The Evangelical Noir
by Ed Enochs
Noir: A genre of literature or film with a dark or disturbing tone. Noir books and films are typically thriller or detective crime stories...
Dystopia: A utopia gone sour, a place where people live dehumaized lives filled with angst filled fear and dread...
"There is none that does good, no not one..."
Romans 3:10-12
" Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Genesis 6:6
Not too far from Hollywood and Vine, in my dingy, smoke filled, over priced and stench filled private detective’s office, It was a quarter past ten, near the end of another seemingly mundane and non descript Thursday Night which dot the calendar, ad infinitum, when deep in thought, or perhaps being half a sleep in that netherworld like dream state that befalls us before we plummet into domestic slumber and the abyss of night, when I heard a faint tapping upon my office door. The half spent and charred cigarette that ubiquitously hung from my jaw dropped to the floor when I awoke suddenly from my catnap, I hastened to the door, thinking I had inadvertently locked out Rafael the janitor who usually collected the buildings trash at that time of night.
Fumbling for the doorknob in the dead of night, I managed to unlock the door and remember being surprised when she walked in. Even now, even with the epistemological epiphany I derived by encountering her, I wonder if taking her case was the right thing…
The incessantly blinking florescent light from Paco’s Taco Shack from across the street suddenly illuminated the doorway as she stood there in statuesque radiance, like an ethereal heavenly visage from a celestial epoch of time. One could tell at a glance without asking, that she was once a great beauty, probably a high end fashion model from a few decades ago, but judging by the enormous diamond encrusted rock on her wedding finger, she had become some sort of Fortune 500 business tycoons trophy wife. When I flipped on the light switch and drew closer to greet her, I noticed that her mascara was smeared and her eyes were blood shot red from crying in the stillness of night. I remember contemplating within how such a beautiful woman with the whole world at her disposal could be at such a wits end.
After formerly introducing herself as Ingrid Hathaway, the wife of the heir of the Hathaway and Stiles pharmaceutical conglomerate, she went on to tell me that she intended to hire me at any price to find her college aged son who had suddenly disappeared without a trace from his Westmont College dorm room up in Santa Barbara.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to take the case, but with the rent due and the bills mounting, I took the case and foolishly rushed in where angels dare to tread. What would happen over the course of the next three weeks would be the most harrowing experience of my life, where I walked the thin razor’s edge, descending into what theologian’s call the Dark Night of the Soul. As I slowly ascended up Highway 1 towards Santa Barbara, I thought it was only fitting that the Song, “Hotel California” played on my car radio, because I wasn’t sure if I was about to encounter heaven or hell...
While heading up the coast towards Santa Barbara, I stopped off at a local eatery, that legend had it, in the 1970's during his Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars phase, Advent Garde pop crooner David Bowie had his best pastrami sandwich. While sitting there alone looking down at the ocean from my window booth, I saw the silhouette of an enormous sea creature that turned out, upon closer examination, to be a monstrous sea lion that had beached itself for good, about 100 feet from the seaside diner. Then, out of morbid curiosity, attempting so see if it was dead or not, I made a ball of sand and proceeded to throw it at the beast, which upon being hit, subsequently lumbered after me.
Thus, with a strange mixture of terror and child like euphoria, I hastened as fast as I could up the hill back to the safety of the diner's parking lot. Was the appearance of the enormous sea lion a foreboding omen prognosticating some dreaded event to come? Or was this just another benign and random occurrence in an ordinary trip? Only time would tell.
When I finally reached Westmont College , I could tell that most of the kids studying there were the scions of wealthy and worldly Evangelicals, the expensive sports cars that lined the dormitory parking lots were a sure give away as were many of the well coiffed outfits worn by the coeds that pranced around the campus like Paris Hilton socialites. What really took me back however, was the lack of real men on campus as I beheld many an effete male student adopting the latest metrosexual fashion craze presently in vogue amongst young guys today; the tight collared multi colored tees and tight faded pants that bordered on appearing like women’s jeans. I even saw one cat bouncing around campus in go-go boots reminiscent of the Boy George dance era and I bemoaned the loss of masculinity that has engulfed this country.
The one redeeming thing I could salvage as I surveyed the student population, was the handful of surfer lads that were ditching school to catch the latest waves down on the nearby beaches of Santa Barbara. At least these guys were getting in worthwhile strenuous exercise. It was one such mop haired surfer kid that Mrs. Hathaway sent me to find and would change my life irrevocably forever.
As I interviewed students and scoured the campus for any trace of a rich Evangelical surfer kid that spent little time in class and who made daily solo pilgrimages to Big Sur in his supped up 1966 Mustang fit with the requisite double board surfboard rack, I was a bit taken back by the fact that all though this kid was seemingly hardly ever on campus, almost everyone had a opinion of him. Damon “Trey” Hathaway III, aged 21 was a Senior Biblical Studies Major at the prestigious but nominally Evangelical Westmont College and heir to a pharmaceutical company worth a fortune beyond his wildest imagination.
As I interviewed one kid after another, almost everyone agreed that Trey, as they called him, was extreme and lived on the edge. He was considered by most of his peers to be a spiritual zealot and behind his hippy surfer boy shaggy haired facade, there was a thoughtful and devoutly religious young man who always devoted to one conservative Evangelical cause or another and who had taken several short term spring and summer evangelistic missions trips to various troubled and needy places around the world.
When I interviewed his professors at school, (Trey’s Mom had called the Provost and given me the subsequent permission via fax attached with the major Westmont College financial donor Hathaway and Stiles pharmaceutical conglomerate letterhead), I was amazed to find out that Trey was not the vagabond bohemian poor student on the verge of certain mandatory expulsion via Westmont’s perceived sudden death “double secret academic probation” as most people expected. In fact, Trey Hathaway, never missed a class before his disappearance and in fact, despite his ardent theological conservatism made the deans list a couple times during his tenure at Westmont despite his constant daily pilgrimages to various surfer hot spots up and down the coast of Southern California.
Before he went missing a semester before his graduation, Trey received a scholarship to for graduate studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and an academic award for his senior thesis entitled, “A Theological Analysis of the Athanasius/Arius Christology Controversy Leading Up to the Council of Nicaea.” Pretty heady stuff for someone I had picked as a slacker surf punk who had managed not to flunk out of school because of his family name and prodigious stock portfolio. Everywhere on Campus, seemingly everyone had an opinion of Trey Hathaway and almost everyone either really loved him or hated him and absolutely no one doubted that he was serious about his conservative Evangelical religious convictions despite, the fact that when did make an appearance on campus he always wore the same board shorts and was always trying to persuade people to side with him about his religious convictions.
While heading to his dorm room in an attempt to find evidence leading up to Trey’s disappearance, I met an enigmatic student they called “Jazz” hanging out, strumming his guitar by some outdoor benches down by the campus library. Jazz was the kind of kid that played his guitar all night with various Evangelical worship bands around Ventura County and didn’t get wake up each day until mid afternoon, but Jazz was the most insightful of the students I interviewed as to the possibility of Trey’s whereabouts. Despite his almost unintelligible monosyllables uttered beneath his ubiquitous custom made surf beanie and extremely long jet black hair, Jazz managed to convey to me that the best place to start looking for Trey was at the location of one of his many intercollegiate mission’s trips.
It all made sense, since it just didn’t add up that a kid like Trey could or would simply disappear midway in the semester before his graduation. I then decided to take a look at his dorm room some of the kids called, the “Bomb Shelter” because of its rather unkempt condition. I found out earlier that Trey, as a graduating senior, was actually supposed to be living at an expensive upscale apartment complex across town, but Trey pocketed the money Ingrid gave to him for the years rent in order to spend on, surfing wax, In and Out Hamburgers, sponsoring children overseas and for one of his coming missions trips to Africa.
I arrived at the “Bomb Shelter” about 4:30 in the afternoon about a week after Mrs. Hathaway first approached and true to its reputation or infamy, Trey’s room was uncannily decrepit for a dormitory located on such a pristine and upscale campus like Westmont College. The door was half open when I attempted to knock and when no one came to the door after knocking for a minute or so, I managed to peek in the room to look for any semblance of life under the swirling maelstrom of mattresses, scattered paperwork, dirty clothes, discarded energy bottles and paperback books that were strewed about the floor in one monstrous heap.
After surveying Trey’s former residence, I surmised that I was not going to find anyone to interview amidst the carnage and was about to leave when, up from the abyss of discarded rubble, a sign of life managed to emerge from under the chaos. Ascending up from the twisted conglomeration of mission’s magazines, outdated copies of National Geographic, intertwined rubble, another mop haired kid named Peter ascended from the heap to greet me. After introducing myself as the private investigator hired by Trey Hathaway’s mother to investigate Trey’s whereabouts, Peter provided me with some very insightful information that started to add up and make sense as to where Trey could possibly be located.
Peter Phillips, whose father was a famous gynecologist from Bel Air was talking a mile a minute (I was surprised that the Santa Barbra Police Department never interviewed this kid in their two week investigation) about one piece of irrelevant information or another about Trey when I surveyed several discarded plane tickets laying amidst the trash and unwashed clothes. After kicking the heap a bit, I uncovered a few more ticket stubs and plane ticket receipts that had a demonstrable pattern: All the plane tickets were booked to and from the African country of Uganda.
Peter went on to communicate to me that Trey had been a state champion water polo player who had received scholarships to such big time programs such as Stanford and UCLA, but chose Westmont instead, in order to be by a school where he could take Biblical Greek and Hebrew while being near a beach where he could surf every day. Sadly, Trey dropped off the team when he industrious parents failed to attend of his match’s during his freshman year. In fact, his father forgot to call him at Westmont the last six months before Trey’s disappearance.
Trey managed and directed his attention and energies to various Evangelical missions’ trips sponsored by Redeemer Presbyterian Church near campus. Trey resolutely refused to participate in any of Westmont’s school sponsored trips, citing his disapproval of these endeavors theologically liberal and ecumenical bent. Trey got in a bit of trouble as a sophomore when he walked out of a theology class taught by a liberal feminist inclined woman with a PhD.D from Duke University who was allegedly living with a female partner who worked for the ACLU.
After questioning Peter and other kids like Jazz on campus, it became clear to me that Peter had an obsession with helping the Night Commuter children of Sudan whom he visited and ministered the Gospel to on four consecutive school breaks from his studies and surfing up at Westmont and it became apparent to me that he may have booked a flight to Uganda in order to continue his ministry amongst the Sudanese refugee children who were fleeing the murderous band of thugs known as the LRA. who were torching and killing whole villages of people in a war like genocidal frenzy.
After doing several more interviews amongst Trey’s peers at Westmont, it became apparent that Trey was now in Uganda working with the Night Commuters and had inexplicably dropped out of college during his last semester, despite his impending scholarship to Westminster Theological Seminary. Trey was above everything else in life a radical, who lived and ministered like he surfed on the edge of destruction. While nothing in his pampered past living in a gated community in southern Orange County California prepared him for his ministry amongst the poorest of poor in Africa , something about the plight of the Sudanese Refugee Kids on the run from the evil LRA
When I finally arrived in the last Ugandan Village after enduring three long plane rides, and a ten hour plane ride, Trey was reported to have been last spotted (he was hard to miss, a mop haired blond kid from the suburbs of Orange County in his board shorts and surf tee shirts), many of the refugees cried when they communicated to me through an interpreter that Trey had been captured and killed by a band of Muslim extremists after he refused to convert to Islam. With the help of some friendly villagers, in the middle of the night, we located Trey’s freshly dug unmarked gravesite. When daylight broke, I saw something consisting of incomprehensible evil: as far as my eyes could see, I saw rows and rows of similarly unmarked graves, all victims of the same fate that befell Trey, the Westmont Surfer Kid from Orange County , slain by Islamic extremists like thousands of others each year. The liberal news media does not tell us the ghastly fact that this type of genocide is occurring in Darfur and other regions all around the world. More Christians have died at the hands of Muslim extremists in the last century than all the centuries previously combined.
I am a hardened, non church going man, but I cried like a baby when I saw his mother and kids like Jazz from Westmont when I arrived at the airport with Trey’s body, a Martyr of the Lord Jesus Christ.
After the funeral, I resumed my work down at the office on Hollywood and Vine and it was just another Thursday Night, just after ten, when Ingrid walked into my office again. This time she had a book in her hands, when I looked closely at what she was giving me, I recognized that she had handed me Trey’s Bible as a gift. Inscribed in Trey’s handwriting on the second page is a Bible verse and the following words of the famous missionary who died trying to reach the Auca Indians in the dense jungles of Ecuador,
“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to keep what he cannot lose.”
Jim Elliot
The Bible verse read,
“Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit, he who desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life in this world shall gain eternal life.”
Jesus Christ
John 12: 24
