Touch (1987) (14 page)

Juvie, when she was thinking about him; Juvenal when they were talking.

He was easy to talk to, interested, he listened, looking right at her while she told him about Bill Hill and Doug Whaley and KMA Records, Artie, the Cobras, the guy from William Morris; he grinned and was like a little kid. He seemed to know without having things explained to him, savvy and yet naive. God, and he was a very good-looking guy, the first good-looking guy she had ever met who didn't come on with a lot of bullshit, working up to a little sack time. This one--he had an innocence about him, no pretense; like he didn't even know he was good-looking. Thirty-three years old, eleven of them spent in the Franciscans, either in a monastery or a Brazilian mission.

Could he still be a virgin? The thought hit her cold. My God, it was possible. Even with all the singles bars and casual sex, girls carrying their toothbrushes and nighties in their handbags--he had been away from all that, sheltered, protected. And if he had known before that he was going in--gotten the religious call when he was younger--he might have avoided girls. She wondered if she could ask him. By the way, are you still a virgin? The possibility intrigued her more than his stigmata. Incredible.

Looking at him on the couch--was he the same person as the one on the altar? That seemed a long time ago.

She said, "Do you suppose by any chance you're a saint?" (Was it all right to fool around with saints? It was getting heavy.)

"I don't think so," Juvenal said.

Amazing. Not laughing or saying oh, no, horrified at the thought; simply, he didn't think so.

Lynn sat on the floor looking at him across the coffee table, past the ice-cold wet Spumante bottle, watching him reach for his glass, take a sip, and ease back again in the shorty shavecoat, bare legs, bare feet-- He seemed comfortable. But he always seemed comfortable. Even on the altar when he didn't know what to do. He had waited quietly for whatever would happen next.

"This is really weird, you know it?"

"You mean sitting here?"

"Yeah, I guess," Lynn said. "I mean your being here considering, well, you're a little different than most people I know. Like a celebrity."

"Not freaky?"

"No, actually, if you saw some of my friends, they're the freaks. That's what's weird, you and I sitting here--I mean after what happened, and all those people and what they must be thinking--we sit here and it seems so natural. I think to myself, How am I supposed to act with you? Should I act reverent, real serious, or what? But we just talk like, you know, it was nothing. I go, 'You suppose you're a saint?' And you go, 'I don't think so.' All this blood pours out of you, you don't even get excited."

"I'm getting used to it," Juvenal said. "The first few times, I was scared to death."

"I can't imagine you being scared."

"I was numb."

"Really? How many times has it happened?"

"Twenty. No, twenty-one now."

"In how long?"

"Next month will be two years."

"And you healed somebody each time it happened?"

"I think so, I'm not sure."

"What was the first time like?"

"Well, it was a little boy who was crippled. He came up to me in the street--"

"This was in Brazil?"

"Uh-huh, in a village near Santarem. The boy--I don't know why he came to me or why I touched him, but in that moment I knew something was going to happen and I wanted to run."

"God," Lynn said.

"I felt something wet--I thought the boy was bleeding. Then I saw my hands, the marks in my palms, and I saw my feet, I was wearing sandals. I couldn't believe it. Then a little girl came over--"

"Can I look at your hands?"

She rose to her knees and leaned over the coffee table as he offered his hands, palms up, lined, calloused, pink, with faint purple scars in the hollows, like marks from an indelible pencil.

"Wow. Do you always have those?"

"No, they go away."

"Well . . . what do you think?"

"What do I think? I told you about the stigmata, what I know."

"I mean, do you really think that's what it is?"

"What else? All five wounds--"

"Do you, like pray and think about being holy all the time?"

"I pray, yeah, but not the way I used to, or for anything in particular. It's more like talking to God."

"Do you think He hears you?"

"Sure, or I wouldn't pray."

"How do you know He does?"

"I don't know it, I believe it."

"Do you ever pray to a crucifix?"

"Not to. You pray before a crucifix," Juvenal said. "Sometimes I do, but not as a regular thing."

"Well . . . do you believe God's doing this to you?"

"He could be. Or it could be psycho-physiological, I don't know. Like when we're sad, we cry. We get mad or upset, there's a physical reaction. If my mind's causing it, then it's psychosomatic. If God's doing it, it's supernatural."

"Which do you think it is?"

"I have no way of knowing. But when you get right down to it, what difference does it make? It seems to do some good."

"You're awfully cool about it."

"I accept it, that's all. Do I have a choice? I'm not gonna pretend it's something mystical and then find out I'm psycho and should be put away."

"You don't believe that."

"No, not really. Even trying to keep an open mind."

"What did the other Franciscans say about it?"

"Down there? Nothing really. There wasn't any need to make a formal statement; most of the people believe in magic and witchcraft anyway. Some of the friars were turned on by it--Christ, a real stigmatic; let's see. The others, I guess the general reaction was stigmata, huh? No shit. And went about their business. You have to know Franciscans."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, I think for the most part they're childlike, in a good way."

"What about your superiors?"

"They said to keep quiet. They didn't want another Lourdes or Fatima on their hands, the carnival atmosphere, all the religious hucksters moving in."

"That's what Bill Hill said. Pretty soon they're setting up stands to sell Juvie dolls, or something like that."

"I'm gonna have to meet him," Juvenal said.

"He already called while you were in the shower. He wanted to come over but I told him to wait. I said I didn't know what happens next in something like this."

"Nothing happens; it's over."

"Until the next time," Lynn said. "Do you feel it coming?"

"No. Sometimes I think it's gonna happen and it doesn't."

"Have you ever healed anybody and you didn't bleed?"

"No. That's why I'm not sure which comes first. Or if they both happen at the same time."

"Does your Church know about it?"

"My Church? You mean Rome? I doubt it," Juvenal said. "But when I came home from Brazil I was sent to Duns Scotus, over on Nine Mile, west of here."

"I've seen it," Lynn said. "Gorgeous place, like a monastery."

"Yeah, it's a seminary really. I got there, I thought, fine. But then I was told not to have any communication with the students. They put me to work as a gardener. I said, Why don't you send me someplace where I can do some good? I wanted to work in a hospital." Juvenal grinned, the way Lynn's eyes opened wider. "No, not to heal anybody, I like working in hospitals, I always have. They said wait. I waited, asked a few more times, waited seven months, and walked out. Which was not the way to do it, but I did."

"Then what? You went to the alcohol center?"

"Yeah . . . but not right away."

She expected him to continue, describe what happened next, before going to work at Sacred Heart, but he didn't. Juvenal sipped his wine and sat back; he seemed tired.

Lynn said, "You must wonder a lot, why you? Huh?"

"Once in a while. I used to all the time."

Now, she thought. And said, "You mind if I ask you a question?"

"No, go ahead."

But as he looked at her, waiting, she chickened out. "I've been asking too many questions as it is. It can wait."

"I don't mind," Juvenal said, "but I've got to be getting back pretty soon." He smiled at her. "You coming to finish your cure?"

"I've dried out," Lynn said, "but I'll take you."

They drove down Woodward instead of taking the freeway--Juvenal's idea--from the suburbs down through the wide, main inner-city street that was going to seed. Not something you'd show the out-of-town visitor. But look, there's life, Juvenal said. People. What would you rather look at, people or cement? He said he liked big cities and all the crap and confusion. He'd spot things out the car window--a black hooker propositioning a white guy in front of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament--and smile and make mild comments.

She liked his smile, because she knew it was real. He wasn't pretending to be happy or smiling to show his teeth. His teeth were all right, but not great. When he smiled he seemed to know something. But it wasn't an I-know-something-you-don't smile. Like a shit-eating grin. Or like the wavy-haired Baptist preachers on TV who smiled talking about Jesus and made you nervous. That was a Bobby Forshay grin--gee, just so goddamn happy because he'd been saved and knew something you didn't. Juvenal's smile was good because he wasn't aware of it. He seemed not to be aware of himself at all.

After five hours at Lynn's place, talking about all kinds of things, they seemed to be talked out on the ride downtown.

Until Juvenal said, "You were gonna ask me something. I'll bet it had to do with . . . did I ever go out with girls, or do I like girls or am I sort of strange or celibate for religious reasons . . . something like that?"

"God," Lynn said, "is that part of it? You know what people are thinking?"

"Yeah, ESP," Juvenal said. "You know how you do it? You listen to the other person instead of thinking of what you're gonna say next. That's all, and you learn things."

"Like the other night in your office," Lynn said.

"Like the other night," Juvenal said. "We'd talked earlier--I don't know, I just had a feeling you were gonna say you were worried about breast cancer. I mean to test me."

"Why, because you think I'm sex-oriented?"

"Because you're sort of earthy. I said, 'Your breasts are okay,' and I'll bet you were gonna make a remark; only you didn't."

"I was gonna say something like, 'Just okay?' and give you a look. I mean kidding."

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to sound like a smartass."

"It wouldn't have been smartass; it would've been funny."

"Why'd you touch me?"

"Why not? We were talking about your breasts."

There was a silence. Lynn drove, looking straight ahead.

"Well, okay, I'll ask you. Do you have a hangup about girls, or what?"

"No, I like girls," Juvenal said. "But the idea of being attracted to a girl, you know, is something new. You were married, what, nine years?"

"Eight and a half."

"Well, you know something I don't," Juvenal said. "I bleed from five wounds and heal people, but I've never been in love. Isn't that something?"

Chapter
17

THE MONDAY, August 15 edition of the Detroit Free Press carried the story on , which was like a front page of local news. There was no picture.