The Oasis Church of Watts - Los Angeles, California
A Psalm of the sons of Korah. A Song. His foundation is in the holy mountains....Selah. - Pslam 87:1, NASB
"You sure it was Dr. King's church that called, Pastor? The Dr. King's Church? The one in Atlanta, Rakim?"
For the thousandth time, Rakim shook his head and quietly sighed; ever since he had gotten the call from a senior pastor at Atlanta's landmark Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself had preached at during the height of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's-1960's, everyone that worked at the Oasis Church either in the church's ministry or in either the church's thrift store and food bank had come and asked him about it and each time, Rakim quietly said in a sonorous tone of voice, "Yes, Matthew, it was the - the! - Ebenezer Baptist Church that I've been asked to preach at this weekend." After a moment, he turned and added, "I'll be alright, my son; your father knows where the pastoral sermons are at and I'll grab a bite to eat and lots of water before getting on the airliner for Hartsfield-Jackson," adding, "at least it'll be more humid than here in sunny L.A."
After several more minutes of packing, Rakim closed his carry-on luggage and zipped it shut - unlike most L.A. area ministers, Rev. Ellis lived at his church, eschewing the trappings of an L.A. commuter lifestyle for living in and amongst the people of his youth, in the same communities that his father had seen go up in flames during the Watts Riots and then, in his generation, went up again following the Rodney King verdicts, but here he stayed, ministering to the people ...caring for them, tending to their wounds, their pains, preaching to the fiends and breaking bread with the streets of South L.A. It was a life worthy of a man possessed with the mutant power of vocality, which Rev. Ellis knew as "the Holy Voice".
With his voice, Rakim knew he could heal, purify and cleanse anyone....but he also knew his voice could wound, injure, even kill or destroy living and non-living organisms. It was a power made for a preacher and Ellis knew he came from a long line of men in his family tree who were possessed of this mutant gene, this vocal power....at first, it had frightened him to know of this, but as he leaned to harness his power, he also knew that his life's work was set: he would follow his father into the ministry. Looking around, he saw the time and said to his colleague, "Go ahead and call a taxi - Uber, Lyft, it don't matter - and we'll wait outside; the sooner I can get to the airport and get through security, the sooner I can eat and relax for my flight..." As they headed outside, neither Rev. Ellis or his associate could know that things were about to change for the Preacher...and that his powers would be put to the test, in more ways than one.
West Hollywood, Ca."What's on tap for today?" Hannah asked her assistant, a young earnest woman who was walking alongside her as they with the stone three-story building in the heart of West Hollywood that housed the offices of the West Coast Register, a Western U.S.-based mutant rights organization. Equal in stature to the East Coast-based Five Boroughs Mutant Rights League, the WCR had the same general goals as their East Coast counterparts but differed greatly in how to achieve those goals; the East Coast groups believed in working within the system to achieve thee ultimate goal of full mutant equality in America....groups like the West Coast Register, however, believed those rights were theirs for the taking and that if the System weren't going to be accommodating enough to grant them those rights, they'd take those rights as their birthright, regardless of the consequence.
While this put them at odds with other civil rights groups, they had one major ally that they could count on down in South L.A.,.. "Well," Fiona Bierce, Hannah's assistant and fellow WCR member, "you've got meeting all day with city officials--"
"Ahhhhh," Hannah growled silently; though the Register were big supporters of the West Hollywood Mayor, there was some friction between city officials and Register members over recent mutant rights protests, friction that sometimes drove the normally free-wheeling Hannah into minor bouts of depression. If they couldn't find allies in West Hollywood of all places, she often mused, where are they to be found?
"And you've got a trip down to South L.A. to meet Reverend Ellis," Fiona continued, "to discuss first steps on that March on Washington thing." That made Hannah smile broadly; there'd been talk throughout the mutant community of a March in the nation's capital sometime in the Summer of 2018, a replay of the famous 1963 March on Washington. So far, according to Hannah's thoughts, only the West Coast-based mutant rights groups were working on it; only a few scattered some Eastern groups - mainly down South - were supportive of it. For some reason, she thought as they reached Hannah's car, parked outside the Register building, none of the East Coast wanted to upset the powers that be....well, Hannah mused, as they pulled out of traffic and begin making their way down towards Watts...we'll make them car, one way or the other.
"This, my body you see before you? This is not me...this is merely a form, a shape I must assume amongst you mere mortal humans. My true shape...is but the stuff of Lovecraftian legend." - Hannah Lerios - West Hollywood, Ca.
