Touch (1987) (13 page)

He stood waiting.

Nailed, if he was nailed at all, to where he stood. Unable to move. Then seemed about to say something, looking at the people.

What? Tell them what? Explain it--how?

Still the mild expression, but a flush of pain, holding something in. Trying to be composed, to explain it. Listen, I'm just--I'm no different--I'm---

No one in the church was going to move, perhaps ever. They stared.

Lynn walked up to him. She heard the snick of the camera and looked at August. August hesitated, then lowered the camera.

She looked at Juvenal, saw his eyes.

Help me. I don't know how to do this. But in the same expression, wonderment. Do you believe it? Look.

Lynn reached out.

She would not look at anyone or think of anything. She would simply do it, take Juvenal's hand . . .

August said, "The children."

What did that mean? Lynn felt the blood in her own hand now, leading Juvenal down the aisle past the children and the Gray Army and the layers of faces, past Bill Hill and the girl standing on the seat of the last pew, past everyone and out the door.

Bill Hill said, "Jesus Christ."

Kathy Worthington said, "What's her name?" getting her note pad out of the canvas bag.

Within a few minutes August was distributing his pamphlets entitled "Stigmata."

People were beginning to file outside, looking around, wondering where Juvenal and the girl had gone.

Chapter
15

KATHY WORTHINGTON told August at the church she'd look at his pictures, sure, bring them down; but she couldn't promise anything. He asked her how she was going to write it. She said, write what? What happened? August said here, and gave her three copies of the stigmata pamphlet plus his Juvenal story, "The Miracle Worker of the Amazon," and, for a little Outrage background, "Without Traditions Where Are We?" and "Why the Holy Ghost Flew Vatican II."

Kathy was glad to get away from the church and everybody standing around talking excitedly, blowing up what had happened bigger and bigger in their minds.

Later on, August drove downtown to the Free Press building on West Lafayette and walked into the city room at ten after four, surprised at all the empty desks. He had imagined reporters pausing, looking up as he walked by--"That's August Murray"--and a hush coming over a roomful of typewriter and telephone noise. But it was Sunday, with only an assistant city editor and four reporters among the wall-to-wall desks piled with files and binders and books, magazines--it looked like they were saving up for a paper drive. Kathy rose from where she was talking to some guy and led August back to her desk. He handed her a thick manila envelope.

"How can you work in a place like this?"

"What's the matter with it?" Kathy said. She opened the envelope, pulled out a stack of black-and-white eight-by-ten glossies and began going through them--crippled children outside the church . . . crippled children inside . . . Juvenal . . .

Too fast for August. He wanted to slow her down; raised up out of his chair to lean on the desk. "There he is. Look at the hands."

Kathy studied the close-shot of Juvenal, cropped at his hips, hands raised from his sides. "It doesn't look like blood."

"It's blood," August said. "You saw it on him, you saw it on the kid."

"I don't know--in the paper it's gonna look like a dark blob."

"Tell them it's blood, that's what blood looks like. 'Suddenly his hands began to bleed, blood pouring out as though nails had been driven through his palms. His side began to bleed, as though from a spear--' "

"I didn't see his side bleed. Did you?"

"It bled," August said. "When he gets the stigmata he bleeds from all five wounds, hands, side, and feet."

"Where is he now?" Kathy said.

August hesitated. "He's okay. Look, the reason I gave you the literature--read 'Miracle Worker of the Amazon,' it documents the first appearance of his stigmata when he was down in Brazil and gives the doctor's report, wounds bleeding from no natural cause, the same wounds suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross. Read the one, 'Stigmata.' "

"I did," Kathy said. "Who was that with him, his sister?"

"He doesn't have a sister."

"I thought there was a resemblance. Her name's Lynn something."

"Look," August said, "if it's not a natural phenomenon then it has to be supernatural. What else is there?"

"Unnatural," Kathy said.

"What do you mean, like from the devil?"

"Let's keep it simple," Kathy said. "No natural cause means they don't know. It could be psychosomatic; he believes it--" She paused.

"Yeah?" August waited.

Kathy had to think. "He concentrates so hard, like a mystical experience, hallucinating--"

"Yeah?"

"--that he thinks it's happening to him."

"But it is. We saw it," August said. "If he'd taken his clothes off, his shoes, we would have seen the five wounds of Christ crucified. He wasn't meditating or hallucinating, he was showing us that he's been singled out by God and given this special sign. You saw it, real blood. It wasn't ketchup, it wasn't some kind of trick."

"Most readers--"

"What?"

God, he was annoying. Sitting there, all his pens and pencils in his shirt-- "Most readers won't believe it."

"You know that for a fact," August said, "or you going by some pseudo-sophisticated idea of your own? Write what you saw, that's all you have to do."

"I'll write something," Kathy said. "It's up to the city editor whether it gets in or not."

"Long as you don't slant it with all that alleged, would appear to be . . . put down what you saw. You want to quote from my stigmata pamphlet you have permission, use as much as you want."

"I'll say, according to August Murray, an unbiased source," Kathy said.

"An honest source, interested in the truth."

"As you see it."

"I'm talking about absolute truth, standards of morality--" August paused. "What we're suffering in this country, and I don't mean just the Church, is a . . . pandemic erosion of ethical standards and feelings."

"Where'd you read that?"

"Write it down, they can read it in the Free Press."

"A pandemic erosion--"

"Listen," August said then, "you're the one mentioned it, using me as an unbiased source, thinking ha-ha, that's pretty funny, like you're talking over my head. I've read you people, everything you ever said about me you have to put snide little jabs in. You think the people out there buy your bullshit? They say, the good honest people, they say, 'Who's that broad? Who does she think she is?' You want to do a service for the people who read this opinionated piece of shit you put out?-- and I'll tell you the only thing it's good for too--start writing the facts for a change and quit acting like you're smarter than everybody else. That's what I advise you to do. You saw a man with the stigmata, the marks of Christ, which haven't appeared on a living soul in ten years, and go back to Saint Francis of Assisi himself, the first one to ever have it and only three hundred and twenty people since him. Three hundred and twenty-two now. You saw it--I'll give you that, you were the only person from the news media who came; not even the Michigan Catholic was there, for Christ sake--but that means you have a responsibility to report exactly what you saw and tell the implications of it."

"What implications?"

"The fact it's a sign from God and a very probable indication of sainthood."

God, Kathy was thinking, any God; get me out of this. "I'll write something," she said, "and we'll see what happens. But it's up to the editor."

"Okay," August said, "write it, keeping in mind you have three different stories to tell."

Kathy didn't ask what they were. She knew August was going to tell her as he held up a finger and took hold of it with his other hand.

"You got your stigmata story, miraculous marks of Christ appear the first time in this decade on a humble man, a one-time missionary by the name of Juvenal."

"That's his real name?"

"That's the name he took as a Franciscan."

"Why'd he leave the order?"

"You'll have to ask him that."

"Did they throw him out?"

"He left of his own accord."

"What's his real name?"

August hesitated. "That's up to him, if he wants to tell you."

"Do you know it?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you tell me?"

"Because it's up to him." August was irritated now. "It's his name. If he wants to tell you, he will."

"Okay," Kathy said, "if I see him, I'll ask."

August settled back. He crossed his legs, resting a brown sandal with heavy straps and studs, on his knee.

"Second, you've got you've got your Outrage story. The rapid growth of the traditionalist movement, a counterrevolution, a renaissance, rebirth of time-honored ecclesiastical and sacramental rites as they affect the more than one million Catholics in the Greater Detroit area."

Kathy scribbled something on her note pad. "I've got my stigmata and my traditionalist movement . . . what else?"

August gave the smartass reporter a tight-jawed stare, taking his time. "And you've got the miraculous healing of little Richie Baker."

"Who's Richie Baker?"

"A ten-year-old victim of acute lymphocytic leukemia, a terminal illness he's had for two years . . . until twelve twenty-five this afternoon."

Kathy said, "You mean the bald-headed kid?"

"Richie Baker lost his hair from cobalt treatments, Children's Hospital. He goes there every week for therapy. Check it out."

"Who says he's cured?"

"Talk to him; talk to his mother."

"I mean how do you know?"

"Check it out."

"There's no way to tell by looking at him, is there?"

"Check it out. Richie's been healed, not cured. Medical science had nothing to do with it. Go on, check it out."

If he said it once more--Kathy laid her ballpoint on the desk. "Okay, let me get to work."

"There's your three stories," August said. "Maybe you'll need some help."

"We'll manage," Kathy said, "somehow." Actually, she was thinking, there were four stories. The stigmata, the movement, Richie Baker, and a profile of a guy who carried five pens and pencils in his shirt pocket and wore socks with his Roman sandals.

She thought, How would you like to go out with him? Do the Stations of the Cross. Maybe take in a perpetual novena somewhere . . . as she began looking at the photographs of Juvenal . . . the hands . . . the face, the mild expression even as he held the blood in his hands . . . the eyes that seemed to be looking at her . . .

Kathy said, "Hey, what're you doing?" Not sure then if she was talking to herself or the photograph.

The good-looking black girl turned from the switchboard and came over to the desk. "No, he doesn't answer. I know he went out this morning."

"I picked him up," August said.

"Well, you know where he went then."

"And I know he came back." Because where else would he be? August held her gaze, hard-eyed, to make her tell the truth.

The good-looking black girl said, "If he did, he didn't check in and that's something he always does."

"I'll go up and look around."

"I'm afraid you won't. Less you get permission from Father Quinn."

"Call him."

"He's not here either."

"He's told me, I can go anywhere I want in this place."

"He hasn't told me."

"You know you're gonna be in serious trouble," August said, "as soon as I talk to Quinn. I hope you realize it."

"Yeah?" the good-looking black girl said, leaning on the counter now. "I never been in trouble before. Tell me about it."

August walked out and got in his black Charger standing in the no-parking zone . . . thinking of a new pamphlet he'd write.

The problem of proselytizing minorities.

He should have written it a long time ago. Trying to reach the unreachable . . . the unteachable.

Hell, tell it like it is.

Why there are so few niggers in the Catholic Church.

August was tired, feeling the great weight of all the work he had to do.

Chapter
16

"NO, IT'S NOT MY REAL NAME," Juvenal said. "My real name's Charlie Lawson."

"Charlie? Come on," Lynn said. "Guys named Charlie don't have things like that happen to them. God, can you see it? This big statue in church--someone says, 'Who's that?' And someone else says, 'Oh, that's Saint Charlie.' "

"There was a Saint Charles," Juvenal said.

"What did he do?"

"I don't know. He probably got martyred."

"How'd you get Juvenal?"