Touch (1987) (15 page)

Miracle Claimed in Almont Church By Kathy Worthington Free Press staff writer

Almont, Mich.--Blood appeared on the hands of a former Franciscan missionary, known only as Juvenal, as he stood on the altar Sunday. He was about to give a special blessing to a number of crippled children in the congregation. The bleeding was spontaneous, without an apparent cause, and was immediately acclaimed a miracle, a form of stigmata. The scene was the dedication of St. John Bosco church as a place of worship for tradition-minded Catholics who favor the mass in Latin. They oppose, in general, Vatican-approved changes in Catholic forms of worhip. About 200 were in attendance and witnessed the spontaneous hemorrhaging in the palms of Juvenal's hands. Juvenal, about 30, had been a Franciscan brother 11 years. He served at a mission in Brazil before leaving the order last year. Many in the church believed the phenomenon to be a true stigmata, which is described as the appearance of the wounds of Christ's crucifixion on the body of a living person. Fr. Nestor, the pastor of St. John Bosco, said, "There is no doubt in my mind, it is stigmata." A pamphlet entitled "Stigmata" was distributed following the occurrence. Juvenal, however, was not available for questions or comments. Theories explaining the stigmata are conflicting. Some assume it to be a miracle, a sign from God attesting to the saintliness of the one who bears the stigmata. Others claim it to be psychogenic, an emotional state of mind that causes a physiological reaction. The last publicized stigmatic was Padre Pio, a Capuchin monk in Italy who gained world recognition as a faith healer and confessor. He died in 1968.

There was no mention of August Murray, Outrage, the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost, or the miraculous healing of little Richie Baker.

* * *

Bill Hill called Lynn first thing Monday morning and said, Okay, tell me what happened. Lynn said, Nothing, really, in a tired voice. He told her he was coming right over. Lynn said she was going to wash her hair, clean the apartment, and then go out shopping. He said have dinner with him then. Lynn said okay, if she felt up to it.

"Look. I'm the one brought you into this. Right? I want to know what you two did, spend the whole day at your place."

"What do you mean, like did I seduce him or something?"

"What'd you talk about?"

"We talked about all kinds of things--I don't know. He's a very normal person."

"Yes, that's very normal, a person's hands start to drip blood."

"Not just his hands. I washed his clothes."

"Jesus Christ," Bill Hill said, "you washed his clothes--you didn't save 'em?"

"What was he supposed to wear, something of mine?"

"We're gonna have a talk," Bill Hill said. "I don't think you understand what you're into."

"I'm not into anything," Lynn said, "and if you think I'm gonna help you put him into some kind of religious freak show you're full of shit, buddy."

"I'll pick you up at noon. We'll go out and have lunch."

Lynn said, "Hey, Bill? Stuff your lunch. I don't work for you and I don't have to take your tone of voice either." She hung up.

What tone of voice? For Christ sake, what had he said to her? Nothing.

He got August Murray's address from the stigmata pamphlet, "The Holy Ghost Press," which turned out to be Zippy Printing, across from the Detroit City Airport.

August looked up from his desk and said, Yeah? Like, What do you want? He seemed to be a very sour young man.

Bill Hill told him he had been at the church Sunday and witnessed the miracle of the stigmata--not there as a parishioner but because he was a friend of Virginia Worrel's. August had never heard of Virginia, and Bill Hill sat down and told him how he had witnessed her sight restored . . . and how Virginia would be happy to give public testimony to Juvenal's healing power, if August would like to have her out to the church sometime, even though Virginia wasn't Catholic. Bill Hill said he wasn't either, but after that service Sunday he was thinking of converting.

August was a little friendlier, though still sour. He said, "The paper never used one of the pictures I gave them or even said a word about Richie Baker, after all that kid has gone through."

Bill Hill didn't know any Richie Baker. He said, "Well, what surprised me most, your name wasn't mentioned, after bringing it all about, so to speak."

August said, "Well, that didn't surprise me. Either paper--hell, any paper, they only write about me if it can be done in a putdown derogatory way, slanted."

Bill Hill said, "You have prints of the pictures you took?"

All kinds of them, eight-by-ten glossies. August showed him, good shots of Richie Baker and the kids as well as Juvie. And press releases. August had written and printed stories of exactly what happened Sunday at 12:25 P.M. in the Church of Saint John Bosco, Almont. He had sent a "press kit" this morning to both Detroit dailies, all the suburban weeklies, and the Michigan Catholic, daring them to print it.

Bill Hill said, "Maybe if I took a kit . . . and some of these other pamphlets you've got--"

"What for?" August said.

"I was thinking of TV," Bill Hill said. "I've got a pretty good in at WQRD. You think these pictures would show up on TV? Say next Saturday night on a nationally televised program that goes out to millions of people across the U.S.?"

* * *

Monday morning Richie Baker woke up with hair, a fine downy fuzz covering his entire skull.

His mother, Antoinette Baker, said, "Oh, my God!"

"See?" Richie said. "I told you. You didn't believe me, did you?"

His mother called Children's Hospital and talked to Richie's doctor for fifteen minutes, finally raising her voice saying, "Remission your ass. I can tell by looking at him, I'm his mother!" And, "I'm not raising false hopes. There's nothing false about them." She hung up hard and went out to the kitchen to get the morning Free Press and find the name of the person who had written "Miracle Claimed in Almont Church."

Claimed. They hadn't even said anything about the real miracle.

Antoinette Baker looked up the Free Press number, dialed it, and asked for Kathy Worthington. Waiting, as the phone rang, an idea came to her, and when Kathy answered Antoinette said, "I don't want you. Let me talk to the editor, or whoever your boss is."

It happened that Jack Sheehan, an assistant city editor at the Free Press, was looking through August Murray's press kit when he got the call from Antoinette Baker. He said, "Yeah, I'm looking at a picture of Richie right now as a matter of fact."

Sheehan liked the photos and the press releases. He liked religious revolts, conflicts in the church, and he liked alleged miracles. To get them all in one story, and a call from Richie Baker's mom at the same time, seemed a small miracle in itself, worth about three days of follow-up stories: human-interest personal reactions, interviews with the kid and his mom; their doctor's opinion; an interview with the healer, Juvenal--Christ, Juvenal? It kept getting better--medical opinions of the stigmata, preferably some smartass Jewish psychiatrist; a theologian's opinion of both the healing and the stigmata; brief history of people who are said to have had it; and what does August Murray, that asshole, have to do with all this? It might even be worth four or five days plus a feature on Sunday.

Sheehan said to Kathy Worthington, "You were actually there and saw it and you give me this one-column piece?"

"You cut it," Kathy said. "There was a little more."

"I see there's a lot more," Sheehan said. "The kid's mother says he was healed."

"The bald-headed kid?"

"The bald-headed kid isn't bald-headed anymore," Sheehan said. "You started this, you get your choice. You want the kid or Juvenal?"

"I'll take Juvenal," Kathy said, "and the theologian."

Bill Hill took his press kit and photos out west Twelve Mile Road to WQRD-TV, Channel 3, in Southfield (which was one of 137 affiliates of USBS, the young, upstart United States Broadcasting System), and waited an hour and a half to see Howard Hart.

When he finally got in Bill Hill said, "I can understand how busy you are. Your program's a honey and I sure appreciate your taking the time. Man, a lot's happened since I first called and called and you couldn't see me."

"What've you got?" Howard Hart said.

Bill Hill wanted to tell the man, first, he ought to shove his hairpiece back farther on his head instead of wearing it like an overseas cap. Jesus, all the money the man made and his rug looked like it came from Kmart. Bill Hill had watched "Hartline"--or, subtitled, "Getting to the Heart of It with Hart"--many a Saturday evening from ten to twelve on Channel 3 and he knew the man had absolutely no sense of humor, though he grinned once in a while to show his caps. But, my God, the man had a loyal following, was seen coast to coast, and got letters from all parts of the country telling him what a loyal American and wonderful person he was, which he often read on the air. Howard Hart asked his guests embarrassing questions and his viewers ate it up. He got transsexuals to talk about their love life, then told them they were sick. He asked female authors if they actually did all the filthy things they described in their novels. He insulted, cajoled, misquoted, called General Motors "Degenerate Motors" and Ford the "Bored Motor Company," claiming neither gave a damn about the common good of the "little people." He had a masked man on who told how he broke into Greta Garbo's apartment and stole all her underwear, not touching her furs or jewels. A Chicano girl claimed she had gotten it on with Ozzie Nelson "a pretty lot of times" in Bakersfield--until Howard Hart accused her of being a lying wetback, bore in and got her to deny it finally, in tears. That kind of stuff. Some guests had walked out of Howard Hart interviews right in the middle of the program, one of them being Frank Sinatra, Jr. Bill Hill heard about it but had not seen it happen.

He showed Howard Hart the photos, making brief but hard-pointed comments.

"He raised his hands like the crucified Christ"--Bill Hill extended his--"and the blood poured out on the altar."

"And on the kid, it looks like," Howard Hart said, bent over his big kidney-shaped desk studying the photos.

"On that poor little boy," Bill Hill said, and paused. "Who was going to die of cancer until Juvenal touched him."

"Who says?"

"They believe it. I talked to his mom," Bill Hill said, "a lovely woman name of Antoinette . . . divorced, working hard to raise her boy and get him his treatments--"

"What's she do?" Howard Hart asked.

Bill Hill had him and knew it. He sat back, looking across the expensive desk at the man's $49.95 hairpiece and said, "Would you believe it? His mom's a topless go-go dancer."

Howard Hart reached over, flicked a button on his intercom and told his girl to hold the calls.

Work, work, work. But damn, he felt good. Bill Hill was promoting people again and not some dead-ass technical specs, which camper body to put on your GMC pickup bed.

Down at the Sacred Heart Center he handed Father Quinn a certified check for two hundred dollars, saying just a little something in the fight against alcoholism.

Quinn said, "You can't buy your way in here."

"I just want to see him a minute," Bill Hill said.

"The line forms up in the coffee shop," Quinn said.

The priest took him up and showed him, pausing to glance in through the doorway. There was August Murray. There, a girl from the Free Press. Bill Hill said yes, he knew her from church. The guy with her, a photographer. The others were from the News, the Michigan Catholic, the Oakland County Press, and International News Service.

"My purpose," Bill Hill said, "unlike theirs, is not to beat on him with embarrassing personal questions. I've had my own faith ridiculed in the press and I know why he's skittish."

"I know when I'm getting conned, too," Quinn said, "but at least you don't act bored and cynical. I'll see what he says."

Once your luck gets a little momentum, Bill Hill believed, there was no telling where it could take you.

Like outside to the Center's rooftop sundeck and a panoramic sweep of downtown, from Stroh's Brewery to the tall glass tubes of the Renaissance Center rising 700 feet in the air.

He said to Juvenal, who was sitting in a striped canvas chair with his shirt off, "I know what you're going through."

Juvenal said, "I doubt it. I'm not going through what you're thinking."

His body was white, his arms tan. Bill Hill didn't see a mark on his side, or on his bare feet, either.

"Maybe I can still help you," Bill Hill said.

Juvenal looked up at him. "You know why I said I'd talk to you?"

"Because you're considerate."

"Because you're a friend of Lynn's."

"She's a sweetheart, isn't she," Bill Hill said.

"I wondered how close you two are."

"Like--" Bill Hill started to hold up two crossed fingers. He let his hand drop. Jesus--the guy staring at him, serious, waiting to hear what he'd say.

"I'm like an old uncle," Bill Hill said, "interested in what she does, protective-- Why?"

"I just wondered," Juvenal said.

"She's certainly taken with you," Bill Hill said. He was thinking on his feet now, feeling his way along. "She told me how . . . natural you two are together. She said, though, 'How come he hides instead of coming out and revealing himself. If God has given him this special gift, why would he keep it a secret?' "