American Omens

by Travis Thrasher

  Everything is Yours, Lord. Everything. Thank You.

  Thank You, Jesus, for letting Your heavenly Father hear these words and act on them.

  Amen.

  5.

  The pounding on the glass behind him jolted Will for a second. In the empty retail space, which looked exactly the same as he had left it, he turned and saw Hutchence walking into his former bookstore, where they had agreed to meet.

  “Yeah, I’m looking for a book by Tozer and heard you have a collection by him.”

  Will chuckled. “Sorry, but I just shipped those books to a special place since the apocalypse is approaching. But I do have an extra copy of Consider This.”

  “Good for you. How did your meeting with the pastor go?”

  “I’m not sure if it was good or bad since he convinced me to contact you again,” Will said. “You shaved your beard.”

  Hutchence nodded, rubbing his smooth and angular face. “I like to change things up. So Brian influenced you to believe some of the things I’ve been telling you?”

  “Yeah. But I made the mistake of looking up what my father’s been doing lately.”

  “He’s a very busy man,” Hutchence said.

  “He’s got plenty of money to keep people busy.”

  “I can imagine how unsettling that might be since you’re on the opposite end of the money spectrum.”

  “I don’t want any of his money,” Will said quickly.

  Hutchence nodded. “I would suggest you don’t buy any Acatour stock either. Because in a little more than a month, I imagine it’s going to fall. Plummet is the more accurate way to put it.”

  “How’s that going to happen?”

  “The heart wants to know the plan before the soul has even prepared.” Turning around as he scanned the room, Hutchence let out a loud groan. “It’s sad, isn’t it? Such a place of life is now so empty.”

  “Yeah,” Will said.

  “Why did you open this bookstore in the first place? And don’t give me a pat answer. What was the real reason?”

  Will thought about his answer for a moment, staring down at the familiar carpet he had walked on and looked at many times before.

  “I think it’s because of how much I’ve loved books. Because of the feelings I had when I was growing up reading them. The thrill of using my imagination. I miss those days. And I’d like to say I wanted to help others find ways to have those thrills themselves, but really, if I’m being honest, I probably just opened the store for myself. To surround myself with things I love.”

  “Quite a thoughtful answer,” Hutchence said. “Do you believe the bookstore was blessed by God?”

  Will sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think that it was the opposite, that it was cursed.”

  “Closing doors don’t necessarily mean a place is cursed. It’s only when we come to the absolute end of ourselves that we’re finally able to receive the Holy Spirit. I’m paraphrasing Oswald Chambers. Come on. Let’s go. I can give you the overview of what I’m planning.”

  6.

  The bar in downtown Aurora looked abandoned rather than open, yet the scuffed-up, faded red door squeaked open when Hutchence pushed it. It was at the end of a block near the train tracks. They had parked several blocks away by the Fox River and had walked along cracked sidewalks and crumbling gravel roads until reaching the one-story rectangular building with an aged sign on the roof that said Jack’s Brew. Will didn’t expect to see lights actually glimmering inside the musty joint, nor did he think he would see anybody behind its oversized oak bar.

  “What’s up, Hutch?” the woman asked in a raspy voice that matched the place.

  “Good afternoon, Cee,” Hutchence said as he led Will past her to the back.

  A door led to narrow and uneven cement steps that went down to a room that should have been used for a storage closet but actually had a small cot and a desk in it.

  “Don’t tell me this is where you’re staying,” Will said, seeing a duffel bag on the floor and an old iMac on the desk.

  “Cee up there owns this place. This is her office, which used to double as the room where she went when she was too soused to drive home. She’s sober now. I can’t convince her to sell this place, not that she could get anything for it anyway. It doesn’t do anything except serve cheap drinks to alcoholics. She lets me stay here, and I trust her more than ninety-nine percent of those I know. She’s a good soul.”

  A handful of framed photos sat on the desk, all revealing a much younger Cee. A wall calendar from four years ago hung behind the computer. Hutchence grabbed a folding chair beside the bed and then sat down, turning on the computer and waiting for it to boot up.

  “To answer your question, yes, this is where I sometimes stay,” he told Will. “There’s also a billionaire’s mansion in the north suburbs. And numerous other places.”

  Will stood to the side of the desk, looking at Hutchence and noticing how much younger he appeared without the beard. He looked more like a movie actor than the rumpled professor. Even his clothes appeared different, with a modern shirt-pants combo and a trendy jacket.

  “Are you hungry for lunch?” Hutchence asked him. “I could ask Cee to make you something.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Yeah, probably a good decision all around. I have a bunch of materials saved on this computer. I’m scanning to find some things to show you.”

  Underneath the cot was a spiral-bound notebook. Will then noticed the handgun right next to it.

  “Yeah, that’s mine,” Hutchence said without taking his eyes off the computer screen.

  “You have eyes on the side of your head?”

  “No. But I can tell you’re staring right at it, and your body suddenly tensed, and you actually stepped back.”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Hutchence said. “Don’t worry. That’s only a precaution. I’ve never actually fired a gun at someone, but there are some pretty sick people out there who are looking for me.”

  “You’re trapped in here if they find you.”

  “They’d have to get through Cee first. And her biker friends. Come over and look at all this.”

  For the next hour Hutchence led Will down a rabbit hole full of lies, greed, control, and hate—all pertaining to his father. Business properties overseas with inhumane working conditions. Foreign dictators and terrorists affiliated with Jackson Heyford and Acatour. Several foundations in Germany, the Cayman Islands, and India with empty buildings that served simply to launder money. From corrupt business associates to noted partners now imprisoned, this was a list of corruption after corruption.

  “All of this—I’m skimming here—is public knowledge. Now these files here are all the really dirty stuff. Yeah, here, this one.” A document opened on the screen. “This is a list of seven former business associates—close associates—who have all died. These were just Acatour employees. This was an early investor in PASK who died in a car accident. He was thirty-two years old. An accountant working solely with Heyford was shot in a ‘mugging.’ A woman had a heart attack, and she was only forty-four.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “Absolutely,” Hutchence said in a come-on-and-get-with-the-program tone a coach might use. “Jackson Heyford had something to do with each of these deaths. No doubt.”

  “Is there any proof?”

  “Do you need proof? I don’t. For most there are details that aren’t mere coincidences. Several were in the process of leaving Acatour. Others had disagreements and disputes with Heyford. And this list is only the obvious ones who worked for him.”

  For a second Will thought of his mother, but he quickly wiped away the ghastly thought. He watched as Hutchence pulled up more grisly details about Acatour.

  “Jeremiah 17:9,” Will said, thinking out loud. “ ‘The human hea
rt is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?’ ”

  “We’re seeing just how bad it can get,” Hutchence said.

  “I’ve always wondered if I was left to my own devices, how messed up would I be? Because I’m already a mess, and that’s with the faith I have.”

  “You’re lucky, you know that?” Hutchence said, turning from the computer for the first time since coming down to this tiny room.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you can say that about yourself. Do you know the problem of today? Nobody believes we’re totally depraved. Oh sure, the guys caught with human slaves chained in their basements or vicious gang members. The obvious ones, of course. But you and me and the ‘regular’ people of this world. We’re not ‘bad.’ Right? Each generation has ushered in a new era of finding meaning. Of going after their passions. Of battling with the inequalities out there. I remember when I was a teenager, when everybody was on social media with their selfies and likes and opinions and demands for change. Before social media collapsed on itself.”

  “Yep,” Will said. “Before the government and businesses out there forced the regulations.”

  “Sin was an afterthought twenty years ago. Now? The Christian faith is the offensive thing. Christians are the ones in the wrong, the ones sinning.” Hutchence turned back around and began feverishly moving and clicking the mouse as he searched his computer. “Tell me, Will. You never answered whether you believe in secret societies, in governmental conspiracies, and men and women hidden behind masks orchestrating the fate of the rest of humanity.”

  Leaning against the wall with one foot, Will spoke in a quiet tone. “I believe in spiritual warfare and Satan using people for his purposes. And, yeah, I think there are certain powers at work. Powerful people like my father. But we can’t do anything about them. They’ll never be convicted.”

  “ ‘The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down.’ ”

  “Is that a quote?” Will asked.

  “Cormac McCarthy. From Blood Meridian. Writers have been writing about the apocalypse since they began to tell stories. And whether it’s in a Western or outer space, it’s the same thing. The darkness of this world. So bleak.”

  “It’s always so cheery talking to you. You’re not exactly the life coach someone needs after he’s just lost his job, after he’s lost his whole career and needs to start over again. As my luck has it, I get to meet the one man on the face of the planet who can make me detest my father more than I already did.”

  Hutchence looked up, whispering and slowly articulating his words. “Starting again doesn’t mean the slate is clean. No, Will, your slate is very dirty indeed. It’s a canvas that’s been covered in graffiti, left outside in the rain, then trampled over with muddy tread marks. It’s not a fresh slate, nor is it blank, but it’s one you can do anything with. You can paint anything you want on it. Do you know why? Every mark you see resides only in this world. When God looks at it, the canvas is clean and white and perfect. Christ isn’t a filter or gloss of bright paint. Christ is the canvas.”

  Hutchence clicked the mouse, bringing up a set of photos, all featuring Will. There was Will at two years old standing between his parents. There was Will with his older and younger brothers when he was probably ten. Another shot showed him as a teenager with his father. Half a dozen photos appeared, ones he hadn’t seen for decades.

  “Where’d you get those?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m giving them to you for a specific reason. You’re going to use them as bait. They’re going to be the brochures you hand to your father after knocking on his door for the first time in a very long time.”

  “And what am I supposed to tell him?” Will asked.

  “You need to reconnect with him. And in doing so, you’re going to help me.”

  Before Will could say or ask anything more, Hutchence turned off the computer, picked up the duffel bag, and began to fill it with items in the room, including the semiautomatic. When he was finished, Hutchence asked him a question. “What if you saw your life as a great epic battle, a bloody battlefield like the fields of Gettysburg or the beaches of Normandy? What if you felt death whizzing by your ears? John Eldredge says men don’t worry about having regular “quiet time” with God because they feel it’s not crucial. They’re not tasting death. Yet there is a spiritual war occurring, a war far worse than those being fought by mere mortals. And the time has come. It’s our D-Day.”

  “Are we going to break into Jackson Heyford’s mansion?” Will half joked, still not able to make sense of everything Hutchence was saying.

  “I can see that look on your face again,” Hutchence said. “The look of distrust and fear of the unknown.”

  “You’re wrong about that. I don’t fear the unknown. I fear my father. I always have, and I think I always will.”

  7.

  The river flowed despite the frigid temperatures. Walking back to his car from Jack’s Brew by himself, Will took a detour down a path to the river walk. He sat on a bench in the cold, his breath visible as he stared out at the Fox River.

  Doubt filled him, like a heavy stomach after a big meal. I can’t do this. Not me. I can’t get sucked back into that world.

  Hutchence had said goodbye to him and that they would be in touch. That was as much detail about the plan as Will would get. He needed to digest all the information he had just heard back there. All the incriminating facts and the charges related to his father.

  Can they all be true?

  If only half of the accusations Hutchence had made about Heyford were accurate, it would be even more ludicrous to connect with him again. Will wanted to keep Amy and the girls as far away from his father as possible.

  He thought of the “great epic battle” comment by Hutchence. Will wondered how he could ever stand up and put on any sort of armor and fight.

  I’m no hero of the faith. I’m a pedestrian.

  His life felt like a flicker of a star a million miles away, yet God had created that with so much more power and enormity. The only thing he had in common with the star was the ability to fall. Yet he remained, with a dull light flickering the days away.

  Is this my chance to be brighter, Lord?

  He didn’t want to be a hanging glimmer. He wanted to burn bright. For once in his life, he wanted to take the knowledge he had and believed in and run with it.

  Yet accepting this—all of it—felt like too much. He admired Hutchence’s passion for promoting the good news of Jesus Christ, but striking out at Heyford and his empire? “God, I don’t know,” he said out loud. “That sounds so crazy.”

  He needed something else, someone else, to help him understand. To talk some sense into him. Perhaps he was so confused and so far into a downward spiral of worry that he wasn’t thinking and seeing straight.

  “Give me wisdom, God. Please.”

  As he felt his body shiver from the blast of cold wind, Will realized the someone else who could help him. The one God had placed in his life for that very reason, just as he was placed in her life for the same reason.

  He needed to talk to Amy.

  FOURTEEN

  Where Did You Come From? Where Did You Go?

  1.

  “I’ve been listening to a lot of U2 lately.”

  Cheyenne hadn’t really noticed the music in her father’s car, a Ford rental he’d been driving for only a few days. They’d been in the car for half an hour, making small talk and trying to find their way to something bigger, but it wasn’t happening. Not yet. The euphoria of finding her father alive had subsided, while the reality of the mess he’d gotten her into felt even bigger.

  “Wasn’t that Grandpa’s favorite group?” Cheyenne asked, looking out at the barren Illinois
countryside passing by.

  “Play ‘One Tree Hill.’ Yeah, he grew up listening to them. He told me I was born in the same month as their biggest album, The Joshua Tree, released. Mom and Dad were such fans that the following year they took a trip to the Mojave Desert to visit the actual tree photographed on the album cover.”

  “That’s the framed picture you gave me on my sixteenth birthday, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It was the fortieth anniversary of the album.”

  “I still have that. It’s in my bag. One of the few things I brought with me from Incen Tower. I’ve been thinking about Grandma and Grandpa a lot.”

  Keith Burne nodded, looking down the highway as if he were waiting for an exit to show up. “They wouldn’t believe how much has changed in this country. Their faith was strong. I just— I paid little attention to it, and then when I left to make my own life, I left that faith on a shelf like some old CD I never played.”

  Cheyenne wondered if her father was going to start talking about religion again or about Jesus, since he said there was a difference. She was tired of it.

  “Remember going to the U2 concert five years ago?” she asked.

  Her father laughed. “That was so much fun. ‘The Geriatric Tour’ as Bono called it. They still rocked. And they have continued to make albums even when younger kids don’t know who they are.”

  “You pretty much forced me to understand the concept of an album,” she said with a tinge of amusement. “Because you used to play entire albums to me.”

  “Your mother would have loved that show.”

  “Did she like them?”

  “No. She wasn’t that much into music. She was into the experience of everything. She would’ve loved the energy. Like some big celebration of life.”

  She could still picture one moment very clearly, when the lights of the arena were suddenly turned on and the band played as the audience seemed to all sway in unison. And during that moment, seeing the sea of people around them as they stood on the general admission floor, her father slipped his arm around her. She was twenty-two and an official adult, but for a moment she felt like a little girl again. Her father wasn’t a man of a lot of emotion—at least he didn’t used to be—yet as he smiled at her during that song, tears filled his eyes.