Worst Case - James Patterson [2]
He licked his thumb and took the first sheet from the stack. He smiled, remembering the countless flyers he’d handed out in Berkeley and Seattle, and in Chicago in ’68. After all this time, here he was. Unbelievable. What a crazy life. Back in the saddle again.
Two
“HI THERE,” he said, offering the flyer to a young black woman pushing a toddler in a stroller.
He smiled at her, making eye contact. He was good with people, always had been. “I have a message here that I think you should take a look at, if it’s not too much trouble. It concerns, well, everything.”
“Leave me the hell alone with that nonsense,” she said with surprising vehemence, almost smacking it out of his hand.
Had to expect a little of that, he thought with a nod. Some people were a hard sell. Came with the territory. Unfazed, he immediately walked over toward a group of teenagers skateboarding by the statue of Garibaldi.
“Afternoon, guys. I have a message here that I’d like you to read. Only take a second out of your day. If you’re concerned about the state of affairs and about our future, I think it’s something you should really consider.”
They stared at him, dumbfounded. Up close, he was surprised to see the crow’s-feet around their eyes. They weren’t teenagers. They were in their late twenties and early thirties. Hard-looking. Kind of mean, actually.
“Holy shit! It’s John Lennon!” one of them said. “I thought somebody shot you. Where’s Yoko? When you getting back with Paul?”
The rest of them burst into sharp laughter.
Jerks, he thought, heading immediately over toward the center fountain, where a street comedian was giving a performance. Yeah, the fate of the world was a real rip, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t let those assholes get to him. He just needed to hit on the right person and things would start rolling. Persistence was the name of the game.
People averted their eyes as he approached them. Not one person would take a flyer. What the hell was this? he wondered.
It was fifteen fruitless minutes later when a petite woman walking past took the flyer from his hand. Finally, the man thought. His smile collapsed as the woman crumpled it and dropped it to the paved path. He ran forward and scooped it up before he caught up to her.
“The least you could do was wait until you were out of sight before you threw it out in a garbage can,” he said as he whirled in front of her. “You have to litter, too?”
“I’m . . . sorry?” the woman said, pulling the white iPod buds from her ears. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Were all young people today idiots? Didn’t they see where everything was heading? Didn’t they care?
“You certainly are,” he mumbled as she walked off. “You are sorry. A sorry excuse for a human being.”
He stopped dead when he got back to the park’s entrance. Someone had kicked over the stack, and most of the flyers were wafting away under the arch, over the sidewalk, whipping north up Fifth Avenue.
He ran out of the park and chased them for a while. He finally stopped. He felt completely drained and idiotic as he sat on the curb between a couple of parked cars.
He held his head in his hands as he wept. For twenty minutes he cried, listening to the wind, watching the relentless roll of traffic in the street.
Flyers? he thought, sniffling. He thought he could change things with a sheet of paper and a concerned expression? He looked down at the antique jeans jacket he’d taken from the back of his closet. So proud that it still fit. He really was a complete fool.
There was only one thing that could get people to sit up straight, only one thing that would open their eyes.
Only one thing then.
And only one thing now.
He nodded, finally resolving himself. He wasn’t going to be getting any help. He had to do it himself. Fine. Enough of this nonsense. The clock was ticking. He didn’t have any more time to fool the fuck around.
He discovered he was still holding on to a crumpled flyer. He smoothed it out on the cold pavement beside him, took out a pen, and made a vital correction. It snapped