| Click below to go to KPUT Komedy Korner (Main Page) |
| Copyright 2003 KPUT Komedy Ink. All rights reserved |
| Click below to go to the KPUT Archives |
| Chapter 2 |
| The Book of Je |
 |
| On the morning of Thursday, the 13th, Joe felt a force akin to 50,000 volts travel as a blare from his clock-radio alarm to his audio receptors. This jarring experience compelled him to sit up; usually Joe rose a few minutes before the alarm, granting him the pleasure of waking lovely Enid with kisses to her stunning cheek, jaw line, and neck. Now they were both alert with shock, and his wife did not require his gentle ministering. Still, Joe silently thanked the Lord for being granted another day of life, for having his wife of 29 years beside him, and for waking up with the alarm rather than sleeping through it. Joe carefully switched off the alarm. �Woah!� he joked to Enid. �Not the ideal way to wake up, in fact far from the ideal. If the ideal way is planet Earth, this morning is Alpha Centauri. And good morning to you, sweetheart.� �Morning,� Enid grumbled. She leaned over for a quick peck of lips when a cacophony of machinery rumbled down their street. The husband and wife darted to the bedroom window to gaze upon a military zone. Twelve vans draped in khaki green with thick, gleaming bars over the rear windows thundered along Etiwanda St. They stopped simultaneously, the line stretching from the north corner to the south end. Troops in full combat gear wearing helmets and gas masks stood at attention on the sidewalk, their huge semi-automatic firepower shining from their arms. Three deafening helicopters swooped to a halt just above the street. Joe noticed that the front doors to homes of every neighbor were wide open. A split second later, two military officers brandishing side arms roughly hauled Steve and Doris Gerty down their front steps, across their picturesque lawn and toward the nearest van. A third officer carried their screaming nine-month-old daughter, Wilma, behind them. 77-year-old Gladys Richards wailed as two military officers dragged her down her front porch to a nearby van. Zack and Fran Dominguez and their three handcuffed teenagers stumbled over to a van while being prodded by officers. Doug Riley, lacking a shirt, and his life partner, Jason Kamegawa, yelled angrily at the officers forcing them to an armored transport. Without hesitation, Joe and Enid dashed out of their home and over toward the officers escorting Denise Griffith as the 47-year-old invalid drove her Rascal down her driveway to the waiting traveling cell. A trooper stepped in their path. �Sir, ma�am, please return to your home.� �But-but-but what�s going on? Why are all my neighbors being arrested?� Joe stammered. �We have received information that the people being removed are suspected terrorists.� �Everyone on my block is a terrorist?� screamed Joe. �According to recent information that would be affirmative.� �What kind of information? Where did this crazy idea come from?� Enid demanded. �Information is received from a variety of sources, ma�am. Perhaps an undercover agent discovered an underground network, perhaps satellite photos made the discovery, or perhaps an anonymous tip brought these people to the attention of the authorities,� the trooper said blandly. �How can you consider a nine-month-old baby a terrorist?� Enid bellowed. �We�re merely acting on information, ma�am. Now I must ask you again to return to your home.� �So everyone on our street might be a terrorist, except us,� Joe observed. �Is that right?� �According to the information.� �Doesn�t that seem more than a little suspicious to you?� Joe argued. �I mean, two people who live in the middle of the street are not included in the covert activity of all the other residents?� �Joe, zip it,� Enid demanded. �Enid, these aren�t just our neighbors; these are our friends! And now we find they�ve been excluding us? How does that make you feel?� �I�m outraged, Joe, outraged because this is all a misunderstanding. You really think Gladys could be a terrorist?� �No! Absolutely not! Well� no! But the Lord does work in mysterious ways.� �But Gladys doesn�t!� Enid countered. �She�s been doing the same routine for the last 37 years, and none of it was anti-American.� �Okay. Okay. But you�ve got to admit that the Lord is working in a mysterious way right now. I mean, just- you know, look around you.� �Yes, I can definitely agree with you about that,� Enid sighed. The trooper gave one final request for them to go back inside. Joe and Enid complied. When the front door closed, Joe immediately joined hands and lowered his head. �Dear Lord, thank you for our continued freedom. Thank you for keeping the sanctity of our home. Thank you also for keeping our neighbors free from physical harm. Thank you for there being no blood or broken bones or missing teeth. Thank you also for the officers not getting overly aggressive or nasty with our neighbors. Thank you for having those officers maintaining some level of professionalism in their work. Please keep watch over our neighbors in this troubling time, and keep them safe. Please let this mishap pass by quickly, particularly as the Superbowl is coming up and we�re suppose to have a party at Zack Dominguez�s house again. Please place your protective hand over Zack, Fran, Stephanie, Curt, Mary, and their big-screen television.� Joe turned to see a scowl on Enid�s face. �What?� he asked. �The TV?� �I prayed in the order of importance, and that was the last thing on the list." "If you want the TV, why don't you just go over and take it after they're gone?" "With my back? This spine couldn't handle anything that heavy and bulky. Heavy, yes, if I keep it in the green zone. But not bulky. Besides, I don't covet the TV. The TV is just a tool for getting us all together. No one would come if we had to crowd around a portable. And have you ever heard me lusting after such a TV?� Enid sighed. "No. Never." "The only thing I lust after is God's love. Well, lust may not be the appropriate word in that instance. Desire? I desire God's love? I'd like to have God's love? No, I'll go with desire." The couple watched as the intimidating metal behemoths vacated the street. "Would you look at that?" Enid marveled. "They left everyone's front door wide open." "They did seem in a hurry," Joe observed. "Well, let's do the neighborly thing and go lock them up. You want this side or the other side?" "This side," Enid replied. Joe quickly went from one-story house to one-story house, checking the the back doors and locking the front ones. When inside a home, he kept his hand over his eyes so as not to violate the privacy of the home owner. At each house, he thanked the Lord that he was allowed this opportunity to help, that the hallways through the houses- especially the ones with toddlers- were free of obstacles, that locks were easy to locate and turn, and that any animals he encountered remained docile and lacked an unpleasant odor. As Joe stepped away from Ray and Helen Warren's house to return to his own domicile, his cell phone chirped a synthesized performance of "Ave Maria". "Hello," Joe answered. "Dad!" Glenda, his oldest child, exhaled. "I tried calling you at home but no one picked up. Is everything okay?" Joe stopped. "Okay?" Joe asked with great concern. "Why are you calling me on a weekday? What happened? Did something happen to Chris or Jennifer?" "The kids are fine," his daughter reassured him. "Don? Something happen to Don?" "Don's excited. You see, I found a new job." "That's terrific, sweetheart," Joe enthused, moving his feet again. "And you were only looking for... what? Three weeks?" "Just about a month, yeah. But there's one little snag." "Snag? Like what? You work nights? Weekends? You work nights and weekends?" "You can talk to Grandpa in a moment, Chris," Glenda said to the side. She turned back to the phone. "The hours are fine. Probably 50 hours a week. It's a management position." "So what's the snag? Is there nudity involved?" "No, Dad. The job is in Sweden." Joe stopped again. "Sweden," he said thoughtfully. "Yeah, it's too cold for nudity there. But leaving California?" "I know, it stinks. But the jobs just aren't in America any more." "You can say that again! Walter Ortega and Olivia Gibson dropped out last week so that they can work full-time because their parents got laid off. Now Walter's serving burritos at Taco Cabeza and Olivia's going door-to-door trying to sell security systems. And these were two really good students. Walter was scholarship material." "So you know what I'm up against, and why I need to take this job." "Yeah," Joe concurred. "So come over on Saturday. We'll have a party and a period of mourning. We'll join together and pray that tickets to Sweden are cheap." "Well..." Glenda said sadly. "We won't be able to make it, Dad. Truth is, we're just about to get on the plane to Sweden." "Wha- Are you serious?" Joe thundered. "Helinkler Dynamics offered a huge signing bonus if I start as soon as I get off the plane. And they have an employee that's transferring to Irvine who's willing to rent the house." "Why can't you have the Irvine job?" "It's a diplomatic job. I'm finance. Dad, Chris wants to talk to you." "Hi, Grandpa," boomed a chipper voice. "I go on a plane!" "That's wonderful, T. Rex," Joe said in a shaky voice. "I know you'll have a good time. I only wish I was there to give you a hug and a kiss and say good-bye." "Okay. Bye." The line went dead, most likely at Chris's two-year-old hand. Glenda would call back within seconds; Joe was certain. She had yet to say good-bye, as did Don and Jennifer. Joe immediately prayed, "Dear God, thank you for my daughter finally finding a job that she's excited about. Thank you for my daughter and her family being relocated to a country with no major political or military turmoil, a country that supports health care for every resident and encourages education. Please see that Glenda, Don, Jennifer, and Chris arrive in Sweden safely, that their luggage arrives with them, and that the movies on the flight are ones that my grandchildren will enjoy and sit still through. Also, please be with Don when he comes near Duty-free shops, and help him to refrain from purchasing alcohol. I realize that Don has been sober for seven years, but temptations-" "Ave Marie" burst from Joe's hip. He swiped the phone up to his ear. "Hello? Glenda?" "Nope. Sorry," his son Sam replied. "It's just me." "Sam! You're calling me on a weekday, too? What's wrong?" "For once, everything's right. A company called Dehemill Productions agreed to finance my documentary." "Wonderful!" blared Joe. "Which documentary was this?" "The one about the Brazilian government," Sam stated gleefully. "You remember? Standing up to the World Bank and the IMF? Striving to reduce poverty and end hunger?" "Right, right. So I assume you'll be going to Brazil?" "Going? Dad, I'm in Brazil! The President has a rally tomorrow that I have to get on tape. Two million people are expected." "No goodbyes? Why didn't you at least call before you left?" "I tried. For three hours, as I went through LAX security, I tried the house, your cell, and Mom's cell, but I kept getting a busy signals, which was weird." "Weird? Try impossible! We still have call waiting. Must've been a glitch in the system." "When the crew and I landed just now, I finally got through." Joe sighed. "So how long will you be out there? Three months? Four months?" "Three years, most likely," Sam said with an embarrassed tone. "The President still has three years left on his term." "Three years!? How long is this documentary suppose to be? 100 hours?" "It's actually going to be a series of documentaries for the Earth Channel. I'll be doing a new one every four months." "But you'll get time off to come home, right?" Optimism coated Joe's voice. "Oh yeah. Unless something happens, I'll be in for Thanksgiving, I promise." "Ten months? I don't get to see you for ten months?" "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm thankful to be out of here. The U.S. scares me now. The government has angered almost every country by taking over Iraq and Saudi Arabia and all their oil. We deserve to have been expelled from the U.N. The euro is muscling out the dollar to become the world's favorite currency, Mexico and Canada have nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S., the country can't afford to make debt payments, and unemployment is over 15% and only going up. Brazil, on the other hand, has great relations with other countries, reigned in inflation, works to save rain forests, and has the lowest crime rate of any South American country. It also has the most beautiful women in the world. More Miss Universe winners come from Brazil than from any other country. And I've been guaranteed a job there for three years, my longest gig ever." "And it'll probably be a lot longer than that if you hook up with a Miss Universe contestant," Joe said in a resigned tone. "I'm happy for you, Sam, because getting a paycheck for three years doing what you love is a good thing. Hopefully, God willing, three years from now you'll get off a plane with your beautiful wife to a country that decided that Brazil had the right ideas.� Joe�s phone spewed an electronic gasp indicating a lack of power before shutting itself off. After a minute of rage, Joe prayed. �Thank you, Lord, for allowing my son to get through to me. Thank you for his new job and for him working in a stable country. Please watch over Sam, keep him safe, and� and�� The flow of tears stopped the flow of prayer. |