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JT.
    “Move out of my way, I’m going to kill him,”
the man said as he stomped his way into the room.
    Caught off guard, JT stumbled backward. His
foot got tangled in the cords. As he tried to extract his foot from
the cords, he unplugged Lamont’s heart monitor. The big man
advanced on JT and tried to push him away from Lamont. Leaning
against Lamont’s bedrail with his hands outstretched, JT tried to
keep the big guy from knocking him to the ground. “Hold up. Wait a
minute!” JT yelled authoritatively.
    The man stood in front of JT. Although he was
no longer trying to push JT out of the way, he was clearly still as
angry as sin. “He shouldn’t have rode my sister on that motorcycle
of his.”
    JT righted himself as he prepared to stand in
the gap for Lamont’s life. He waved his hand toward Lamont and told
the man, “Can’t you see that he’s at death’s door himself?”
    At that moment, a nurse ran into the room.
“What’s going on in here?” she demanded.
    JT didn’t want to cause this man any trouble.
He saw the pain in his eyes and knew from what he had said that his
sister was dead. “You don’t want to do this,” he said to the big
guy and then turned to the nurse. “This man is upset. He just lost
his sister. Can you please get some help so we can calm him
down?”
    “JT?” the nurse asked.
    JT hadn’t looked at the nurse when he spoke a
moment ago. He was too busy trying to keep this big guy off of
Lamont. This time when he turned toward the nurse he looked at her
and recognition hit him in the gut. “Erica?”
    “Yeah, it’s me. I’m going to get security and
then I’ll be back,” she said as she backed away from the door.
    JT looked at the man. He could barely
concentrate on him. Images of his first love, Erica Swell, danced
through his head and made him a little incoherent. He shook his
head, trying to release the past so he could concentrate on the
angry man standing in front of him. “You don’t want to go to jail
do you?” JT asked the guy.
    The man pressed his palms against his head
and let out a loud roar. “I want my sister back,” he said as tears
streamed down his face.
    JT pulled the man into his arms and embraced
him as if he were a two year old child in the middle of a tantrum.
“It will be all right. You’ve just got to have faith and believe
that God can see you through this.”
    The man pushed JT away from him. “Go ‘head on
somewhere with that religious stuff.” He walked toward Lamont’s
door and then turned back around. He pointed where Lamont lay still
unconscious and said, “You better hope he dies, because if he
doesn’t, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
    JT had no doubt that the big man could do
exactly what he threatened. He bent down and plugged Lamont’s heart
monitor back in, then turned back to Lamont as the giant left the
room and prayed, “Lord, help Lamont get out of this situation and
learn to live for You. I speak peace over this young man’s life. In
the name of Jesus, victory will be his.”
    After praying over Lamont, JT sat down in the
chair next to his bed and took his Bible out of his duffle bag.
Just as he was getting comfortable, the door burst open again, but
this time it was Erica, backed up by two body guards. “He left,
huh?” she said as she looked around the small room.
    JT sat up and put his Bible in his lap.
“Yeah, I don’t think he wanted to go to jail.”
    Erica smiled as she said, “We’re going to
post a guard at his door for the night.”
    “Thank you,” JT said as he stood up and
walked over to her. JT hadn’t seen Erica in twenty years, but she
hadn’t changed much at all. She was still as pretty as ever with
long hair that flowed down her back. She had it in a ponytail now.
“How have you been? I didn’t know what became of you.”
    She posed in her Sponge Bob smock and said,
“Now you know. What about you, JT? The head nurse approved a clergy
to stay in the room with Lamont.