Heaven’s Gate
20 Televangelist
Friday morning, Barbara was on the phone with Sam and me for nearly two hours. The ratings of our shows from the beach were high. Apparently, Delta National and several other organizations had spread the word to their associated sororities and fraternities around the country to watch the shows. Audience members had called home to have friends and family watch them. The result was our biggest audience records so far.
But the calls lighting up Barbara’s phone were not from fraternities and sororities. She was getting calls from organizations all over the country that wanted to arrange for their group to appear on the show or in the audience. It included high schools, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, DeMolay, Jobies, Rainbow Girls, YMCA and YWCA youth programs, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, various church groups, Girl Guides of Canada, PFLAG, the National Youth Leadership Council, and Young Republicans. Randy was taking calls and messages while Barbara was on the phone.
Some of the organizations just weren’t going to work. They were too small, too scattered, or just not coordinated enough. Others wanted to control the program content when their group was brought on. The Boy Scouts wanted to make sure that no gays were on the show or mentioned. PFLAG wanted an all-gay show. The FFA had latched onto my comment about being FBI and wanted me to travel to all their Midwestern clubs. The Southern Baptist Youth wanted the episode to begin and end with a prayer and include a gospel music group.
Most of the suggestions had merit, but simply didn’t fit our program. We told Barbara to have a temp on duty on Monday morning to help answer calls and we’d develop an initial interview script. We then directed Randy to get notices up in all appropriate venues to advertise for a guest coordinator. We’d had a fine time this week with a wide variety of guests for the show. But we’d depended a lot on the host organization to help line up things like the musical entertainment each day. It had been so successful that we needed someone to track down the up and coming musical talent in every venue. It was probably too late to affect our programming for the next few weeks, but we needed to get the ball rolling.
The last show from Fort Lauderdale went off well, though the audience was far deeper into party mode than the previous four nights. I suppose that it was Friday night and for many of them the last night they would be on spring break.
ME: I was cruising the boardwalk along Hollywood Beach the other day and Jennifer, Courtney, and I were just wandering into the various shops to look around. There was a shop that had sea glass in it, little glass baubles of all kinds, and a few really nice blown glass sculptures. It had a sign prominently displayed that said, ‘You break it, you bought it.’ There was not one roller skater in that shop! What got me, though, was the tent—almost abandoned when I got there—for a group called Virgins till Marriage. Don’t laugh at that! It’s a good group with a noble cause. And the women I met there were beautiful and engaging. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how to have fun. And you know what they had sitting on their information table? The same sign! ‘You break it, you bought it.’
Let me tell you guys—what are there? Six of you here who are still sober enough to listen?—if you see that sign as a challenge instead of an agreement, you don’t deserve one of those girls. No, I don’t believe you have to be a virgin until you get married. I do believe that it is one of the choices that a woman or a man has the right to make and it is not a challenge to you to try to break her down.
We teased the entire beach on Saturday. We’d decided to spend one more night so we could just have a day to go out and enjoy the beach. It was pretty chaotic with some students trying to take advantage of the last day of vacation while others were arriving to get started and wanted to PAR-TAY! Josh and I took all fourteen of our cónyuge plus my son and two daughters out for a parade on the beach. And all fourteen of the ladies were dressed in bikinis that showed off their perfect bodies. Josh and I just wore stylish board shorts. But believe me, no one was looking at us. Liz was upset that her tummy wasn’t sticking out farther, but she was only twelve weeks along. She alternated with Doreen holding C-Rae and playing with Matthew.
Two guys passed us who had obviously had a couple of drinks already and had a big leer on their faces when they saw the girls.
“Hey, babes. Let’s go have a party! I don’t care if your two dudes are supermen, there’s still only two dicks between them,” one of the guys said. I didn’t stop, so I was a step farther away when I heard Samantha’s voice.
“How many dicks do you two have between you?” she said sweetly. Like most dicks, he ignored what she said and attacked verbally instead.
“Ooh, ugly scar. Too bad. You’d be cute.” I turned and headed back, but the guys were now fully surrounded by my hearthmates.
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” Sam said. She pointedly put her finger under his chin and directed his gaze to her eyes. For the first time he faltered. I wedged my way between Elaine and Rose.
“Hey! Ow!” the second jerk said as he fell to his knees. Nikki had hold of his hand in what I recognized as the pinch.
“The last random guy who tried to touch my ass didn’t get feeling back in his hand for two days. I think I can make it last for four days without doing permanent damage. Shall we try,” she said calmly.
“No, please. I didn’t mean anything. Everybody on the beach is just here to have a good time,” her assailant begged.
“Having a good time doesn’t mean getting felt up by every random drunk that comes along,” Hannah snarled. Then much more pleasantly, “Nikki, you’ve got to teach me that one. I’d have just broken his thumb.”
“Nikki, honey, please. Let jerk two go. For me? Please?”
“Are you sure? If he tries anything else, I’ll let Hannah handle it.” She let go of the guy’s hand and he stayed kneeling on the ground shaking his hand to try to get feeling back in it. I turned to Sam. She still had her finger on jerk one’s chin and he was looking into her eyes.
“Samantha, release,” I said softly.
“Yes, Brian,” she said sweetly. She dropped her hand and turned to give me a kiss while the guy was watching. These guys were just far enough into the juice that I decided to have some fun. He was still standing there staring at us.
“Sorry about that, Dude.” I looked into his eyes and he tracked me. “I don’t think she took your soul. Once you get locked into Samantha’s death stare, it can be bad news. We try to feed her regularly, but sometimes she just gets hungry. Especially when a guy acts like a jerk.”
“Hungry? Me?” He shook his head and focused on me. “Oh, shit. Darren, we blew it big time. I am never drinking again. Before lunch. Mr. … Sir… Honest, we’re not guys like that. Like him. That guy who shot you. We got carried away. Really, I’m a fan of yours. We just… Oh, God! How stupid can I be? I’m sorry.”
“Carmine?” Jerk two said, finally standing up. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t you know who this is?” Carmine said. “Look at his stomach. The scars. Hers. Oh, God! You’re here, too!” he said, fixing on Dani. Xan was in her arms. Rose had Matthew’s hand. Courtney took the opportunity to turn around and point at the dimple on her butt. “All of you. And you’re the comedienne who let everybody have it on the Comedy Channel that night. I was there. At UIndy. I swore that night that I’d be the kind of guy you described—who’d stop a bullet to protect the ones I was with. I swore it, and here I am acting like the guy who attacked you. Jesus Christ!”
“You guys from UIndy?” Elaine asked.
“No. I saw your show advertised and had a date I was sure would love it. We’re seniors at Butler. We just flew in this morning and had a couple bloody Marys on the plane. We dropped our bags at the hotel because we’re too early to check in and came to the beach. I guess we stopped for a beer up the beach a way, too. Damn. I think I’ll just go back to Indiana and skip spring break,” Carmine said. I looked over at his buddy and didn’t see him. I raised an eyebrow at Nikki.
“He just took off.”
“Look, Carmine,” I said. “There’s no reason to screw up your spring break over this. You came to have a good time. Have one. What you’ve got to do is decide what that means. Obviously, this method of meeting ladies wasn’t smart. Figure out how to have a good time without being a jerk.”
“Yessir. Miss… I don’t remember your name from that night, but please forgive me for being such an asshole. What I remember is that she… Elaine… called you the most beautiful woman she knew. She was right. Sorry I messed up your morning,” Carmine said. “Sorry to all of you.” He backed away and looked up the beach. Nikki pointed the way his buddy had gone and he headed that direction.
“Go and sin no more,” Cassie intoned. We all looked at her as she struck a pious pose. That was the skimpiest bikini I’d ever seen her wear. Having her hands folded in prayer between her breasts just tugged at the fabric so it threatened to expose her.
We all started laughing and continued our promenade.
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