Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

Eli walked slowly left to right, every eye following him, then he returned to center stage. He wasn’t in the sun, yet his face and white tunic glowed. There were no obvious stage lights but looking back Shaw saw several large halogens half-hidden in trees. There was no sound or light booth; it appeared that the beams were operated by a computerized system that followed him automatically wherever he moved onstage.

Eli began speaking in a soothing baritone. “The Today that we live in is so brief. In the whole scheme of the Universe, it’s fleeting. A blink. You know what I mean?” He snapped his fingers. “There. Uh-oh. Missed it. Here, then gone. That’s why we can’t waste a second, not one single second, on regret, unhappiness, sorrow, anxiety, depression, mourning. Not one damn second. All those bad things that plague us. Can’t waste time.”

Murmurs of agreement.

“Nobody’s immune. They’ve plagued me , troubles have, I’ll tell you that.” He repeated slowly, “Bad things. Oh, the stories I could tell you about my past, my youth. Everything I’ve been through. Nobody’s been through harder times than I have. I know you’ve checked me out some. I know you’ve Googled me, right? Of course you have!”

Which wouldn’t have done much good, since your minions acid-washed your presence right off the web.

Eli pointed to the crowd. “You’re smart, you’re the smartest! You’re gorgeous!”

“We love you, Master Eli!”

Applause and cheers. He calmed them with a smile and a palm-down gesture, the way you’d still a jumping dog.

“‘Googled’! How’s that for a word? In my day, we didn’t say, ‘I encyclopediaed somebody.’ Or ‘I libraried them.’”

The crowd laughed and Colter Shaw, who had grown up in a tech-free home, decided that at last he and Eli agreed on something.

“So. Fellow Companions, for those who don’t know what Google is, I’m going to tell you a little bit about Master Eli. My parents passed when I was young and I endured a series of foster homes. It was a difficult time for me, terrible. Abuse, deprivation. Living on the streets. I was beaten, I was robbed.”

The hushed pedal tones of sympathy rose from the grounds.

“Some of you may not believe it, looking at me now, but I was in bad shape. And — you’re my friends so I’ll share with you — I have no trouble sharing. So I’ll share with you that there were some bad people who took advantage of me. Some very bad people. The worst. They forced me to try drinking, try drugs. Oh, I stopped that. I knew that wasn’t good for me. I could do that, I could stop. It took strength but that’s one thing I have. Oh, I’ve got strengths you wouldn’t believe.

“I can tell strong people. I can tell by looking who’s strong and who isn’t. I can see you’re strong too, aren’t you? I can see it. So I stopped all that bad behavior. I woke up one morning and said, ‘This isn’t right.’ And I kicked all the bad things out, the bad people. Nobody was going to get anything over on me ever again. I used my willpower and, bang, kicked all the bad stuff and bad people out.

“I turned my life around. I graduated from high school in three years, valedictorian. I was captain of all sorts of clubs and teams. Football. You like football? I see the men out there, I’m looking at some players, aren’t I? I can spot you. And I’ll bet you ladies like to go to a game too now and then, right? Sure you do. That was my sport, football. Quarterback. Track and field too. I have a hundred trophies.

“I got a business degree from one of the best colleges in the country, graduated at the top of my class. Summa cum laude. I started companies, a dozen of them. They all did great. I made a ton of money, hired a ton of employees. Successful! All my companies. They were perfect, they were gorgeous! I made money hand over fist!”

Shaw scanned the crowd. Mostly adoring faces. But some perplexed expressions too, among the Novices. Shaw finally spotted Victoria, in the back. Like everyone else, her notebook was tucked under her arm, freeing her hands for the clapping. Her face gazed at Eli with adoration.

“But all the time I was leading the team to championships, a dozen championships, two dozen, all the time I was running my companies, the loneliness and depression were always there.

“My life was loneliness, sadness. Missing my parents, missing my fellow foster brothers and sisters — I’d bond with them and then I’d be taken away from them. You know what that’s like, don’t you? Losing someone? Sure you do. You know how that stays with you, like a headache that just won’t quit. Like that splinter in your finger you just can’t get out.

“And it wasn’t just me in pain. It was everywhere: people being discontented. In business, in their marriages. I didn’t know what to do about it. I tried that therapy stuff. You ever try that?”

Bobbing heads.

“Doesn’t work so great, does it?”

Mutterings of agreement.

“Like everybody else, I muddled along. I did the best I could. I made money. And I kept thinking I’ll just have to live with it. But I felt so helpless, right? You know that, don’t you? Of course you do.”

“But then...” Eli eased closer to the edge of the stage. He looked his parishioners over, catching one Companion’s eye, pausing, then another’s. His next words were whispered. “But then something happened. Something big. It was a day in June. Very much like today. I can picture it now. I can see it perfectly. I was with some business associates driving to a meeting at one of my factories in the countryside.” He held his right hand up, palm out. “And in a flash...”

Of the hundred people in the Square, not a soul made a single decibel of sound.

“In a flash... an oncoming car crossed the centerline and rammed us. Head-on.”

Gasps. Cries of “No!”

“Three people died.” He shook his head. “Three people... And I was one of them.”

“You’ve heard of near-death experiences, right? Sure you have. You read about them all the time. See them on TV. Don’t you?”

More nods, whispers of “Yes.”

“The doctors told me later that what I experienced wasn’t near-death. It was death itself. I actually died.”

This stirred up hushed buzzing from the crowd.

“They’d never seen anything like it before. Well, naturally.” A broad smile. “I’ve got to do things different. Anybody can get near death. But I was the real deal. That’s me. I don’t fool around. The docs, they’d given up on me. Then what happened?”

A Companion near Shaw whispered, “I came back.”

Eli: “I came back.”

The man beside Shaw, a Journeyman, knew Eli’s Discourse so well he could recite it. He wasn’t alone. The audience contained a dozen other lip-synchers.

“Those doctors, they told me later they’d never seen anyone fight so hard to come back to life. I was one for the textbooks, they said. Some of them wrote about me. I’m in famous medical journals. Oh, they changed my name, of course, so I wouldn’t be mobbed, but I’m there.

“And do you know why I fought so hard?”

“Tell us!”

“Why, Master Eli?”

Many of these responses seemed to be coming from the Inner Circle Companions. Premeditated, of course, though they gave the impression of spontaneity.

“Why did I fight so hard?” A whisper once more: “Why did I come back?” Pointing now to the Companions in a slow sweep. “For you. Because I had learned something in that terrible experience. I had learned how to bring an end to your unhappiness.

“Right then, coming out of the anesthetic, staring at the light above the operating table” — he lifted his hands high above his head — “I knew what I had to do. I had to give up pursuing money and success. I would use all my talents from school, from sports, from business and turn them to a new life goal. To eliminating the sorrow and mourning and the loneliness that I saw all around me. And it doesn’t matter how successful you are. In Hollywood. On Wall Street.”