a page out of some spaghetti western. It is a rugged city with teeming groups of nomadic tribesmen from the Kurdish population. The train station was more like a stable, and as I ventured out to the streets to take a bus to the border with Iraq, I felt like a sore on the end of someone’s nose. I boarded a minibus for the border town of Silopi. The trip was astounding. The periodic police stops, and the road that ran along the Syrian border, created a tense situation as outposts were set up from both sides about every 100 yards. It was easy to see guns trained on each side.

It was dark when I arrived in the border town of Silopi, but long lines of trucks were still ferrying goods and tanker after tanker was rumbling through the small teeming town of desperate people. Massive vehicles passed by in both directions through the very primitive city that had more importance to the trade between Turkey and Iraq than the city’s appearance would indicate. They were headed for the border to cross the Khabur River massive bridge where halfway across puts you into Iraq.

Normally, the lines of loud smoky trucks would be at a standstill, as they waited their turns to hopefully pass through customs and get security clearance. Sometimes, the line could back up the trade traffic a few dozen kilometers between the two very different countries. When I was there, the traffic flowed unabated because, as I would discover the next day, the border was totally unmanned with no security in place on the Turkish side of the Khabur and the trucks passed back and forth unimpeded.

I got out of the van and went into a bus depot and heard someone on a pay phone speaking English. He was a reporter, I surmised, and I actually never spoke to him. I just intently listened to what he was saying to the person on the other end of the line, wherever that could have been. He was screaming into the receiver that his superiors had to get him out of there and that ‘They’ were killing Americans.

He told them that he was going to try to get to the US base four kilometers down the same road that had brought me into the seriously out of control population center of helicopters, US jets high in the air and the sounds of gunfire randomly being propelled into the air. I was sure I’d see Clint Eastwood walk into the depot any moment and ask everyone if they felt lucky. That atmosphere seemed perfect for a gunslinger to burst in shooting. It was no use waiting to use the phone. I didn’t have anyone to call. I instantly snatched up my backpack and went back outside to find a taxi all the way to the US military encampment.

As I waited for a taxi to appear, two Iraqi Syrian Christian men started speaking to me in broken English. I knew that the Kurdish people loved the French, because President François Mitterrand had brought so many of them to France to escape the terror of Saddam. So, not being sure of anyone there, I said, “Je suis Français.” They understood and instantly said, “Oh, you are a French man?” I simply said yes, in French. They gave me directions and one of them got a taxi for me and told the man where I wanted to go … I hoped.

The most interesting part of this story was after I had returned to Ankara. I was walking down Ataturk Boulevard and ran into the same two Iraqi Christians who had flagged down the taxi for me in Silopi. I greeted them in English, having forgotten about my little ruse when I had told them I was French. They were surprised and told me that they thought I was French. I told them that in Iraq, I was French. In Turkey, I’m American.

The driver tried his English on me and it helped me a lot. I was really feeling naked in the taxi as the driver drove me in the dark to where I was told the American Airbase was, at almost 9:00 p.m. Prayer is such a great help in a test or when you wonder if you are about to die. He pulled up to the main entrance of the airbase; I got out and the taxi immediately drove away.

The officers who greeted me at that late hour were not ecstatic about my presence, but I needed a place to sleep. The guards were of course doing his duty, but initially they refused to help me. I told him that he would have to shoot me then, because I was sleeping outside the gate and that if I was killed, it would be on his head. I remember telling him that I paid his salary. He laughed and said, “Yes, sir. Indeed you do.”

He finally relented and called his superior who had already bedded down for the night. In the end, I was given a hot, smoldering room on a cot right off of the radio room. It was so hot that I slept naked and woke up drenched. At first, it was so hot that I couldn’t sleep at all, but the constant chatter back and forth over the radios in the next room almost hypnotized me and after about an hour, I nodded off.

The next morning turned out to be one to remember. Early in the morning, after a tremendous breakfast, I met with the director of the UN in the town. He informed me that if I entered the country of Iraq and was captured, I would be responsible for myself. That was not delightful to hear, but I had already known that. A military vehicle took me to the Khabur River Bridge. They dropped me in front of the abandoned checkpoint.

Out in front of me was the long Khabur River Bridge. The other side of that bridge was the land of Saddam Hussein, which had only recently been pummeled to bits by Coalition forces. There were not even any Iraqi government authorities at the checkpoint and everyone was coming and going at will. I walked up to the bridge and began to walk across. When I arrived at the center of the bridge, a sign was posted that indicated that one or two more steps and I would plant my feet in the country of Iraq.

I did pause momentarily, but nothing could stop a moment whose time had come. I walked on and felt the weight of entering a land like this one. I had previously visited 31 other countries, but this journey had so far been, by far, the most intriguing. I had made a promise to Hassan, and I intended to let his family know that he was alive and well.

When I reached the checkpoint on the Iraqi side of the bridge, I saw large numbers of officers. They looked like something out of the Arabian Knights. These guards were called the Pesh Merga. They wore large turbans, patchwork gowns and strapped across each shoulder was an automatic rifle, rocket launcher or bazooka, not to mention knives and swords at their sides. I was of the impression that security was to put your mind at ease. To say the least, it did not.

I walked up to one of the guardians of the land of sad, bad memories and black gold and handed him a letter that I had received from my Kurdish friends at the Besh Yildiz Hotel in Ankara, Turkey. The black-bearded relic from the past took the letter and read it before calling over two more officers. One took me by the arm and placed me in the backseat of a taxi. The third guard brought over a thick blanket and covered my exposed body. I was on my way; to live, to die, and to do something significant.

The taxi drove and I looked out from under the blanket at the mountains that passed rapidly past my eyes. It was surreal and somehow enlightening to see all of Saddam’s military outposts every thousand yards along the road. That was how he kept his nation of slaves at bay.

I poked my face out from under the blanket and thoughts began to race through my mind about my childhood, my friends, the ones I love and the previous places I had been to, which had molded who I was, for good or for not so good. This definitely had not been my first trip of this sort. There had been Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Senegal, West Africa.

It is mystical and powerful how one’s mind goes back in time when we are in dangerous situations. That was exactly what was happening to me as I saw the mountains that were full of snipers, blown up tanks and other Iraqi destroyed materiel. I just wondered just how far back would my mind take me as I took in all that was zooming past me and around me, so much so that I had not even checked to see if the driver were taking me captive or taking me to my desired destination. I could see in my whole life playing out like a mental movie quite possibly because I was sure this would be my last journey into madness.

The world I had seen and lived in and how it had brought me to that present moment affected me as the world of Saddam and the world I had grown up in both flashed past my mind and I saw all the lives I had touched and those that had made life worth living. It all played back for me so vividly with a view from the backseat and took my mind back to times rarely recalled; times I did great things; moments I was stupid. It all was an essential part for my transformation into the most intelligent of idiots…



You can read it also at
http://stevenclarkbradleyspatriotacts...

A Land of Sheikhs

The streets of Dakar, Senegal were always strangely quiet during the day. That was a stark contrast to the loud and vigorous streets at night. Those who seemed to be securely locked away, during the day, poured out onto the streets after the last call to prayer of the day had been sung. The nights swelled with people on the streets all night and darkness took its turn to nocturnally reign.

Steven Clark Bradley

Copyright 1,1999

Present Time, 2011

If I had to compare the lifestyles between Bangladesh, Pakistan and Senegal, I would have to say that Senegal’s lifestyle was far superior to that of the other third-world countries I had spent considerable time in. One of the biggest differences was the fitness of the Senegalese people. I had never seen groups of people exercising early in the morning. Every morning hundreds of young African students were out at the coastal areas of Dakar every morning running and playing sports. The Senegalese had a lot more energy than anything I had seen in Bangladesh or Pakistan.

I loved to drive out to the coast, in the morning. I could watch the fishermen out in their large canoe-like boats casting out their nets into the ocean to bring in the catch of the day. It was a real mystical experience to watch how these men kept themselves, their families and the rest of the country eating for another day. Yet, there were many things that were the same, such as the interiors and exteriors of the homes. There was again a real infatuation with the interior of their home without the slightest concern for the outside.

One other aspect of life in Senegal was the looseness of the women. Wolof women are considered by many to be the most beautiful black women, in the world. In Pakistan nor in Bangladesh, I had never been offered sex for money in neither country. After couple of days of walking around on the streets, with and without Ruth, by my side, with the kids. There had to have been at least twenty times that a passing Wolof woman looked at me and uttered the same words.

My French was not bad, at the time, but this accent trying utter French words made it hard to understand. Then, the next woman passed me and uttered the words very quickly. “Fait L’amour?” Each and every woman who had said the same thing were asking me if I wanted to have sex. I would say that the lax morals were so against the precepts of the religion they kept. The need of food, lodging and clothing made such terrible offers emanate out of the mouths of such beautiful women.

Yet, the one grave thing that was not different were the same spiritual forces that were at work in Pakistan were now also at play in the nation of Senegal. By the time we arrived in Senegal, I had already worked with Muslims for over seven years. I found the same blind adherence to their false belief, in Senegal. I also found a wonderfully resilient people with good and democratic leaders and Islamic roots which were tempered throughout Western African Islam. There was almost an amalgamation of ancient Islamic principles mixed with animistic ideals that could be called a Muslim based cult more than purely Islamic.

Unlike Dakar, the coastal, quite elegantly designed, Senegalese Capital, Touba City, the center of all of West Africa’s brand of Islam, is located some two hundred kilometers north, in the interior. It is a hot and dusty, inland sun-baked city. Yet, to members of the Mouride Islamic movement, Touba was not what it appeared. It was a great a pilgrimage to venture to Touba City for Mourides as Mecca is, for more traditional Muslims, around the world. To the Mourides, Touba was a holy city. It was where the tomb of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké, the shrouded, face-covered prophet of West African Muslims, who is fundamentally worship by the Muslims in Senegal and most of West Africa.

Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké was the founder of the movement of his followers’ profound devotion. Bamba’s rule of his millions of followers have proclaimed and extended by reign through his successors, Mouhamadou Moustapha Mbacké, Mouhamadou Fallilou Mbacké, Abdoul Ahad Mbacké, who had all lived and died. Yet, no one would ever even consider the outrageous notion that their very own prophet had gone the way of all the Earth. Abdou Khadre Mbacké now reigned as The Grand Marabout in Touba, the heir apparent of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké’s distorted Islamic movement, to the present day.

Senegal is a land of sheikhs, whose followers are good people who work hard and have no notion that life is possible without struggle. Outside the homes of Dakar, Senegal, the nation’s very well designed capital, which was once called, the Paris of Africa, there were strong people, bustling and striving and making it work.

The streets of Dakar were always strangely quiet during the day. That was a stark contrast to the loud and vigorous streets at night. Those who seemed to be securely locked away, during the day, poured out onto the streets after the last call to prayer of the day had been sung. The nights swelled with people on the streets all night and darkness took its turn to nocturnally reign.

The Senegalese had a certain dignity that was engrained in them. This society, while by no means free of dangers and divisive dealings, quietly carried the religious burden, while most ordinary Muslims busied themselves to the more pressing need of eating for just one more day. Still, no matter what level of sophistication these followers of Bamba exercised, most Senegalese often consulted their own trusted Marabouts, who guided them and prayed for them and cast spells on their enemies, and performed voodoo on their loved ones upon whom the devils had set their eyes. These false teachers of lies were everywhere.

Dakar contained nearly half the country's population of 8 million people. But, the 'Grand' Marabouts were far from the people. They could be found at religious centers like Kaolack or Touba or in even more obscure villages, from where their devotion to a faith that even Muslims from around the world decried, practicing dark magic that was more allied with the occult than the with typical Muslim doctrines. But they held sway over a people in tune to accept the message of Sheik Amadou Bamba.

Then, there was also the Bayfalls who form a Muslim sect to which thousands of men belong and serve as the guardians of Touba City and the Grand Marabout. When a powerful Marabout was in the area, one could see literally hundreds or at times, thousands of black men marching down the street and violently twirling their large wooden batons and making an amazing amount of noise, as a warning to the public to stay away from their god on earth, the Grand Marabout.

Bayfalls wear long, matted dreadlocks that they told me were similar, but not at all the same as the Bob Marley Rastafarians’ look. These men were not savages, but were also totally unafraid to die for the Grand Marabout. A Bayfall’s dress consists of a set of patchwork clothes, resembling a quilted set of vestures. They gave the viewer every and any impression they wished to relay to the situation around them. When they needed money, they were friendly and able to talk in quite good French, and Wolof, which I actually learned well, while I was there, but have almost completely forgotten since then. My French is almost as good as it was when I lived in Senegal. I was able to talk with many of them about Christ.

The best time to approach them was when they were hungry. These were not beggars. They are a genuine part of the established Islamic brand of Mouridism. I actually was able to eat with four different Bayfalls. They did look spooky, too, but they were just following their faith to sincere sinner’s hell. Talking with them, I could feel a real desire to know God, but they were looking in all the wrong places. All I had to do was offer them a meal at the tent covered outdoor restaurant. I have eaten with four different Bayfalls. With one I we ate Cebujin, Senegalese rice and fish. The next one, a few days later, I got us both Maafe, better known as peanut butter stew. It is wonderful and nourishing. If you have are allergic to peanuts, Senegalese maafe is not for you. The last two Bayfalls were together, and I served them Yassa, a simply beautiful dish with lots of onions, in lemon sauce and spices. There, each time I sat down with the Bayfalls, all round me I could hear the word “Toobob, Toobob.”

It was a common expression that white people heard, most of the time after some people had just walked by next to you. Inevitably, you’d hear it, “Toobob, Toobob.” It was not a word of social indignation. I was not a white slur either. It meant the men with the red faces. In Wolof, Whites are not called white, In most of Africa. The Wolof language called them “Gor bu honk.” Translated, it means, red man. The term was actually transported over to the Americas with the arrival of slaves from Africa. Most white Americans would know term, “Honkey.” It is a direct pulled word from the Wolof language, which was the language most kidnapped blacks from Africa communicated it.

Each time I met with the Bayfalls I looked around at the sea of black as coal faces all around me and with me the only white face. It makes the pre-civil rights days come right home to a white boy to be in the small minority. One thing is for sure. Blacks in America, in 1985, did not receive the respect and smiles, from whites in America as I was afforded by the Senegalese people. It made me a man free of racism. I became a man who only loved the persons inside. It is only that which can give life to the outside, anyway.

I discovered that they were really no different than any of us. They told me of their weekly all-night prayers and chants; especially on Saturday nights, with dancing, drumming, and chanting in Arabic and Wolof. These experiences served me well, because I recall so well that just three weeks later, I got a knock at my door. I opened the door and there stood a man who was a picture perfect example of something right out of Tarzan. He wore a similar patchwork quilted sort of thing and had a sword and his baton was strapped to his side.

He seemed different than any other Bayfall I had met. Both of his ears were pierced with animal bones stuck through the lobes. He had a sharp piece of wood stuck clean through his nose and numerous other, very voodoo-like things attached to him. I looked at him up and down and right and left and right again. “Qu’est ce que vous voulez.” I asked him what he wanted. “Rien, je vuex rien. Oh, oui. Je veux de l’eau.” He looked at me and smiled softly “I want some water.” I still didn’t invite him in. The souls of Christ inside had far more importance to me than this guy’s did. I felt he was safe, but who’s taking chances with a walking armored vehicle standing in front of you. This was a land that had once possessed a great African Kingdom. The residue of its power and influence still filled the heart of the Wolof People.

Out of some six million people, there were more than fifty-six languages spoken in the many different tribes throughout Senegal. French was the language that was supposed to bind them together, but in reality, it was Islam that bound them. It was Touba City and the Grand Marabout was the de facto ruler of the nation. If the President were to do something that the Marabout was displeased about, there could be war on the streets of Dakar. These were devoted people and their many tribes and tongues that formed the nation we were about to enter in 1985, and to which we had committed our lives to making sure we told as many as possible that Jesus Christ is Lord...

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A Bridge To Cross - The Most Intelligent of Idiots - the Memoirs of Author Steven Clark Bradley

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The Consortium finishes the Patriot Acts Trilogy...

In Part One we saw an evil plot between Iran and right-wing radical American Nazis to destroy the nation. In Part II, the plausible scenario of a biological terror attack ruthlessly is hatched by enemies of the state. In Part III of the Patriot Acts series the world banking and global power brokers are explored.

In September, 2008, The Fed and the treasury came to President George W. Bush and issued him a suicide threat. Secretary Henry Paulson walked into the Oval Office and put a gun to his own head and said, $800 Billion or in 24 hours we die and 5 trillion dollars would disappear with the entire world economy. President Bush said yes. What if he had said NO?

Chapter Fifteen

The White House,

Washington, D.C.

March 11, 2012 3:42 p.m.

“I am placing the nation under emergency powers effective upon my signing of this document. The authority of the Emergency Powers Act will not be enforced until tonight, but the temporary powers of the moment do immediately grant the president the power to appoint anyone to vital vacant seats in the Executive Branch. Technically, the speaker has not officially recalled Congress back from recess. I love that word recess; it suits them perfectly.” Fisher chuckled.

Michelle handed Fisher the document and he placed his signature in the appropriate place. Then, Michelle gave President Harrison a second document. Fisher read it out loud.

“By the powers under the State of National Emergency act of 1977, the president has the power to appoint any vital vacant seat and it shall not be automatically removed when and if emergency rule is lifted, and only shall the president’s appointments be removed by resignation, end of life issues or impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, as prescribed by law and the Constitution of the United States of America.

“Therefore, I hereby appoint Hamilton W. Smith to be Vice President of the United States.” Fisher signed the appointment letter and looked at Hamilton. Fisher thought he looked excited and terrified at the same time.

“Hamilton Smith, would you raise your right hand?” Fisher asked.

Hamilton raised his hand and slightly pulled it down two times before Fisher recited the words and Hamilton repeated them. Secret Service came to the door and Fisher, Michelle and Vice President Hamilton Smith all walked out of the Oval Office and headed to two different escorted cars which would depart for two different escorted places.

Hamilton’s destination was in hiding in an undisclosed location, while Fisher’s destination was for the whole world to see. Fisher leaned over to speak to Hamilton as they walked down the White House hallway.

“Hamilton, way back in time, at Iron Mountain prison in Alaska, you remember.” They stood in front of two different limousines and Fisher took his new vice president’s hand and congratulated him. “Well, Hamilton, I just wanted to take back some words from way back when I said in a moment of foolish jesting. Because you’re not just a Smith; you are Vice President Smith.”

In Route to Raven Rock

Mountain Defense Base

March 11, 2012, 3:52 p.m.

“Approach, I need assistance. This is Captain Ray Jerrod; the coordinates you have sent us do not work. You are taking us into the wall of the mountain.” Jerrod pulled and banked left. Jerrod was a good pilot, and he knew this was not an error. Such errors don’t just happen.

A mountain wall appeared before the pilot and he heaved the yoke back all the way. He feared a stall as he had aimed the nose almost straight upward. Margaret and Nate were strapped in, but both had passed out from forces that neither this plane nor human bodies were built to withstand.

“Control, this is GB1 taking evasive action maneuvers and …”

“We’re gonna make it.” The pilot screamed out and straightened out the airplane. “Get back there and check on them.” The navigator specialist got out of his seat and opened the cockpit door. He saw the First lady slumped over and her baby had started crying.

He quickly walked over and called out her name. “Mrs. Harrison … Mrs. Harrison, are you alright?” Margaret’s eyelids began to move and her eyes blinked and finally, she moaned and cried out,

“Where’s my baby?”

Over Iceland,

the Atlantic Ocean

March 11, 2012 7:55 p.m.

Roger, GB1.” The control officer passed his microphone to a tall man with wavy hair in a nicely knitted suit. “He’s all yours Mr. Berkowitz.”

“Well, Peter, so you are a man of character, whatever that means, but I like you. You’re the other side of me.”

“You lie; I am nothing like you. I breathe air not money and power.” Peter suddenly shouted into Berkowitz’s ear piece, making him wince a bit.

"Well, it lives. I thought you had found Jesus or something and were on your way to paradise. Very well, here goes nothing.”

Berkowitz took a card from his pocket and swiped it and his screen came up. He logged onto the same channel that Peter Barlowe used to control his forces. Then he punched in his personal code and a signal was instantly sent to the pilot of the GB1. As the code streamed it found the command to find the micro-circuit lying dormant in the back of the scalp of one Captain Ray Jerrod, the pilot who was now trying to fly the First Lady and her son to safety. The subject was found and it instantly sent the command to obey Berkowitz’s command. It also registered inside the data crunching computers of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, the NSA and the CIA.

In Route to Raven Rock

Mountain Defense Base

March 11, 2012, 3:57 p.m.

Pilot Captain Ray Jerrod felt Berkowitz’s commands overtake him slowly. He thought it was air sickness then it was like an instantaneous bout of the stomach flu and then just before he was sure he was going to die, he went calm and felt fine. It was the strangest feeling he had ever had.

In Route to Raven Rock

Mountain Defense Base

First Lady’s Cabin

March 11, 2012, 3:57 p.m.

“It’s OK honey, we’re OK now,” Margaret told her baby, which she knew was a lie.

“Mrs. Harrison, I want to stay here with you and help, but I have to assist the pilot. Are you OK?”

“Thank you; my son is OK, so I’ll be fine.” Margaret had the greatest urge to scream out for her husband and only let it resonate in her head. Fisher, where are you? Fisher, I love you.

Over Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean

March 11, 2012 7:57 p.m.

Berkowitz spoke to the pilot. “Captain, you are a true patriot, full of everything our money could buy, and that’s a hell of a lot. The problem is, I am not, and I don’t need to be. These are your orders.”

En route to Joint Session of Congress

Washington, D.C.

March 11, 2012 4:05 p.m.

President Fisher Harrison rode in his limousine for the just over a two mile ride between 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW and 100 Constitution Ave NE. He looked out the windows and the two most prominent things he saw were throngs of people with great distress stretched across their faces waving and shouting out well wishes to their a president they trusted. He also saw throngs of soldiers as far as the eye could see. They were all there in battle fatigues and seemingly ready to fight a war or to start one. Of course they all think I ordered them out here.

Fisher saw one man in particular holding up a large sign with the map of the United States prominently displayed with drops of blood dripping down. It read, ‘Is America’s Democracy Bleeding?’Another sign showed a flag shaped into the United States with all the colors running into each other. The words across it read, ‘Why are these colors running?’

They all spoke to him and he knew these fine people loved him, but not as much as they simply needed him, and it gave Fisher great fear and trembling to imagine three hundred million Americans thrown to the dictatorial rule of whatever political charade the Consortium would raise up to hide behind.

Fisher’s motorcade continued on and stress seemed to form all over Fisher’s body, and he felt a trembling inside his arms, hands and legs. He knew it was all far too big for his feeble arms to carry. Fisher waved and didn’t know if the people outside could see him or not, but he caught a glimpse of an old man in a Air Force uniform and holding a sign that was plain and simple, but which bore words that were just like a ray of light in a dark and frozen world to Fisher Harrison. He had needed to read its message before taking on a great nemesis such as the Consortium.

“Driver, I want you to stop the car for a moment. Do you see the big plain sign behind us?”

“Yes, sir, but that against protocol.”

"I realize that, but I need you to ask him, not tell him, but ask him if the president could see him for just a moment.”

The driver radioed to one of the cars behind the president’s to talk with the man. A moment later, a Secret Service agent was standing by the president’s door with the older gentleman. Fisher lowered the window and looked at the sign that told him how to proceed. It gave him hope and told him God had heard his pleas. Fisher read the words. He had heard President Tate use them before. Then Fisher spoke them out loud. “Don’t be afraid to fight this war.”

Fisher looked up at the man standing by Fisher’s window and the old man saw that the president had tears in his eyes. His face had taken on a deep shade of red due to the adrenaline woven together with sorrow.

“Please forgive me for accosting you this way, but your sign touched me so much and it is a direct answer to me from God through you. We need direction, my brother.”

“Mr. President, the honor and privilege is all mine. Would you like to have it, sir? The sign I mean.”

”That’s really generous of you, but it is of much greater value right where you are. Right now, you just might be more powerful than I am, in this awful situation; and isn’t that the way it’s truly supposed to be?”

“Here, let me sign it and that means I will follow your advice, my friend.” Fisher said and placed his signature on the poster.

“I will never forget this day, Mr. President.”

“Please don’t, and remember how your simple message gave a president great resolve. What a truth and stress reliever to know someone is bigger than our feeble abilities to control the deeds and intents of evil men and women.”

Fisher put his arm out the window and shook the elderly man’s hand. “I wish I could get out and thank you appropriately, but these guys might kill me trying to protect me. I will do my best to preserve that you have worked so hard to have and to pass on to your children. Thank you for letting God employ you, sir. ‘Don’t be afraid to fight this war.’ I really love that. Pray for America.”

President Fisher Harrison had no idea how his resolve would soon be placed under maximum danger.

In Route to Raven Rock

Mountain Defense Base

March 11, 2012, 4:12 p.m.

The Navigator Specialist reentered the cockpit and strapped himself in for what he knew would be a rough landing.

“Ray, did they radio you?”

“Yes, they did.”

“And … what’d they tell you?” The navigator looked out ahead and saw the well hidden runway. “Great, Captain, you did it.”

Captain Ray Jarrod looked over at his Navigation Specialist and pulled out his side arm.

Jarrod said the words exactly as he had been instructed. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?”

The navigator laughed “Yea Captain …” He looked at the pilot and saw his friend and comrade, Captain Jarrod’s sidearm staring back at him. “Yea I have been told that a few times. What are you doing, Captain?”

“Well, they’ll never tell you that again.” Captain Ray Jarrod squeezed the trigger and unloaded three shots into the navigator’s head. Then, his next orders flashed through his mind.

He switched on the intercom and spoke to the First lady. “Mrs. Harrison, we have the runway in sight...”