Corpus

By John Picciano

This contemporary fictional story, anchored in ancient biblical history, is about two obscure, violent convicts. Through the supernatural effects of a bizarre and mysterious wooden corpus, they reach out to one another, spanning time and space across two millennia, in each's individual search for meaning and identity in the midst of chaos, defeat, and despair. DJ Morgan and his first-century counterpart finally meet, to share the great cosmic moment of redemption. This is not just another book about the search for biblical antiquity. It is the gripping story of a disruptive, soul-searing, life-changing event for two men who were lost, then found.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646705924

Book preview

Preface

This is a work of historical fiction set in both contemporary rural Florida and ancient Palestine. Although the story focuses on the book’s primary fictional character, DJ Morgan—a thirty-nine-year-old ex-con, a ruthless opportunist whose hopeless and hapless life is driven by rage, violence, and armed robbery—it is really about a man whose life was also rooted in violent crime and yet someone who, by a set of mysterious but predictable circumstances, found himself at the center of biblical history. Nothing about his life seems to have caught the attention of historical writers, neither ancient nor modern, and virtually nothing is known or recorded of him, save for one defining cosmic moment in time.

This story describes a unique friendship between two brother thieves and robbers. It bridges millennia and, more importantly, is made possible only by a mysterious and divinely inspired convergence of space and time. People constantly ask me, Where in the world did you come up with this crazy story? It was inspired by something I had seen some years ago…a mysterious looking, exquisitely carved wooden corpus.

To be clear, the fantastic and obsessive quest of DJ Morgan to identify the man whose face was shaped into the wood, and to identify the sculptor who carved it, is not just another trite, trendy search for another holy grail. It is not just a study in the forensics of antiquities. This story is one which culminates in a disruptive, life-altering event for not only these two men but all of mankind.

As a word of caution and disclaimer to both the biblical scholar and the average Bible-based man and woman of faith, I have tried to remain true to what we know and yet offer some plausible explanations for the historical events and people we don’t know much about. This book was a long, sometimes difficult, personal journey for me. It was an attempt to build a tangible three-dimensional context for a mystery which, for most people, in the final analysis, is an uncomplicated act of faith.

It’s time to travel back in time. Enjoy.

John F. Picciano

Huntington, New York

April 18, 2020

Acknowledgments

I also would like to thank those who labored through the drafts and who encouraged me to finish this project: my classmate and friend John Leary, Aux. Bishop John Dunne, my nephew/godson Christopher Brock, and especially my son Bill whose editing genius made the work so much easier.

Wildfire

For three days and nights the fire had roared relentlessly out of control. The towering flames, driven by dry August winds, had raced, leaped, and soared across a thousand square miles of parched saw grass and scrub pine of the Florida Everglades. DJ Morgan, Florida State prisoner number 100561, lay quietly in his bunk, hands folded neatly on his chest, staring out at the clouds of dark smoke scudding past the small barred window just below the ceiling of his concrete cell. Beads of sweat poured from his face and arms…his wet shirt clung to his back. He felt the oven heat of the fire outside, the pressure of the walls closing in on him, trapping him like a caged animal.

The prison lay under total lock down…all inmates confined to their cells. Earlier that morning the warden’s officious voice droned over the PA system in the cafeteria, announcing that he had been forced to shut down the prison’s air-conditioning system to avoid pulling in the dangerous smoke…now snaking its way through the ventilation system. As the prisoners roared their raging disapproval, banging their plastic cups in deafening drumbeat unison on the long steel tables, DJ stared up at the TV monitor on the wall above the grill. He cupped his ears forward, straining to hear the words of the local cable station’s boyish-looking weatherman. South Florida, the young man gravely intoned, as he pointed to a map of the massive areas of the Everglades already set ablaze, was in the grip of its worst drought on record. Unlike the other inmates, this was not a new experience for DJ Morgan. He had lived through many such fires growing up as a boy in his family’s ranch house in Homestead, Florida. He recognized the familiar caustic, charred smells of death and pictured the hellish destruction borne atop the wind now whipping at gale force toward the prison walls. He did not need a weatherman to know that hundreds of local ranchers and farmers had already been paralyzed, rendered helpless victims of this random, merciless act of nature. He knew that the wild inferno was now too massive…too uncontrolled and totally uncontrollable. It simply had to be stared down…waited out. As he gazed out at the blackened sky, DJ’s mind’s eye tried to imagine the trigger which had set this firestorm in motion. His brain ticked off the possibilities, all the usual suspects… A cigarette stub flicked out of a car window by someone speeding along Alligator Alley…an unattended campfire…or maybe the backfire from a boat engine of some kind. It doesn’t take much of a spark to ignite this giant tinder box, he thought.

A few hours earlier, as he had sat alone against the far wall of the prison cafeteria pushing around a breakfast plate of cold powdered eggs and greasy hash browns with his plastic fork, DJ had eavesdropped on a small huddle of correction officers grousing amongst themselves. He had long ago adopted the valued lessons of silence and attentiveness in the midst of noise and chaos. He had learned the innate wisdom of quieting the mouth while fine-tuning the ears to the scuttlebutt and careless ramblings of the portly tattooed officers who patrolled the cells, corridors, and yards of the prison. Two officers who had earlier that morning walked the prison fence perimeter spoke of hundreds of animals—not only whitetail deer, but also raccoon, bobcat, marsh rabbit, and even a few alligators—that had become disoriented and had gotten swept up in the rising tsunami of fear and flame as it raced toward the towering barbed wire fences. Thick clouds of dense smoke and flames, spewing a hundred feet into the air, had driven the animals out of the safe haven of their marshes and hammocks headlong into the long rows of the deadly wire. It was clear now to the correction officers that the strong winds, which had suddenly shifted that morning out of the west, were pushing the fire directly toward an unavoidable rendezvous with the prison.

DJ had cringed and shuddered when he heard one officer describe one of the few panthers remaining in the Florida wild, impaled and bleeding on the fence…its smooth, golden coat ripped open by the razor-sharp wire. DJ’s heart pounded as his imagination darted frenetically across the familiar landscape. His mind’s eye saw the panicked animals running, leaping blindly into the coiled wall of steel…each of them ensnarled in their flailing, frenzied attempts to free themselves. He could almost feel their final surrender to nature’s cruel fate…submitting…silently…wide-eyed…to their own slow, agonizing deaths.

As he lay in his sweat, Morgan’s thoughts drifted to a fawn he had once discovered on one of his early boyhood adventures deep into the Everglades. He had crouched and watched in childish wonder, hidden in a thick patch of reeds, as a Florida panther exploded out of the tall grass only feet away from him, knocking and pinning the helpless fawn to the ground. He replayed the memory again in his mind…in still life, in vivid and stark detail. For an instant, he had watched the fawn’s eyes roll back up into its head and its body go slack…as the large canines of the beautiful cat pierced the neck of its suffocating prey, crushing its airway. In that one brief, timeless moment, the boy had locked gazes with the cold, dispassionate, hungry eyes of the large predator. He would often recall later in life, with boyish pride, that what he had felt in that moment was not fear…but only awe and wonder.

DJ suddenly turned away from the window and rolled onto his side, reflexively clenching his fists. He had never been able to muster much empathy as a boy for those of his own specie, but now, in this moment, he would have given away all he had to be on the outside of the prison…to be able to save that solitary endangered panther…to cut away the wire and free it from its deadly trap, or, if necessary, end its anguish with a single merciful gunshot to its head.

DJ had hunted and fished these vast prairies of saw grass with his father and brother for many years. He was intimately familiar with the unforgiving vagaries of predatory life in the Everglades…the complex, yet rudimentary, rules of nature that governed it. Even as a boy, he knew that nature’s delicate balance, as it had existed from time immemorial, would be restored quickly, imperceptibly…that the charred remains, the decomposition of all this innocent wildlife, would soon play out its predetermined role in death, yielding and giving birth to the next generation of life. Tons of ash would drift on the wind and settle, feed and enrich the blackened soil which would soon explode into a new wave of dense grasses. Insects and shellfish would resume their quiet, plodding destinies; surviving mammals and reptiles would rebuild their nests and burrows, would continue killing and being killed. The competing forces of life and death would plod ahead as they had for eons.

DJ suddenly sat upright on his cot, held his hands to his face, and let out an almost-imperceptible groan. The realty of it all hit him square in his head…driving him down into familiar, lonely depths of despair. While new abundant life would soon emerge only yards away, beyond the prison walls, there would be no rebirth or renewed balance to his own skewed life. There would be no rising up from the ashes for DJ Morgan. Whatever small promise of renewal his life had once held had been forfeited years ago, crushed under the weight of an overpowering sense of hopelessness and paralytic resignation…to his own personal slow psychic death.

News of Another Death

A loud grating noise behind him suddenly slammed DJ out of his deep reverie and back into the moment. A hulking young correction officer was slowly raking his heavy baton back and forth against the steel bars of the window of his cell door.

Get your ass in gear, Morgan. You got business to attend to.

DJ flinched. Jeeez, Clyde…you scared the shit out of me.

The CO laughed. Whoa…man…ain’t you the edgy one today. Come on, get up on your feet…right now. You and me, we need to take a little walk. Warden wants to see ya.

The words buzz-sawed through his brain, sending his imagination running wild. Oh, man…what the hell is this all about?

Damned if I know. Besides, it never ain’t none of my business…no, sir. You just come along now. You know the old man don’t like to be kept waiting.

The CO gave a quick hand signal to another officer at the end of the long corridor, and suddenly the door to the cell rolled open. DJ stood up, walked to the doorway, and as he had for years, slowly raised his arms high above his head. The officer surveyed the prisoner for a long moment with a cool, detached, yet curious gaze. DJ Morgan was clean-shaven, dark-haired, six feet two inches tall, and 210 pounds of quick, brute power. He had honed and sculpted his body in the prison yard and weight room almost every day for six years. He didn’t flaunt his strength like the other muscle-bound cretins who ruled his cell block…he didn’t need to. His iron physique and stoic demeanor conveyed his intended message clearer and louder than any spoken word or menacing threat: Stay the hell away from me…unless you want to live in a world of serious hurt.

From the day he first arrived at the maximum-security prison, Morgan had stood apart from all the others. He was painfully quiet…yet soon proved himself to be sharp-witted and articulate. When he spoke, it was only on those rare, last-resort moments when he believed something finally needed to be said. The officers had seen from the start that this one stayed to himself…alone and apart…totally disengaged from the inane and the day-to-day provincial routine of prison life. They had also noticed that DJ refused to paint any part of his body with any of the elaborate tattoos showcased by dozens of the other more-seasoned prisoners. DJ saw these men, contemptuously, as nothing more than ink-stained peacocks strutting around the prison, fanning their gaudy tail feathers. Morgan had long ago reasoned to himself that there were already more than enough subtle marks and battle scars on his face and body without creating an indelible ink marker to give the police any edge in identifying him…if someday he should ever need to go on the run. He thought, Why the hell should I hand the cops that huge advantage in a world where all the cards are already stacked up against me?

Although relatively well behaved throughout the last year of his six-year prison term, DJ had, from the time of his arrival, shaped a well-earned reputation among the inmates and guards for his explosive and unpredictable temper. He had once severely beaten up a CO who had provoked him for months by repeatedly poking a baton deep into his ribs when there were no witnesses around. DJ had finally had enough and had erupted one day out in the yard. He had pummeled the guard with his hammer fists to within a few short inches of his life. As he was finally slammed to the ground and handcuffed, DJ glared at the bloodied, unconscious man lying next to him. He looked up and shouted to the officers, He had it coming, boys. Don’t you tell me that son of a bitch didn’t deserve every bit of that!

Officer Clyde remembered the incident clearly. He had actually witnessed the most brutal part of the beating and had been startled by the lightning-quick, mercurial power of DJ’s hands. He was not about to take any chances.

As the CO carefully patted down, cuffed, and shackled DJ at the ankles, he asked, Say, DJ, ain’t you supposed to be getting out of here any day now?

Hush up, Clyde. Come on, man, don’t jinx me. I don’t like the sound of this. What the hell does the warden want with me anyway?

The CO shrugged his shoulders, took DJ at the elbow, and escorted him down the long, brightly lit corridor. A prisoner standing at the door of the next cell pounded it with his fists. He laughed and shouted, Yo, DJ, where you goin’, boy? You in some big kind of trouble again, ain’t ya!

Officer Clyde snarled menacingly at the inmate. You just shut up now, Dupree. Back down and mind your own dammed business, or I’ll come in there and rearrange your teeth. Y’all hear me?

Another prisoner further down the corridor rushed to the door of his cell, his face pressed up against the barred window, pleading as they passed by, Hey there…Officer Clyde. Come on, man. Let us out into the yard, will ya? Come on, bro, we’re dying in here with all this heat. I’d rather choke outside in the wind and the soot than be locked up in here in the middle of the day with no AC. For chrissake, give us a break, will ya?

The officer’s wordless answer came instantly as he thrust his baton at the man’s hands through the bars, barely missing his knuckles. The two men glared at each other in silence for a long moment.

The CO finally spoke, You think I like being inside this sauna, with all this smoke and heat, wet-nursing a bunch of assholes? Now y’all settle down and be quiet! Ya hear me?

Five minutes later, Morgan was led into the spacious office of Warden Hector G. Reyes—a short, pudgy man with a small, fastidiously trimmed black mustache. Reyes carried a well-known, well-deserved reputation for rigid discipline and efficiency. He bore the smug attitude and demeanor of a fire and brimstone, born-again Southern Baptist preacher…a man of God with little patience for the moral lapses of the men in his charge. Without looking up from his papers, he abruptly pointed over to a chair. Sit down, Morgan. I’ll be with you in a minute.

DJ shuffled to the chair, his leg shackles clanging along the tile floor.

From the moment he had been summoned to the warden’s office, DJ’s mind raced with the endless what-if possibilities behind this unplanned meeting. He was scheduled to be released on parole in exactly twenty-four days and feared anything that would cause a last-minute bureaucratic prison screwup. Not now, he thought…not after serving almost all of my seven-year prison sentence…especially not after being turned down by the parole board twice before.

Reyes finally looked up from his desk, removed his glasses, folded them, and laid them down slowly on his desk. His voice was dispassionate…his demeanor cold and impersonal. So…hello there, Mr. Morgan. Let me get to the point, shall I? As they say…I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?

DJ looked down at his feet and thought to himself, Oh, shit, here it comes. He let out a long, audible sigh. I don’t much care one way or the other, Warden. Lay it on me however you like.

Reyes smiled a narrow, tight-lipped grin. DJ noticed immediately that the smile was locked into the tight corners of Reyes’s mouth and did not extend to the eyes…or any other part of his large, florid face. Reyes raised his voice slightly. Have it your way, Mr. Morgan. The good news is that I’ve asked the state prison authorities to grant you an early release, two weeks ahead of the date set by the parole board. The state has agreed to let me release you early tomorrow morning.

DJ took a deep breath, momentarily relieved. His body tensed in anticipation of the rest of the news. Why the hell would Reyes ask for my early release? he asked himself. He leaned back in his chair and waited for the other shoe to drop. Okay, that’s great. So…what’s the bad news then?

Reyes held up a piece of paper, scanned it quickly, and slowly put it back down on the desk. Well, I’m sorry to inform you, Morgan, that your father, Lucius C. Morgan, died suddenly, day before yesterday. I got a call this morning from his pastor in Homestead. The wake will be held tomorrow afternoon, and the funeral service is scheduled for the following morning. You’re being released early on a compassionate exemption so that you can attend the wake and funeral.

When there was no response from Morgan, the warden stood up, put his hands on his hips, and stared quietly and expressionless at the prisoner for nearly a full minute. DJ wondered whether Reyes’s next words would be that of a hard-ass warden or a bereavement counselor. True to form, they carried the illusion of empathy, but his voice and body language told a different story. The warden spoke as though reading from a telephone book. He looked away from DJ’s face, avoiding any chance of eye contact.

I know this must come as a terrible shock, son. An awkward, quiet pause followed. So were you and your father close?

DJ remained silent, moving his gaze toward the office window to his right. In an instant, his mind’s eye carried him back in time many years to a hot, cloudless afternoon out on the Everglades. He could almost hear his father’s loud, guttural laugh as he sat high up on the control platform of his airboat, the wind blowing through his long sun-bleached hair. His customers, German tourists who had driven down from Miami that morning, sat smiling, up on the bow, strapped into their seats facing forward, enjoying the fast, thrilling ride of a lifetime through the wide-open expanses of the famous Florida Everglades. Lucius Morgan had made a comfortable living for his family in the early years of DJ’s youth but had given up the airboat tour business one afternoon when his world was literally turned on its head. The shallow keel of his boat had suddenly struck and careened off the armored plated back of an unseen monster, a twelve-foot alligator lurking just beneath the surface of the shallow canal. He and several of the tourists seated toward the rear of the boat were catapulted into the air. The customers had ended up in the water, unharmed. Lucius wasn’t so lucky. He had landed on his lower back atop the crest of a small, hard-panned hammock. The orthopedic surgeon standing at his hospital bedside later that afternoon had held up the MRI films, turned to the family, and announced to the stunned family in a dull monotone that Lucius had fractured four ribs and three vertebrae in his lower back. DJ remembered staring at the confused, overwhelmed, frightened expression on his mother’s face. He had known at that moment that his life would never be the same. Somehow, DJ had sensed in an instant that what little innocence remained vested within him was gone forever. The Morgan airboat business was suddenly dead in the water. In the blink of an eye, DJ and his older brother, Adam, had been pressed into service for his family’s fortunes and survival. It had now suddenly fallen upon the boys to compensate for the slack in their father’s revenue. They now needed to whet their hunting skills out on the marshes. Within weeks of the accident, DJ and Adam had been deputized to take over Lucius’s role as the family provider. They were instructed that, until further notice, they were to keep the storage freezer filled with fresh fish, venison, wild turkey, alligator, and even possum meat. Both boys had stepped into their new roles reluctantly at first but, after a while, took to it like ducks to water. By the time DJ had turned thirteen, he was already breaking dozens of state conservation laws on a daily basis, hunting restricted game species at night, out of season, with an outlawed miner’s light strapped to his head.

Meanwhile, Lucius Morgan, by now seriously disabled, sat at home in an old wicker rocking chair on the front porch…awash in an alcohol-soaked funk of self-pity and depression. Old Lucius, content to direct the family poaching operation from the comfort of his porch, had deflected the questions of the conservation officers who paid him the occasional visit. He had just smiled at the young officers and said in his Texas twang, You boys got some kind of search warrant? ’Cause, well…if you don’t…I’d advise you to take your leave now while you may.

Warden Reyes suddenly raised his voice, shouting DJ back into the moment, Mr. Morgan, are you listening to me? Did you hear me? I said, were you and your dad close?

Uhh…sorry, Warden. Yeah, I suppose you could say we were close…for a while…when I was really young. But truth be told, he’s never thought much of me, especially since I left home at seventeen and enlisted in the Marine Corps. I haven’t had any contact with my old man since then, not even when my mother passed away five years ago. She died of cancer while I was here in prison.

Again, the warden’s words were appropriate, DJ thought, but the empathy was nowhere to be found. Yes, I remember that. It’s a shame we weren’t permitted to let you go to her funeral, son. Do you have any brothers and sisters? Do you have anyone on the outside you can stay with?

DJ suddenly flushed…and thought to himself, Why is this phony son of a bitch suddenly interested in my personal life? He pictured the faces of his family and answered laconically, Yeah, I had a brother, Adam, five years older than me. He was an Army Ranger captain…got killed in an Apache helicopter crash during Operation Desert Shield while he was deployed to Saudi Arabia…just before the start of the Gulf War. DJ was surprised as to how rote the words and memory of his brother had become.

The warden asked, There’s no one else?

DJ paused and looked down at his shackled feet as his voice collapsed to a near whisper, There’s no one else. I’ve got no family except for a cantankerous old uncle in West Texas. He’s probably dead by now…drank even harder than my father.

Meanwhile, Reyes stood over his desk, wagging his head. Are you telling me, son, there’s no one you can turn to for moral support? A friend? A cousin?

DJ sat upright in his chair and looked squarely at the warden. His voice rang loud and clear, No, sir, I’ve got no friends on the outside…none that I can count on. His voice trailed off again as he slouched back in the chair. He smiled and said, At least no one who’d be willing to be seen with me, I’d reckon.

Reyes peered quietly over the top of his reading glasses at the morose prisoner slouched before him. He rubbed his chin and frowned. I’m not buying your tale of woe, Mr. Morgan. You may be convinced that you’ll be alone on the outside and that this world is out to get you, but that’s just pure nonsense. I’m not buying any of it.

DJ saw Reyes reach for a Bible at the end of the desk as the warden’s face took on a faraway look. DJ knew what was coming. His body tensed up as he shifted forward to the edge of his wooden chair. Reyes suddenly seemed energized. Well, Morgan, whether you actually believe this or not, the truth is that your risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is always walking beside you. He’ll help you get through the next few days if you just give him half a chance.

DJ winced, rolled uncomfortably in his seat, bristled, and clenched his teeth. After an uncomfortable pause, he said, Look, Warden, I know you mean well, but please spare me all that born-again crap. I couldn’t care less about my father. He never gave a rat’s ass about me. Excuse my biblical reference, sir, but that’s the Gospel truth. My brother was my best friend. The only other friend I ever had in my life was my mother. Why she loved that drunken bastard, I’ll never know. After another moment of silence, he added, I’m not going to lie to you, Warden. I have no intention of going to either his wake or his funeral. So you can keep me locked up here another three weeks if you want to. I really don’t care.

Reyes stared at DJ for a long quiet moment. He picked up a printed sheet of paper on his desk and changed the subject. I’ve been going over your criminal record this morning, Morgan. It says here that you committed a string of strong-arm robberies and burglaries going back some twenty years throughout Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. I also see that you enlisted in the Marine Corps on your seventeenth birthday…but two years later, you were court-martialed for repeated drunkenness and bar fighting. Reyes wagged his head and scowled at DJ. And, God help us, you actually ended up with a bad-conduct discharge. How in the world did you manage to do that? You know, you really have to go out of your way these days to get a BCD. Is that how you got that nasty scar on the right side of your face, in one of your drunken brawls?

DJ reflexively raised his fingers to his cheek and mumbled, That was in my prior life, sir. I’m not proud of that time.

Reyes glanced down again at the paper. I presume you know why you were denied early parole on your earlier applications?

DJ smirked and feigned ignorance. No, sir, I really don’t know, Warden. I do know that I wasn’t exactly a model prisoner when I first got here. But since then I’ve followed your rules pretty well, if I say so myself. Come on, admit it, Warden…I’ve been pretty well behaved…at least for the last couple of years.

Reyes answered quickly, You certainly didn’t get off to a good start with me and my officers.

DJ absentmindedly made a fist and rubbed his knuckles as he pleaded his case. Well, anyway…I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve managed to avoid fighting for a long time now. DJ smiled and looked directly at Reyes. Except of course, for that one sadistic cretin who deserved to get the shit kicked out of him. You remember that snake, right? As I recall, he’s the only CO you ever got rid of in all the years I’ve been here. You know exactly who I’m talking about…don’t you, Warden?

Reyes squirmed. He knew, indeed, to whom Morgan was referring but quickly evaded the question. Yes, well that vicious attack on my officer certainly did not help your cause but, believe it or not, that wasn’t the primary reason you were first denied parole, Morgan. It was that six-day goose chase you led us on in the glades the first month you were here. How you ever got outside the perimeter fence, I could never figure out. No one’s ever done that before or since.

With all respect, Warden, you’d never have caught me if I had just another twenty-four hours to cover a little more ground. I was doing just fine on my own till that lucky game warden caught a whiff of my cook fire. DJ stared at Reyes, grinned, and leaned forward. And by the way, I hope you know by now that the hounds you brought in to track me down are useless as tits on a bull out there in the swamps…especially against someone who knows the glades like I do.

Reyes gritted his teeth, his face reddening as he said contemptuously, Yes, well, we both learned some valuable lessons from your failed escape, didn’t we? It was only a matter of time before we dragged you back here by your ears, in spite of all your so-called skills.

DJ lowered his head and quickly buried himself in his thoughts. He knew in his gut that he had come within a razor’s edge of single-handedly pulling off the escape of the century. He felt a glowing sense of pride and mumbled deep under his breath to himself, Bullshit. You were no match for me, Reyes. Not in my own backyard.

Reyes lifted his head reflexively and glared at Morgan. He couldn’t quite make out what DJ had just said. But he knew that he didn’t like the sound of