In the Beginning: Mars Origin "I" Series Book I (3 page)

Cleveland
Hts., Ohio 1997

I never thought I’d be so happy to get to
Claire’s house.

Claire had come by my house a few days
earlier to invite me to her little soiree - my bon voyage party as she called
it – in a last ditch effort to get me not to move, to stay and try and figure
out what was wrong with me.

“Justin,” she had said. “I can’t
understand why you’re so unhappy. I wish I could help you. I wish I could
formulate some serum or some antidote for depression in my lab and make things
right for you. I just don’t understand you. I don’t even think you know why
you’re doing this. You had a good job. You quit it. You have a beautiful home.
You’re abandoning it. You have a loving family and you desert them. You’re
doing this all to yourself. What more could you want?”

That had made me even sadder. And more
determine to go, but just as I was packing up the last box in my study, the
phone rang. Claire answered it and it changed everything.

Thanks to that fateful phone call she had
taken for me, her little get-together was no longer a going away party. That
didn’t matter to Claire, though. A party was a party.

My siblings I were close. We still had
that same sibling relationship that people have when they’re children. There
were eight children in my family, five boys and three girls. Actually, my
mother gave birth to ten children. There had been a set of twins who died
shortly after birth, but that never stopped my mother from talking about them
like they were still here. Other than that small quirk, our parents were good
people. They did a good job raising us. We’re all college educated, except for
one, and being black raising eight children in the 1950s was a pretty big deal.
And, aside from me and Claire’s mental issues, (she’s unaware of hers), I think
we all came out pretty good.

I was the fifth child, sandwiched between
five irritating boys. There are three older than me – Greg, Gerald and Doobie
and two younger – Sean and Michael. My sisters Callie and Claire were the
anchors, Callie the oldest and Claire the baby.

Greg was the perpetual thorn in my side
and to Claire I was glue. She was always close at hand when it came to me.
She’d graduated with honors with two master degrees and from medical school but
refused to practice. She had an enormous heart bursting out of her small frame,
a calming spirit an eternal hope that welled up in her soul and spilled over
onto everyone she knew. My baby sister. My guardian angel. And probably a big
part of the reason I’m going feeling crazy.

When we got to Claire’s house, my brothers
and cousins were gathered in the family room watching a game on TV. All men. No
wives or girlfriends in sight.

I spoke to everyone and went through the
house into the kitchen to see if Claire needed any help, and to find out where
all the women were.

“Hey, Claire.”

“Hi, Justin.” She was standing at the
kitchen table cutting up potatoes.

“I’m starving, whatever you have in the
oven smells delicious,” I said. Rustling around all the food in the
refrigerator, I found an orange, grabbed a paper towel, and sat down at the
table.

“Need any help?” I asked.

“No, I’m fine, just see if you can pull your
brothers, Greg and Gerald away from that television and get them to go out back
and get the grill started. I’ve got the steaks all ready to go.”

“Okay, I’ll get them. So where’s
everybody?” I asked.

“In the family room. You just walked
through there, didn’t you? I know you heard them, they’re making enough noise.”

“I mean all the women. No wives. No dates.
Not like your brothers and cousins.

“I told them not to bring any of those
women.”

“
Those
women?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I know you don’t like them.”

“Whaaat?”

“I know you don’t like those women, so I
told them not to bring them. Tonight is for you. I want you to have a good
time. I called each one of them and I told them to leave their wives at home.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

I really didn’t like any of those women,
but I couldn’t believe Claire would be so rude.

“Claire, you must be out your mind. You
cannot tell people to come over and to leave their wives at home.”

“Yes I can. This is my house, my food, my
sister.”

“What did they say when you told them?” I
popped a section of the orange in my mouth.

“Do you see any wives?”

We both started laughing. I almost choked
on my orange.

“I did invite Ty over though, I know you
like her.”

Yes, I did like Ty. She had been my best
friend since childhood. I grew up surrounded by my five brothers, so she had
been the much needed company of a girl my own age. Ty, short for Tyler, and I were
“Mutt and Jeff” as my mother put it. She was tall and shapely. Never knowing if
I was Mutt or Jeff, I was the complete opposite. I was short and, since fifth
grade, somewhat overweight.

“Justin,” Claire said, “I’m so happy
you’re not leaving. Isn’t that something how just one little phone call can
change everything?” She smiled at me. “I don’t know what I would do without you
here with me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Didn’t want to hear that
sappy stuff. “I’m going to get your brothers out from in front of the television
and send them out back to get those steaks going.”

Claire had this huge house that no one
lived in but her. It had six bedrooms, and a backyard the size of a small park.
She said she needed a big house because, “You never know when a family member might
need a place to stay.” She should have said her
brothers
might need a
place to stay, because they were always camping out at her house.

“Greg, Gerald, your mother said to go out
back and get the grill going so we can start the steaks,” I stood in front of
the TV. Greg, a six foot mass of muscles pushed me out of the way.

“Auntie Leslie is here?” My cousin stood
up in anticipation of greeting my mother.

“No, she’s talking about Claire – our
‘mother hen,’” Greg said.

“Yeah,” Gerald added. “‘Because if she had
been talking about our mother, she would have said ‘Mommy.’”

“You know, I meant to say something about
that.” My cousin looked at me questioningly. “Why do you, Callie and Claire
still call Auntie Leslie, ‘Mommy’? Don’t you know you’re too old to call her
that?”

Greg, Gerald and Callie’s husband busted
out laughing. “They may be in their thirties and forties, but, man, believe me,
they each still have the mind of a child.”

“Shut it, Greg.” Not a very clever or
adult retort. But what could I say? We did still call her ‘Mommy.’

“Will you guys please go and get started
so we can eat before eleven o’clock tonight.”

After a lot of cajoling (they never listen
to me) they finally got up and headed out back. All of them went, which meant
that they still wouldn’t get anything done. They talk about me being childish,
put them together in one place and it’s like you got a room full of ten-year
olds.

I followed them out to make sure Greg and
Gerald paid attention to the matter at hand, and to ensure that everyone else
didn't interfere with them getting it done. Because if they kept fooling around
and didn't get that grill going as quickly as I thought they should, I
definitely would be putting a call in to our real “Mommy.”

“So, Justin, have you finally figured out
why you gotta pack up and move? Going through menopause again?” Greg started
with the chiding right off the bat.

Before I could answer, Claire spoke up as
she came out of the kitchen with the steaks. “Shows what you know Gregory, you
can only go through menopause once and Justin hasn’t gone through it yet, and,”
she said, “Justin is not leaving. She got this really important call, and she’s
staying here. Well, actually, she’s going to Jerusalem for a little while. But
she’s not moving.”

“Thank you, Claire,” I said. She seemed
quite happy to be the bearer of the news. I expect that when I get old Claire
will probably be the one I will have to go and live with. I think that I’ll be
cursed with her presence until my dying day.

Greg waved his hand as if to shoo her
away.

“Claire, why don’t you let Justin answer
her own questions?” He looked over at my husband, “Mase, man, what are you
letting my sister do to you? One day she’s got you packing up and moving to
Timbuktu. The next day she’s telling you to unpack, you’re not going anywhere.
What’s going on over there at your house?”

Greg was so secretive about his life. He
didn’t even want to tell you what he had for breakfast, but if there was
anything going on with anyone else he wanted to be Jerry Springer and find out
every sordid detail.

“All I need is my laptop and a phone line
to hook up my modem. Whatever she wants to do is fine with me.”

“Justin,” my sister, Callie got my
attention. “A phone call that could make you stay when we’ve being trying for
months to do that? What in the world was the call all about?”

“Hold on, Callie, I’m trying to get Mase
to tell me what’s going on over there at his house. I’m wondering does he know
my sister is losing her mind.” Greg wasn’t letting up.

 “Mase,” he continued, “do you know your
wife is strange?  I mean like borderline mental?”

“I know,” he said, “That’s why I married
her.”

“Callie,” Claire said, “the call was from
Dr. Margulies. He wants Justin to go to an anniversary party in Jerusalem.”

“An anniversary party?” Gerald raised an
eyebrow. “Is that all it took – a party?”

“It’s because they think they found the
Q.” Claire I guess, was my designated spokesperson tonight, even though she
didn’t have her facts half right.

“What’s the Q, Justin?” Callie asked. “It
must be really important.”

“No, Callie,” Greg said, “Don’t ask Justin
the questions, ask Claire, she seems to know everything. Hey, Claire, what’s
the Q?” Only the guys laughed.

“I don’t know, Greg,” Claire put her hands
on her hips, “you’ll have to ask Justin.”

I was hesitant to explain. I knew that
they would not like my explanation and we’d end up in a debate that would
probably drag on for the rest of the evening.

In an archaeological find, you can become
who you seek. You can live their lives and see through their eyes, or so we
convince ourselves. It is a thrill unknown to many. An archaeologist learns
about history from the fragmentary remains of the artifacts left behind by past
civilizations. She has the power to recreate the history of man from his
earliest past and determine his importance to mankind today. That’s who I am.
The re-creator of history.

My brothers thought I was more or less
just a grave robber.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“Well, first, this isn’t really an
anniversary party.” I decided to spill the beans. But first I had to correct
Claire’s misinformation. “It’s the fifty-year anniversary of the finding of the
Dead Sea Scrolls.” I said. “And, in recognition, scholars from around the world
were invited to a seminar to help in the translation of the remaining scrolls.
Second, no one knows if the Q is with the remaining documents left to be
translated, that’s just speculation.”

“Well, how in the world did they invite
you to something like this?” Greg seemed genuinely puzzled.

“That’s still not telling us what the Q
is?” Callie spoke over Greg.

“Q is short for the German word ‘
quelle
,’”
I explained, “which in English means ‘source.’ And it’s a document, or rather
hypothetical
document, that’s believed to be the original text from which Matthew and
Luke used as their “source” to write their Gospels.”

“Waaait a minute.”

Okay, here we go. Greg was not liking
this.

“Are you saying that Matthew and Luke
copied
their books from something else? That they didn’t write, first hand, as
directed by God? Is that what you’re saying? Tell me that’s not what you’re
saying.” Greg’s brow was raised and his eyes seemed as if they would pop out of
his head at any moment.

“Yep, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Justin.” Greg said. “Justin,” he
repeated. “C’mon now.” He pulled up a chair and sat next to me. “Don’t tell me
you believe that the Gospels were copied from something else. Please don’t tell
me that.”

“I’m not saying that I believe it. I’m
just saying that
there is a belief
that Matthew and Luke copied some of
the things in their gospels from other sources. Some think that these documents
are imaginary, but some think they’re real.”

“Well, that’s just crazy.” Greg got up a
walked away.

“Why in the world would they think that?”
Gerald asked.

“Well, because even though Matthew and
Luke’s gospels were written about ten years apart they’re a lot alike.”

“So, what does that prove, Mark is just
like them, too. All three basically tell the same story, right?” Gerald said.

“Right. But -,” I knew they wouldn’t like
this either, “Mark is the other source that some believe were used by Matthew
and Luke to write their gospels.”

“Gerald, man, I don’t know why you’re even
listening to that craziness. Now she got them copying from the Gospel of Mark.”
Greg yelled from the grill.

“Listen, Gerald,” I tried to take back the
conversation before he got upset, too, “Matthew, Mark and Luke follow basically
the same outline, what you find in one, you can find in the other ones – for
the most part. But sometimes Matthew or Luke differs from Mark’s account, but,
and this is the interesting part, they never differ in the same place. So,
logically one could assume that Mark came first and the other two authors
copied from him.”

“That is not the logical deduction from
that.” Greg had never thought me logical and with him being a lawyer, he
thought himself the expert on the subject.

“And to add to that argument,” I ignored
Greg, “some things in Matthew and Luke are the same, but they’re not found in
Mark. So with the time difference and the commonality, it was hypothesized that
there was another document, in addition to Mark, that Matthew and Luke used to
write their stories.”

“The Q,” Gerald answered.

“Right.” At least he followed the theory.

“Gerald. Come over here man and help me
with this grill. Stop indulging Justin.” Greg waved him over. I knew, from the
start, I could never convince Greg.

“I’m just trying to understand it, Greg, I
mean, there are people that believe this.” He turned to me, “Right?” I nodded
my head. “So, what do you mean they never differ in the same place?”

“Okay, if Matthew doesn’t agree with or
give an account of an event Mark writes about, then Luke’s account will be the
same as Mark’s. And same with Luke. If he writes a different account of
something that Mark describes, then Matthew’s writing is the same as Mark’s
account.”

“So this is a really big discovery, huh? I
mean finding the Q?” Callie asked.

Callie had been interested in my work
every since she went with me on my first dig in Arizona. She had the summer off
from her school job and my mother was insistent that I was too young to go by
myself. She found a new respect for digging in dirt that summer.

“No, Callie, the big discovery was made in
1947 when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I only mentioned to Claire that
it might include the Q.” Claire was bouncing around getting everything set up.
I shook my head, she was always confusing people. “Of course, it would be a big
deal if we did find the Q or some other new fact just still untranslated
waiting to be found.”

“But the Q probably won’t be that
revelation.” I said. “The Dead Sea Scrolls were Old Testament manuscripts kept
by Jewish monks called the Essenes. They were important because they turned out
to be the oldest surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible. Nine hundred years older
than any other known manuscript of the Book of Isaiah. And, then they found a
few non-canonized books like the Book of Enoch that we hadn’t known about. So,
it’s doubtful if they put New Testament manuscripts in with them.”

“I just can’t get with this
copying
,”
Greg rejected the whole notion.

“Okay, so maybe not copied, but maybe they
used it as a reference,” Mase said.

“Well, they haven’t found this thing yet,
right?” Greg questioned.

Didn’t he just hear me say that?

“Yes, Greg that’s right.”

“I know, because it doesn’t exist,” he
said. “And I am sure whatever is left to be translated will not cause any new
revelations. God gave us everything He wanted us to know in the sixty-six books
of the Bible, including who wrote it. Whatever is yet to be found will just
corroborate what we already know.”

“Greg, whatever it is, I’m just happy to
be going.” I tried to settle him down. But secretly, I did hope that something
big might happen while I was in Jerusalem.

“How in the world did they pick you anyway?”
Greg asked again.

“Actually, they didn’t pick me. They asked
Dr. Margulies to come and he asked me.”

“I was going to say, isn’t this a little
out of your league, translating famous documents? I thought you dug up dead
people and studied their cookware.” Greg said.

I corrected him, “Since I became curator,
I study dead people and the cookware that
other
people dig up.”

“Yeah, Greg, she got a promotion.” Claire
was back from the kitchen. Michael’s wife, Regina came out with her.

“Hi, Regina.” I got up and walked over to
her. Maybe we could change the subject and get Greg out of his funk.

Michael had such a beautiful wife. She was
one of the few people in our little group who didn’t grow up with us. She had a
completely different history. That was so fascinating to me.

Hi, Justin.” She came over and hugged me.
“So I hear you’re not leaving us after all? I’m glad. We don’t need to lose any
women out of this group, these men already think they are the only voice that
counts. One less woman would only exacerbate the situation.”

“Yeah, well, you know, men rule the
world.”

“Only if
we
let them, Justin. Only
if we let them.”

 “Where is Doobie, he didn’t come with
you? It’s time to eat.” Claire was questioning Sean who had just come in
without Doobie. “How come he didn’t come with you, Sean?”

Even though she was the baby of the clan,
she always felt it was her job to keep us all together, happy and fed. Sean and
Doobie both lived in the same apartment complex and spent all their time
together since Sean’s wife had died of cancer the year before. But tonight,
Sean had shown up Doobie-
less
.

“Don’t worry, Claire, once the food is
out, he’ll show up.” Sean patted Claire on the back.

“If he doesn’t get here soon, I’m calling
him,” she said.

“Claire, leave the man alone. He will get
here when he gets here,” Greg said.

“If he doesn’t get here soon, I’m calling
him.”

Michael leaned over to Callie, nodded
toward Claire and spoke in a hushed voice. “Callie, have you ever noticed how
Claire repeats the same thing over and over? Do you think maybe she has a
glitch in some part of her brain or something?”

“I don’t know, Michael, you’d have to ask
Claire, she’s the one with the medical degree.”

“See, there’s the thing, who in their
right mind would spend all those years in school, get a medical degree and then
work in a lab. There’s no money in research. She should have gone into
practice.”

“Claire’s happy,” Callie said.

“Most crazy people are.”

I smacked him on his arm. “Don’t make fun
of Claire, Michael. She keeps up with her medical license.”

“Hey, Sean, you missed Justin telling us
about her ‘Quest for the Q’ in Jerusalem with Dr. Margulies.” Greg yelled over
after seeing Sean.

Sean looked at me questioningly. I closed
my eyes, shook my head and waved off the comment as if to say ‘Don’t pay any
attention to him.’

Mase answered. “It’s for work, Sean.” Sean
nodded. “And, I think this is all very exciting,” Mase came over and put his
arm around me, “because when she gets back we plan on writing an article on
this historical event. It will be the first collaborative writing effort of the
Dickerson family.”

“Mase, now I understand why you can’t see
that your wife is nutty,” Greg said, and started laughing. “You are, too.”