by David Kersey
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Aftermath
Autry’s house, secluded in the shade of towering deciduous trees and pines, was the typical long on breadth, short on depth ranch house that was so prevalent in Appalachia. The headlights of the old pickup shone on teal blue, shuttered windows that interrupted the monotony of deep brown cedar siding. The shutters signified that the people who lived inside cared. The flower boxes, red with begonias, indicated that the people inside cared frequently. A wooden placard hung on the solid core front door…… ‘Welcome to my dog house. I will send a two legged person to answer the door momentarily’. Then in an added home-made subscript, the signature of Raisin. Joshua got it…..Raisin Kane. True to his word, Autry had left the porch light on for them. Joshua rang the doorbell, which produced the sound of the ‘Charge’ melody blown by a century old cavalryman’s bugle. A dog inside barked, ready for the fight.
Annamarie, Autry’s better half, was not slim. The two hosts, standing side by side to greet their visitors, represented a quarter ton of good living. Autry took a step back when he saw Joshua dressed in humanity type clothing. “Oh, I see. Yur new stardom shot straight through yur neck up to the top a yur head.”
“Negative.” Joshua replied. “All four of my robes need washing, and I wanted to make myself presentable to your charming wife.”
“Unbelievable. Well ya’ll come on inside. The Mrs. has got some vittles rustled up for y’uns. Hope ya’ll like chicken wings?” Shreya looked at Namanda and shrugged her shoulders, which indicated, in order to be gracious guests, it would be ok to break the taboo of eating meat. After all, Amit was long gone.
“Don’t ya’ll look nice?” Annamarie sung more than talked, breaking the word nice into two syllables. She embraced her female guests and showed them through the tightly packed house while Autry and Joshua kibitzed.
Autry lowered his voice into just above a whisper while the women were in another room. “Took me by surprise when ya said you was bringin’ them here. Thought you was gonna ditch them people.”
“We are working another plan. Amit is gone, and he insisted his family would not go with him, else he wouldn’t go. We’ll see how it works out.”
“The show turned out ta be might fine. Needed more a you and less a the blue gown. Seems to me she had her eye on you for more’n just talk.”
“She is a nice lady. I was able to read her plainly. She was showing enthusiasm. TV personalities know that a bored host results in loss of viewers real fast. If you saw anything, that’s what it was, at least at first. By the time she left, she was a believer. I gave her a jar of NIL, by the way.”
Joshua and Autry sat in mismatched armchairs in front of the TV. Behind them, at a kidney shaped table, the three women munched on the hot wings. Two of them dove into them like they were long deprived cave women.
The show progressed as Joshua had remembered it until the Mel Kenyon segment appeared. Mel’s spliced in video showed him at his carpeting store desk.
“I am so thankful to now know the name of the person that rescued me more than three years ago. To you sir, I owe my life. I want you to know that I have been off the booze and drugs ever since the day I first took a drink of the liquid you gave to me. I am back with my wife, and we are as happy as the day we first married. It proves one thing to me. You see, I was so hopelessly immersed into the cesspool of self-doubt that I was just counting the days until my body gave out. Whatever you have in that mixture of yours, Joshua, changed all that. I thank God for you. In the words of Jim Valvano; ‘Do not give up, don’t every give up’. That’s what it proves. There is hope, and new life out there, even when it seems most dark.”
“Wow.” Namanda said through a mouthful.
The email crawls started to appear immediately after Mel’s kind words.
“I have lived in an abusive relationship for years. I thought of calling it quits. Then out of the blue NIL comes along. After three months of taking it, things are back to peaceful again. We don’t go a day without it.” Signature line; J.C.
“I am a registered nurse in a hospital. Two cancer patients, both youngsters, were each taking NIL along with chemotherapy, and both are in complete remission. I take the NIL too, and the energy it provides makes me feel like I’m floating on a cloud, and I’m getting more work done than ever before.” Signature withheld.
“My husband and I are up in years. We thought we were over the hill. This spring we put in a new garden, something we hadn’t done in five years. And that’s not all we started back doing. NIL works, pill don’t.” J.R.
“My daughter had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She doesn’t anymore. I credit the NIL more than the drugs, but either way, praise God. We take the NIL every day without fail.” Signature withheld.
“I guess I was the first in Somerset that got the avian flu. I don’t have it now. Maybe it was the NIL I took, I don’t know, but I feel fine now and am back home.” C.M.
The presentation hesitated for a moment. Then Eva Mercer appeared, removed from the setting of the barn, and added, “Pay close attention to this next email we received before today’s interview was conducted. We saved this zinger without Joshua even knowing about it. Now, back to the show.”
“I am new to NIL. From what I’ve heard, and believe, I am putting my shoulder to the wheel and stoking the fire. I believe it can help improve our young people’s schoolwork and long term outlook. And you know education is where my heart is, not only for Kentucky, but for the whole of our great country.” Patricia Reid, Lieutenant Governor, Commonwealth of Kentucky.
While watching the presentation, Joshua’s cell had buzzed twice. The first was a text from Sheryl Smalley. “Two hours past air time, phones exploding. We must do sequel. Please call, confusion exists.”
The other was a missed call. Caller unknown.
Even though the Mehra women both wildly applauded at the show’s conclusion, Joshua, in retrospect, wished there was time allotted to say more than he did. If there was going to be a sequel, he’d speak his mind more openly. He realized he was guarded with his words, and also realized that there was a critical omission in the presentation. There was no mention of the price of the NIL, per jar, near the conclusion of the show. The only monetary value mentioned during the segment was ‘free’. There would be repercussions, Joshua knew. He immediately called Sheryl and explained that each jar would carry a retail price of twenty dollars, and for the television staff to alert callers of that. Sheryl responded that the price was going to upset some callers who clearly heard the NIL was being offered for free.
Autry gave Joshua the CD that contained the taped show. “I don’t need this. You may wanna look at it again. I was watchin’ you durin’ the show. Somethin’ botherin’ ya?”
Joshua hesitated to say anything in response, but then…… “I can’t put my finger on it, Autry. It seems like there is an ill wind headed our way.”
“Shore don’t seem like it to me. But you’re the one that can see through skin an’ bone.”
“Thanks for inviting us over. I needed to get out of the barn, and so did the girls.”
“Don’t mention it. Call me tomorrow, ya hear?”
Joshua and the Mehra women left, but not without a doggie bag littered with the remainder of the hot wings.
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