by Bill Myers
“Uh, yes, we, that is—”
“We used to be married,” Suzanne explained, “a long time ago. Conrad Davis, meet Eli Shepherd.”
The two shook. Eli’s grip was firm, his hands somewhat rough and callused.
“That was quite a stunt you pulled over there,” Conrad said.
Eli’s sparkle did not disappear. “By the looks of things you and your crew have it all on tape.”
“Probably.”
“And if I’m lucky I might be able to make some late-night filler piece.”
Conrad smiled at his candidness. “If you’re lucky.”
Eli grinned and pretended to quote a headline. “‘Con Artist Fools Hundreds, film at eleven.’” There was no malice in his eyes, just good-natured bantering.
Conrad couldn’t help smiling back. “That’s how it works.
Of course if you’re the real deal, well, now, I’d have myself quite a story, wouldn’t I?”
“At least worthy of Jerry Springer.”
Again Conrad smiled. Despite himself, he was beginning to like this kid. “Suzanne says you do that sort of thing all the time.”
Eli said nothing, but looked over to the crowd and the game that was just starting. “The world’s full of sickness, Conrad.” The sparkle faded slightly from his eyes. “Unfortunately, most of it is not physical.”
“And you think you can change that?”
Eli turned back to him. “I came into the world to change that.” He held his gaze. For the briefest moment Conrad wasn’t sure he could look away, even if he wanted. Sensing hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 48
48 his discomfort, Eli’s smile reappeared. “It was good talking with you, Conrad.” He patted him on the shoulder and started to pass. “But my team’s up to bat and ol’ Jake’s at the plate.”
He motioned to the burly man he’d thanked earlier for the use of the RV. “The poor guy’s about zero for forty right now, so I think he could stand a little coaching. I hope we can talk again.”
“Me, too,” Conrad said. “Oh, and about that tape.” Eli turned. “If what you’re doing is the real McCoy, I could get you some quality exposure.”
“Thanks.” Eli grinned. “Don’t need it.” Then on second thought he added, “But if it’s good for you, feel free. In fact, the sooner, the better.”
The response surprised Conrad. “Why? What’s the hurry?”
“I’m afraid neither you nor I have that much time left, Conrad Davis.” With that, Eli turned and headed toward the backstop.
The comment left Conrad uneasy, as uneasy as when their eyes had first connected. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but if there was the slightest possibility that this Eli was who he thought he might be . . . considering Endo’s theory, considering what he’d seen and heard at the river baptism, considering what he’d experienced in that seventies motel laundry room . . . then was there also a chance that Eli knew who he was, and where he’d come from? No. Conrad shook his head.
Such things were not possible.
“Hey, Jake,” Eli called as he approached the backstop.
“’Sup?” Jake shouted, throwing a look over his shoulder, then taking a few practice swings.
“If I were you, I’d keep my eye open for a high lob, outside corner.”
The big man turned to him. He coughed then spit.
“What?”
“The next one’s going to be on the outside corner.”
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“Come on, Eli!” It was the pitcher. He was about the same age as Jake, with the same ruddy features, but with a good fifty pounds less bulk. “That ain’t fair.”
Eli chuckled. “Throw what you want, Robert. I’m just trying to even the odds a little for big brother here.” Turning back to Jake he repeated, “Watch for the high lob, outside corner.”
Jake scowled and took a couple more practice swings.
“But he knows you told me.”
Eli shrugged. “It’s your choice. I’m just making a suggestion.”
Jake looked back at Eli again, obviously sizing him up.
Then, turning, he gripped the bat, crouched down, and got ready to swing.
Up on the mound Robert turned the ball around and around in his glove. Then he rolled his head and squinted at the plate. Apparently this was all part of his pitching ritual—
more for superstition and luck than expertise and concentration.
“Come on, Jake!” one of the kids from his team cried. “Lay into it! Rip a good one!”
Conrad watched. Obviously, no one knew for certain what Robert would throw to his brother. Still, given Jake’s batting average and the amount of muscle and flesh that he had to move, the big guy needed all the help he could get. But the fact that Eli had broadcast it for everyone to hear made an outside lob anything but likely. Or did it?
After finishing his ritual, Robert finally tossed the first pitch of the game.
Anticipating an outside corner lob, Jake stepped forward.
He guessed correctly. He took a hefty swing, grunting like a wounded beast, and to everyone’s astonishment, he connected.
The bat cracked and the ball sailed high into the sun.
His teammates clapped and cheered. So did those in the bleachers. So did Eli.
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And Jake? Jake stood, absolutely mesmerized, watching the ball slowly arch over the right field fence and roll to a stop in the farmer’s field.
“Run, Jake!” a boy on his team cried. Others joined in.
“Run, Jake! Run!”
But Jake did not run. Instead, he turned to Eli who continued to watch and grin from behind the backstop.
“Run!” By now his entire team was shouting. “Run, Jake!”
Realizing he still held the bat, Jake dropped it to the ground. It rang with a metallic clunk. But instead of heading for first, he started toward the backstop.
“Run, Jake!” By now the crowd had taken up the cheer.
“Run!”
But Jake did not hear. Instead, the big man lumbered around the backstop. Eli met him, laughing and slapping him on the back—until Jake threw his arms around him in a monstrous, life-threatening hug. By now everyone was laughing and cheering. Even the other team. Even Conrad. Because, whatever gift Eli may or may not have, and regardless of his seriousness of purpose . . . there was a playfulness about him.
A love that was contagious.
v
“Dad, you promised. Daddy . . .”
The nurse had been kind enough to track down something for Julia to eat . . . a little toast and some orange juice. Her head had quit spinning, and now she sat all alone in the room, just her and her father. Eventually, she knew, they would ask her permission to pull the plug. What legal procedure they would follow, she hadn’t the foggiest. But that was okay. Right now there was only the rhythmic hiss of the respirator, the green glow of the monitors above him . . . and her memories.
“Sweetheart, not now, I’m expecting a very important guest to be coming over.”
“But you said I could. You promised.”
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He looked so small in the bed with its crisp, white sheets.
So lost and vulnerable. The thick, hairy arms—“ape-man”
arms she used to tease him—the ones that had carried her, had wrapped around her in the backyard hammock, protected her during scary movies . . . now they lay unmoving with IV
needles stuck in and taped like he was some lifeless object.
His four-day beard had not been shaved, and there were still a few tufts of graying hair on the back of his neck that the ER
had missed when prepping him for the operation.
It was that hair that now had her attention.
“I know I promised, but I forgot.”
“A promise is a promise. ‘You’re only as good as your word,’ isn’t that what
you always say?”
“Jules . . .”
“Isn’t it?”
“Julia, dear.” It was her mother’s voice. “Daddy’s got a very important visitor.”
“But he promised. And you’re only as good as your word.
Right? Right!”
“She’s right,” he sighed.
The memory continued flickering through her mind. He was much younger, in his twenties. He sat on the sofa, and she stood behind him. She held his thick, curly hair in her fingers and carefully snapped in another bright red barrette.
There were at least a dozen scattered through his hair. Some red, others green or purple—plus a handful of plastic daisies, along with two pink rollers from Mom’s collection.
“How much longer?” Dad asked, squirming to glance at his watch.
“Hold still,” Julia ordered. “Just a few more to go.”
“Jules . . .”
“Okay, okay, at least let me finish this one.” He held still as she clipped in the final barrette. “There. Perfect!”
He rose and turned to her—tufts of hair sticking out in all directions, held in place by the bright hair clips. He was a masterpiece of the absurd, and she broke out laughing. It got hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 52
52 no better when he began making monster faces at her and started to chase her around the room . . . until the doorbell rang.
Suddenly the monster face froze. It glanced to its watch.
“He’s early!”
Instantly his hands shot up to his hair, yanking at the barrettes, trying to undo the clips. Some he managed to remove, most he did not.
The doorbell rang again.
“Want me to get it?” Mom called from the other room.
“No, I, uh. . . I’ve got it.” He gave Julia a look. She tried to cover her laughter but it did no good.
The bell rang a third time. With resignation and a heavy sigh, Dad headed for the door. Julia turned and started for cover, but he grabbed her hand. “Oh, no, you’re in on this, too.”
“Daddy,” she squealed, protesting in delight. “Let me go, let me go!”
But he did not let go. He reached for the handle and opened it. Before them stood a tall, distinguished gentleman.
A gentleman Julia had seen a hundred times on television.
Yet she had never seen him with such a surprised look as he had that morning when seeing her father.
He cleared his throat and in a deep resonating voice asked, “Do I have the right time?”
Dad grinned sheepishly. “Yes, sir, I’m afraid you do.”
Then glancing down at Julia, he said, “I’d like you to meet my new hairdresser. Julia Davis, this is Walter Cronkite. Mr.
Cronkite, my daughter, Julia Davis.”
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C H A P T E R
T H R E E
“STAND BY TO ROLL TAPE,” THE DIRECTOR ORDERED.
The technical director, a thin, nervous fellow with glasses, punched an illuminated button on the console before him and repeated the order into his headset. “Intro tape, stand by.”
Conrad and Suzanne stood behind the two men at the board. A third, the effects operator, a pudgy individual with an embarrassing comb-over, sat to their right, while two college-aged production assistants, male and female, hovered near the back doing their best to appear cool and nonchalant.
The room was dim, lit by a single row of track lights running along a low, black ceiling. The only other illumination came from the TV monitors forming a wall in front of them. Most were black and white. Two were somewhat larger and in color—the program monitor, which displayed what would be on the show, and the preview monitor, displaying what the director planned to cut to next.
Up on the program monitor, Charlene Marshal, host of her own TV talk show, looked directly into the camera and read the prompter mounted in front of it. She was an attractive red-head, early thirties, with just enough compassion and charm to woo her guests into revealing intimate secrets, but enough 53
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54 grit and determination to steadily rise in the ratings. At the moment, her TV-Q was a solid 65 percent. She wasn’t at the top of the heap yet, but as the network continued to promote and send stories down to her, it wouldn’t be long.
“—a young man who has been creating quite a stir these past several months,” she said to the camera, “and who we are honored to have as our next guest. But before we bring him out, let’s take just a moment to show him in action.”
The director dropped his index finger and the technical director gave the command. “Roll tape.”
In the room behind them, the VTR operator hit play, and the footage that Ned had taped at the softball field began to roll. Eli had been right—network didn’t consider him worthy of hard news, but he was definite fodder for afternoon talk shows. Conrad wasn’t crazy about passing the segment down to this level, but after his debacle with the parallel universe story, he thought it best to lay low and be a team player.
The parallel universe story . . . as far as he could tell, that had been about the only major difference between this new world he was living in and his old one. Apparently, in this new world, he had decided not to pursue the story any further, he had not gone up to Camarillo, and he had not been involved in a serious car accident. In fact, upon his return from the Oregon softball game just ten days ago, he’d found the Jaguar, complete with sun-rotten wiper blades, unscathed and sitting in the same LAX parking lot that he always parked in when he flew out of town on his trips. He even had the parking stub in his wallet.
The same was true with every other area of his life. Everything was exactly as it had been—the same messy divorce with Roseanne, the same dirty dishes in the sink, the same shark-infested waters at work. It was remarkable. Uncanny.
And in some ways, almost comforting. Because gradually, as Conrad remained in this new world, as the minutes turned to hours and now to days, it grew more and more difficult to believe there actually had been another one, one of automo-hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 55
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bile accidents and hospitalization. Granted, the idea still haunted him, forcing him to question if he was living out some elaborate fantasy or self-generated hallucination. In fact during those first few days he had even tried to jerk or startle himself back into his old world. But he’d met no success.
Then there were those calls to the California State Patrol as well as to the hospitals surrounding the Camarillo area—
Saint John’s, Conejo Valley Medical Center, and others. But the information was always the same. There had been no accident involving a Conrad Davis, and no patient by that name had been admitted. So, gradually, as the days unfolded, he found himself wondering more and more which reality was the real world and which one was the fantasy.
Apparently, whatever reality he’d experienced before, if it was a reality, no longer existed. At least not in this world.
Because in this world, except for the auto accident and hospitalization, everything was exactly as it had been.
Well, almost exactly . . .
There were two other differences. First, Suzanne’s change of faith. She’d always been a devout Christian. But now, she’d suddenly jumped ship and embraced a new Messiah. Not only that, but she kept denying that she’d ever heard the name of Jesus Christ. It was more than a little surprising. But not as surprising as the reason . . .
Conrad had had his suspicions ever since the baptism scene in Eastern Washington—actually ever since he’d seen (or imagined he’d seen) the baby in the laundry room of that earlier, 1970 Santa Monica. He’d barely returned to his home in Pasadena and unpacked before he headed to a bookshelf and dug out an old Bible—an old Bible that, to his surprise, appeared to have never included the New Testament. A Bible that simply ended with the book of Malachi—no Matthew, Mark, Luke or whatever, no mention of Jesus Christ and his disciples, and no epistles. And it wasn’t just his Bible.
Every Bible he ran across, from hotel rooms to bookstores, had the same omissions. It was as if the gospel had never occurred.
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Charlene’s voice came up over the speaker. It was the audio piece he’d written and that she’d recorded earlier that morning. Over the taped footage from the softball field she spoke of Eli Shepherd, of his rising popularity and fame, and of his supposed gift of healing.
“Supposed?” Suzanne nudged Conrad.
He smiled. “Got to maintain some objectivity.”
She cut him a glance.
“Just keep watching,” he said.
Suzanne had come down from San Jose yesterday afternoon with Eli and his band of rag-tag followers. They weren’t organized—just an assortment of campers, RVs, and cars, about a dozen and a half, that had slowly been making their way down the coast. When Conrad heard of their arrival he swung by and tried to convince Suzanne to stay at the house.
That way she wouldn’t have to pay for a motel or sleep in some RV. She could stay in Julia’s old room.
Of course she declined. And he certainly understood, what with Roseanne gone and just the two of them alone. But he also understood something else. Felt it, really. That connection. Yes, he needed her presence up at the softball game, back when he was getting his bearings. But, even after he had returned home, even after he’d grown used to the situation and had settled back into his routine, he found himself thinking about her. Often, several times a day.
He’d heard that could be the case with first loves. And they were each other’s first loves—high-school sweethearts.
Of course he’d thought about her from time to time throughout the years. But this was different. More frequent. More . . .
distracting. And now that he was single again and since she had never remarried, maybe they could—
Stop it, he scolded himself. What are you doing? She’s too good for you, you know that. And so does she. It was a painful truth, but one he’d forced himself to accept. As difficult as it was, he knew there were simply some things that could not be changed.
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