Chapter 6: Trouble In the Outhouse

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I rejoined the real world while we were in the helicopter flying home. Ralph and Rachel argued back and forth about our destination. I opened my eyes and saw Ralph's face inches from my own. "What happened?"

"You passed out," Ralph answered. How do you feel?"

"Groggy, numb." It was too much effort to talk.

"Forrest, we need to get you to a doctor. You should be in the hospital," Rachel said in a worried voice. Her lower lip trembled Her face was a portrait of worry.

"No hospital. Home ... Take me home." Rachel kissed me on the cheek.

"Are you sure?" she whispered. I nodded yes.

"Man oh man, you sure put some medical noses out of joint." Ralph seemed the high priest of gloat right then. He shook his head. "In fact, if that doc on the burn ward had a gun, he'd have shot you. Hoo boy, but that was one uptight doc.

You just busted his bubble to pieces." Ralph laughed again, and continued in a sober tone of voice, "From here on out we have to be very careful. You see the world might love the charlatans and phony hucksters. But you, you're the real thing and that's dangerous."

Rachel cut in, "You let Forrest rest. You can brag how superior you are compared to the lesser people who need faith in their lives after he has rested a while.

Ralph frowned at Rachel for the first time and spoke in a sharp voice, "There are none so blind as they who will not see. You may quote me."

Rachel took a deep breath as started to answer, "Oh!" Then she shut up. She decided to ignore him and stroked my hand.

My head began to clear; my tongue lost some of its thickness. I took a deep breath and sat up straighter in the seat. "I don't remember much. There was a great, green explosion and somebody yelled and..." I shook my head tiredly. "It's all a jumbled mess." Deep inside me I felt a nagging pang of fear. "Did-I-do-something-wrong?" I carefully spaced my words, afraid to ask them, yet afraid not to ask them.

"Well yes, you did a whole lot wrong," Ralph began and paused.

"Ralph!" Rachel yelled at him.

Oh lord, I hurt one of those kids, I thought in despair.

He continued, "Yes you really did a lot wrong." He paused, then continued while I held my breath and waited to hear the bad news.

"Well, that is if you consider you turned six gravely injured young kids into six healthy specimens of humanity wrong. Hey, you even impressed me." He grinned and looked like nothing other than a fugitive from a gangster movie.

Then his face turned serious, "How do you feel, Forrest, are you all right?" For the first time I realized that under his abrasiveness, he really did care for me. It felt good.

In a stronger voice I said, "Thirsty, I'm thirsty and hungry."

"Dearest, we don't have anything on this airplane," Rachel told me and started to worry over me.

"We'll be home in a few minutes," Ralph spoke up. "You can get a drink of water and a snack then." I nodded and didn't answer. I leaned back in my seat. I was so weak and tired all I wanted to do was close my eyes and rest. Rachel held my hand as I drifted off once more.

The soft bump we made when we landed woke me. Ralph unbuckled me from the harness and the two of them helped me out of my seat. I was weak and dizzy; my legs wouldn't cooperate with my brain. It was late afternoon and the road by my house was lined with onlookers. I wondered what was wrong with people if they didn't have anything better to do than stand around outside in the cold just to look at me. It seemed so pointless and stupid.

Ralph hurried ahead and opened the front door. I walked into the house mostly under my own power while Rachel steadied me. Right then nothing seemed more important than a drink of water. I felt parched inside as I gulped the first glass of water down in one continuous gulp. "Ah, that was good," I gasped. After I got the second glass of water inside me, my strength slowly returned.

Refreshed, I went into to the living room and dropped into the recliner. "I'm starving," I said.

"You're on television, Honey, if you would like to see how you look." I nodded and Rachel shoved the living room TV over in front of me. She sat on the arm of my chair and placed a possessive arm across my shoulders. She kissed me on top of my head and we watched.

Dan Malone capitalized on the events that occurred on his show. "I am at a loss for words. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I feel so humbled so overwhelmed. I don't know what to say."

"Then shut up, you idiot." Ralph's voice growled from the couch.

As if he had heard Ralph, Maloney called for the footage of the events in the television studio to be run while he shut up. Unknown to me, there was a hidden camera in the dressing room where I refused the makeup. My refusal to use makeup and further refusal to appear as anything but what I am was met by applause and cheers. I don't know if it was actually real cheering or the canned variety.

The makeup up lady's nervous tic had been caught on camera, also the way she stood still afterward and stared at me while I told her to not tell anyone that her eyesight was cured. After the cheers and Dan Maloney's voice over, then came the moment where everyone got on their knees and bowed their heads to me.

Hey! I really did look like a holy man of some sort on that television screen. That brought to mind the incident with the mamma skunk and how the camera angle made me seem disproportionately large and powerful. I wondered if this is why so many actors had swelled heads. Perhaps they came to believe they were as heroic as the cameras made them look. I made a mental note to remember that.

"Oh, Forrest, oh." Once again my Rachel was at a loss for words.

Where I had been embarrassed at the time, I appeared humble on the TV. My denials that I was anything but what I am reinforced the illusion. I liked the bit about how people with empty lives thought they needed miracles, though. Then I remembered someone truly great, Jesus of Nazareth, said it two thousand years before I parroted his words. The bit of my advice to treat others with respect was very apt. I became a bit smug as I sat there, Rachel beside me. Then came the shock.

Security cameras were installed in each corner of the children's burn ward. Dan Maloney's television station had obtained copies of the footage either by fair means or green. I sat dumbfounded while I watched me touch those children. It was weird to watch the changes occur as they became healed. I also saw how I slowed down and was barely able to reach out and touch the last child.

Many security cameras take grainy pictures. Since these were in low quality black and white, much of the detail was lost. I remembered the green flash of light just before I passed out. On the security camera it only looked like a bright flash; then the cameras dimmed. I saw me fall to the floor and the very angry and agitated Doctor Henderson (as I later learned his name was) stormed into the room. Suddenly it all came back to me. I remembered each and every physical sensation I experienced while with the children.

"Hoo boy," was my only comment. Ralph changed channels. Even the vacant minded bimbettes on MTV ran commentaries on the events in Denver. It is an humbling experience to listen to a couple of under dressed young females who wore so much mascara they nearly needed props to keep their eyes open discuss various aspects of my personal life, aspects they knew absolutely nothing about and never will on threat of death from Rachel.

Finally a bit of humor came to us by way of that intrepid TV interviewer, Jackson Parker. Hosmer Q. Hogben stood tall, dirty, unkempt and full of raging fury. "That infidel, that unbeliever stole the power from me, the rightful representative of God, Allah, Attila and all them others too numerous to mention. That power was mine and he stole it and I want it back."

"Ah yes," Jackson answered. "How do you account for that power seeming to come from an outbuilding on his property?"

"That outhouse is rightfully mine!" good old Hosmer screamed. In his rage he grabbed Jackson under the armpits and raised him high in the air and shook him. "All mine," the self appointed prophet raged. As if on cue two female members of the Salt Lake City police department gave Hosmer a prolonged zap in the back and a little south of his tailbone with her taser. She kept it in place for way too long. You might say she gave him a prolonged goose with a half million or so volts. He stiffened and dropped to the sidewalk.

Jackson landed on top and immediately rolled off. "This man's body odor is disgusting." He looked up and saw the camera was still on him. "Ah, not that I meant to be insensitive to another person's plight. Perhaps he is unable to bathe or doesn't know how. Ah..." He then did the best thing he could do and shut up. The camera panned the prostrate Hosmer Q. and the two policewomen.

They both had very satisfied expressions on their faces. "We've been following this man all morning, ever since we received a heads up that he had been released by the honorable Judge Pucket." She made the name "Pucket" sound like a description of stomach gas.

Her partner, a short female who resembled a pit bull growled, "We need laws with teeth in them to take care of perps like this one."

Perps? That woman has been watching too much television. Paramedics arrived on the scene and loaded the paralyzed Hosmer Q. Hogben onto a gurney and quickly hauled him away. "We need laws," she growled at the retreating ambulance. I shook my head and worried we had not seen the last of that screwball.

"Rachel, after watching that display of gender meanness by those two members of Salt Lake City's finest, I am almost afraid to ask you to fix me something to eat."

She laughed and eased off the arm of my chair. "I'll go see what you have." Moments later she returned and gave me the bad news. "Unless you would like to dine on cheap bulk trail mix and dried apples, there's not very much to eat."

"Oh, I guess I've been too busy to shop lately. Maybe we better go out to eat then." I slowly started to get up out of my chair.

"Wait, Forrest," Ralph gave me a worried look, "Are you sure you feel up a trip outside right now? How do you feel?" He looked at me, real concern showing on his face.

"Okay, I guess. I'm still a little shaky and I feel sort of empty inside and hungry. Otherwise I seem all right."

"Hon, you drive," I told Rachel. I went to get my light parka.

"Why should I drive? There's a perfectly good limousine outside that can take us." She smiled her personally designed, "guys are such dummies" smile at me.

"Oh," I answered and put the parka on.

"I ordered the limo when we first got back," Ralph told me. "I wasn't too certain but what we might have to take you to the hospital." I sensed a great gulf between the world Ralph took for granted and my more simple and austere life in Salt Lake City. To have a limousine on standby just in case it was needed seemed, well extravagant, to say the least.

"Oh," I answered again. I ran out of words. We walked outside and I eased my way into the long, white Caddy. Again I wondered at the luxury of it all.

"All set back there?" came the driver's tinny voice from a hidden speaker after we three piled in.

"Let's go," Ralph answered him and pressed the button on the gate opener. I felt the big vehicle begin to accelerate as the driver smoothly started us on our jaunt toward Salt Lake City, just minutes away.

We pulled up in front of the new restaurant, "Cajun Joe's Fish House." Because of the name of the place, I figured the menu, would be mostly seafood. It was well prepared. I enjoy fish about any way you prepare it. The only exception is sushi. Raw fish and I don't get along all that well.

The other customers were intent on their own conversations and food. No one recognized us as we entered. Only the waiter seemed to know our identities. "Good evening, Mister Eden, may I suggest the sword fish steak? Ms. Nelson, would you like the same?"

Rachel's hand flew to her throat, surprised at the instant recognition. Wordless, she nodded. He turned to Ralph and asked, "You also, sir?" We all nodded and seconds later our entrees were in front of us, along with hot sourdough bread and mounds of sour cream butter. I quickly polished off the chowder and sat back to wait for the next course.

"There's a little more color back in your face, Forrest, do you feel better?" Rachel looked at me with loving concern.

I nodded, "Ii looks like I needed some food in me more than anything else. That adventure in Denver took a lot out of me." I gave Rachel a reassuring smile and had another bite of great tasting food. I was still tired.

We relaxed and talked about what to do next. "I told my staff writers to put together your unauthorized biography," Ralph told me out of the blue. "Later on we shall write your official autobiography. There are going to be a bunch of screwballs and religious hacks out to crucify you. You will be surprised at what an evil man you really are when you read their words. It makes good damage control to get our story out first." He looked at me and shook his head. "Forrest, you are going to be amazed at the number of bitter enemies you have already made just because you don't fit the mold. People don't like other people to be different. It threatens them."

"Enemies?" My voice rose almost to a squeak. "What have I done to make enemies?" Ralph shocked me with that statement.

"That's your problem, Forrest. You are an innocent, a nice guy. Most people are not." Ralph was completely serious. He explained, "Look, you refuse to identify with any religious group. You do these things without attributing them to any church or even to any God. You become more and more a threat to organized religions every time you do another healing. You do these things and disavow any connection with the Almighty. Don't you understand what that means?" I shook my head silently.

"Forrest, listen to Ralph. I have an idea of what he is talking about. Remember I was raised in the church and have been taught all my life that miracles are not done outside the church and inside the church only under very stringent conditions. Now you come along and do miracle after miracle and it threatens my whole belief system. Forrest, I know you and love you. But when you do these things I get a little scared of you."

"Oh," was all I could answer. Then I tried to explain, "There is nothing supernatural about any of this. Good grief, Rachel, you know I am not some sort of a Holy man. Look at me, do I look like a holy man to you?"

She shook her head and answered, "I don't know what a holy man is supposed to look like, dearest one. For all I know you are traveling through this life incognito. Can you prove to me you are not a holy man, as you put it?"

All the good feelings I had experienced during our meal evaporated. "Rachel, you know you can't disprove a negative." I shoved my chair back from the table. "I need to walk. I need to think. This is all too confusing."

"Forrest, wait, you can't just wander out there alone. It isn't safe. I'll come with you." Rachel pushed away from the table and began to put her coat on.

Ralph's cell phone started to twitter. "Hello?" he answered it and got no further. He listened and said, "We'll be right there."

"What's up?" I asked.

He frowned, smiled and let out a guffaw, all at the same time. In a strangled voice he said, "Some idiot tried to climb down inside your outhouse and is stuck at the shoulders, headfirst. Haw."

I did a double take as Rachel grinned and said, "Oh I do hope he isn't a Mormon. That would be too much."

"Come on gang," Ralph said, threw two hundred dollar bills on the table and we hurried out to the waiting limousine. "Home, James," he told the driver. "Step on it."

The driver didn't say anything. He nodded and smoothly pulled away from the curb. As soon as we were on the freeway he sped up and we were home in minutes. The first thing we saw as we neared the house was a cluster of police cars. The paramedics were there and cars from the sheriff's department and the highway patrol all parked haphazardly together, lights flashing.

When our driver tried to turn in at my driveway, a deputy started to wave him on. "We live here," Rachel called out the window to the deputy.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, lady, but you don't look like Forrest Eden. Just move it on." This deputy was a stranger to me.