Giles Blunt - No Such Creature

Thus it was that Bill had cultivated certain relationships that in the cold light of civilian life looked pretty questionable. In the course of trying to bring down Sammy Gibbons-an evil bastard who had been running a team of kids who robbed patrons of ATMs-he had relied on one Artie Doyle, known as Conan, who had a history of rape, robbery and aggravated assault. When it came out in court that he had let Conan get away with numerous frightening activities in order to bring down Gibbons, not only did the case against Gibbons go up in smoke, but Bill lost his job.

Five years later he still couldn’t believe it. Conan was not that bad an actor, not compared to Gibbons, but this is the justice system we are stuck with-a system that sees fit to dispense with the services of its finest investigators.

Oh, the blackness of the pit into which he tumbled after that! Looking back, it was amazing to Bill that he survived it. Then his wife had left him-for weeks he had stayed in his house with the shades pulled, hardly getting out of bed, barely able to eat. No one came knocking on his door to see if he was all right, and several guys from work wouldn’t even return his calls.

If daytime television had been any better, he might still be lying in bed to this day, but finally Oprah and Dr. Phil just drove him out of the house. He began to look for things to do, physical things, like painting his porch and repairing the picket fence that ran around the perimeter of his property.

But the fence was hardly worth painting, the way it kept tilting closer and closer to the ground. The gate was totally unusable and had to remain open at all times as an additional prop. So he set about repairing the thing-a big mistake, since he’d never worked on a fence before and was unprepared for certain difficulties. Just removing the old fence posts proved a formidable task, involving the digging of holes even bigger than the concrete base of the posts. Then you had to haul them out of there.

The result was he had to dig all new postholes, and that proved all but impossible, the desert soil was so rocky. One day he was toiling away at this in ninety-degree heat, blinded by sweat and rage, when a cheerful voice said from behind, “Looks like you’ve got kind of a tough job there.”

Bill rubbed the sweat from his eyes and looked at the bleary image before him: a diminutive man in a short-sleeved shirt and necktie wearing the kind of glasses that had gone out of style sometime in the sixties.

“Ronnie Deist,” he said, pointing to the east. “I live half a block up.”

Bill introduced himself, leaning on his posthole digger.

“I could help you with that. I used to be a contractor and I still have the tools.”

“Oh, yeah? And how much would that cost?”

“Nothing,” Deist said. “I’m a neighbour. I’d be happy to help.”

“Well, if you know how to dig a posthole and set a fence, I could sure use you.”

First Deist told him where to rent a gas-powered posthole digger. Bill hadn’t even realized such things existed. When he got back from the rental place, Deist had returned dressed in serious contractor’s clothes and with a pickup full of tools. They spent the rest of that morning pulling out the old posts using the truck, and then Deist produced a picnic hamper packed with sandwiches and lemonade.

“Man, you come prepared, don’t you?” Bill said.

“Oh, that’s my wife. She’s one of those people who always makes sure other people eat. I’d probably forget lunch myself, or grab a McDonald’s or something. I’m not as smart as she is.”

Bill found he simultaneously really liked Deist and didn’t trust him. He was the most cheerfully self-denigrating person he had ever met. Also the most relentlessly happy. Deist whistled, he told dumb jokes, he commented on anything that passed by, always in a positive way. As they sat in the shade eating turkey sandwiches, he praised Bill’s choice of house and location, admired Bill’s strength in how he handled the posts. You couldn’t get him to say a bad word about anybody-the Congress, the mayor, you name it, he had a kind word for them all.

The mayor had just been convicted of influence peddling, and all Deist said was, “I’ve done things I’ve been ashamed of. I’m sure the mayor has done lots of good things, and he’ll find ways to do more.”

By the end of the afternoon the fence was fixed.

“Are you sure I can’t pay you something?” Bill said. “I’ve taken your whole day, and I now have a good-looking fence, thanks to you.”

“You don’t owe me a thing,” Deist said. He mopped at his brow delicately, and wiped sweat from his glasses. “I enjoyed working with you.”

“But why’d you do it?”

Deist shrugged. “It was quite selfish, actually. I knew it would be good for me .”

“I gotta say, you strike me as about the happiest guy I ever met, short of a retard or two.”

“I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”

“How do you do it? Are you on tranks or something?”

“No, no. It’s Jesus who makes me happy. Some years ago I put my life in the care of the Lord, and nothing but good has flowed to me from that decision.”

“You’re kidding. You’re born again?”

“I don’t use that expression myself-it has political overtones I’d rather not be associated with. But I am a Christian, yes. I believe that Jesus Christ was God made man, and I should model my life in all ways possible after him.”

“I don’t recall any fence-fixing in the Bible.”

“Jesus was kind. I try to be kind. But I didn’t come here to convert you, I just couldn’t stand to see a man wrestle with a fence post all alone on such a hot day.” Deist grinned. He had a sizable gap between his front teeth. “And now I better skedaddle or my wife will have my hide.”

Bill wiped his hand on his pants and put it out to shake. “Ronnie, I can’t thank you enough.”

“You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.”

“You’re weird, you know that, right?”

Deist smiled, flashing that gap again. “My wife says the same thing.” He climbed into his truck and backed out onto the street.

“Hey, Ronnie,” Bill called out. “Which church you go to?”

And that was how he’d turned his life around. He attended the local Baptist church that weekend, had himself dunked a couple of weeks later, and he had never wavered in his faith since. It didn’t take him long to realize that most born-again Christians were not as cheerful as Ronnie Deist. But they were solid people, they had a fallback position, they had a bedrock belief in God’s wisdom that could not be shaken, and once Bill introduced that belief into his own life, that life began to improve.

He got the job with Baxter Secure Solutions, he started taking night courses in computer security and forensics, and the Bible became his constant solace. Now that he knew there was a purpose to every little bit of suffering he had to go through, it became easier to endure. Being fired, being alone, well, God wanted him that way, obviously. Being fired was what had led him to God in the first place, and being alone was what left room in his heart for God to take up residence there.

And then He had brought him Sabrina. All right, it was not a conventional romance. A wedding date had never looked in the least likely. And physical comforts? Well, God didn’t want you to be plucking that particular fruit unless you were married, so clearly right now he wanted Bill Bullard celibate for reasons that might or might not become clear in time.

But poor Sabrina. That girl was so lost. She’d had such disadvantages. Raised by a criminal, for one-hard to imagine a bigger handicap than that. How could you develop a moral code when your old man was a professional thief?