American Savior Read Online Free PDF Page A

hospital visit, that I met Zelda. It was at Pete’s, in fact, a cute vegetarian cafe/coffee shop a block off Wells River’s main street. Zelda, I might have neglected to mention, is a therapist. At the time, in addition to her thriving private practice, she was teaching a course in counseling at the expensive women’s college in Wells River, and was reading some student papers over a mochaccino with a shot of vanilla syrup and buttered wheat toast.
    “There’s something jai no say qua about a woman who eats buttered wheat toast,” I offered, a terrible line, I admit, but I blame it on the pain medication. Plus, I had momentarily forgotten that my face was all scratched up, the nose bandaged, and one eye still black. So I was not looking my best.
    Without even lifting her eyes she said, “Yes, and there’s something je ne sais quoi about jerks like you.”
    I didn’t respond but kept looking at her. And that made her glance up. And when she glanced up, she took in the awful spectacle of my batteredvisage. I thought, for a second, that she’d either apologize out of pity or run screaming from the place. But she didn’t do either. She just appraised me, taking in the raw scratches, the dark purple swatch under my left eye, and the bandage/splint type of thing they were using to hold my nose in place.
    “A sight for sore eyes, aren’t I?” I said, trying again.
    “The hair looks good at least.”
    I thanked her. We laughed. The conversation sputtered and backfired for a while before we stumbled onto one of my passions—the American political scene, which, in those years, was fitting material for a comedy show. It turned out that, in the most recent election, we’d both voted for a candidate for senator who claimed to have a secret invention, not yet patented, that would fuel cars with vanilla extract. He was from East Zenith. I’d done a story on him. Zelda hadn’t seen the story (she watched our competitors) but had voted for the guy because the incumbent senator, who we both liked, had no chance of losing, and because she had a soft spot for offbeat, harmless types. Which somehow led to her giving me her “contact information,” as she called it. To wit, an e-mail address. I fired off an amusing note that afternoon. She answered it two weeks later. The rest is history.
    So, I suppose it was because of my pleasant associations with Pete’s that I decided I’d run up to Wells River and check this guy out. There would be no midnight rides in Cadillacs this time. I knew that. The news day was pretty slow. And Wales—who I wasn’t even going to tell at first—surprised me by tossing an “Okay, no problem” over his shoulder as he stared out at the city.
    And that was how I came to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

SIX
    The meeting with the Good Visitor would be the start of a new kind of life for me, but I did not know that then, and I did not feel any particular trepidation or excitement as I made the drive to Wells River. If anything, I was annoyed at myself for having agreed to the foolish errand.
    It was a few days before school let out. The sky was giving forth a steady, cold rain (our weatherman, a bald bodybuilder named William Fiskawilly, referred to around the station as Willy-Willy, lived for bad weather, so he was happy). After searching for fifteen minutes, I found a parking spot half a mile out of town, and walked to Pete’s with my umbrella flapping around, and an expensive pair of shoes getting ruined.
    The only good side of all this was that, by the time I came within sight of Pete’s Cafe, I had worked up a healthy appetite and was ready for a serving of their excellent vegetarian lasagna. Plus, walking into the place always made me think of Zelda. Pete’s was full of people with small shopping bags and pricey raincoats, everyone holding coffee cups with two hands and casting annoyed glances out the plate-glass window. I had no idea what the self-described Good Visitor looked