In the next three weeks God in a blue shirt interrupted two Twins game and the Viking’s home opener. All on KDUL-TV.
In the reception area, Jack Start stared out the window at the harbor. The sky over the water was still a rich summer blue, but summer was over. The leaves had begun to change and more often than not the morning breeze was out of the north.
“Mr. Start, Inspector Whitehurst will see you now.”
Jack Start took a seat in front of Inspector Whitehurst’s desk. He placed his walking cane across his lap. Special Agents Black and Flannery stood behind him, guarding the door, but the two never spoke.
The inspector remained standing, shuffling files on his desk before finally breaking the tension. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Start.” He held up a pack of cigarettes. Marlboro in a box. “Smoke?”
“No thanks,” said Jack. “I quit.”
“Recently, I’m guessing. Maybe about the time God showed up on television?”
“So this is about God?”
“No, Mr. Start, he’s all too human. And he’s in a lot of trouble. So is anybody who is helping him. Hijacking a television signal is a serious crime. It hasn’t been done successfully in over twenty years…and that was just a few seconds on a cable channel. This clown is hijacking signals from a network affiliate…and he seems to be doing it at will. Now, he’d have to have an uplink—”
Jack Start couldn’t help but laugh.
Inspector Whitehurst glared down at him. The FBI man was a big man, and an older man, with thin, dark hair combed straight back. He may have been sent up from St. Paul, but the trace of a New York accent still punctuated his lawyerly speech. “Is something funny, Mr. Start?”
The Duluth reporter tried to wipe the smile from his face. “I’m sorry, it was just the thought of God needing an uplink.”
The inspector picked up a file from his desk. Opened it and read,
“He’s dead.”
“Actually, his body was never found. He was classified as missing.”
“And seven years later he was declared dead.”
“Then why are you running around town telling people the part of God is being played by Pudge Abercrombie?”
Jack Start explained, carefully enunciating each and every word: “What I’ve said is, he looks like what Pudge might have looked like had Pudge lived.”
The FBI inspector held up a sketch. A computerized sketch. “Our people in Washington put Abercrombie’s high school yearbook picture on their computers and did an age-imaging analysis…what he would look like today. We know that Abercrombie is God.”
“You believe what you want to believe, inspector. Pudge has been dead for years. I saw him die.”
“That’s right, you were his best friend, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What would you say if I told you we traced Abercrombie to a house in Minneapolis, where he’d been living for the past twenty years? Not far from your old place.”
“With all due respect, inspector, I’d say you’re full of shit.”
