Heartland by Davis Bunn Read Free Book Online

driver shouted over, “Vaya con Dios, vajero,” then gunned the motor. The car roared away.
    The buildings were all stained yellow with the dry desert dust. Scrubby weeds and scraggly trees dotted the otherwise lifeless street. The only people he saw were in cars. The only crops that thrived were billboards and telephone poles.
    He walked because it gave his body something to do while his mind struggled to make sense of everything he had seen. The day just didn’t add up.
    â€œHey, guys! Take a look, will you!”
    JayJay winced and shied like a nervous filly as somebody rushed toward him. A voice yelled, “I don’t believe this.”
    â€œHold fire there, stranger.”
    â€œSorry, sorry, yeah, sure, you must get a lot of this. It’s just . . .” The newcomer had too large a grin for his young face. “You’re him, right?”
    A young woman raced up so fast she bounced off the young man. “It’s you .”
    Another man bounded up. And two more women. “It can’t be.”
    â€œThe studio’s only a couple of blocks from here,” the first guy pointed out. “You’re him. You’ve got to be.”
    JayJay did what any man who’d been brought up proper should do. He offered his hand. “JayJay Parsons.”
    â€œOh, man, this is just too much.” The girl was tiny and Oriental. She jumped up and down, turning a circle in the process. “I was raised on you.”
    He stood in the center of a growing crowd. All of them shone with the enthusiasm of youth and good health. The first guy to have approached was slender and Oriental, with high cheekbones and jet-black eyes. “Can I just say one thing, sir? My family came over here on the boats after Nam. Not me, I was born here. But my grandmother and my parents.”
    He spoke in such a rush he had to stop and breathe, then, “I know you hear this all the time. But I’ve got to tell you anyway. My grandma doesn’t speak much English and my Vietnamese is lousy. But every week, man, I wish you could see what it’s like. Eight o’clock Tuesdays, we are there. Planted in front of the tube. It’s the only time our house is quiet. Tuesday nights and church, that’s our time together, all of us.” Excitement squeezed tears into the kid’s eyes. “And every night when the show goes off, my grandmother, she says the same thing to me. ‘Go and be like him. That’s why we came to America. For you to become a man like him.’”
    JayJay allowed the kid to take his hand. “I don’t rightly understand what you’ve said, mister. But I’m much obliged just the same.”
    The young woman who looked like his sister asked, “Can I have your autograph?”
    â€œDon’t bother him with that, silly. He gets that all the time.”
    â€œI don’t have pen nor paper, miss.” He looked out over the throng. There had to be a couple of dozen now. All of them in their teens and twenties. “What’s going on here? Y’all are the first people I’ve seen out in the daylight.”
    They all laughed like he had just told a joke. “Yeah, that’s LA for you.”
    â€œWe’re headed for the fires.”
    â€œFires?”
    â€œYou haven’t heard?” A dozen voices all started talking together.
    The Vietnamese kid shouted, “Quiet!” When the chatter subsided, he went on, “Wildfires, JayJay.”
    A kid with a serious dose of freckles said, “That’s not his name.”
    â€œIt is as far as I’m concerned. What is your name?”
    â€œJohn Junior was what I was called as a kid. Nowadays JayJay fits well enough.”
    â€œThere, see?” The kid pointed at the bus and explained, “Our church is sending out volunteers to try and put a fire line between the closest blaze and some homes.”
    Suddenly he did not want to be alone, or separated from