Prophet (9 page)

The warehouse looked like it had to contain close to anything and everything in the world having to do with plumbing. If Dad Barrett or his four employees couldn’t find it somewhere in all those rows of carefully labeled racks, shelves, bins, and boxes, they could sure find something else that would work just as well if not better. Cast iron? No problem. Copper? PVC? ABS? CPVC? They had racks of the stuff both in the warehouse and in the yard out back.

Yeah
, thought John as he eased his Mercedes into the gravel parking area,
Dad knows how to run a warehouse and turn a profit
. But that’s the part that didn’t make sense. How could a man who worked so hard and did so well as a businessman be so irresponsible with his public image? Hey, marching in a pro-life march and holding a sign was no big deal; even respectable people did that. But this “mad prophet” stuff, this highly visible, public preaching, was getting to be an embarrassment, especially Dad’s vendetta against Governor Slater. It seemed everywhere Slater appeared publicly, Dad was there as well. Slater was even starting to recognize him, and this last time Dad even made it into the governor’s speech.

John turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, trying to keep cool. It was difficult. All he had to do was think of Dad’s embarrassing behavior and how the resulting stress triggered that ridiculous hallucination last night, and his anger returned. The cops and Benny had to think he was a lunatic.
Thanks a lot, Dad.

Well, now they had an appointment. John had called Dad that morning to say nothing more than “I’ll be there to see you at noon,” and Dad said okay, and now it was noon. John got out of the car and went around to the front entrance.

The front door had a window so covered with product posters and ads you couldn’t see inside. John swung the door open and triggered the electric eye so that the old buzzer buzzed to let someone know he was there. Not that anyone paid that much notice. The front counter always had plenty of plumbing contractors leaning against it like cowboys in a saloon, asking for obscure parts, placing and picking
up orders, swapping stories. Buddy Clemens, the skinny little salesman with the glasses and suspenders, was manning the counter as usual, and right now Jimmie Lopez, the beefy warehouse worker, was helping out. The walls and counter were plastered with more product posters, everything from septic system distribution boxes to fine, gold-plated bathtub faucets. No girls though. Dad never allowed any girlie ads.

Buddy spotted John and smiled a hello, which John returned. Jimmie had his nose in a thick catalog and didn’t even look up.

John went around the end of the counter, right at home in this place. “Where’s Dad?”

Buddy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Back in the office, I think.” He went back to his customer.

John ducked down Aisle 7, the shelves of brass fittings towering on either side of him.

Buddy stole a glance at Jimmie and wiggled his eyebrows. “Here come the fireworks.”

Jimmie looked back to see John walking briskly down Aisle 7. He said to his customer, “Just a second” and ducked down Aisle 7 himself.

“Johnny,” he called not too loudly. John was trying to build some momentum, working up to the task. He didn’t like having to stop and turn.

Jimmie caught up with him and spoke softly. “I know it’s none of my business, but if it’ll help . . . your old man’s really broke up about what happened. He only talked to one salesman early this morning, and he hasn’t come out of the office since. I mean, he’s hurting. And I don’t know why I’m saying this . . . I mean, it’s none of my business, but . . . I guess I just want to ask you to go easy on him.”

This was typical. As nutty as Dad could be, people who knew him liked him. Maybe Jimmie’s plea helped John ease up . . . a little. He answered politely, “Okay, Jimmie. Thanks.”

“Thanks, man.” Jimmie hurried back to his customer.

John went back to building up momentum. He emerged at the other end of the aisle and paused for Chuck Keitzman to go lumbering by on the forklift, hauling a huge bundle of galvanized pipe to the loading dock. That machine had to be as old as John by now, still working, still smelling up the place with exhaust.

And there, back in the corner of the huge room, was the office, a
structure within a structure, several rooms framed in, drywalled, and painted a nondescript off-white. John went to the main door, marked “Office—KEEP DOOR CLOSED,” and went in, closing the door behind him.

Jill the bookkeeper, a sweet and bubbly, heavy-set gal, greeted him with “Hi, Johnny. He’s back in his office” and then watched with inordinate curiosity as he walked back to the door marked, “THE BOSS.”

It was ajar. He knocked gently.

“Yeah, come on in, son.”

John looked toward the front of the office, and Jill jerked her head back toward her work. He went inside.

Dad was behind his desk, wearing the same blue coveralls with his name stitched on the left breast. The desk was cluttered with invoices, orders, and a few catalogs, but on top of all that was a portable cassette player with headphones. As John came in, Dad picked up the cassette player and stowed it in a drawer. His eyes were red from crying.

John noted Dad’s emotional state, but he was armed for bear nevertheless. “Well . . . I was going to take you to lunch, but perhaps . . .”

“Son, if you don’t mind, I’ve had Jill order us some sandwiches. I figured we’d better just talk in here . . .”

John was quick to agree. “Yeah, I think so.”

Dad didn’t raise his voice when he said, “Jill, those sandwiches ought to be ready by now.”

“Okay, John,” she said.

“And then we’d like two coffees, all right? One black, one with sugar. Please.”

“Okay.”

Dad got up to close the door. “She’s a very attentive lady.”

He returned to his desk and eased into his chair, rubbing his eyes, then his face, exhaling a slow, mournful sigh. “It’s been quite a morning.” He forced a smile as he looked at John and gave him his full attention. “But my time is yours now, son.”

John had a decision to make. Should he end it here, forgive Dad, let it go? Or should he deliver what he had come to deliver?

It had to be done. He would deliver it. All of it. “Well, Dad, I have something to say, and I want you to listen because you need to hear it.”

Dad rested his elbows on the desk, rested his chin on his clasped
hands, and looked at his son. He was ready to listen.

John could have backed down. His father already seemed broken, not needing any more lashes, but John had anger he needed to vent, anger he’d been saving for a long time. The anger gave him strength; it drove him forward.

“I saw you on television last night. Several times. The coverage was quite thorough.”

Dad nodded.

“Even during my own newscast I saw you standing above the crowd, shouting and railing against the governor like some kind of rabble-rouser. Then I saw you get involved in a fight, a near riot that jeopardized our reporter, until the cops came and dragged you and your pro-life friends out of there. And during all that, being a professional with a duty to report the news, I had to sit there in front of thousands of people and report . . . report what an absolute fool my father was making of himself. My own father!”

Dad nodded again, his gaze dropping.

“I’m . . . I’m more than embarrassed. I’m hurt, I’m mortified, I’m slandered. I’m a public figure in this town with a reputation to preserve, and my worst enemy, my greatest liability, is my own father who just can’t seem to control his behavior in public.

“I’m not sure how many people at the station know you’re my father. My executive news producer knows, and she rubbed my nose in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had that camera aimed at you just to get at me. And then, when I saw you on the screen, I was so upset I couldn’t read the script right, I asked stupid questions, I looked tense on camera . . .”

John stopped to take a breath. He still had more. “The producers put you right out front, did you notice? Right at the top of the hour. They slapped me in the face with you. I can imagine the undercurrents going through the newsroom right now. If anyone didn’t know you were my father before this, they probably know now. I don’t know what I’m going to have to face this afternoon at work.”

John had enough anger to go on all afternoon, but not the time. He jumped to the bottom line. “So I don’t know what you’ve decided, if anything, but my input on this is simple: This kind of behavior has got to stop.
Now.
It has absolutely got to stop!”

Dad nodded a third time, then sensed the pause and asked, “May I respond?”

“You have the floor.”

Just then Jill knocked on the door.

“Come on in, Jill.”

Jill slipped in, tiptoeing for no apparent reason. She set the sandwiches and coffee on the desk ever so quietly and slipped back out, closing the door behind her.

At the moment neither man made a move for the sandwiches. Neither felt like eating.

“May I tell you what really happened out there?” Dad asked.

“I saw what happened.”

Dad hesitated at that statement, thought for a moment, then said, “Well . . . let me tell you what really happened.”

“All right, tell me. I’m listening.”

Dad leaned back in his chair and dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. “Son . . . I didn’t go to that rally because I’ve got something personal against Hiram Slater. I’m not his enemy. I was only giving him the warnings God laid on my heart. I just had to tell him.” He gave it just a little more thought and then admitted, “If I did anything wrong, it was talking in generalities. Maybe I should have been more specific.”

John couldn’t believe this. “Dad, you shouldn’t have been up there talking at all! Can’t I get that through to you?”

“But how else can I warn him?”

“Did you ever think of writing him a letter?”

“I did that. I never got anything back but a form letter that tells me he hasn’t read a word I’ve said. I’m hurting for him, son. That is one tortured man. He’s so far into the dark he’s tripping over his own lies, and now he’s deceiving others. There’s a lot of pain out there right now, and there’ll be more, and he’s going to be held accountable for a good portion of it.”

John knew arguing with that would be pointless. “Okay. Fine. But what about that fight?”

“The fight . . . I don’t know what that was all about. I don’t get into fights, and you know that. I was standing there trying to be heard . . . I guess that crowd didn’t care much to listen . . . And then two guys, two strangers, jumped into that crowd and started beating on people,
just stirring things up, cussing people out, calling them baby killers, things like that. But, son, I don’t know who they were. I’ve never seen them at any pro-life events, and they were never at the Women’s Medical Center when we’d go there to sidewalk counsel. But anyway, that crowd was already hot enough, and when those two guys started hitting people, boy, a lot of anger broke loose.”

“And you don’t think you’re to blame for that?”

“Not for the fight.” A look of resignation came across his face. “But I guess I did rile those folks a bit. I didn’t mean to, but I did.” John remained quiet, so Dad continued, “Things went wrong, son. I just wanted to say what needed to be said and hopefully be heard by someone out there, but all of a sudden here I was in the middle of a big fight, and I never asked for that. And I remember being up on that planter, trying to calm people down, and I was shaking I was so scared, and then—I don’t know where they came from, but these three big guys grabbed me and pulled me down and started muscling me out of there, and then . . .” He smiled sheepishly. “You see, I’ve got this friend named Max. He’s a big guy, a shipyard worker. We met outside the Women’s Medical Center one Friday back in July, and we’ve been close ever since. Max’ll do anything for me. The problem is, he still thinks brute force is the answer to everything, and I keep telling him he has to get over that.”

“I did see him brawling.”

Dad nodded sadly. “He was trying to protect me. But that just got us in more trouble when the police came. They dragged us out of there like common thugs, and it’s a good thing Max finally controlled himself or we both would have ended up in the pokey.”

John grimaced and took a moment to respond. He had to hold back his anger at the sheer idiocy of it all. “Dad, I hope you can see the foolishness of all this. At least admit that your actions were not cost effective, okay? For all the trouble you caused yourself and everyone else, the returns were very poor.”

“Well . . . I said what I had to say.”

John pounded the chair arm in anger and cursed. “They used you, Dad! Don’t you see that? That whole Hiram Slater bunch used you, and you helped him by what you did. You made it look like the only people who would oppose him are narrow-minded, fanatical, loudmouthed
kooks! Kooks and brawlers, and . . . and . . .” He stopped. He hadn’t come here to insult anyone. “Now I’m not saying you’re any of those things. But you don’t understand the game, Dad. You’re up against the big leaguers out there, and I don’t think you realize the power of television.”

Dad shook his head. “I didn’t mean to be on television. My words were for the people who were there, for the governor . . .”

John leaned forward and gestured in Dad’s face. “Dad, you were there, you were happening, you were visually interesting. Television viewers want something to look at, something to watch. Producers are looking for what the viewers want, and, well, you were it. You asked for it, you got it. You drew those cameras, Dad. And Slater took advantage of the whole thing—you hollering, the fight, everything. That’s because he knows television. You don’t.”

Dad thought it over and then nodded. He understood. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Well, I’m going to need more satisfaction than that, Dad. I want to know for sure—I want to hear it from your lips that you’re going to stop this public preaching-and-prophesying stuff. It isn’t working. It’s making a fool of you, a fool of me, and it’s only helping your enemies. Do you see that?”