Eucharistia

Eucharistia (eu-cha-ris’-ti-a): Giving thanks for a benefit received, sometimes adding one’s inability to repay.

“Thank-you for everything you’ve done to me—the broken nose, the cracked ribs, and I’m pretty sure, for a ruptured spleen too. The best part is, I don’t know why this is happening, so I’m not sure if I deserve it.” I was trying to lighten things up with a little sarcasm. It didn’t work. The big one asked me “So you want to know?” I asked him if that was a rhetorical question and he said “How’s this?” and pulled my hair until a clump of it came out in his fist. I laughed and said “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” He made me eat my hair.

The little one told the big one to cut it out. “If he looks too worse for wear, they might not fork over the ransom.” Ah ha! Now I knew: I had been kidnapped. They had been calling me Jerry, but my name is Ted. So now, I figured they had kidnapped the wrong person. They wanted Jerry, they got Ted. If they knew who I really was they never would’ve kidnapped me. I am a honey dipper—I pump out septic tanks for a living and usually smell faintly of shit. I was snatched on a Sunday when I was walking home from church. I was clean and quite dapper looking—suit pressed, shoes shined. My wife and 10 year old daughter are atheists, so they were home watching cartoons and missed out on the fun. The big guy grabbed me and locked me in the back of their van as the little guy drove us off. I was blindfolded so I had no idea where we were going.

The place they took me smelled like Chinese food and there were pots and pans rattling downstairs and people yelling in what I thought was Chinese. From that, I figured we were above a Chinese restaurant. I further surmised it was “The “Orchid Boat,” the only Chinese restaurant in our small North Jersey town.

Clearly, the kidnappers hadn’t contacted their victim’s family yet. If they had, I would be laid out on a landfill. I had to tell them they had the wrong victim before the right victim told them to take a flying fu*k. It was huge risk, but I really didn’t have another option.

I said “Hey, I’m not Jerry, I’m Ted and I pump septic tanks for a living. Spare my life and I’ll buy us dinner at the ‘Orchid Boat’ downstairs.” The two kidnappers looked shocked. The little guy got on the phone and confirmed that I wasn’t Jerry. Jerry was a billionaire and very eligible for kidnapping. I was, at best, a twenty-five thousand-aire. Not worth the trouble of kidnapping.

The kidnappers didn’t take me up on my dinner offer, but they called an ambulance to take me to the hospital and, as the little guy said “Get you fixed up.” I appreciated that, and was grateful, and we waved goodbye to each other as the orderlies wheeled me away on the gurney to the waiting ambulance.

After I was well, I went to visit Jerry. I was uninvited. The guy at the door put a Glock up to my forehead and asked me what the fu*k I wanted. I told him my story. He said “Big fu*kin deal. Get the fu*k outta here num nuts. Jerry is dead. Two idiots ambushed him and blew him away when he was walking his dog last night. The cops think his wife Porny had something to do with it. Now, get lost.”

I was stunned. The “Two Guys” had let me go with an ambulance ride to the hospital. I was deeply grateful, and also curious how Jerry’s wife had gotten her name.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

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