Lucas Pryce was a man who got things done. He was a man of means who brought about ends to his liking.
For instance, when he was a young boy, he wanted a Red Ryder. One of those slick wagons made of steel and painted to a bright, polished red that zoomed down streets and strafed corners like it was their business. Those things were made to fly. And Pryce thought he was made to fly, too. But wagons don't grow on trees, and neither does money.
Since his dad had been laid off for going on eleven months after the local Chattanooga saw mill shuttered, Pops got him a boomerang for his seventh birthday instead. He was so angry with his cheap-wad-of-a-father that he broke the thing in half, right then and there and stuffed the pieces in his birthday cake.
Lucas Pryce was a boy who got things done, gosh darn it. He was a boy of means who brought about ends to his liking. So the next day, after being sent to bed without supper for his tantrum, he marched down to the local Five and Dime on Main Street, shoved open the door without a care in the world for the little tinkle-tinkle sound alerting the manager to his presence, grabbed ahold of the handle of Mr. Thomson's last remaining Red Ryder, and kept right on walking through the back storeroom and out the door that serviced Mr. Thompson's smoking habit, who was completely unaware of the absconding. After all, who would suspect a seven-year-old boy, barely three feet tall and fifty pounds soaking wet, of robbing them blind?
Yes, sir. Lucas Pryce was a man who got things done. And today was no different.
After he finished giving his last interview of the morning, Pryce had headed straight for his hotel room. He was soaked through his white, linen dress shirt from the hot, sticky Middle Eastern morning. His stone-colored, linen suit was even starting to show wet marks in spots, and Pryce couldn't stand to let a good suit go stale. He had to look his tip-top best if he was to continue to delicately thread the fine needle between the two most contentious religions on the most volatile patch of land on God's green earth.
His long confidence game was about to come to an end. Finally. And he’d best be looking the part at the finish line, owning the prize and pissing on the religious losers. All three of them.
After stripping down to nothing but his birthday suit, Pryce opened the heavy, thin glass door and stepped into the shower of his well-appointed hotel room. He turned the right knob fully on, leaving the one on the left shut off.
For minutes he stood still under the cascading fountain of chilly water, his skin a coat of goose pimples. He needed every one of his senses drawn taut to their fullest alertness. The coming days called for DEFCON 1, and his little, pre-game ritual was just what the doctor ordered.
After a full thirty minutes under the arctic blast, Pryce shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, and slipped into a white, Egyptian-cotton robe hanging behind his bathroom door. He edged to his massive, king-size bed and flopped backward into its luxury.
Every fiber of his being was tingling. Not merely from the cold shower, but from the adrenaline still coursing through him since he woke that morning.
After six-and-a-half years of painstaking preparation. After nearly two years fondling the egos and massaging the relationships of the rabbi and imam. After arranging all of the pieces on my board— it's within my grasp!
As he swam in the soft, billowy duvet of his bed, his mind buzzing with delight, he thought back to the day he discovered the golden ring. His precious, as he liked to call it. He had initially set out to disprove the historical veracity of the Bible's claims to the events surrounding the ancient city. Who in their right mind could believe in such a preposterous fable! Billions, apparently.
Including his pops. It's what he clung to when life went sour—when he lost his job, when he lost three kids to a house fire, and when he lost his wife giving birth to his youngest son Lucas James. Belief in God—even the kind of God who would level cities filled with women and children, who would take innocent kiddos in a residential inferno and a woman doing the most natural, God-given vocation on the planet—belief in this God centered Pops. It was his rock, his fortress. An ever-present help in times of trouble, as the good King David once wrote. Ditto for the parishioners of the small, country church that Pops had tried his hand at pastoring as a second career post-saw mill, the one Pops had been grooming him to take over when he turned twenty-one.
Yet, when push came to shove, that rock, that fortress, that ever-present-help couldn't stop the old man from blowing off the back of his head with a .22 Colt pistol. The crushing depression from a life of misery had finally dealt a hand the man couldn't beat, and God was nowhere to be found.
The worst part about it all was that Pops made him clean up the mess after he flew the coop to glory. It was always his messes that had needed cleaning.
What a Judas.
But Lucas Pryce was a man who got things done. And that bathroom wall never looked so spick-and-span! Even the toilet bowl and countertop never shined so well after Lucas Pryce was finished with them.
Pryce sighed at the memory. Bastard. Then another thought trailed that one: had it not been for Pops popping off his head—hey, he liked the ring of that. Pops popping. Anyway, had it turned out some other way, Pryce could very well be sitting in some parsonage with a wife and quiver full of kiddos and church flock to attend to.
A shiver shimmied up his spine, jolting him upright at the thought. He thanked the gods above and below for the full-ride scholarship that opened his eyes to the reality of faith, life, and everything in between and set sail his life down the path that had brought him to this crucial moment.
His mouth had gone dry from the day, so he sauntered over to the mini bar and grabbed the bottle of last night’s champagne celebrating what was to transpire the next morning.
He poured himself half a glass, then poured some more just shy of the top.
Cheers, Dad. Thanks for the pop, Pops.
He began to take a sip, but giggled at the thought, the sudsy libation tickling his nose. He walked over to the large picture window facing the Old City and smiled, then took a sip. He swished it around slightly before swallowing.
Juniper and apricot. His favorite.
Lucas Pryce was a man who got things done. And he’s only just begun.