Chapter 12 #2
make this deal go through.
Opening a large,
wooden door, the receptionist pushed it open and motioned me in. I
briefly took in the dark green carpeting with a woven, gold border
around the edges where dark hardwood flooring peeked out. A huge and
ornately carved wooden desk sat in the middle of the room with a
large, burgundy leather chair studded with brass buttons. The skyline
of Atlanta, Georgia rose up on the other side of the window with
clear, blue skies and fluffy clouds all around.
“ Doctor
Reed.” I heard a gruff voice, and I turned to see a short man
with snowy-white hair approaching me. He was dressed in an
expensively tailored black suit with a pale blue tie that I bet cost
more than my entire outfit.
He held his hand
out to me, and I shook it. “Randall Cannon,” he said
while we clasp hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“ The
pleasure is all mine, Mr. Cannon,” I told him sincerely. And it
was… truly all mine, because when this man contacted me three
weeks ago, it was to offer me the chance of a lifetime.
“ Please…
call me Randall. And come… come… sit down.”
Still grasping my
hand, he escorted me to a low, black leather couch and motioned for
me to sit. He took his own seat in a chair opposite of me, with a
mahogany coffee table separating us. There was a full tea service
laid out.
“ Would you
like some tea? Coffee? Water?” he asked.
“ No, thank
you.” I was far too nervous.
He bent forward
in his chair, and I watched as he poured himself a cup of tea with
swift efficiency. As he was adding a cube of sugar, he said, “I’ve
been eager to meet you and discuss this project I have.”
I’d been
eager too. Those last three weeks while I was finishing up teaching a
class at Northwestern University had been brutal. While I loved the
academic environment and was thrilled to have an associate professor
teaching post, I felt like my brain had been stagnating. I wanted to
learn something new… I wanted to be involved in something that
was cutting edge.
So, when Randall
Cannon contacted me about an anthropological project he thought I
might be interested in, I was more than eager to hear what he had to
say. Of course, it could be nothing I was interested in, but it was
definitely worth the plane trip here—at his expense, of course.
Randall Cannon
was famously wealthy. At sixty-five, despite the snowy-white hair he
sported, still had the look and feel of someone in his forties. His
eyes were lively and quizzical, his skin very smooth. I read up on
him before I came, and I knew he made his money building one of the
largest department stores in the nation, Cannon’s. It was now
located in practically every mall in America.
He had never been
married, but I found plenty of photos of him online with various
young beauties on his arm. It seemed he only dated women about half
his age, which hey… more power to him.
“ I’m
very eager to hear more about your project too,” I told him. I
watched as he sat back in his chair and balanced the teacup with both
hands.
“ I did a
lot of researching before I contacted you,” he said. “Your
expertise in indigenous tribes of the Amazon is exactly what I’m
looking for.”
“ There are
many anthropologists with that expertise,” I told him humbly.
“ Yes, but
very few of them focus their research on the cultural evolution as
they make contact with the modern world. Most just seem to want to
study how they exist and survive—not how they are forced to
develop in unusual circumstances.”
Yeah… that
wasn’t really accurate. As the Amazon got perpetually raped of
its trees, and more and more tribes were forced to acclimate to the
modern world, there were slews of researchers watching this marvel
unfold. Many of the Indians took jobs with the loggers, earning a
wage that did them no real good when they returned to their homes in
the jungle.
But where I was
different was in following and studying Indians that had left their
existence behind and moved solely into the modern world. My Ph.D.
thesis was a study of five indigenous Indians from Amazonia who moved
to major metropolitan cities and learned how to enter the workforce.
I followed them for one year, documenting everything from how they
learned a new language to how they learned to eat with a fork. Three
of my subjects ended up returning to their tribes, unable to cope
with the civilized world. Two had acclimated well, with one just
finishing his undergraduate degree in Rio.
“ You said
you had a project that was similar to my thesis work,” I said
to him.
“ I do, in
fact. It’s quite an amazing tale, one that isn’t known
but to a select few. Do you believe in miracles, Dr. Reed?”
“ From a
scientific standpoint, I’m afraid I don’t. But from a
spiritual standpoint, I believe in the possibility. Without
possibility, we have no hope.”
Randall flashed
me a bright smile. “Well… a miracle has happened for me,
and I need to tell you the full story so you understand the
opportunity being presented to you.”
My stomach
started to sink, as I was starting to think that this guy may be a
religious zealot and wanted me to go hunt down some relic in the
rainforest. I had made two other expeditions into the jungle since
graduating with my Ph.D. two and a half years ago, but I was by no
means an expert on the Amazon.
“ Just humor
me,” he said with understanding as he looked at what must have
been doubt and skepticism on my face.
“ Okay,”
I said carefully. “Tell me about your miracle.”
Leaning forward
to put his teacup down on the table, he leaned back with a bright
smile on his face. “This story starts thirty years ago…
when I was a much younger man, and let’s just say, quite stupid
in my youth. I was egotistical, wealthy, and felt I was untouchable.”
I smiled, because
wasn’t that the way of all youth?
“ One
afternoon, after a day of sailing with my friends, I was driving
home… quite drunk, when I ran off the road and flipped my car
into a wide ditch that was swollen with rainwater. I was knocked
unconscious, and the car filled up fast. I would have surely drowned
had it not been for a young man who saw the accident and managed to
drag me out before that could happen.”
Didn’t seem
like much of a miracle to me, but definitely a world of a good luck
for him.
“ That man
was named Jacob Easton. He had just graduated bible college and was
on his way to an early evening study group. Needless to say, I owed
this man my life. I offered him money, but he wouldn’t accept.
I offered to buy him and his fiancée a house, but he politely
declined. I offered him the world, and yet he wanted none of it. He
only wanted a sincere thanks, which he got, and then he was
fulfilled. He was convinced that God had put him on that road at that
exact time of day so that he could save me.”
Afraid that this
story was, indeed, going to turn into some type of request for me to
find God in the middle of the jungle, I couldn’t help but
saying, “I’m sorry, Randall, but the scientist in me
doesn’t view that as a miracle. Maybe coincidence, maybe luck,
but I’m not sure about miracle.”
“ Ah, my
dear Dr. Reed… that’s not the miracle. Let me continue
on.”
I nodded my head
at him, mentally calculating how much longer this meeting was going
to take, because I’d heard nothing so far that would lead me to
believe he had a project that I would be interested in.
“ What
developed over the next few years was an amazing friendship. While
Jacob and I were very different—he was passionately following
his call to the Lord, I was still a hedonist who was happy to make
and spend my money. Still… we became very close, visiting each
other and having long talks about God, life, and humanity.”
Randall trailed
off, and his eyes were reflecting a deep fondness for the man he was
telling me about.
“ He was my
very best friend,” Randall said sadly, and I didn’t miss
the past tense of his reference.
Clearing his
throat, his voice became softer. “At any rate, Jacob married
his college sweetheart, Kristen, and they became missionaries. They
worked mostly with indigenous tribes in Brazil but went on a trip to
Africa once.”
Now my attention
was perked, because he had said the words that put the conversation
back on track.
Indigenous
tribes.
“ While they
traveled in these countries for much of the year, whenever they came
back to the States, they would come and spend a few weeks of vacation
at my home with me. Our friendship grew even stronger. I was so
honored when they got pregnant with their first child, and they asked
me to be his godfather. You see… Jacob had been an orphan most
of his life and bounced from foster home to foster home. Kristen’s
family pretty much disowned her when she married a man that carried
her away to the dangerous jungles.”
Randall took a
moment to reach for his teacup, taking a tiny sip. When he set it
back down, he told me, “While some missionaries are crazy
enough to do their work while pregnant, Jacob wasn’t keen on
that. They lived with me until their son Zacharias was born, and then
they bought a tiny house not far from where I lived. They stayed in
the U.S. for three years, Jacob working as a day laborer, Kristen as
a stay-at-home mom. And me? Well, I continued to amass my fortune but
we spent much of our free time together. I would invite the Easton
family to lavish parties I would throw, and they would invite me to
their tiny little home for Sunday dinners. I watched little Zach
grow, and I loved that boy like he was my own.”
Randall stood
abruptly from his chair and walked over to a huge cabinet against one
wall. He opened it, reached inside, and pulled out a small box. When
he returned, he chose to sit next to me on the couch.
Opening the box,
he pulled out a stack of photos and started flipping through them.
“ Here is
Jacob, Kristen, and Zach when he was about a year old, I think.”