The Third Coming

About two months ago I wrote about my adventure in the high desert and how I stumbled upon this haunting painting at a small Mexican bodega in Littlerock, CA. Weeks later I wrote about it again. Unable to put the painting of my head, I returned to Mica's (home of the high desert pork burrito) to actually purchase the painting. I gave it to an old friend thinking that would be the end of the story.

It wasn't.

Last week while working on some promos for The Early Show, I took a little break from the action and tried to look up an old high school buddy on Facebook. He didn't actually go to my high school, but I met him when I started working at the Spring Valley Jack in the Box, the first JIB ever built on the east coast.

Mark Fishman and I grew tight. He was a funny, scrappy, incredibly-intelligent kid who was way beyond his 16 years of age. When he wasn't showing me how to grill up Jumbo Jacks and Bonus Jacks, Mark was always vigorously rolling doobies. Smoking pot on the roof of Jack in the Box at 3 in the morning was always the highlight of the graveyard shift.

Our friendship lasted through college as well.

I went to Syracuse University to "study" mass communications, he went to the University of Buffalo to study civil engineering. We lost touch after that. I would do anything to reconnect with my old Jackster buddy.

But Facebook doesn't seem to be of any help.

I've scoured. I've turned over new leads. I've even managed to find other folks who used to work at the Box. No Mark Fishman. But guess what I did find? To my utter amazement and through pure randomness, out of the 500 million profiles on Facebook, I happen to come across this one...

My heart literally skipped a beat. From the ether, this eerie image of the thrice-crufied Christ has paid me one more unexpected visit. I'm a natural born skeptic so I'm not about to take up the sacrament, but I am willing to put this in writing; if this image crosses my doorstep one more time, roundseventeen will cease to exist and I'll be chanting the rosary at the nearest seminary.

Who knows, maybe that's where I'll find Mark Fishman?