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The day Wall Street crashed, my friend Howard just smiled, because he had a secret.

Black Monday

by Chuck Burkeen

"STOCK MARKET CRASH!" the newspapers and radio trumpeted. People panicked as their hopes for the future crumbled along with the value of their savings. A number of businessmen leaped to their death from skyscrapers.

But on that day--October 28, 1929, known as Black Monday--my friend Howard just smiled. In fact, he whistled "Happy Days Are Here Again" as he closed up his filling station that evening. Howard knew that the crash would bring him more business than ever.

Howard sold gasoline at his station, but only as a front for his bootlegging operation. This was during the Prohibition, and he made illegal alcohol. Howard knew that when times got hard, people bought more booze to drown their sorrows.

He had the perfect setup. His clients drove in, filled up with both his products, signed an IOU ticket, and drove out. Then at the beginning of the month, Howard sent one of his station attendants around to collect on the IOUs.

Howard's wife enjoyed his prosperity too. After the crash, she bought a new car and a mink coat, and became the toast of her community.

But then she heard of a way to become even richer. The Mafia had moved into Howard's territory, and they offered to buy Howard's booze for twice his usual asking price.

Howard knew better than to get mixed up with them and said, "No, thanks."

But his wife pressured him, threatening, "If you don't join them, then I'll leave you!"

Howard had heard this threat from her so many times that he simply answered, "OK, go. Just leave me alone."

And this time she did. But not before getting her revenge.

Howard usually sent his attendant to collect the IOUs on the first day of the month. None of his clients seemed to suspect anything when Howard's wife showed up and collected on the last day of the month.

When Howard's assistant showed up the next day, he discovered that Howard's wife had already skimmed all the money.

Suddenly Howard was broke. He had to sell his illegal distillery to pay the oil company what he owed for gasoline. That didn't leave him enough to pay his lease on the building, so in a matter of days he lost his station, too.

Howard's wife left him not only penniless but with their 6-month-old baby to support. No welfare system existed then, so when the baby became sick and malnourished, Howard couldn't afford to go to the doctor or buy medicines. So the baby died.

Now Howard had fallen from the top of the world to the depths of despair. He thought things couldn't get worse.

But he found out otherwise. When his wife heard about the baby's death, she concocted a story that Howard had starved and then beaten the child to death. Being a rich socialite with connections in the mob, which in turn had connections in the district attorney's office and the courts, she convinced the authorities to arrest Howard.

Howard decided to tell the whole truth and throw himself on the mercy of the court. But the prosecutor took advantage of Howard's confession of being a bootlegger, simply adding it to his wife's accusations. The jury convicted Howard of murder, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Many of the inmates in prison had been abused as children, so they didn't take kindly to Howard's conviction as a child abuser and murderer. They shunned him on good days and beat him on bad days. He had no friends to protect him, and the guards didn't care if he lived or died.

With nowhere else to turn, he went to the prison chapel to pray. There he met a Seventh-day Adventist Christian inmate who invited him to a Sabbath worship service. Howard agreed to go.

At the service the speaker had chosen "The Judgment" as his topic. Howard had had enough of courts and judgment, so he got up to leave. But on the way out he heard this verse: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (1 John 2:1).

Howard sat down again, thinking, Oh, great, another court-appointed attorney. But he listened a little longer.

The preacher described a court, scene from Zechariah 3. Joshua the high priest stood in God's court while Satan threw a collection of true and false accusations against him.

Boy, this sounds familiar, Howard thought. I hope Joshua is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

But in a strange twist to the story, the Judge (God the Father) told the prosecutor (Satan) to shut up! Then the court-appointed Attorney (Jesus) took away all of Joshua's crimes and gave him a clean slate.

Howard began to get excited. After the sermon he asked his new friend, "If I have this Jesus guy on my side, then I'll get a fair trial in heaven, right?"

"No," the man said. "If you got a fair trial you'd be convicted of your crimes. But Jesus wipes away all the evidence against you. He'll say you're innocent. And God, the judge, will listen to whatever Jesus says. If you give your heart to Jesus, the Judge will ignore your past crimes and set you free."

Howard gave his heart to Jesus then and never missed a chapel after that, not for 56 years.

He was scheduled to be released from prison on September 19, 1986, but in March of that year, at the age of 84, Howard had a heart attack.

When I visited him in the hospital, he said to me, "I'd sure like to get out and live outside the walls for a while. But even though I may never live as a free man again, I know I will die one."

Howard did recover and leave prison in September 1986. He regularly attended a Seventh-day Adventist church on the outside as a free man until his death in 1990.

Before his death, Howard spoke to me about that one more court date he knew he faced: the judgment day. But this one, he said, he could look forward to. For in that court he'll get another unfair trial--unfair in his favor. Jesus, the Son of God, will be his attorney. And when the Son sets you free, my friend Howard told me, you are completely free.

Chuck Burkeen's story about Howard won second place in the general story category of the 1994 INSIGHT writing contest.