A Pagan's Nightmare

by Ray Blackston

  Ned sat in his DJ chair and gripped his mic. “Mornin’ to the fruited plain. I hesitate to use ’Good morning,’ just out of deference to all my friends along the central East Coast area. The aftermath of Gretchen is anything but good, and residents are just now beginning to filter back in from the evacuation. Most will have weeks of rebuilding work ahead. I’m DJ Ned Neutral, your eyes and ears for the aftermath, broadcasting from my secret booth here in Jacksonville.”

  Ned pressed a button to begin a commercial. Then he summoned Lanny to the booth. “Lann-o, can you do voices?” Ned spoke quickly and watched the clock. He had less than two minutes before he was back on the air.

  Lanny stood in the doorway, gripping the frame. “I thought you were going to let me plead for information on Miranda’s whereabouts—”

  “You can. But first I need you to pose as two non-religious callers.”

  “Aw, man, I’m not sure if—”

  “Just try.”

  “What kinds of voices?”

  “Slices of Americana. You go get on the phone at the producer’s desk, and I’ll hold up a sign for which voice to use.”

  Lanny grew more hesitant. “I dunno, man.”

  Ned grew persuasive. “C’mon! First voice can be your own. We need to fool the zealots into thinking more of us are left.”

  Lanny slowly began to cave. “I just dunno if I can do voices that aren’t southern or—”

  “Hurry, I’m back on the air in fifteen seconds.”

  Lanny scrambled out of the broadcast booth and over to the producer’s desk just as Ned picked up the phone.

  Ned adjusted his headset and watched the seconds tick off. Three… two… one.

  “Ladies and gentleman, I realize that the bulk of my audience is nowhere near the Florida coast, and so you must rely on me, DJ Ned, to fill in the blanks. I have two callers on hold, waiting to share their bird’s-eye view of the destruction. Is the first caller there?”

  Ned pointed to Lanny and mouthed “talk.”

  Lanny held the phone to his lips. “Urn, yeah, Ned, this is Danny, and I was just down at Pelican Retirement Homes and the place is a mess. Roofs torn off, cars smashed, limbs everywhere. Saw a bunch of churches destroyed too, though I don’t go to church myself.”

  Ned put his thumb and forefinger together and gave Lanny the okay signal. “Ladies and gentleman, that was Danny from Orlando, who is one of our non-religious listeners.”

  Ned stood in his broadcast booth and held up a note card to Lanny. The word Boston was scribbled on the card.

  “We have on the line another victim of Hurricane Gretchen, this one a gentleman from Boston. He lost his boat in the storm. Are you there, sir?”

  “Yes, mah name is Lawrence Hoochinski and this morning after I pahked mah cah at the marina, I saw that my sailboat, the Drink, Smoke, Cuss, had lost its mast in the storm. It was half sunk in the marina. I’m just distraught over the scope of this storm damage.”

  “And what are your immediate plans, Mr. Hoochinski?”

  “What else?… I’ll probably drink, smoke, cuss, and watch a Red Sox game. Got to relieve the pain somehow, Ned.”

  Ned gave an even more enthusiastic okay signal to Lanny before addressing the audience a third time. “Ladies and gentleman, good people like Boston Lawrence have taken huge losses, and we should keep them in our thoughts and in our, um… thoughts.”

  Ned gave two thumbs up to Lanny before gripping the mic and resuming his ploy. “Ladies and gentleman, we’ve just heard from two callers who sustained losses from Hurricane Gretchen. I’m here in Jacksonville and am going to open up the lines now.” Ned winced as he said this. “And I hope to hear from some compassionate folks who are willing to help, not from any more wackos who think they know how to turn hurricanes back out to sea.”

  All five lines lit up instantly. Ned hesitated, his finger hovering above line 1. At the last second he reconsidered and pushed line 4. “Welcome, caller! Who are ya and where are ya from?”

  “Neutral, this is Estella, from Tampa, and I resent you calling me wacko. Those giant fans should be—”

  Ned cut off the call and stared through the Plexiglass at Lanny, who could only shrug.

  “What now?” mouthed Ned.

  Lanny entered the booth and stood beside Ned. “I think it’s time for my plea.”

  Ned rose from his broadcast chair and motioned for Lanny to sit. “Just don’t expect much.”

  Lanny was nervous about talking to the nation, but DJ Ned promised to stay there beside him, a two-hundred-forty-pound pacifier. Ned pulled the mic to Lanny’s lips.

  Lanny took a deep breath and began.

  “Hello, America. My name is Lanny Hooch, and I am searching for my girlfriend, Miranda Timms.” All five lights went dim. “She was possibly last seen near the Bluewater Marina in Cocoa Beach. Her parents live at Pelican’s Harbor Retirement Homes, where she was visiting from August fifteenth through the seventeenth. Miranda is twenty-nine and has long auburn hair and a slender build. She works as a news editor in Atlanta and was supposed to have caught a, um, Detour flight home this past Monday at 11:45.”

  Every call light remained dim.

  Ned tried his best to help Lanny. He had once been in love himself, and now he pleaded with his audience. “Listeners, please. Surely someone knows something about Miranda Timms.”

  No responses.

  “Then does anyone know anything about two golf pals of mine, Jonathan Duval and Josh Mickels? Or a DJ Lex in London? Can anyone confirm that this zealot invasion has gone international?”

  Nothing.

  After ten more minutes and no callers, a frustrated Lanny told Ned that he needed a break from all the entrapment. Besides the lack of help he’d received over the airwaves, the sandwiches he’d eaten were not filling. This was due primarily to DJ Ned having stocked the fridge with low-fat turkey meat and no cheese or condiments. A religious renaissance was a fine time to begin a diet, Ned had explained.

  By now Lanny didn’t care how many zealots he came across. “I’m sick and tired of it all, Ned. I’m going out disguised amongst them and will just deal with it as it comes. You want a burger?”

  Ned settled back into his broadcast chair and considered his new diet. Like his time in Abaco, his diet was short-lived. “Sure, get me a big one.” Ned pulled out his wallet and gave Lanny a five. “Just don’t let yourself get persuaded,” he added with a wink.

  Lanny accepted the cash and stuffed it into his pocket. Persuaded seemed to echo inside the radio station. Ned had added extra emphasis to the word, and Lanny had caught the message. Deep down, DJ Ned feared being the only one left if Lanny himself were to cave to the religiosity.

  Lanny almost laughed at the absurdity of the notion.

  At the door of the radio station, Lanny used his cordless drill to remove the screws and take down the barrier boards. He wore a white T-shirt on which he’d written his poser greeting, the only disguise he knew. “Religious Howdy” was written on the front and back.

  He ducked his chin and read his handwriting upside-down. “It’ll have to do,” he muttered to himself.

  The disguise worked. Lanny was back to the radio station in ten minutes, and in the Fence-Straddler AM break room he unloaded the food and whistled to his buddy in the booth.

  “Come and get it, Ned.”

  Ned’s voice boomed from his booth. “No one tried to capture or convert you?”

  “Nope,” Lanny shot back, tearing open a ketchup packet. “Amazing how easy they are to fool. Just wear something religious and they smile and practically welcome you to the club.”

  Reclined in his cushy chair, Ned gobbled his SinnerWhopper. It was not a whole SinnerWhopper, however, because he’d first removed the top piece of bread, convincing himself that he was cutting calories. This bread Ned intended for the gulls, so he opened his second-story window and tossed it blindly into the night, unaware that it would land on the hood of the same black Lincoln that had followed Lanny
home.

  Behind my Buckhead home sat a large concrete patio surrounded by sandstone rocks and assorted daylilies. Angie had planted the daylilies earlier in the summer, and now the gold ones had bloomed and the burgundy ones had withered. The patio was where Angie and I held our talks, and this afternoon’s debate had already stretched for over an hour.

  Our patio chairs faced each other from ten feet apart, and the long shadows from a mature magnolia crept toward my feet. Angie and I used to sit out here and hold hands. But not today. Today the ice in our tea glasses had melted into slivers, and my customary offer to fetch refills had been forgotten in the midst of argument.

  Angie shook the slivers in her glass and set it back on the concrete. “I’ve told you three times now, Ned—I just don’t want our name attached to Larry’s work. You simply should not be involved.”

  “How are we going to keep our house?” I asked, forcing myself to stay both seated and calm. “I haven’t received any interest for any other work. And you should see the manuscripts I’ve been trying to sell—fantasy novels that aren’t fantastic, chick-lit that isn’t chicky. But Larry’s story is just so, so—”

  “Irreverent and offensive to people of faith?” Angie leaned forward and put her head between her hands. She stared at the ground. “What about Alec, the mystery writer? His stuff is good.”

  I had no idea what potential she saw in non-mysterious mysteries—and I didn’t bother to ask. I just changed the subject and tried to bribe her to see things my way. “Remember that trip you wanted to take to Greece and Italy? Well, maybe one day soon we’ll be able to go and—”

  “Ned, I’m not sure I want to go anymore. And if I did go, I’d want to pay for it with legitimate dollars, not tainted dollars, and certainly not. . .” Here she paused. “Pagan dollars.”

  I looked at her clothes—likely made in Asia by non-Christians, and her shoes, which I knew were made in Asia because I’d bought them for her for her forty-third birthday. Then I wondered about her choice of words, why she had said, “If I go,” instead of “If we go.”

  Perhaps an innocent slip in the midst of argument.

  Regardless, I let it pass and returned to the subject at hand. “Angie, there’s no such thing as pagan dollars. Are you trying to imply that there is such a thing as religious dollars?”

  She considered her words and made an attempt at revision. “Honest dollars,” she whispered finally.

  I pressed my case. “These will be honest dollars, dear. I’ll honestly sell this story and will honestly deposit the check in our bank account and honestly take you to Greece.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You’re going against your values.”

  In my head, competing images fought for control: credit-card debt, another agent selling Larry’s story, our losing the house, more credit-card debt, life under an 1-85 bridge, and explaining to our son, Zach, how we could not give him any more money for college.

  I did my best to reason with my wife. “My values do not include dividing up U.S. dollars on a religious basis. Did you know those plates we ate off of last night were made by Shawnee Indians, who also don’t believe as you do?”

  Angie plucked her tea glass from the patio and turned and dumped the contents across a sandstone in our rock garden. “I still don’t think we should pay our mortgage or son’s education with pagan dollars. You just shouldn’t be involved, Ned.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  She stood and folded her arms. “Ned, think! People of faith do not go around kidnapping pagans.”

  “But it’s funny.”

  She stomped her foot. “My women’s group will stone me.”

  All I could think to do was to stare up at her and repeat myself. “But. . . it’s funny.”

  Angie stepped past me to the sliding glass door and reached for the handle. She stood there as if trying to find the words to bolster her position. She settled for argument based on strength in numbers. “Ned, my entire women’s group is hoping that you will come to your senses and distance yourself from this, this… pagan junk-art.”

  “Pagan junk-art?” I parroted. “Did you say pagan junk-art?”

  She pulled open the sliding glass door. Over her shoulder she said, “I’ll be visiting at my mother’s tonight.” The door was nearly shut when she added one last comment. “And please get a haircut, honey. You’re starting to look like Larry.”

  The glass door shut gently—Angie was not a door slammer—and I tilted my glass and sucked out the last sliver of ice. I crunched ice like I crunched deal numbers—quickly and with determination.

  Minutes later I heard Angie start the engine of her Subaru.

  I did not chase after my wife. I plucked my cell phone from my pocket, phoned my favorite client, and asked him to meet me at the barber shop.

  Angie was wrong about the story, right about my hair.

  The first words I heard upon entering the Freedom Ring Barber Shop were, “Leave the sideburns long.”

  Larry sat in the third of four chairs, reading Coastal Living magazine. His barber, Frank, a former Air Force helicopter pilot, tied the bib from behind. For contrast, my barber of twelve years was an ex-Marine. His real name was Ed Pellitini, and his nickname was the standard Big Ed. Back in 1998, when the two of them first opened the business, several customers began a discussion that culminated in naming the barbershop. Ed and Frank took the patriotic name in good humor and painted the moniker in the front window. All customers who sat still in their chair at Freedom Ring Barber Shop got a tiny American flag to wave on the way home.

  After a handshake, I lied when Ed asked me about Angie. “The usual,” I said, settling into the chair. “Busy with church stuff while I try to sell manuscripts.”

  “You don’t say….” Ed wiped his scissors with a cloth. Since the first day I had sat in his chair, Big Ed had always said, “You don’t say,” no matter what I commented upon. His way of concentrating on the work at hand.

  Larry looked unusually sedate as he turned the pages of his magazine. “Don’t talk to me about any deals, Ned, unless you have new info.”

  Ed pushed my head down so that I spoke to the floor. “I don’t have any more info. I just needed some male companionship. Angie went to stay with her mother. She got pretty mad about—”

  “I don’t wanna talk about women, either,” Larry said from behind the pages.

  I blew a hair clipping from my lips. “Aw, c’mon, Larry. I was hoping to hear all about your swing-dance date with whatsername.”

  Larry raised his magazine as if to hide behind it. “The dating world is brutal, Ned. She came to the lessons with me but danced three dances with someone else.”

  I feigned shock. “The nerve of her. And you two were getting along so well….”

  “I just couldn’t get those four little steps down.”

  I looked at Larry and tried to summon genuine sympathy. But my own relational mess muted my effort. “Can’t believe she’d dance three dances with someone else, just because of your inability to learn four little—”

  Big Ed wrenched my head straight again. “I’m gonna give you four little mohawks if you don’t sit still, Ned.”

  Frank snipped his scissors high over Larry’s head and muttered, “Likewise.”

  Larry stared at the tile floor. “Miranda met a guy at the swing dance who danced like, well, he was instructing the instructors. He’s some up-and-coming news anchor, and he kept asking Miranda to dance. Women are all about stability, ya know.”

  “And all about maintaining a good name.”

  This comment went right over Larry’s head.

  He kept flipping the magazine pages and gawking at opulent beach homes. “Miranda started talking about careers, and when she asked if I had a deal yet for my story, all I could tell her was ‘maybe.’”

  Clip, snip, brush. “That’s a good word, maybe.”

  “She knows, Ned. She knows I’m living off credit cards. Women have this sixth sense… the stabilit
y sense.”

  Clip, brush, clip. “And a seventh sense,” I offered. “The Baptist morality sense.”

  This, too, went right over Larry’s noggin.

  “I’m tellin’ ya, the dating world is brutal. You’re lucky to have a loyal wife.”

  Loyal wife? For several minutes I stared straight ahead and wondered about Angie’s going to stay at her mother’s. She’d so rarely done that. Plus, she’d never shown that much interest in anything I represented as an agent. Maybe her women’s group had her brainwashed. I did not understand her sometimes, and to my credit I refused to drown it all with drink. But I would indeed drown it. Somehow.

  Larry flipped to the middle of his magazine, pausing only to warn Frank not to touch his sideburns. “Ned, did you know that on the Outer Banks the new beach homes have teakwood bars? I would love a teakwood bar when I get my beach house.”

  Snip, snip, snip. “Can I rent a room? I may need it.”

  “Anytime. And this coastal décor… Just look at this kitchen and how the decorator blended nautical themes with the cookware. See? All great shades of blue.” He stretched out the magazine for me to see but Ed held my head in place. I nearly ruptured an eyeball trying to look farther left than my socket would allow. “Nice, Larry. I’ll take the room with the porthole window.”

  “That’ll be my room.” He turned a page and said, “Looks like this builder’s from Atlanta. We should call him.”

  “Yes,” I said, playing along. “Since both of us are having such struggles with our women and have yet to cut a deal for your story, we should build a beach house together. Go live at the coast and oversee the construction until we feel like dealing with females again.” Sarcasm felt oddly therapeutic.

  Larry turned another page and grew even more animated. “It says here that the owners parked a camper on their second row lot and lived there while the house was being built.”

  Snip, brush, snip. “Me ‘n’ you… in a camper on the Outer Banks?”

  Larry could not be stopped. “I can write on the beach, and you can set up a literary office in the camper until the house is completed. Then in a year we sell the place for a big profit. Real estate is huge now, ya know. And we’re gonna need tax breaks.”