My instinct was to flee the scene, but the cane was now officially a handicap.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered.
Chapter 23
Lauren pulled her heel out of the muck and looked with disgust at the ruination of her designer shoe. We hadn’t spoken since our lunch at Norvell’s. Her first words weren’t about missing me.
“This place is dreadful, John Peter,” she said with a look of nausea.
I pondered escape possibilities. I was captured again. “I think you two are lost—the royal wedding you came dressed for is not here.”
The gruesome twosome inched closer. When Sutcliffe got close enough to sting my senses with his heavy cologne, he reached out with his clammy hand and attempted to shake, but I pulled away. I could tell that Lauren was repelled by the sloppy chicken I held, which saved me from a fake hug—the best investment I’d made in a long time.
“I would go to the ends of the earth for my favorite GNZ employee,” Sutcliffe said with a salesy smile. He theatrically sniffed the air. “And I think I have—is that pleasant odor cow shit I smell?”
“I don’t know if you forgot to read the fine print on my contract, but as of August I’m no longer a GNZ employee.”
It felt good to say it out loud.
“My sources tell me you are thinking of signing on with CNN—please tell me this isn’t true, John Peter?” Lauren belted out. She received a dirty look from Sutcliffe for venturing off the script.
“I don’t know anything about this CNN stuff, but if your sources said so, then it must be true,” I replied.
Lauren soaked in the “compliment,” as usual not picking up on the sarcasm.
Sutcliffe got their orchestration back on track. He winked at Lauren, before asking if he could talk to me alone. Lauren flashed her blinding, toothy grin, as if she was trying to lock up this year’s Razzie award for bad acting.
I tried to walk away, but Sutcliffe was easily able to keep up with me. He attempted to put his arm around me, but I managed to pull away.
We eventually sat down at an empty picnic table. He looked at me as if his job were on the line—it probably was. He reached into a stylish leather briefcase and pulled out a thick bound document, which he laid on the table. It looked like the tax code.
“What do I have to do to get your JP Hancock on this contract?” he asked like a sleazy used-car salesman.
“I told you, Cliff—I’m done. I don’t have it in me anymore. I shouldn’t have been in Serbia. I almost got Byron killed.”
“How is Byron?” he asked with a look of insincere sincerity, as if he’d taken lessons from Lauren.
“He’s paralyzed.”
“I know
that
. I mean, can GNZ do anything to help him along in his recovery. He won’t take any calls.”
Translation: Sutcliffe’s bosses were worried about a lawsuit.
“I taught him well then. Can we get to why you’re here?”
He smiled. “Nightly studio show in prime-time. You and Lauren—The Warner and Bowden Show! Point counterpoint stuff. Politics … pop culture … hell, I don’t care if you two spend the hour singing karaoke. It’s your show, you’ll have complete control.”
“Why is Lauren pushing for this? She’s already got her own prime-time show.”
“Honestly?”
“It would be a nice change of pace.”
“We overrated her appeal. What people liked most about her was her relationship with you, and we misread the ratings that spiked during your capture. It was great drama.”
“Yeah, a real fiesta. I’m thinking about going back next year, maybe invest in a time-share. Listen, Cliff, I really don’t want to spend an hour with Lauren, in a television studio or anywhere.”
“If you want Lauren out, then she’s out! Between you and me, JP, she’s been totally screwing up the whole Kingsbury investigation. The other networks are beating us to the punch on every break in the case. And she couldn’t even get an interview with you after your release … and she was sleeping with you!”
“It’s easy to hire a bubble-headed beauty queen when the sea is calm and the boat will drive itself. But when the water gets rough you need an experienced captain.”
“I don’t know what kind of mind-altering stuff they gave you in Spain, but…”
“I was in Serbia.”
“Either way, I’m talking about news and you’re talking about boats.”
“GNZ
used
to do news. And they didn’t need swimsuit models to deliver it.”
“Which is exactly why we need you to come back as News Director. Forget the studio show—this is much bigger. You’ll have final call on what we report and who we hire to report it. We are offering you a blank slate to bring GNZ back to where it belongs—tabula rasa.”
He reached into his left breast pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to me.
“I know our last offer was insulting. You know how negotiations work, JP. But the contents of this envelope will guarantee you are the highest paid person in the history of the news industry.”
I’m sure he figured J-News couldn’t turn down that kind of offer. He probably was right. But unfortunately for him he was talking to JP.
I stood and began to limp away. Sutcliffe followed after me.
“I got more, JP.”
“That’s the thing—I don’t.”
He remained undeterred, pulling a small plastic doohickey out of his pants pocket and attempting to hand it to me. I again rebuffed him.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked desperately.
“I don’t care.”
“It’s a JP Warner action figure!”
I was speechless—more like frozen in horror. And like someone unable to avoid looking at a gruesome car crash, I accepted the small piece of plastic. The figure wore camouflage and carried a M-16 rifle, depicting me like some sort of GI-Joe superhero reporter.
Once I got my bearings, I tossed the action figure down on the littered fairgrounds next to a garbage can, where I thought it belonged. Sutcliffe desperately scooped the figure off the ground and hurried after me.
“The action figure is just the beginning, JP. We’re going to market you like the sizzling hot superstar you are, beyond the scope of news!”
I kept walking without a word. And when it became obvious that I wasn’t interested, his tone predictably turned “sore loser.” “You’ll be back,” he grumbled.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s who you are, Warner.”
I wish I had a quarter for every time I’d heard that one.
Lauren carefully navigated toward us. She looked at Sutcliffe and immediately knew it was bad news.
“I can’t believe you, John Peter,” she spat at me like a child who didn’t get her way. Her sixth sense was the sense of entitlement.
“When everyone told me not to be seen with you because you were a washed up has-been, I stuck with you. I told them that with a new agent and PR firm, you could be somebody again. Then you get this lucky break of being captured by terrorists and you just throw it all away!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What I really wanted to do was run, but that wasn’t an option. So I said the only thing that made sense to me at that moment, “I’m going on the Ferris wheel. I’ll see you guys around.”
I turned and limped away to the distant shouts of, “John Peter, get back here! John Peter!”
I went to the nearest garbage can to throw away the envelope. But for some reason I decided to hold on to it.
Chapter 24
I’d finally escaped the clutches of Maloney, Bowden and Sutcliffe. I don’t think it was a coincidence that my enjoyment level picked up.
I rode the Ferris wheel and ate some more chicken. Despite my attempts at remaining low profile, a few people recognized me. But capturing the spirit of the day, I politely posed for pictures and signed autographs. My father ended any last attempts to meld into the background by dragging me to judge a baking contest.
Eventually I got out on my own again. I soaked in the sunny Saturday and breathed in the barbecue chicken/cow shit odor. It was the smell of peace … the smell of returning home. It took me a long time to get back here and I planned to make it last.
I stopped by numerous farming equipment exhibits, including the FFA from the local high school. I realized that farming might be a lot more difficult than I’d thought. Maybe I’d get back to the original plan of writing for a small newspaper. Gwen returning as editor made it an even more tantalizing thought. I walked around, searching for you-know-who, hoping she was here. But at the same time, scared that she might be.
As the sun began to set behind the large oak trees in the distance, I sat down on a wooden bench to rest my weary body. Shuffleboard and three o’clock dinners couldn’t be far behind, I mused. I aimlessly watched people stroll by, and then I spotted a girl I knew. It wasn’t Gwen. It was my niece, Ella.
Ella was Ethan’s eldest daughter—it was hard to believe she was already ten. Sticking with the family naming tradition, she was named after Ella Grasso, the first woman governor of Connecticut.
There were a lot of whispering and finger points in my direction. I could tell the presence of her television-star uncle made Ella the star of her group of friends. She led the troops toward me, and I was soon surrounded by a group of fourth graders.
Ella played proud spokesman, introducing each wide-eyed friend. I smiled and shook their nervous hands. They spent a few minutes questioning me about my capture. The Q&A session boiled down to fifteen different ways to ask me, “Were you scared?” Which was pretty similar to how the grown-up media works. I answered with heroic cool, but the truth was,
hell yeah I was.
I sensed it would impress Ella’s friends for her famous uncle to call for some one-on-one time. This also fit nicely into my agenda, which was to figure out why her father was avoiding me. The kids scrambled away, but not before making plans to meet Ella at the bumper cars in twenty minutes.
“So how come you guys haven’t come over to see me?” I asked calmly.
Ella just shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I had extracted answers out of those who had refused to talk under torture, but Ella Warner was more difficult to crack. “Are your parents mad at me?”
Shrug.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you guys been busy?”
Shrug.
“I don’t know.”
“What did you think of the game last night?”
“It was awesome,” came an excited response. I thought I might be making progress.
“Did your dad say anything about me after the game?”
Shrug.
“I don’t know.”
Back to the drawing board. I knew I needed a more direct source. “So where is your dad?”
Ella turned all the way around twice, viewing the fairgrounds. I couldn’t tell if she was looking for her father or trying to make herself dizzy. Then she pointed. “Over there!”
I followed her gaze, which led me to my brother. He was chatting with two burly flat-topped football players. Also present was my sister-in-law, Pam.
“Let’s go see your dad,” I said to Ella, already limping in his direction.
Chapter 25
Ella, on a probable sugar high, left me in the dust.
“Look who I found! Look who I found!”
Ethan’s eyes left his daughter and locked on me. I wasn’t getting a “happy to see me” vibe.
I led with the headline, “I felt compelled to come over and thank you for all your get-well wishes. Your kindness has been excessive.” I was going to clear the air or add another broken bone to my medical résumé. Maybe both.
Ethan told Ella to run along and get some ice cream. Not a good sign. He reached into his faded jeans and pulled out crinkled money and instructed her to take the younger children, Sandy and Eli, with her. He then hastily sent his players on their way.
Pam, sensing the imminent showdown, gave her husband a quick kiss on the cheek, perhaps intended to diffuse the situation, and departed with the children. She glanced back twice with a concerned look on her face. Only Ethan and I remained—the battlefield was clear.
He turned to me. “I’ve been busy, I apologize. I know you’re used to the world revolving around you, JP, so it must be a shock to your system to learn that you’re not the center of the universe.”
“Cut the crap, Ethan. You’ve been avoiding me like the Bubonic Plague.”
“I’m a history teacher, JP. The Bubonic Plague was caused by rats, not egomaniacs who think they can drop in and out of everybody’s lives whenever they feel like it.”
“I’m sorry you chose a life where the only time you leave the safe confines of Rockfield is on a school bus. I didn’t choose it for you.”
“Nobody said anything about your job.”
“Spare me.”
“Spare
you?
” Ethan asked with disbelief. “The key word is
you
. It’s always about
you,
JP, isn’t it? You couldn’t care less it kills another little piece of Mom every time you run off trying to get yourself killed. How about sparing her?”
“I don’t have to defend my career to you.”
“That’s because you aren’t the one who has to go over there in the middle of the night. You should have seen her expression when she turned on the news and saw a photo of her son plastered on the screen with a face beaten purple by a bunch of terrorists. And you weren’t the one who sat with Dad after he came out of cancer surgery.”
“I got him the best care and doctors possible.”
“Writing a check isn’t the same as being there.”
I tried to speak, but Ethan evoked his big-brother rights and talked over me, “And you weren’t the one who had to talk Noah down off Samerauk Bridge last year. He was going to kill himself. But did you care? You took us to France, so I guess everything is fine.”
I knew Noah was in a bad place, but the depths shocked me.
Kill himself?
I filled with guilt. “I didn’t know.”
“Because you weren’t here!”
“I’m not the first child to move away from the nest.”
He shook his head like I just wasn’t getting it.
“Proximity has nothing to do with it. Just because you take off to God-knows-where doesn’t stop Mom and Dad from thinking about you … worrying about you … contacting you. Their love for you is unconditional. Sometimes I wonder if it works both ways.”