TOM AND JERRY
By Rick Mathes
The joy of birthing was a double blessing to the exhausted mother, having given birth to two healthy sons. Identical twins! They were so similar that a ribbon was placed around little Jerry’s wrist so that his daddy could tell which one Tom was.
In time they were snuggled in at home and differing characteristics began to be obvious. Jerry was always happy, ate well and slept through the night, while Tome was cranky, had colic and cried all through the night. As years passed by and kindergarten began, Jerry was buddies with everyone and happily shared his toys while Tom was constantly fighting and hitting his playmates with anything handy. Soon the pre-teen time arrived with Jerry attending Bible studies and praying for Tom. Meanwhile, Tom had lost his virginity, was stealing and smoking crack. Well into the young adult years, Jerry became a church youth leader while Tom was selling drugs, pimping for whores and carrying a pistol. Jerry soon graduated from college, started a family and was a respected deacon in his church, still continuing to pray daily for Tom to be born again.
The contrast in their lives grew even sharper as Tom’s drug addiction caused him to begin a crime spree of robbing and killing innocent bystanders.
One night the police received a tip that Tom was planning to hold up a crack house so they sent two armed policemen to apprehend him while the crime was in progress. Tom crashed through the door, shot the drug dealer dead and filled his pockets with all the dope and cash he could carry. But as he turned to leave the two cops burst through the doorway with pistols drawn. Tom shot them both dead and escaped on a motorcycle he had parked nearby. He was not a cop-killer!
The syndicate and police were both after him dead or alive, either one would do. He had made the top tem most wanted list! Tom robbed, shot and killed his way across the country with nowhere to go, not even to his heroin sources. Exhausted, yellow eyed, shaking and deathly sick, lost in the swampy woods, he put the barrel of his gun into his mouth. “I’ll never hear the bang,” he thought. At that moment he remembered his only friend in the whole world, his brother Jerry.
Determined to see his brother one last time, he found renewed strength to sleep by day and hitchhike by nightfall, finally reaching his brothers home late one evening.
Jerry was startled by the midnight knocking on his back door. Cautiously, he looked out and faintly saw his long lost brother Tom! He threw open the door to greet what was left of the twin brother he once knew. Tom had become almost toothless, skin and bone, vomiting blood. Jerry helped him to the shower, scrubbed him down and then led him back to the kitchen in fresh pajamas, to a hot meal his wife had prepared and then slipped away so they could be alone together.
There they sat at the kitchen table. Tom and Jerry. Darkness and light. Identical twins.
Tom poured out his heart as Jerry intently listened and silently prayed for Tom’s salvation as he had done so countless times over the years. Meal completed and in a flood of tears, the brothers knelt on that had wood floor and Tom asked Jesus to be the Lord of his life. True, heartfelt repentance. The Angels were rejoicing at this extraordinary trophy for the Lord.
Jerry made a bed for Tom on the living room couch and Tom settled down to the first good nights sleep he had had in months. As the morning dawned, Tom awoke and panic stricken could not find his brother Jerry anywhere in the house. Jerry’s wife said, “He went to see your judge.”
The judge! Tom’s mind went ballistic. The judge was the last human on earth that he would ever want to meet up with. The “Hanging Judge” had vowed not to retire until he convicted Tom and personally watched him die by hanging! No one on earth hated Tom more than the Judge. And Jerry, his twin brother, had gone to see him. Blind with confusion and terror, Tom quickly dressed and drove their second car to the courthouse. The last place on earth Tom could ever dream of going was into the private chambers of the judge. A nightmare come true. But that was exactly what he did as he pushed the secretary aside and burst his way through the thick oak double doors.
The silver haired Magistrate was seated at his large imposing hand carved desk, head on arms as Tom shrieked, “Where is my brother?” He continued, “I’m finally here. I’m Tom, the cop-killer you vowed to hang!” All the slump shouldered old judge could manage to say at this point was, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God no!” Tom shook the judge as he demanded, “Where is my brother Jerry? Tell me right now!”
The judge began calmly, “Around 3am I was summoned to the court room because your brother Jerry had surrendered himself to the authorities. You both are perfectly identical twins, you know. I convened court, found him guilty of first degree murder as charged and he was executed by hanging less than an hour ago.”
Tom broke down screaming and crying, “You’ve killed an innocent man for my crimes! I’m the one you want! Hang me!”
The judge replied, “We’ve completely destroyed all of your records. You don’t even have a parking ticket.”
Tom, still dazed replied, “What an I going to do now?”
The haggard old judge thought for a moment and then wisely suggested, “An innocent man was executed in your place. He paid in full for the punishment that you deserve.” He went on, “I would suggest that you live out the rest of your life as Jerry would have lived his life. He died so that you might live. Live you life in memory of him.”
Rick Mathes 