Tyler had a face made for radio. Describing him as homely was being kind. Pudgy was more accurate. But the world loves hearing about smart, successful people. So when the tabloids came calling, he was more than eager to play the role of the poor, dumb kid who’d struck it rich. He’d never forgotten his roots: a past littered with bullies and punks who wouldn’t let him in their games, who’d teased him relentlessly about his club foot.
He’d finally show them.
“What time did you say Avenues Free Press was coming?” Tyler asked to no one in particular. “And Dallas Monthly is calling too? Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time? I sure do!”
Not only was he busy buying up drilling leases all over east Texas, Tyler was also in discussions with two other producers, Panola Petroleum and Tenaha Resources. Both were smaller companies with promising holdings and no cash. The early assemblage of what would become a gigantic conglomerate was underway.
“No, no! I said we were outgrowing our offices,” Tyler corrected, “not this town. Gilmer’s been too good to us to leave now.” The frumpy woman in a tent dress, who represented the ragtag tabloid Avenues Free Press, was hanging on his every word. For thirty minutes she acted as though he might reach into his desk drawer, pull out a million dollars, and hand it to her for gracing his presence. “No, Gilmer’s home. We need more room to spread out, though, because we’re growing so fast.” His eel-skin cowboy boots were peeking out from the hem of his black jeans as he carefully propped his legs up on the corner of his desk. A starched Western shirt and an Indiana Jones fedora hat completed the ensemble. “Thank you for coming by. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a million things to do. My assistant, who happens to double as my mom, will see you out.”
Six months later Tyler moved the whole operation to Dallas. The local human interest magazine, Dallas Monthly, quoted him as saying, “I couldn’t wait to get outta Gilmer. The two-bit, one-horse town didn’t have nearly the employee base we needed. Not to mention, the girls weren’t nearly as pretty.”
Yep. Money had gone straight to Tyler’s head.
Calculated as he was, Tyler Raines had bigger reasons for skipping Gilmer for Dallas’s city lights. About the time he was graduating from A&M, a small start-up airline named Southwest had begun service between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. It wasn’t long before service extended to Midland-Odessa, the epicenter of West Texas’s gigantic oil field. Once again, Tyler started buying up the countryside. Along the way he rebranded East Texas Oil and Gas to Eastern Gas & Oil, or EGO Inc. for short. The new name, rivaling only the egocentricity of its majority shareholder, became the media darling of America. By the time Tyler hit forty, his name did too—on the annual Fortune top-forty wealthiest individuals in the country, that is. Money sets its own rules. Tyler, subject to the laws of the land like everyone else, felt like his rules should be followed whenever he wanted. Yet, to remind himself of where he’d come from, the old wood-and-canvas knee-high foot brace that once impeded his progress was prominently mounted on his twenty-sixth-floor office wall with a brass plaque underneath it that read, “If only they could see me now . . .”
~
“Tyler, you were everything I knew you’d be. Look at you! You’ve made a tremendous success of yourself,” Connor Stansbury said, fawning over him.
“Thanks for the applause, but I owe it all to you,” Tyler replied. “You took an enormous chance on completely unproven talent, and I guess it’s worked out for both of us.”
“I could tell by the look in your eyes. Your latest play out in West Texas was nothing short of genius,” Connor continued. “You’ve made both of us ridiculously wealthy, way beyond either of our imaginations. Thank you!”
“You’re kind,” Tyler responded. “Dumb luck, I guess. What brings you to Dallas today?”
Looking him straight in the eye, Connor said, “Son, as much fun as it’s been, I’ve had enough. I want out. How ’bout you buy my stock?”
“Wow!” Tyler gulped. “Didn’t see that one coming. But why? We’re just gettin’ started.”
“Oh, you know . . .” Connor said, then hesitated. “Leslie and I aren’t getting any younger. We don’t need much in Gilmer. Got a wonderful lake house, new cars, fat bank accounts—and no one to leave it all to. We’ve traveled as much as we can stand. Had to ask myself, How much is enough?”
“Well, Connor, I’ll buy you and Leslie out, and you know it’ll be a fair number,” Tyler intoned. “You got any idea what you’ll do with all that money?”
Almost before Tyler could get it out of his mouth, Connor replied, “Give it all away! We’ve been blessed, and now it’s time for us to bless others. We plan to start with the Buckner Benevolences right here in Dallas. They’re doing great things with the downtrodden, the garbage dump urchins down in Guatemala, and the elderly, so there’s plenty of need.”
Tyler braced for yet another sermon. Anytime the blessings came out of Connor’s mouth, Tyler knew another lecture on Christianity was right around the corner.
But not on that particular day. Over a frosty glass of sweet iced tea, the two oil and gas tycoons finally agreed on a number bigger than Connor could ever have imagined, exchanged a boatload of pleasantries, and, following a big hug, parted ways. The Connor Stansbury era was over.
~
As successful as Tyler had been in the oil and gas fields, his home life always had been the polar opposite. So much had been written about him that his face, homely as it was, became recognizable on the street. Men cowered in the presence of such a great and mighty man; women did the opposite. Rolling into midlife, Tyler was on his third wife, and there were more Raines offspring than an East Texas frog-strangling in the spring rain. “Alimony” became his new middle name. But what did he care? EGO Inc. pumped so much money, he could never spend his interest. All of his ex-wives were deliriously happy. But his kids barely knew who he was.
Trysts and rumors of trysts became tabloid fodder. Tyler was globe-trotting in his own Gulfstream jet finding fields—filled with both oil and women—in far-flung places. Rarely was he in Dallas. The jet was big enough that a small entourage of employees went behind him everywhere he went, cleaning up his messes while recording the deals he’d make. Money became his scorecard.
His friends were limited to the few he’d made in the oil patch. Their loyalty was kept in check by fear of Tyler’s overwhelming economic power, and the way he could employ that power should he decide to get nasty. Lyle Townsend began his career in the oil patch selling well casing to the old East Texas Oil and Gas. Always a straight-shooter, time after time he’d proven to Tyler that he could be trusted. So when he called one day in the mid-1990s, Tyler was interested in what he had to say.
“Big dog,” Lyle began, “me and my buddy Tom Smith have stumbled across something you might be interested in. While you and I were trading dollars for well casings, Tom was spending his days in the well workover business. He got his degree in petroleum engineering from Cornell and then went on to earn a doctorate in physics from MIT. He’s a pretty smart dude. Anyway, he’s spent the last five years messing around with this new oil patch technology known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking. You heard anything about it?”
“LT,” Tyler teased back, “you really think I’m dumb enough to believe you have a buddy with a name as simple as Tom Smith? Did you make that up? And yes, I’ve heard about fracking, but I don’t know anything about it. How’s it work?”
Lyle laughed. “I swear that’s really the guy’s name. Anyway, you’ll like him when you meet ’em. So, here’s the scoop on fracking. Using high pressure, fluids are injected into the subterranean rock formations, forcing more oil and gas out of the rock. As a result, production rates on wells have been increasing dramatically. Tom’s got some geologists he trusts who are building a portfolio of abandoned but very promising wells that Shell, Standard Oil, and Texaco are willing to sell. Their idea is to build a well portfolio of cast-off and shut-in wells, all of which should be relatively inexpensive. Once in place, they’d bring in an operator to work over the wells using hydraulic fracturing. Tyler, the business model is very similar to what you did when you were getting out of A&M.
“Assuming this works like the test wells suggest and well productions increase, there’s some interesting geology right there in the Dallas Mid-Cities area that could be drilled for new well fracking. We’d like to come see you and make a presentation. We’re looking for investors. What do you think? Would you be interested?”
Tyler came from nothing, so he wasn’t afraid to go back to nothing; he already knew what that territory looked like. After hearing the presentation and much discussion, he decided to go all-in with the investment. Timing is everything, and the small band of pirates happened to catch the wave at the perfect time.
~
Ding, ding, ding, ding! The sound of the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange was being rung by none other than Tyler Raines himself. For the first time ever, his little ole podunk company was making its Initial Public Offering. No longer would he own EGO, Inc. all by himself. Shareholders would be purchasing massive amounts of stock, thereby making him one of the wealthiest men on the planet. Worldwide media was there to capture the moment. Resounding accolades heralding unrivaled success and unparalleled wealth made headlines in all the major newspapers. Intrusive microphones impeded his every move as reporters clamored for even the slightest scrap of knowledge from the great man. For a kid who came from nothing, this enormous transfer in ownership ended up being all about him. But that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?
And then what? It was game over. He’d won. But with whom could he share the victory? He had no equals in the industry; his current wife despised her absentee husband; his children had no real bond with him. He was covered up with “things”: multiple ranches, seven homes, three jets, a one hundred seventy-five foot yacht, two ski resorts. But no one to share in his success. Had Connor Stansbury once again gotten it right?
With little to do and way too much time on his hands, Tyler decided to reach out to his disenfranchised children, but they wanted nothing to do with him. It seems he never learned how to love.
One day, a call came from out of the blue from someone named Leah Franks. The name meant nothing to Tyler. He found Leah’s persistence in trying to locate him unusual. Most gold-diggers would try a few times, offering pathetic stories of woe, before moving on. But Leah persisted. Using the name of her mother, Samantha Townes—a name familiar to Tyler—he became intrigued. So he called.
“Leah, Tyler Raines. What can I do for you?”
Boldly, she responded, “Mr. Raines, you and I have never met, but I believe you know my mother, Samantha Townes. Back in 1977, the year after you graduated from Texas A&M, I am told that you and she had a brief relationship in Gilmer, Texas. Please forgive me for being so persistent, but I need your help, sir.”
There was no “quit” in this woman. And for some strange reason, he was fascinated. Maybe it was her voice. “And just what kind of ‘relationship’ are you talking about? Did she work for me?”
“No, sir,” Leah said, hesitating. “You see, on her deathbed she told me I was your daughter.”
Tyler was stunned into total silence before saying, “This must be some sort of prank.”
“No, wait!” Leah screamed into the phone. “Mr. Raines, you must get thousands of calls from people wanting something from you. But, sir”—she began sobbing uncontrollably—“I don’t want any of your money. It’s my little girl, Maye. You’re my last hope. She’s dying.”
Something about her plea captured him. No one had ever called looking for something besides his money. Yet this woman who claimed to be his daughter had called—completely unhinged—to tell him about who? Her daughter? This was a new one.
“Go on,” was Tyler’s only response before she told him everything.
He had to admit, Leah’s story was plausible. Once Tyler started making big money, he had been a little randy with the women. Of course, he reasoned and justified, he’d been born with a clubfoot and missed out on a lot of normal social interaction as a kid. Plus, there really wasn’t much to do in Gilmer.
But Leah also knew a few facts that, although not buried, would have been difficult to know had it not been for her mother. She even admitted to not having believed her mother’s deathbed confession, choosing instead to write the claim off as the musings of an old, sickly, delirious woman who wanted her daughter to believe she was someone special. Leah was desperate. And just like himself, she’d grown up fatherless without anyone but a mother too proud to ask for help.
“So, you’re wanting money to pay your daughter’s hospital bill?” Tyler asked, still confused about why she’d called in the first place.
“No, sir.” Leah replied. “Brian—he’s my husband—has a good job with UPS and makes enough money delivering packages for us to qualify for St. Jude’s Hospital over in Memphis. My daughter Maye was born with chronic kidney disease, so we’ve been in and out of hospitals since she was little. She’s now twelve. Brian’s insurance has been good enough until now, but St. Jude’s took us—and they won’t take our money. But . . .” Leah’s sniffling turned into deep heaves, which quickly turned into a flood. “Oh, Mr. Raines, I’m sorry to ramble on. The truth is, we’ve lost hope. Maye needs a kidney. She’s been on a donor list, but we’ve exhausted every possibility for a match. She’s living most of her life hooked up to a machine. I just thought . . . No, I hoped you’d consider trying for a match to see if you would donate a kidney to your granddaughter. You’re the last hope we’ve got. I know this is a Hail Mary pass, but if what Mama said is true, and you are my father, well, I just had to make the call.”
Regardless of our beliefs, sometimes God touches the hardest of hearts. Tyler was speechless. Yet immediately his mind flashed back to the little kid with the clubfoot standing over the hubcap waiting for the rubber ball to approach. He wasn’t wanted by his teammates. He had wanted to be the hero of the game that day. But time, a clubfoot, and Mrs. Haney’s banged-up car had all gotten in his way and messed up his plans. His bitterness had lasted a lifetime. He’d lived for himself, and it hadn’t worked out too well for him. His kids hated him, his ex-wives wouldn’t speak to him, and he’d finally figured out that money was nothing but a scorecard. Maybe it was time for him to do something for someone else for a change.
Life was giving him another chance.
“Leah, are you at the hospital in Memphis right now?” Tyler asked innocently.
“Yessir, we wouldn’t think of leaving our baby’s side,” Leah replied with a deep foreboding in her voice.
“Hmm. And you think I might be a genetic match for your daughter?” he asked contemplatively, not yet agreeing to call Maye his granddaughter.
“St. Jude’s said there might be a good chance. Mr. Raines, you might be the last chance Maye’s got,” Leah said, sobbing into the phone.
Silence filled the phone line for a full thirty seconds. “I just texted my pilot. He says the flight time to Memphis is an hour and thirty-five minutes. I’ll see you at the hospital inside three hours. Please have the team ready. No promises, but let’s try to get this thing fixed,” Tyler said.
As his driver raced to the airport, something occurred to him. I’ve spent my whole life chasing the almighty dollar. Maybe all along I should have been chasing the Almighty, for it is He who gives the gift of life.
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This is a great read. Thank you!