Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  “Then apparently great minds think alike, Peter. Because I want us to move straight into a two-hour special.”

  Peter watched his wife blow him a kiss and start down the stairs. “JayJay Parsons and the wildfire.”

  “Introducing our new star, and incorporating the footage. Who was that young woman he saved?”

  “I have no idea. But I’ll find out. Derek shot those pictures.”

  “I’ve already spoken with Derek and secured the rights. It would be good if we could have a look at those pages of yours tomorrow.”

  “I’ll deliver them myself, Mr. Allerby.” Peter lowered his voice then added, “He saved my life as well. JayJay did.”

  “What impresses me as much as that news is the fact you and Derek were there at all. Which brings us to the next point. Where is the actor residing?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Allerby.”

  “This is absurd.” The cold edge Allerby normally kept hidden sliced over the lines. “Casting has no idea where to find him. The director labeled the footage he shot as Parsons Two. I won’t permit such shoddy work at my studio.”

  “No sir.” Peter could not quite keep the tremor from his voice.

  “We’ll know by nightfall or heads will roll. I’ll see you in my office tomorrow at nine.”

  Peter hung up the phone only to discover his wife’s head emerging above floor level. “Repeat that sentence for me. The one that mentioned JayJay Parsons saving your life.”

  “Honey—”

  “Saved your life from what?”

  “It was pretty hairy out there. The wind came out of nowhere. One minute we were . . .”

  She gave him the flat palm and the tone that absolutely halted all argument. “Do I need to remind you that you are a soon-to-be-father?”

  “No, Cynthia.”

  “With responsibilities that mean you can’t go out and be a teenager when the whim strikes?”

  “It wasn’t . . .” The palm lifted higher, as clear a warning as a wife ever made. “No, Cynthia.”

  “Good. That’s settled, then.” The hand dropped, but the tension was still in her face. “Your breakfast is ready and we’re late for church.”

  Chapter 12

  Ash and smoke drifted into the valley that Sunday morning. But the wind had died with the setting sun, and the line had held, and the homes were safe. What was more, rain was forecast for that afternoon. Thunderclouds had been building since before sunrise, or so JayJay heard as he followed the Nguyens into church. All he could see from the church’s front steps was a blanket of haze, not white, not orange. So thick most of the cars entering the church parking lot had their lights on. A lot of the talk he heard was over fear of lightning strikes.

  Robbie Robinson’s dad had brought over clothes for JayJay to wear. Word had somehow spread he had lost his home in the fire. JayJay didn’t dissuade the rumors. It was better than trying to explain what he himself did not understand.

  He recognized the preacher from the bus trip. The pastor started the service by welcoming their special visitor and thanking John Junior for saving the lives of two of their flock. The audience applauded, then those within reach smiled and shook his hand while the Nguyens beamed.

  Whatever JayJay had hoped to find in church was not there. Answers, peace, wisdom, direction. None of it. He stood and sat and sang and tried to listen. Folks stared at him here as much as they had at the studio, but he felt no less comfortable for all the attention. The Nguyens were known and liked. He was made welcome. An oddity for sure. But welcome just the same.

  Afterward the crowd coagulated around JayJay and filled the central aisle. He endured the smiles and the handshakes. And the hugs. He signed a couple of Sunday bulletins and stretched his weary face for flashing cameras and cell phones.

  Then the pastor came over, still in his robes, and asked in a loud voice, “Are we making the gentleman welcome or are we taking advantage of his kind nature?”

  There were sheepish chuckles and people began drifting away, at least most of them. A final pair of older ladies reluctantly allowed the preacher to steer them about and direct them toward the exit. The pastor then said, “I guess I’m not much different from the rest of them, sir. But I can’t let you go without thanking you for what you did yesterday. We didn’t get properly introduced on the bus. I’m Floyd Cummins. I’ve been pastoring this church for nineteen years. The Nguyens are the kind of folk I’d give my right arm to have more of. Devout, steadfast, leading by example. Their children are bright, honest, honorable. I love them like my own.”

  “I’m only into my second day with the family. But I feel pretty much the same.”

  The professional exterior slipped, the worry was exposed. “Did I do wrong, taking those kids to fight that fire?”

  “Sometimes doing the right thing means taking risks, Reverend.”

  Floyd Cummins liked that enough to say, “You strike me as a troubled man, Mr. Junior. I hope you don’t mind my speaking frankly.”

  “Can’t hardly do that, not while we’re standing in God’s house.” JayJay took a hard breath. “And not while you’re speaking the truth.”

  “Come on over here and sit down.” He steered JayJay into a pew, then scouted about and spied a departing chorister. “Janet, would you tell the Nguyens to head on home, I’ll drive Mr. Junior back myself.”

  “Sure thing, Floyd.”

  The pastor was a rugged man, with the big hands and heavy features of farming stock. “Hollywood has a habit of laying the strongest person out flat on his back.”

  “I reckon I’ve seen my share of hard times. But there ain’t nothing I’ve ever known to compare with this. All I want is to head on home and make things go back to how they were before.”

  “A lot of people would take that as a line. But I believe you’re telling me the truth.” The pastor’s gaze did not unsettle so much as peel away. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe God was behind your coming, or that He placed you here for a divine purpose?”

  That rocked JayJay back into the pew. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “We’ve known for some time Heartland is in trouble. It probably sounds silly for a pastor to be talking about television in church. But we’ve got a lot of our folks working in the industry. And that show is the only one going where our faith and our values aren’t scorned. Some of us figure that’s why it’s been slated for cancellation. There are people praying all over the place for some kind of miracle so the show might survive.”

  The air between them seemed to ring with the portent of that word, miracle. The pastor asked, “Can you tell me the name of one fellow out here in Hollywood who stands for what is important to folks like me? I don’t mean me, the pastor of a Riverside church. I mean me, Middle America. Name one person in the Hollywood spotlight I can hold up in my church. Because make no mistake, the focal point of our culture is entertainment.”

  JayJay shifted in his seat. “You’re making me feel like I was sitting on top of a branding fire.”

  “Point me out one Hollywood star who loves his God and his country. A man who wants to do right by his family and his community and his nation. A man who prays. A man who prays for us to find a way to heal. A man who feels overwhelmed by all the troubles that loom beyond the doors of this little haven.” The pastor’s voice rose to where it turned the heads of people collecting the hymnals. “A man who remembers the virtues our Good Book calls us to. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Remember what Paul says about these?”

  JayJay knew a test when he heard one. He responded with the next line from Galatians, “‘Against such there is no law.’”

  Floyd Cummins slapped the pew. “There. You see? That is exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Reverend, you’re mistaking me for a man who understands what’s happening to him.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I know all there is to know about human failings. I know you’re not perf
ect, and I don’t care. What matters is your heart. And brother, I can see the same thing those Nguyen kids and Robbie Robinson saw yesterday standing out there on the street.”

  JayJay inspected the toes of his boots. “Reverend, I’ve got to tell somebody.” The words burned his craw as they emerged. “I . . . I got the strongest feeling I’m not real.”

  Floyd Cummins laid a hand on his shoulder. “Brother, I want you to listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

  JayJay wrestled his gaze up from the floor. Floyd Cummins watched him with a depth and a concern that filled every hollow corner of JayJay’s being. “We’re all just dust and water, just clay on the potter’s wheel, until God sparks us with His holy fire.”

  The pastor’s hand rose and fell in soft cadence. “I’ll tell you what I think has happened here. The Lord God couldn’t find what He needed for His work. So He scooped you up from wherever you came from. And asked the question He does of all His servants, ‘Who will go and speak for Me?’ ”

  JayJay replied, “The prospect of God being in on this has got me sweating.”

  Floyd Cummins surprised him by grinning. “I take that as a good sign. Would you like me to pray for you?”

  JayJay felt the words wash over him, though he could not recollect them even as they were being spoken. Afterward he let the pastor lead him up the aisle and out into the sunlight. If anything, the haze had thickened. As Floyd Cummins drove him back to the Nguyens’, images swam suddenly from the gloom and disappeared just as fast. Billboards and telephone wires and mini-marts and faceless sprawl. JayJay murmured, “Where am I?”

  “Riverside is a place most folks are desperate to leave behind. All those potholes are drilled by folks desperate to escape the San Bernardino Valley.”

  When Cummins pulled up in front of the Nguyens’ home, JayJay confessed, “We’re talking the same language, but you’re not understanding what I’ve been trying to tell you about how I got here.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  JayJay glanced over at the simple fifties-style ranch house, the tiny front lawn bordered by painted concrete blocks. A dusty Toyota sat at the curb. JayJay watched Mr. Nguyen emerge from the front door. “I reckon the only way to say it is, I’m not from this world.”

  “You think they are?” Cummins rushed his words to finish before Mr. Nguyen arrived. “He ran an electronics company before America pulled out of Saigon. He bribed his family’s way onto a boat. He, his wife, and his wife’s mother are the only survivors from fifteen who set off. They live for their faith and the future of their children. Now you try and tell me you fit in less than they do.”

  Mr. Nguyen opened the pastor’s door and said in his formal broken English, “Reverend, you would honor our home to eat with us.”

  “Thank you, brother. But my wife already has my lunch on the table.” Floyd Cummins patted JayJay on the shoulder. “Remember what I said, brother. Hollywood needs you.”

  Chapter 13

  JayJay spent his entire Monday walking around a valley filled with the same ash and acrid smoke. But the people he saw were mostly too busy to miss the absent sky. Their faces were tight and grim and tired in the manner of city folk. The surroundings matched their mood. Riverside was not a pretty town. The streets ran weary and riven and deadly straight until they were swallowed by the smog that burned his throat. Billboards shouted messages JayJay couldn’t be bothered to read. People stared at him from inside their air-conditioned cars, wondering at the cowboy who had the sidewalks mostly to himself. He passed gangs of youths who played their fist-on-fist games and observed him with bitter, pain-filled eyes. Street vendors served people who did not even emerge from their cars to shop. A few other pedestrians almost ran in their haste. Many held handkerchiefs to their mouths. No one returned his howdy’s or met his gaze. After a time he just went silent.

  His wilderness training kept him from getting lost. The country where he had lived did not offer the luxury of street signs. The pastor’s words remained strong in his mind.

  As the sun began its sullen descent, JayJay stopped on a weed-infested corner. Two four-lane roads merged with the highway’s onramp. A rainbow of dusty cars thundered past him. JayJay stared at the ochre buildings, then raised his head to the smoke-stained sky. He said the words aloud. “Okay, God.”

  His only response was the rumbling traffic. But he kept his gaze uplifted. The words came natural. As though it was only here, in a world that made no sense, in a place where he didn’t belong, that he could hear what his heart was yearning for him to say. “I don’t understand any of this, Lord. But I reckon I’m not the first of Your servants who didn’t have a clue. So if this is really You at work, all I got to say is, I’m here and I’m listening. I don’t know if I can do what You want. But I’ll try. Well, I guess that’s about everything, so I’ll just say amen.”

  He dropped his gaze and had to grin at how absurd it must have seemed to the rushing tide of metal and noise. A cowboy with his Stetson planted to his chest, head aimed at an invisible sun, talking words that were drowned out by the traffic.

  That is, if anybody bothered to glance his way at all.

  The Nguyens’ garage apartment was a snug fit for a man of JayJay’s size. The double wooden doors had been sealed shut and pine slats fitted over the concrete floor. The kitchen ran along the back wall, separated from the minuscule sitting area by a counter, the back of which contained shelves for his plates and utensils. There were two stools, a love seat, one high-backed chair, a chest for a center table, and a television. Stairs ran up the side wall to the bedroom loft, which contained only a mattress and a throw rug and a loudly clicking clock. But the place was clean as a whistle. And just out of range lived a family who cared for him. That evening JayJay ate the supper Mrs. Nguyen had left on the counter and slept well.

  Tuesday morning he was dressed in the clothes dropped off by Robbie Robinson’s father and breakfasting on instant coffee and toast when Ahn knocked on the side door. “You’re awake, good.”

  “Never could sleep easy past the dawn.” JayJay lifted his cup. “You be sure and tell your mom I’m much obliged for the supplies.”

  “She and Pop are long gone. You can tell her yourself tonight.”

  “If I’m here,” JayJay reflected out loud.

  Ahn tried hard to hide his disappointment, but failed. “You’re leaving?”

  “May not have any choice in the matter. How’s your sister?”

  “Better. I can tell. But she’s giving MahMah the whine, getting breakfast in bed and making me do all the work.”

  “Why aren’t you in school?”

  “It’s June, remember?”

  No, he did not. But there was no need to go there. “So what do you do with your days?”

  “I help out at the shop. It’s pretty boring. But my folks like having us around. Otherwise I’m working on my honors thesis. I’m midway through my MBA.”

  “You don’t hardly look old enough to be out of high school.”

  “I know, I know. I look sixteen. I get carded at Starbucks.” Ahn shrugged that aside. “Whenever you’re ready, there’s somebody waiting for you.”

  JayJay set down his cup and followed Ahn from the apartment. A light wind was drawing clouds and misting rain off the mountains. The air was no clearer, but the pungent odor of diesel and chemicals was gone. Pulled up in front of the house was the longest limousine JayJay had ever seen. A uniformed driver popped out from behind the wheel soon as JayJay emerged. “Morning, sir.”

  JayJay stepped over to where the window awning protected him and Ahn from the rain. “That thing for me?”

  The chauffeur unfurled an umbrella the size of Dallas and walked around to open the rear door. “Yes sir, the studio’s sent me to collect you. Mr. Allerby says it’s urgent.”

  “Who?”

  The chauffeur cocked his head in confusion. “Martin Allerby, sir.”

  “That name supposed to mean something to me?”

&n
bsp; It was Ahn who responded, “Martin Allerby. The greenlight guy at Centurion.”

  “Pretend I only speak English and give that to me again.”

  Ahn was clearly loving this. “Hollywood studios have more titles than a major bank. A hundred different varieties of vice presidents, associate producers, assistant directors, it’s all just salad. Only one title matters.”

  “The greenlight guy,” JayJay said.

  “Or GG for short. There’s only one in each studio. The guy who says the project is a go. The king. At Centurion, that’s Martin Allerby.”

  “How come you know all this?”

  “My thesis is on Centurion’s business model.” Ahn wiped away a raindrop that caught his forehead. “My dream is to break into the business side of Hollywood.”

  JayJay motioned to where the chauffeur stood waiting. “Want to take a ride?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Hop on in.”

  Ahn almost danced around the limo. “I sure hope Minh is watching.”

  When they were on their way, JayJay asked the driver, “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “No idea, sir. They gave me the address, I came.”

  Clearly this guy was not going to give him anything he wanted. JayJay turned back to Ahn. “Do me a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Assume I don’t know a thing. Talk me through what’s up around that next bend.”

  Ahn liked that. “Which do you mean—Martin Allerby, Centurion, or Heartland?”

  “The whole shooting match.”

  Something very curious happened. The kid just plain vanished. In his place appeared a young man. A small man, but a man just the same.

  Extremely focused. Incredibly intelligent. And excited. “Heartland’s been in serious trouble for a while now. The lead actor, Neil Townsend, is a lush. And thoroughly hated. You look incredibly like him, but I guess you know that. I mean, how he used to be. Back when he was still a regular guy. Before he turned into Frankenstein’s monster. Like some stars are prone to do.”