Jog On Fat Barry (18 page)

“It’s your heart,” he said.

“But the doctors told me—”

I didn’t finish. I didn’t have to. I looked up at the sky.

“Can’t He do anything?”

The man with the bright blue eyes smiled.

“Then what was the point of bringing me back?” I asked.

“I can remember asking that same question myself,” he replied.

“How much time do I have?” I asked.

“Not much,” he said.

Neither of us spoke for a while.

“I got evicted while I was in hospital,” I eventually said, breaking the silence. “My rent was in arrears: couldn’t pay it while I was in a coma, so they kicked me out: boxed all my stuff up and burnt it at the city dump. Not that there was much there I cared about: some things that belonged to my parents; my books; letters from Sandra; our wedding album. But with it all gone, and me dead, there’ll be nothing left to show I was ever here to begin with.”

A woman not far from us was shouting at an imaginary friend. The man watched her for a few moments and then said I might be missing the point.

“There’s a bigger picture at play,” he said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“You brought joy into the lives of children: joy that no amount of time can ever change. And that joy, the joy of a single child, outweighs all the trinkets in the world.”

I looked at him.

“Shanley said I was a bright light in the darkness.”

“Children could hear your voice in the silence.”

“But when I’m dead, it’ll all be dark again; everything will be silent.”

“Maybe not, Pilgrim,” he smiled, watching a bird tiptoe over the lotus leaves. “Maybe not.”

When the blue-eyed man first suggested Van de Kleek, I thought he was crazy. Kleek had everything money could buy: the
Los Angeles Times
was the second largest newspaper in the country with a daily circulation of 850,000 and Kleek owned it, along with a television network and five radio stations.
Forbes
estimated his personal fortune somewhere around the $23 billion mark.

“What could I tempt him with he doesn’t already have,” I asked.

“You’ll think of something,” the blue-eyed man said.

“Even getting access to him would be a problem,” I said.

“Not at all,” the man said back. “He’s fishing with his grandson as we speak. They’re on Santa Monica pier. I can drop you there. Besides, I’ve got things I need to do: two miracles in Lourdes and a contaminated well in Botswana to put right.”

As we got back into the rental car, he asked me if he should take Olympic or the freeway. I said the freeway. For the most part we drove in silence. I had a lot on my mind and was racking my brain trying to think of what I could say to Mr. Kleek. As we left the freeway at the 4th Street exit, the blue-eyed man said there was something he needed to tell me.

“Your name never came out of a hat,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” I said back.

He parked on Ocean and fiddled with the gearshift. After a few moments he cut the engine.

“No one was picked to
clothe the naked
or
shepherd the flock
,” he said.

“You mean I wasn’t given the
truth
?” I asked.

“That isn’t the way He does things. He didn’t give you any of that stuff.”

“Who did then?”

“They did,” he said, motioning toward the floor.

“But why?”

“It’s just what they do,” he said with a shrug.

My mind drifted back to the whore in the hotel room. It felt like it had all happened a thousand years ago.

“I guess angels don’t suck cock.”

“That’s right, Pilgrim,” he said. “They don’t.”

I glanced toward the Pacific. The Ferris wheel on the pier was spinning. I got out of the car and shut the door. The blue-eyed man started up the engine.

“But He wants me to do this though, right?” I asked.

“That’s the reason He brought you back,” he said, putting the car into gear.

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

Van de Kleek wasn’t as striking as he appeared to be on TV. He was less imposing, but television cameras are habitually deceptive. He was standing on the pier baiting a hook. His grandson already had a line in the water. I stepped toward him but two bodyguards blocked my way. One grabbed me, while the other whispered something into a small microphone on the lapel of his jacket. Kleek glanced at me. The look lasted no more than a moment, but it was long enough for him to notice I was in my pyjamas and had dried vomit on my slippers. One of the bodyguards began to march me away.

“When I was your age,” I shouted over my shoulder, “respectable pelagics swam under this pier—shark, tuna, kingfish, even marlin, but not anymore. Now there ain’t nothing down there but shit and toilet paper.”

Kleek motioned for the bodyguard strong-arming me to hold up. The bodyguard relaxed his grip, and Kleek cast his bait out into the surging grey ocean.

“What is it you want?” he asked without turning around.

“Someone suggested I seek your help,” I said.

“Who was that?”

“The Son of God,” I said, after hesitating for a moment.

The bodyguards smiled. Kleek looked at me. He was stony faced. His features gave away nothing.

“I’m not what you’d call pious,” he said. “Or virtuous in any way. I always banked on the greed and stupidity of mankind, and made a fortune doing so.”

“But you’re wondering how I know what your father said to you every time you fished with him here as a boy.”

Kleek motioned for his men to let me go. They moved aside and I began to vomit. Red spots speckled the fluid I brought up. The bodyguards frowned. Kleek said I should see a doctor. I told him there wasn’t a doctor that could fix my problem. Kleek said nothing. I got my breath back after a few moments and repeated I needed his help.

“I have a proposition that might be of interest to you,” I said. “If you help me create a comic strip before I die, I’ll tell you something you couldn’t buy with all the money in the world.”

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“I can tell you the precise moment you’re going to die.”

Van de Kleek stared at me for a moment. He scratched the grey stubble on his chin and glanced at his grandson.

“What am I thinking now?” he asked.

“You’re thinking God may exist or He may not. If He does exist, you can do right by Him and get your house in order. And if He doesn’t, well, it’s only money.”

“Life’s a banquet,” Van de Kleek laughed.

“And yet people are starving in the world,” I laughed back.

“That might be so,” he said. “But you can only squeeze so many people round a table.”

The Exposer
would have a serious storyline presented in serial form. And it would be syndicated nationally. Its narrative would build up through the week in black & white, and hit pay dirt on Sunday in full colour. That’s all Van de Kleek said, and yet it was remarkable how quickly the wheels of industry turned when no expense was spared. He made a few calls. Next thing I knew, spin-doctors and psychologists and marketing specialists were corroborating with artists. Everyone toiled through the night and into the following day. Van de Kleek said if they were going to do this thing, they’d do it right, and he had people jumping through hoops at corporate headquarters just to please him.

“No… look, his jaw’s too square, and his eyes are too close. And look at his ears. Jesus!” he roared, “It’s not a fucking rabbit. It’s supposed to be a superhero. Let’s make him look like one!”

Shakespeare had his
Hamlet
and nothing was going to stop Van De Kleek having his. Half-eaten sandwiches, paper cups, water bottles, and cans of Diet Coke littered the room by morning, but Van de Kleek battled on. He said the comic strip would be in the funny pages of the LA Times the following day.

“Day One of the New Millennium, friend.”

He told me the comic strip would begin its life in LA before being syndicated nationally. Then they’d expand it globally with Europe and Asia following North America. He said they would do a radio show in South America and in Africa. There’d be a movie, and then sequels, and a cartoon series. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but there was no stopping Van de Kleek.

“Though this be madness,” he said, winking at me, “yet there is method in ‘t.”

Poppy was just leaving when I got back to the hospital. It was late; night had fallen; she wanted to know where I’d been.

“We were worried sick,” she said. “And Mr. Hill died right when you said he would. It was five minutes exactly. How did you know that?”

“It was just a lucky guess,” I said back.

She had a bottle of champagne: a gift from a patient, and asked if I wanted to share it with her.

“I’m house sitting in Venice,” she said.

“Do you think the doctors would approve?” I asked.

“Screw ‘em,” she answered. “It’s New Year’s Eve.”

You know time is up when you don’t feel things anymore. I don’t mean pain, confusion, or fear: you feel that. What I’m talking about is tangible. It’s stuff that you can put your hands on. When I got out of bed, Poppy was asleep. I went into the kitchen for a glass of water; turned on the faucet and waited for the water to get cold. But it never did.

“The worse thing about dying is you’re not alive anymore.”