The Beginning

War

CHAPTER 1

First Things

Public Notice—July 8, 1959: Yesterday, a newborn white male was left on the steps of the chapel of Cabrini High School. The allgirls’ school, formerly known as Cabrini Orphanage and Convent Chapel, is at 3400 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana.

The child was found at 7:00 a.m. on July 7. A police spokesman commented, If the mother steps forward now, she will not be charged with any crime. All leads will be explored. The authorities have asked the community to get involved by calling in any information no matter how trivial to help solve the case.

The school gave no comment on the suggestion that the mother could be one of the students. Sr. Trinita, the headmaster, said that the baby was in good health and that arrangements were being made with authorities.

The baby was wrapped in a gray wool blanket. The child has blue eyes, brown hair, and a small, spiral birthmark on the right forehand. The basket he was found in is common brown wicker with two oscillating handles that fold toward the center.

A folded, lined piece of notebook paper was pinned to the blanket with the words, His name is Enoch Kingu Galah. Please take care of him. The name may be of Indian or Semitic origin. If you have any knowledge of this baby or know the mother, please contact your local authorities.

—Staff writer, the Times Picayune

This is my story and background. How do I explain my path to the supernatural from such humble beginnings? I scarcely believe it myself. I was a skeptic; I refused to believe what my eyes told me. In my later years, the fullness of the bizarre, unnatural, and strange began to encroach on my life. I didn’t ask for it. It was thrust on me, and I had no say in it.

You must travel the road with me and decide for yourself. Are these the writings of a raving lunatic, or are they real? The names and some of the circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent. A global threat looming on the horizon is either the work of men or another, more-ominous reality. Will the world end in my lifetime? Am I a key player in the end of the world or the pawn in a global conspiracy to dominate the affairs of mankind?

I’m not sure about my beginning. I was told by my foster parents that I had been left on the steps of Cabrini Girls’ School. The tattered, old article from the newspaper was the only piece of personal history I had. No hospital had a record of my birth; there were no clues as to how I’d ended up on the steps of that school. I always wondered why my mother had left me, what had made her throw me away. I wondered if she was one of the girls from the school. Sometimes, I would just get mad and think, What idiot would leave a boy at an orphanage that wasn’t an orphanage and wasn’t even for boys?

I tried not to think about it as I grew up, but it was always in the back of my mind. They gave me the name on the note pinned to my blanket. Since that was July 7, I always celebrated my birthday on that day. I always hated my name because it was just plain weird. Enoch Kingu Galah! Who would name a kid that? I’ve never seen the note or the blanket. The police took it years ago as evidence in case they ever found my mother.

My foster parents told me I had a great name because I was named after a Bible character who had been taken by God, without dying. I didn’t have much use for a God who had given me such a bum deal. I wished God would take me out of my miserable name. John or Tom or Steve would have been just fine with me. I liked to imagine my strange middle name meant I had descended from a mysterious line of ancient kings. In my imagination, Kingu meant King of the Universe. I would wear a blanket as a cape and run around my room pretending I had superpowers.

I don’t remember much of my early years except constant moving; I never stayed in any home or place too long. New beds, new rooms, and new people were a constant of my life. I was taken from New Orleans to Detroit for three years, from second through part of fifth grade. That was the only place that gave me some stability, you know, like family. I often chuckled at its funny name, The Evangelical Home for Children and the Aged. The big building that housed the chapel was full of old, smelly people in wheelchairs who always made me feel uncomfortable when they stared at me.

However I ended up there, it was the closest thing to a family I had experienced. Except for a traumatic beginning, it wasn’t too bad, and I enjoyed having boys my age to play with. We lived in four cottages—two for girls and two for boys, about ten to eleven kids and a housemother in each. We boys were not allowed to interact with the girls except on the way to chapel every morning. I never paid much attention to the priest. We mostly doodled and fidgeted until it was over. After chapel every morning, we went to school across the street.

I had some difficult times at the orphanage. Mrs. Blackburn was our housemother, strict and mean, and we all feared her. On my first day, she grabbed a boy by the hair and pulled him out of the shower. She shook him like a rag doll and threw him onto the white tile floor. She barked, You splashed water all over the floor on purpose! Now clean it up! He sat on the floor naked, sobbing, as he wiped up the water. I was terrified and angry. The shower curtain had been slightly open, and water had splashed off his back. He hadn’t noticed water had gotten on the floor. That was the first time I felt injustice. I imagined myself pushing her down the stairs. I thought she was an evil witch.

One time while at the dinner table, I was lost in my thoughts. A piercing voice brought me back to reality. Billy asked you to pass the peas! she screamed at me. It took me a moment to focus. I tried to explain I hadn’t heard him. She grabbed me by the hair and yanked me up from the table. After slapping me several times, she made me stand in front of all the kids with my nose to the wall. I stood there sobbing, my nose stuck to the wall, until bedtime. This was during a time when child abuse was not a well-recognized matter. In those days, we had no advocate, just a short, stocky woman who represented the law. I’ll never forget the cruelty I saw in that old woman.

I began having nightmares soon after I arrived at the home. I imagined evil things under the bed. I would sometimes see dark figures in the shadows of the room and hear whispers at night. I’d pull the covers over my head and pray to God that they wouldn’t get me. I wondered if there was any real security in the world even before I knew what security meant. I felt insecurity as if it were alive. It was like a breathing, dark presence that was going to swallow me whole. I felt I would rot in its belly, being slowly digested by acid for all eternity.

Quite a few strange incidents occurred while I was young. Although the events could be explained naturally, they happened in a supernatural way. As a child, I believed unseen forces were out to get me. Toys would sometimes turn on when I would reach for them. On a number of occasions, lightbulbs would blow out when I entered a room. The kids in the cottage noticed these things and said I was cursed. They were just teasing, but I thought they were right. Later, when I was grown, such supernatural incidents increased in frequency and intensity.

My dreams and the strange happenings made me think the orphanage was haunted; I wanted to believe it was the home rather than me. I ran away from the home several times with no idea of where to go. I just started walking and walking, hoping I could walk to New Orleans. Of course, I was always caught and taken back to the orphanage. One time, I walked up to a house and asked an old couple if they could give me a ride home to New Orleans. They called the police; back to the orphanage I went. I knew I’d been left in New Orleans, and I had to get back.

The kids in the home were like family to me in spite of my reputation for being strange. Billy Bonds was my best friend. In the summers, we would laugh and play and chase bees for hours, trying not to get stung of course. We spent one whole afternoon burning ants with a magnifying glass Billy had found at the bottom of the toy bin. In the winters, we mostly played in the cottage, a tri-level house with a partial basement that served as our play and activity room. Ground-level windows there let in a lot of light, and we would color and draw to our hearts’ content. We loved to have contests to see who could draw the weirdest monster or the most souped-up hot rod. Most of the time, I won the monster contests because my drawings were the scariest. I usually just drew things I’d seen in my nightmares.

Christmas time was the best time of the year. We were taken to Christmas parties held by charities all over the place. People seemed to think about us orphans just at that time of year. We were showered with toys and gifts and taken on many sleigh rides and hay rides. I sat on quite a few Santa’s laps to collect the next gift-wrapped surprise. I could almost catalogue the various colors of the Santa’s fake beards. Some were bluish and thin while others were coarse and white. I didn’t care they were fakes because I was getting toys.

One Santa had a real beard. While sitting on his lap, I studied it to find the elastic, sure I would find the flaw, but it seemed every hair went right into his skin. I wondered if he had glued every hair to his face. I wanted to yank it to see if it was real but thought I better not. I wondered if he was the real Santa Claus for a minute, but I decided he was just an old man with a white beard. None of us ever let on that we knew they were fakes.

Incidents happened at the two Christmas parties I attended. After I received a gift, I stood next to the Christmas tree. Every bulb on the tree blew out at once. Several adults asked me what I had done to burn out all the bulbs. I hadn’t touched the tree and was terrified, thinking that it had tried to kill me. The adults decided the circuit had been overloaded and told me not to worry about it. Another time, I reached for a present under the tree and the tree fell on me. I hadn’t touched the tree. Nonetheless, the Christmas presents helped distract me from the fear always with me.

When we got back to the cottage, we would divide our loot and trade with each other if we didn’t like our gifts. Sometimes, wrapped gifts would be delivered to the cottage and we would choose a box after carefully considering its size and weight. We would laugh and tease each other if we got a stupid gift such as doll. I mean, really? Who would buy a doll for the boy’s cottage? You definitely didn’t want to get a girly gift in our group!

One of the kids got a Barbie doll one time, and we promptly tore off her clothes to see what was underneath. We laughed and carried on, pointing to the bumps on her chest. The red-faced housemother heard the ruckus. We got a stern reprimand from her, but we couldn’t stop giggling. In total frustration, she grabbed the naked Barbie and her clothes and stomped up the stairs, at which point we burst into laughter so hard that my sides started to hurt. The fun times were a great distraction from the nightmares and strange happenings that plagued my life.

I learned many things at the orphanage. I learned about cruelty and kindness and friendship. I learned about loss and anger, and I learned how to laugh! I never recalled laughing before third grade. It had been as if I hadn’t existed. I was backward and shy. I was told I never spoke before second grade. I knew how to talk but just wouldn’t. I was tested for mental deficiencies many times, but it was determined I suffered emotional rather than physical problems.

I had strange dreams all through the time I was there. I remember dark, shadowy figures telling me I would never fulfill my purpose. Voices of people who seemed to wear clothes made of light would calm me down when the dark people would talk to me. In my dreams, I couldn’t look at the light people because they were too bright, but I was glad they were there. The dark people were like shadows, smoke, and they whispered and laughed at me. They told me that they were going to kill me and that they would peel my skin off. My dreams felt real; I had no control over what happened in them.

In one particularly terrifying dream, I was being chased by the shadowy people and a coffin with spikes on the inside. It kept opening and shutting like a huge jaw waiting to impale me in its evil grasp. Suddenly, a hand of light touched me on the shoulder and a voice said, Do not be afraid. I will not allow them to hurt you. I woke up in a sweat.

I rarely talked about the nightmares with anyone even though I could remember their every detail. I thought I must be weird to have so many nightmares. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV for two months one time after I woke up screaming. The housemother thought I must have been seeing too many scary things on TV.

In the fifth grade, I was told that the last foster parents I’d had in New Orleans had made arrangements for me to go home. I hadn’t been with them long when I was taken to Michigan. I barely remembered them; I wasn’t sure what was going on at the time. Once again, I was going to a new situation.

I’ll always remember those days at the orphanage. I was sad and glad to be going back to New Orleans. I was going to miss Gary, Billy’s brother, but most of all Billy. We were best buddies for the whole time I was there. When odd things happened, Billy always comforted me and told me not to be afraid.

The day I was leaving, Billy was nowhere to be found. A station wagon pulled up to the front door of the cottage, and the housemother told me my ride was here. She placed my meager belongings in the back of the car. Where’s Billy? Where’s Billy? I turned and saw a running boy in the field. Eeenie! Eeenie! He always called me that. He practically knocked me over when he jumped on me. I don’t want you to go! Tears were running down his face. I felt a profound sadness like I had never known. I felt my heart breaking. In that moment, I didn’t care about New Orleans or even finding my mother. I couldn’t talk. Tears flooded down my cheeks. I couldn’t keep from sobbing as I waved to him and the others as we drove away. We had promised to write and call and move in together when we were big, but in fact, we never saw each other again.

CHAPTER 2

Hopes and Dreams

Back in New Orleans, I moved into the Wellington’s house on State Street. They were good people for the most part and seemed to accept me into their home. My foster mother was very religious and taught me Bible stories and took us to church. Mostly, church was boring to me, and I didn’t want to go, but I had no choice.

The highlight of my preadolescent days was our next-door neighbor, Aaron Levy. He was a rabbi who seemed to accept me with none of the usual suspicions that accompanied foster kids or Gentiles for that matter. I called him Mr. Aaron or Mr. Rabbi, as was proper in the South. I never knew why it was proper in the South to call adults by their first names and put Mister or Miss in front of them. I think Mrs. Blackburn would have slapped me silly if I had ever called her Miss Bertha.

I liked the rabbi even though my foster mother didn’t approve of my going to his house. He filled my head with imaginations about my origin. One day, he asked me, Enoch, do you know what your last name means in Hebrew?

You mean my name has a meaning? I just thought it was a joke or something.

Not at all, son. In the old days, every name had a meaning. Your name might describe your character or maybe what work you did or sometimes what hopes and dreams your parents had for you. Your name might mean ‘valiant warrior’. He chuckled. Valiant warrior … he, he! Have you ever seen a valiant warrior baby?

I started to laugh as I envisioned a medieval, diaper-clad baby trying to carry a lance on a horse, his little bobblehead struggling to stay upright in his oversized helmet. No, I’ve never seen a baby warrior before, I replied, still chuckling at the thought.

That’s right, son. A baby cannot be a warrior, but his name might mean ‘valiant warrior’. You see, names set a tone and a direction for a person’s life. My name, for instance, Aaron, has had a great impact on my life. Aaron was the high priest during the time of the exodus. He was part of the Levites and was the brother of Moses. So is it any wonder I should become a rabbi?

Please tell me what my whole name means! I blurted. I was giddy with excitement to hear of the great nobility of my name. Mr. Aaron said, Hold on just a minute, son. I’ll be right back.

A few minutes later, he emerged from his library with a large book. He carefully turned the pages and intently stared at the words in the book as if searching over a great treasure map. I sat there, imagining my name would have some great, heroic meaning that would become my destiny. Perhaps I was a valiant warrior or a great prince who would save the world or at least a damsel in distress. My head swam with anticipation as I anxiously waited to hear the mystery of my weird name. Uh huh, mmm, yes, yes. g-a-l-a-h! Here it is. Are you ready? he asked.

Yes, yes, please, please! I begged.

Well, I had to get the spelling just right … So here it is. It meeaannns … ‘revelation … to uncover, to be revealed, a hidden mystery or secret that unfolds like a book.’ It also means an Australian rose-breasted cockatoo!

We burst out laughing. I’m sure we were laughing for different reasons, though. My childish laughter centered on the fact that a bird would be named with what I had thought were two naughty words. If I had said those two words in the same sentence in earshot of my foster mother, I would’ve had my mouth washed out with soap. Believe me, it takes only one mouth washing to teach you to hold your tongue.

After I stopped laughing, I asked, Does this mean I’m Jewish or some nasty bird?

You don’t much look like a rose-breasted cockatoo, so I guess you must be Jewish.

I laughed again at the mention of the bird’s funny name. I tried to imagine its strange anatomy. Please don’t tell Mrs. Wellington I might be Jewish. I don’t think she could bear it.

He laughed and assured me it would be our little secret. Now listen, son. My first name was given to me in honor of a great heritage, just as your first name was given to you in honor of a great heritage. God took only two men in history for Himself, Elijah and Enoch. Both were righteous men who walked with God. Whoever gave you your name did so by the will of God, for God knows all things, and nothing is a surprise to Him. When you get older, you can decide for yourself if you are Jewish or Christian or agnostic. You must freely choose to serve God and live according to His statutes. God does not force us to serve Him but allows us to choose by our free will. I trust, young Enoch, when you are of age, you will consider carefully all things and make the right choice.

As I reflected on Rabbi Levy’s words, I realized I had heard the word revelation in my dreams. I didn’t know what the word meant at the time. I wondered how dreams could say words I didn’t understand. I thought it odd that a child would hear talk best suited for adults. At the time, I hoped my name would be some clue to my beginning, but Mr. Aaron’s talks back then held little relevance for me.

I didn’t understand Mr. Aaron when he would talk about deeper concepts such as life and God. My mission was more urgent … to find out as much as I could about myself.

How about my middle name, Mr. Aaron?

He looked puzzled. Enoch, I don’t believe you have ever told me your middle name.

I thought for a minute and said, Enoch K. Galah!

"Yes, yes, son, but what does the k stand for?"

Don’t laugh! I insisted. It stands for Kingu!

He looked puzzled again and said, Hold on. Let me check my book. He flipped through several pages while muttering softly. "No … No … uh uh, nope. Sorry, son. I thought it might be a subroot of or a description of king in some way, but it doesn’t fit any Jewish words. The u on the end is puzzling, but I will keep researching. For now, I guess you’ll just have to be a hidden mystery king."

I always left our talks with my head spinning with imagination. He told me stories of floods and angels and giants and men so strong they could carry away great gates of cities. I had heard some of these same stories in Sunday school, but he had a way of bringing his stories to life. I always felt better around him, as if we had a connection deeper than just a friendly neighbor and a kid next door. He always said that God didn’t make mistakes and that we were destined by God to meet. He often told me, God, like your last name, is a mystery that is revealed in many ways. God can be seen in flowers and trees and birds and animals, but most of all, God can be seen in man, who was created in His image.

The religious people I knew were tormented by the fear of God. They were driven by unseen forces of guilt and shame as far as I could see. Sometimes, it was more about their feeling good about themselves than giving the love and mercy they preached. I always got the feeling that foster parents took kids in from some great sense of religious guilt that hung over their head, like the hammer of God just waiting for them to step out of line so He could crush them.

This God thing was a mystery to me. Everybody wanted to do good deeds so they would be okay with God. They all wanted to be careful not to upset God’s law. I began to turn from the idea of the supernatural and God to the idea of reasoned logic even at an early age. It may have been in response to the poor examples of religion I had encountered. It could also have been a deep desire to avoid the possibility of the supernatural. I thought, If God’s real, I might have to face