T. Parker - Laguna Heat

“I got a memory like an elephant, and this bastard ain’t part of it. I’ll hang onto it though, never know these days.”

Wade’s voice came through the speaker, and Theodore labored forward to turn it up. Shephard sat squat-legged on the seat, gazing out at the ocean of cars covering the drive-in lot. The battered rear ends of old Pontiacs, Chevys, and Fords. Still the poor people who come to the drive-in church, he thought, just like in the beginning. Wade always reminded him of that.

He closed his eyes as Wade began the sermon. A jetliner droned somewhere overhead, so high that the murmur of its engines seemed to come from one part of the sky, then from another. He breathed deeply and the warm wind struck his face. When he opened his eyes he saw only blue.

Wade began talking about the power of prayer and how it should not be taken lightly. The Lord is not a mail-order catalog, he said. Then he started comparing the power of prayer to a secret weapon, which must always be used wisely. But the sound of his voice, the droning of the plane overhead, and the warmth of the day soon transported Shephard into a reverie from which he caught only snippets of what was being said by his father.

He closed his eyes again and still saw the blue sky and it reminded him of the fishing trip he’d taken with Louise to Montana. He remembered turning her over the damp brown stump in the clearing and the comic dilemma of making love while a bear lumbered into their vision not fifty yards away.

“The Lord has dealt bountifully with you,” his father was saying, and Shephard agreed. They had always liked it outdoors, and even in Silverlake he had rigged a mattress on the patio for summer nights. The air always seemed better outside, and they had to be quiet because of the neighbors, and one morning Shephard woke up to find a pink mosquito bite on her ass, but they laughed. Same patio where they had the party and he had seen that look pass between her and the producer, who ducked under a paper lantern to load a cracker with dip. Too beautiful not to be seen. And he and some others packing their noses in the bathroom. Shephard was curious, but some things a cop can’t do even if his wife can.

Wade’s voice came slowly over the speaker now: “The Lord has provided such wealth,” he said. “But still when we find something we cannot buy, we always say we’re too poor to buy it rather than we’re not rich enough to buy it. And even then we forget the abundance that is heaven and the poverty of spirit that is hell.”

Shephard brought his feet to the seat and rested his head on his knees. The wind gusted around him and tilted the motorcycle gently. Right, he thought, always richer than we think we are. He remembered holding so hard to her when she was slipping away, so that the harder he held, the faster she slipped away — like a watermelon seed between your fingers. Forget it, he thought, forget yourself like you told Dr. Zahara. But then there was the divorce, in his memory a hazy flurry of forms and negotiations, of obligatory cruelties inflicted from both sides to make the separation complete. One night still remained in his mind, a night when they had made the settlements and it must have been the mutual relief that brought them together once more to make love furiously and tenderly, both aware that it was finality, not promise, that had brought them to their last joining, and they did all that they had ever done as if in a summation before the good-bye. Louise had been too proud to demand much in the settlement, he thought; just sullen and guilty. Even the lawyers had remarked that theirs was a model divorce, but it was clear to Shephard that neither of them wanted much of what they had built together, though for different reasons.

“So no matter how little you may think you have and how little you think you will have, you can turn the water to wine and the loaves to plenty if you do as Christ and use faith.” Wade’s voice was powerful, even through the tiny speaker.

Shephard shifted his weight and glanced across at Theodore, whose hat was pulled down. The silver dollars shone brightly in the sun. The half gallon of Gatorade rested on his belly, cradled by his big hands. For a moment Shephard wished to be a simpler animal.

He gazed out again to the beaten cars around him. The lot was full except for the spaces at the back, and Shephard wondered why people liked being near the front even when there was nothing to be nearer to. But it was the County’s poor who had been the foundation of the Church, and they didn’t seem to mind that the Reverend Wade Shepard now delivered his sermons from the pulpit of a million-dollar dome made of blue glass. He could see the top of that chapel over the roof of a dusty Chevrolet. Its smooth panels glittered and shifted in the bright morning sun, a three-story sapphire. From inside the gem, Wade continued:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the earth.” There was a long pause, and when Wade began again the tone of his voice had changed. “Before we bring to an end our service for today, I would like to take a moment to bring you some good news. A good friend of the church, one of our supporters from the first days, has expanded his generosity to our new project, the Sisters of Mercy Hospital on Isla Arenillas, Mexico. Some of you may know him, his name is Joe Datilla, and he told me just yesterday that he is prepared to offer us a wonderful gift. You all have heard about the terrible events in Laguna Beach last week. Joe, just yesterday, established a reward fund for information leading to the arrest of the Fire Killer of Laguna. That reward will be one hundred thousand dollars to the individual who provides information on the case, matched by one hundred thousand dollars in donation for the Sisters of Mercy Hospital.”

Shephard could hear the crowd come alive through the speaker. Then a raucous cry came up from the cars in front of him and they sprouted arms that waved from the windows. There were hoots, shrieking whistles, applause, and finally a chorus of honking horns that drowned out the next of Wade’s words. Someone threw a beer can. Little Theodore let out a throaty rasp, broke into a cough, and pressed down the horn of the Harley, which responded with little more than a tweet. “Great deal,” he growled. “Fuckin’ A.”

“Join me in praying that the Lord will deliver this tormented man to us,” Wade said finally, “and that to him His mercy shall be given.”

The Reverend Wade Shephard’s office was hidden in a far corner of the massive new chapel. As Shephard walked through the door, a woman with her back to him turned and an embarrassed smile crossed her face. Wade was standing across from her, behind a desk, and Shephard’s entrance seemed to take him by the same surprise. The woman excused herself and Wade sat down, still dressed in the cream-colored suit he wore for the televised sermons. His smile was pleased, expansive. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” he said pleasantly. “Surprised by Joe’s offer?”

“Well, yes. Very powerful,” Shephard said, not sure whether he was really surprised or not.

“Reward money works wonders sometimes, as I’ve told you.”

“I can understand his helping the church. But why me?”

Wade leaned back in his large padded chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. Shephard saw something well pleased in the gesture. “I suppose only Joe could answer that. Of course, he bounced the idea off me before it was settled. Frankly, Tom, I think he’s as appalled at what has happened in Laguna as you and I are. Don’t forget, he’s not just helping you,” he said kindly.

“Two hundred thousand is a lot of appalled,” Shephard said. He thought of Datilla serving on the tennis court alone, then of Dorothy Edmond’s words. He isn’t happy about anything he can’t control. And it was Shephard’s nature, or at least his training, to look for what was expected in return when a gift was offered.