Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (41 page)

One of the congressmen subsequently became a business associate, and Frank Blunt moved out of the scandal with clean hands and the receivership of three excellent utility companies, out of which he netted sufficient profit to more than replace his expenses for the cleansing.

He often said, afterward, that his Washington contacts made during that time were worth more than the expenses he incurred in, as he euphemistically put it, clearing his name; and unquestionably they were, for he got in at the rock bottom of the offshore oil development, operating with the boldness and verve that had already made him something of a legend in the financial world. This time he purchased the governor of a state, and it was now that he was said to have made his famous remark:

“You can buy the devil himself if the price is right.”

Frank Blunt never quibbled over the price. “You cast your bread upon the waters,” he was fond of saying, and if he wanted something, he never let the cost stand in his way. He had discovered that no matter what he paid for something he desired, his superb instinct for investment covered him and served him.

Politicians were not the only goods that Frank Blunt acquired. He was a tall, strong, good-looking man, with a fine head of hair and commanding blue eyes, and he never had difficulties with women. But while they were ready to line up and jump through his hoop free of cost, he preferred to purchase what he used. These purchases were temporary; not until he was forty-one years old and worth upward of fifty million dollars did he buy a permanent fixture. She was a current Miss America, and he bought her not only a great mansion on a hill in Dallas, Texas, but also four movies for her to star in. Along that path, he bought six of the most important film critics in America, for he was never one to take action without hedging his bets. All of the above is of another era; for by the time Frank Blunt was fifty-six years old, in 1952, he was worth more money than anyone cared to compute; he had purchased a new image for himself via the most brilliant firm of public relations men in America; and he had purchased an ambassadorship to one of the leading western European countries. His cup was full, and it runneth over, so to speak, and then he had his first heart attack.

Four years later, at the age of sixty, he had his second heart attack; and lying in his bed, the first day out of the oxygen tent, he fixed his cold blue eyes on the heart specialist he had imported from Switzerland—who was flanked on either side by several American colleagues—and asked:

“Well, Doc, what's the verdict?”

“You
are going to recover, Mr. Blunt. You are on the road.”

“And just what the hell does that mean?”

“It is meaning that in a few weeks you will be out of the bed.”

“Why don't you come to the point? How long have I got to live after this one?” He had always had the reputation of being as good as his name.

The Swiss doctor hemmed and hawed until Blunt threw him out of the room. Then he faced the American doctors and specified that there was no one among the four of them who had collected less than twenty thousand in fees from him.

“And none of you will ever see a red cent of mine again unless I get the truth. How long?”

The consensus of opinion was a year, give or take a month or two.

“Surgery?”

“No, sir. Not in your case. In your case it is contra-indicated.”

“Treatment?”

“None that is more than a sop.”

“Then there is no hope?”

“Only a miracle, Mr. Blunt.”

Frank Blunt's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and for a few minutes he lay in bed silent, staring at the four uncomfortable physicians. Then he said to them:

“Out! Get out, the whole lot of you.”

Five weeks later, Frank Blunt, disdaining a helping hand from wife or butler, walked out of his house and got into his custom-built twenty-two-thousand-dollar sports car, whipped together for him by General Motors—he was a deeply patriotic man and would not have a foreign car in his garage—told his chauffeur to go soak his head, and drove off without a word to anyone.

Blunt was not a churchgoer—except for weddings and funerals—but his flakmade image described him as a religious man whose religion was personal and fervent, and the wide spectrum of his charities included a number of church organizations. He had been baptized in the Baptist church, and now he drove directly to the nearest Baptist church and used the knocker of the adjacent parsonage. The Reverend Harris, an elderly white-haired and mild-mannered man, answered the door himself, surprised and rather flustered by this unexpected, famous, and very rich caller.

“I had heard you were sick,” he said lamely, not knowing what else to say.

“I'm better. Can I come in?”

“Please do. Please come in and sit down. I'll have Mrs. Harris make some tea.”

“I'll have some bourbon whiskey, neat.”

Pastor Harris explained unhappily that bourbon whiskey was not part of his household but that he had some sherry that was a gift from one of his parishioners.

“I'll have the tea,” said Frank Blunt.

The pastor led Blunt into his study, and a very nervous and excited Mrs. Harris brought tea and cookies. Blunt sat silently in the shabby little study, staring at the shelves of old books, until Mrs. Harris had withdrawn, and then he said bluntly, as befitting his name and nature:

“About God.”

“Yes, Mr. Blunt?”

“Understand me, I'm a businessman. I want facts, not fancies. Do you believe in God?”

“That's a strange question to ask me.”

“Yes or no, sir. I don't make small talk.”

“Yes,” the pastor replied weakly.

“Completely?”

“Yes.”

“No doubts?”

“No, Mr. Blunt. I have no doubts.”

“Have you ever seen Him?”

“Seen who?” the pastor asked with some bewilderment.

“God.”

“That's a very strange question sir.”

“All my questions are strange questions. My being here is a damn strange thing. If you can't answer a question, say so.”

“Then let me ask you, sir,” said Pastor Harris, his indignation overcoming his awe, “do you believe in God?”

“I have no choice. I'll repeat my question. Have you ever seen Him?”

“As I see you?”

“Naturally. How else?”

“In my heart, Mr. Blunt,” Harris said quietly, with curious dignity. “Only in my heart, sir.”

“In your heart?”

“In my heart, sir.”

“Then, damn it, you don't see Him at all. You believe something exists—and where is it? In your heart. That's no answer. That's no answer at all. When I look into my heart, I see two damn coronaries, and that's all.”

“The more's the pity for that,” Pastor Harris thought, and waited for Frank Blunt to come to the point of his visit.

“Joe Jerico sees Him,” Blunt said, almost to himself. Harris stared at him.

“Joe Jerico!” Blunt snapped.

“The revivalist?”

“Exactly. Is he a man of God or isn't he?”

“That's not for me to say,” Harris replied mildly. “He does his work, I do mine. He talks to thousands. I talk to a handful.”

“He talks to God, doesn't he?”

“Yes, he talks to God.”

Frank Blunt rose and thrust out his hand at the old man. “Thank you for your time, Parson. I'll send you a check in the morning.”

“That's not necessary.”

“By my lights it is. I consulted you in a field where you're knowledgeable. My doctor gets a thousand dollars for a half hour of his time. You're worth at least as much.”

The following afternoon, flying from Dallas, Texas, to Nashville, Tennessee, in his private twin-engine Cessna, Frank Blunt asked his pilot the same question he had asked Harris the day before. “I'm a Methodist,” replied Alf Jones, the pilot. “You could be a goddamn Muslim. I asked you something else.” “The wife takes care of that,” said Alf Jones. “My goodness, Mr. Blunt, if that was on my mind, flying around from city to city the way I do, I'd sure as hell turn into a mother-loving monk, wouldn't I?”

A chauffeur-driven limousine was waiting at the airport—not a hired car; Blunt kept chauffeur-driven custom-built jobs at every major airport—and the chauffeur, after a warm but respectful greeting, sped the car around the city toward that great, open, two-hundred-acre pasture that had been named “Repentance City.”

“You're looking well, Mr. Blunt, if I may say so,” the chauffeur remarked.

“What do you know about Joe Jerico?” Blunt asked him.

“He's a fine man.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Take my old grandaddy. He was the dirtiest, sinfulest old lecher that ever tried to rape a nice little black girl. Truth is, we couldn't have a woman near him. That is, when he wasn't drunk. When he was drunk, he was just a mean and dangerous old devil and he'd just as soon break a bottle of corn over your head as say hello.”

“What the hell has that got to do with Joe Jerico?”

“He went to one gathering—just one—and he saw the light.”

“How is he now?”

“Saintly. Just so damn saintly you want to crack him across the head with a piece of cordwood.”

“One meeting?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Blunt. One meeting and he got the word.”

It was dark when they reached Repentance City, but batteries of giant floods turned the vast parking area into daylight. Thousands of cars were already there, like a sea of beetles around the vast, looming white tent. Blunt respected size and organization. “How many does the tent hold?” he asked his chauffeur.

“Ten thousand.”

“He fills it?”

“Every night. You wouldn't believe it, Mr. Blunt, but they drive two, three hundred miles to be here. He has a loudspeaker setup, and sometimes he has an overflow of two, three thousand can't get into the tent. So they sit in their cars, just like a drive-in movie.”

“Admission?”

“Just two bits. He won't turn away the poor, but then he takes up a collection.”

They parked, and Blunt then told the chauffeur to wait, while he made his way on foot to the tent. There must have been two or. three hundred ushers, men and women, organizing the crowd and handing out leaflets and song sheets, the men in white suits, the women in white dresses. It was an enormous, businesslike, and well-conducted operation, and some quick arithmetic told Blunt that the nightly take, out of admission and nominal contributions, should approach a minimum of five thousand dollars. By his standards it was not tremendous, but it marked Joe Jerico as very much a man of practical affairs, however metaphysical his profession might be.

Blunt paid his quarter, entered, and found himself a seat on a bench toward the rear, sandwiched between a very fat middle-aged old woman and a very lean old man. Already the tent was almost filled to capacity, with only a rare space to be seen here and there; just a few minutes after he arrived, the meeting started with a choir of fifty voices singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A second and a third hymn followed, and then the house lights went down and a battery of spots fixed on stage center. The backdrop was a black cyclorama, the curtain of which parted for Joe Jerico to step into the spotlights, not a tall man, not a short man, straight, wide-shouldered, with a big head, a great mane of graying hair, and pale gray eyes like bits of glowing ice.

No introduction; he plunged right in with a voice that had the timbre of an organ: “My text is St. John, eight, twelve. “Then spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.' Do you believe? So help me God, I hope not. This is no place for believers. This is for the unbelievers, for the lost, for the misbegotten, for the devil-pursued, for the lost, I say, for you come in here and you come home and you are found! Open your hearts to me …”

Frank Blunt listened, intent and thoughtful, less touched by emotion than by admiration for the man's masterly command of the crowd. He played them as one plays a great instrument, as if indeed he was the extension of some mighty force that operated through him. His voice, naturally deep and full timbred, magnified by the public address system, touched with just sufficient trace of a southern accent, battered his audience, grabbed them, held them and used them.

Frank Blunt observed. He listened as the charge of emotion built up; he nodded with appreciation as the sinners went forward to be saved at the urgent, pleading command of Joe Jerico, and he admired the smoothness and the fine organization of the collection, just at the right moment of emotional completion. He ignored the slotted box as it went down his row, and accepted the hostile glances of those beside him. He sat and watched thoughtfully, and when it was over and the emotionally filled crowd, so many of them in tears, filed out, he remained seated. He remained seated until he was the last person in the huge tent, and then an usher approached him and asked whether he was all right.

“My name is Frank Blunt,” he said to the usher. “Here is my card. I want to see Mr. Jerico.”

“Mr. Jerico sees no one now. He is understandably fatigued. Perhaps—”

“I'm here now and I wish to see Mr. Jerico. Take him my card. I'll wait here.”

Frank Blunt was not easy to resist. He had issued orders for so many years and had been obeyed for so many years that people did his will. The usher took the card, walked the length of the tent, disappeared for a few minutes, reappeared, walked the length of the tent, and said to Blunt:

“Reverend Jerico will see you. Follow me.”

Back through the tent, through the black curtain, and then backstage past the curious glances of the ushers, the choir singers, and the rest of the large staff Joe Jerico carried with him; and then to the door of a large, portable dressing room. The usher knocked at the door. The deep voice of Jerico answered, “Come in.” The usher opened the door and Frank Blunt entered the dressing room. The room was an eight-by-fourteen trailer; it had taste, it had class, and it had Joe Jerico in a green silk dressing gown, sipping at a tall glass of orange juice.