Return of the Strange

 returnofthestrange.com

The next day’s Chicago Tribune front page features some of Riley’s interview with Oprah, what bystanders reported of the sidewalk incident, and transcript excerpts from the taxi company’s recording. The Tribune says the cat is out of the box, Riley has children by a previous heretofore unknown marriage - if nobody at the Tribune has read the ghostwriter’s Heavy Wait: A Strange Tale, which very briefly mentions the children by a prior marriage. 

Oprah emails Riley a copy of the Tribune article, under a “Cheers” salutation. Riley shows the article to Willa Sue, shakes his head, says, “Me and my big mouth.” 

Willa Sue growls, “Stupid newspaper it left out the hilarious ladies first story.”

Riley sighs, says, “I kinda doubt that’s gonna make Jessie feel better. Well, here’s hoping she never sees it. I don’t know if my children even know who I am. Or if they kept my last name. Maybe Jessie had their last names changed. I hope so. Less chance they will get dragged into my big mouth’s adventures.”

“Didn’t Mary Lou and me have something to do with those adventures, Riley? I can’t speak for her, but I’m damn glad I had those adventures, even you doing time, ‘cause if you hadn’t gone fishing at Port St. Joe and stumbled across a fruit and vegetable stand on US 98, we would never have met and I would be a lot more crazy and fatter than I was when we met, and God only knows what you would have gotten into and done instead, WITHOUT ME, YOU STUPID MAN!!!”

“Oprha put you up to looking at things that way?”

“Nope. What I didn’t figure out on my own, you made sure I understood LOUD AND CLEAR, you dumb shit.”

“Thanks, I feel so much better now.”

“The stupid newspaper let the whole wide world know we are thinking about doing a blog. So, Mr. Smarty Pants, why don’t you get to work on that and let all the what ifs and coulda beens do whatever they want to do or don’t want to do?”

“I’ll get right on it, Miss Smarty Pants, just as soon as I get my pants on.”

“Don’t do that yet, my smarty pants have some business to do right now with your smarty pants.”

“Oh yeah”.

“Seeing's believing.”

Something grabs something inside Riley’s smarty pants and seeing becomes believing.

By noon, Riley has set up a deal with Go Daddy to host “Stranger than Fiction: ask Willa Sue and Riley." Riley picked Go Daddy, because it has a reputation for protecting free speech and its clients as if the continuation of human civilization depends on it.

By dinner time strangerthanfiction.com is up and running. The blog allows anyone to comment, even anonymous. However, on advice of the Go Daddy tech Riley dealt with, all comments go into moderation for him or Willa Sue to approve for public viewing. 

The tech said, “There are a lot of crackpots and crazies on the web, and since you are kinda controversial, Mr. Strange, you understand my drift?”

“Loud and clear, I met a few of them in Chicago the other day.”

“I know, I read all about it online. I doubt the Chicago Tribune told the whole story, right?”

“Right. But they did pave the way for the new blog. Wonder how much I’d have had to pay the Tribune to do that, if I hadn’t gotten held up a iittle while on the sidewalk after Willa Sue and I were on Oprah?”

“I saw a replay of that last night. You are a brave man, Mr. Strange. And, I’m glad you are. Somebody, who has clout, needs to be saying what you are saying. Might not change the outcome, but it needs to be said.”

“That’s all that anyone can do, call them as he sees them. Or as she sees them. There was a fellow in Germany named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A respected Christian theologian, or philosopher. He wrote a really intense book, The Cost of Discipleship, which I read in prison. In the book, Bonhoeffer calls Christianity’s view of grace, “cheap grace.” Elsewhere, he wrote,“Silence in the face of Evil itself is Evil, God will not hold us guiltless.” Bonhoeffer and other people tried to kill Hitler and were caught and he was put in a concentration camp and executed.”

“That’s intense.”

“Prison was intense. Getting there after I met Will Sue was intense. Mary Lou dying was intense. My divorce and losing my children was intense.  9/11 was intense. What led up to it was intense. What is coming down from it will be intense. Well, enough ranting. I really appreciate you helping me set up the new blog.”

“Am happy to do it, and I wish you and Willa Sue well.”

“Thanks, and we wish you well.”