An Imperfect Miracle (10 page)

“Why don't you show me now?”

“You just keep working on your jab.”

He whirled right around and rushed back inside before I could ask him what the real story was with that little drunk. Mom was always saying how drunks were always liars, and I wondered what he was up to and whether I ought to warn Carlos and Father Tom about him. But I figured they probably knew what they were doing. And if they didn't, Mary was around to look out for them, just like Chewy was always there to look out for me.

When I got home Mom was pounding her fist off our old stereo, where she liked to play her rock-and-roll records from when she was a little girl. I told her that it wouldn't do any good beating on it, and that she'd have to call somebody to come over and fix it. She said she didn't have the money for some overpriced repairman, but that she wanted the stereo to sound good because Pastor Mike was coming for supper. She said he'd just called her up that morning right out of the blue.

I told her what Father Tom had said about Mary being full of grace. But Mom didn't seem too interested and started beating on the stereo again. Chewy must have gotten tired of all Mom's griping and whining, because she went downstairs where she liked to curl up behind the washing machine and take a nap.

A few minutes later Pastor Mike showed up with two bottles of wine. I was a little surprised too because Pastor Bob was always preaching that we should stay away from drinks like that. Mom liked seeing the wine though and grabbed both bottles and took them out to the kitchen, where right away she poured out two glasses all the way to the rim.

Mom yelled in that she was sorry for not having any music, but Pastor Mike crawled right back behind the stereo and yanked off the ply-board cover like he knew what he was doing. After fiddling with some little orange and green wires, he got the thing to playing better than ever. I asked him if he could fix our leaky bathroom faucet while he was at it. I told him that it had gotten so bad that we just used the cold water, because if we turned the hot spigot on, water would go shooting out everywhere.

Mom got pretty red and flustered and told me to pipe down, but Pastor Mike seemed ready to go back home and get his tools. Then Mom snorted that supper was almost ready and that the faucet could wait for another day. While she was hollering in at us, I started imagining what it would feel like having a preacher for a dad, even if he was just a fake dad.

I hurried up and showed Pastor Mike my right jab that Father Tom had taught me. He said it looked pretty sweet, but that I ought to keep my left hand up too so I didn't get punched in the face while I was throwing it. I asked him if he could show me how to land a knockout punch, and he lined up my left arm and taught me how to snap my fist right at the end of the punch to get the most power out of it.

“Watch your footwork too,” he said, but then Mom came back in and we had to quit.

We were having ribs and garlic mashed potatoes, all except Mom, of course, who was eating this green flowery-looking stuff and a few baby carrots. Mom didn't make enough ribs either, and I had to gnarl mine right down to the bone to get enough to fill me. I was mostly too busy chewing to listen to what they were talking about. But as I wiped the barbecue sauce off my mouth Mom started griping about how it was too bad that some people were counting on Mary to heal them, instead of going to the hospital to be looked after the right way. I wasn't sure if Pastor Mike had the guts to go up against Mom like Aunt Helen did, so I took Mary's side.

“The last time I went to the hospital I ended up catching the flu. It wasn't my fault either, because I washed my hands with soap before I ate and brushed my teeth before I went to bed. Hospitals are awful places if you ask me. And so are doctor's offices. They smell like mouthwash and you can hear every little noise. I'd rather be outside in the fresh air with Mary.” I figured that would shut her up, but Mom was in no mood to give in so easy. She barely looked at me too, like she was trying to pretend I wasn't even there. Pastor Mike shot me a quick grin though.

“I'm not arguing that the town shouldn't build its little shrine, or whatever you want to call it, to raise some money,” Mom said. “But it shouldn't try and give people false hope.”

Pastor Mike must have really been trying to get in good with Mom, because he just sat there like a dope nodding his head and pretending that she was making sense. I was tired of Mom winning all the arguments, and while I was lining up the right words in my head I wiped the rib sauce off my lips so I wouldn't splatter it on anybody.

“Mary's all about grace and that's the important thing, whether you believe in the miracles or not.”

I must have said something pretty smart, because Pastor Mike reached over and patted me on the head. I just wished he'd have wiped the rib sauce off his hand first. Mom frowned and shook her head at me. But I decided that if she was too dumb to understand what I was saying, that was her problem.

Meanwhile, Chewy had trudged back upstairs from taking her little nap. Chewy still seemed to like food, although I'd never actually seen her eat anything while she was invisible. I bent down under the table and offered her a rib bone, but she didn't take it and instead laid down on her back and lifted up her front paws like she wanted me to give her a belly rub.

I couldn't exactly duck under the table and start scratching her belly with Mom sitting right there, so I sat up straight and got ready to start arguing with Mom again. By then Mom and Pastor Mike were leaning in toward each other real close and chattering about silly stuff, like what their favorite colors were, and what they thought about real late at night, and which movies they liked the best. I decided to finish off the mashed potatoes and the rolls before Pastor Mike could beat me to them, since he seemed like a pretty good eater too.

After supper Pastor Mike and Mom sat on the couch right up against each other while I squatted on the floor watching TV. I forget what was on because I was keeping a close eye on them. There wasn't any hugging or kissing yet though, just a little hand holding. After her third glass of wine, Mom started slurring her words a little. I wondered if Pastor Mike would mind, him being a preacher and all, but he was starting to talk a little garbled up too.

“What if it really is all just a carefully orchestrated plot? And they exploited my sweet innocent little boy to get some publicity for it.”

I'd never heard Mom call me sweet and innocent before, at least not out in public, and I wondered what she was up to.

“I doubt if there's anything underhanded going on,” Pastor Mike said real quick. “The police conducted a thorough investigation from what I'm told.”

“But what if the mayor's in on it too?” Mom slurped. “Father Tom and the mayor are big pals from what I understand.”

Finally I figured out what Mom was getting at.

“That's crazy,” I said. “Father Tom and Carlos had no way of knowing that I'd be down there at the abandoned lot the morning I discovered her. I didn't even know it myself until it happened.”

Finally Pastor Mike got some backbone and stood up for Mary. Maybe it was because Mom was so drunk by then that he didn't think she'd remember any of it.

“I just can't see Father Tom participating in such a thing. I don't really know much about the mayor though.”

“Carlos wouldn't cheat anybody either,” I kind of mumbled.

I expected Mom to give him trouble for talking back to her, like she was always doing to me, but instead she snuggled up right onto Pastor Mike's shoulder. Then she started asking him what sign he was, and what his hobbies were, and what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. They talked for a long time and Pastor Mike must have passed all Mom's stupid little tests, because when he was getting ready to leave Mom let him peck her on the cheek.

Next day Mr. Grimes handed us back our final tests. My plan to blackmail him must have paid off because I passed his dumb class with a D-minus, even though I'd only answered three questions out of twenty, and they were all marked wrong. Mr. Grimes gave me a few nasty looks but didn't say anything to me, and I didn't say anything to him either because I didn't want to push my luck.

After school me and Chewy wandered down to Main Street to see what was going on with Mary. The last construction guy was just climbing into his truck, and with Mary being closed to visitors the street had gone back to being kind of dead and dreary. I tried climbing the fence, but I couldn't get the point of my shoe in between the metal links and kept falling backwards. That was when I spotted Carlos sitting on the concrete steps poking some shiny thing into Mary's face.

I noticed a hole underneath the fence, and Chewy and me crawled through and ran toward the steps to see what he was up to. Just as we got there he turned around and jumped a little. I could see now that he'd been jabbing a little penknife into Mary's nose and mouth, but when he spotted me he closed the knife up right away and shoved it into his pocket. I hopped up to the top step and knelt down so I could see what he'd done to her. She looked exactly the same as last time though, just that little smile and seven yellow tears. I even stroked her cheeks with the back of my knuckles because I was hoping she might have softened up a little by then, but her face felt just as hard and grainy as ever.

Whatever he'd been doing, Carlos must have been working pretty hard at it, because he was a little out of breath.

“Just some touch-up work,” he said, and then coughed a few times, like he'd just swallowed some spit down the wrong tube.

“I thought Mary was perfect just the way she was.”

Carlos grunted and stood up. Usually he looked me right in the eyes whenever he talked to me, but this time he kept glancing off at the sky. It was just a normal blue sky with some skinny white clouds slithering around, and I didn't see what the big deal was.

“I just want to make sure she stays that way. Those tears are awfully tiny, you know, and I want them to be set in good and strong so they don't fade away.” Then he tried grinning at me a little, but the grin didn't hold and he glanced off at the sky again. “We wouldn't want the Weeping Mary to stop weeping, after all. Folks seem to like Mary best when she's crying a little.”

“How come?”

He shrugged, and then coughed again.

“Beats me, but whatever stirs up interest is a good thing.”

Then Carlos finally fixed his eyes right on my face and said that I shouldn't tell anyone that I'd seen him there.

“People would just make up stories. You know how people are.”

I wasn't really sure that I knew how people were exactly, but I promised that I wouldn't tell on him if that was what he was worried about. Then he pulled a key out of his pocket and hurried over and let himself out through the gate in the fence.

I waited until he disappeared around the corner of the karate place. Then I started telling Mary about that red-haired kid beating me up, and how Mom and Pastor Mike seemed to be almost boyfriend and girlfriend now, and how I hoped they got married so I wouldn't have to move way up to Erie where I couldn't see her anymore, at least not face-to-face. Then I waited for her to say something inside my heart, like Pastor Mike said she might, but all I felt was this big pounding ache.

All of a sudden Chewy snuggled up to me real close like she wanted to listen in too. I was glad because I was getting a little worried that Chewy might get jealous of me being so fond of Mary, but I guess Chewy only got jealous of other dogs. I told Mary about the shrine they were building for her, and that the town was expecting to make a boatload of money off it.

“So you better keep on doing miracles, or people might get tired of you and close down your shrine so they can put up that stupid parking garage.”

Then Chewy told me to ask her a question. I listened in my head like always when Chewy talked to me, because Chewy seemed pretty serious about it and I wanted to get the words exactly right.

“Chewy wants to know if you're so all powerful, how come you let some no-account little drunk defend you against Mr. Grimes and his blowtorch the other day?”

I closed my eyes and listened inside myself as hard as I could. This time I actually got an answer too. The word started in my belly as just a scramble of pale white letters. Then they shot up through my chest, where the letters started to line up a little and get sturdier and brighter. They took their time in my throat where I guess they were building up some momentum, before they finally exploded as an actual word right inside my brain. The word was shining so bright and dazzling now that it was hard to read, but I figured it out just seconds before it disappeared into the darkness. Chewy must not have been able to see it, because she kept asking what had gotten into me.

“Grace. But what does that have to do with Mary letting the little drunk beat up on Mr. Grimes?”

After a few seconds of thinking about it, Chewy said that Mary was just giving the drunk a chance to do a good deed by defending her, and that it would help his soul some day. As I was thinking it over, some people walked by on the street pointing at me and whispering among themselves.

I guess I got a little embarrassed talking to a slab of concrete. Maybe Mrs. Marcella and those other old Catholic ladies could get away with talking to Mary out in public, but I wasn't sure if I could, especially not when I was talking to an invisible dog too. So I took off for home with Chewy way out ahead wagging her tail like always. Just as I was about to turn up our street, I looked back and saw Runyon leaning up against the fence staring in at Mary. I wondered how long he'd been hanging around watching us and asked Chewy, but she didn't know anything more about it than I did.

Chapter 8

It didn't take long for the town to get Mary's shrine in shape for the grand opening, or “dedication,” I think was the official word. They were calling it
The Blessed Shrine to Our Weeping Lady of Millridge
, and folks from all over the country were coming to have a look. There were plenty of TV reporters nosing around too, and not just from Pittsburgh either but from big important places like New York and Los Angeles and even cities clear outside the country.

Father Tom made sure I got invited special, being that I was the one who discovered her. And I got asked all sorts of questions, until I was so tired of saying the same things over and over that I just kind of wandered off into the crowd until the ceremony started up.

The cops blocked off Main Street from one end to the other for the entire morning, and closed all the bars too so people could roam around without being cussed at by the drunks and lowlifes. That didn't stop Mr. Grimes and his atheist friends from parading around with signs calling the rest of us all a bunch of stupid hicks and criminals too for violating the Constitution. But after a while they just sort of blended into all the other noise and confusion.

Mary's abandoned lot didn't look anything like it used to. They'd built a nice little red and white wooden house all around her that had big wide blue doors in the front that they were keeping open for the ceremony. I guess the town picked red, white and blue as the colors because they wanted it to look patriotic or something. You could even peek in from the street and see the concrete steps leading up to her, but you were still too far away to see her face. You had to get in line and buy a ticket for that.

People were supposed to go in from the left side on this shiny white pavement that wound right up to the house. Then they'd file inside past the steps and take a look at Mary and maybe ask her for some favors. Next they'd march past Carlos, who was set up at this big fancy glass counter selling crosses and pictures of Mary and rosary beads, which Carlos had explained to me by then how they worked, and holy water and Bibles and other religious stuff. It was pretty much the same merchandise as before, except a lot better selection, according to Carlos. After the pilgrims, which was what the newspapers were starting to call Mary's visitors, made it past Carlos, they were supposed to walk back onto the shiny white pavement and out to the street again.

I expected it wouldn't be long before people started cutting across the new grass they'd planted all around Mary's house, people being what they are. It was a shame too because the grass was already thick and a real deep green, greener than any lawn I'd ever seen, except maybe on TV when the Steelers were playing at the beginning of the season before the field got all chewed up.

There weren't even any weeds in the grass yet, and I felt like lying down in it and relaxing until the ceremony started. But somebody had put up cute little red wooden signs with white letters saying you weren't allowed. That didn't stop Chewy from sniffing around for worms and bugs, and I could tell that she was having just as much fun as she would have had even before she'd died and become invisible. I didn't see why it mattered that she was breaking the rules either, since not weighing anything Chewy wasn't hurting the grass any. Then I thought about what Father Tom had said about grace being for people who didn't deserve it, and I wondered if it tied in somehow to an invisible dog sniffing at new grass. But after a while my head started aching from thinking so hard, and I gave up on it.

It cost two dollars to park in the special lot they'd built outside of town and another two dollars for the bus ride. If the cops caught you trying to get out of paying the fees by parking along the street, you'd get fined three hundred bucks. Of course if you lived in town, you could just waltz down there to the shrine whenever you felt like it so long as it was open for business. But then to go in and see Mary you had to fork over ten bucks if you were an out-of-towner, but only two if you could prove you lived in Millridge.

Old Mr. Santelli was put in charge of selling tickets at the door. At first I wondered why they'd picked him for the job, because he had two fingers sliced off his right hand when some machine went haywire at the tool and die plant he used to work at before it closed down. But Mr. Santelli was way past sixty years old and knew most of the townsfolk by sight. Even with only eight fingers left, he was still pretty slick at taking your money, making change and handing out tickets. And if he didn't happen to recognize you as being from Millridge, all you had to do was show him your driver's license or some other official-looking picture of yourself. Then he'd look up your name in a little blue computer he had sitting there beside him. He seemed pretty proud of it too, judging by how he was always polishing the screen with his shirt sleeves and sweeping the keyboard with a little orange toothbrush to clean the dust out.

I didn't have to pay the two bucks to get in because Carlos got me a lifetime pass, which was just this little yellow plastic card with my name and picture on it. But I still had to wait in line like everybody else, except for that morning when they made an exception for me.

The ceremony started with the mayor making a little speech about how proud and honored the town was to have such a holy symbol to show off, or something like that. It was a lot more lively than the speech he'd given at the town meeting, I guess because he was talking to paying customers now. There must have been a thousand people bunched into the street in front of the shrine, maybe even more since I didn't have time to count them one by one. Most I'd never seen before, and they weren't just old people either like some of the TV reporters were saying.

There were young couples holding hands, and moms hauling around their screaming babies, and dads lifting their bratty kids up onto their shoulders so they could get a better view. I saw a few people from town who I recognized, Mrs. Marcella and some of Mom's nurse friends from the hospital, for instance. But I didn't see any school teachers except for Mr. Grimes, although I spotted Pastor Mike hanging around toward the back with his sunglasses on.

Mom had decided not to come because she said she had a headache from drinking too much wine at some expensive restaurant Pastor Mike took her to the night before. I didn't go with them because I didn't like real fancy food, and Pastor Mike had to go out before they left and get me a biggie sized bacon cheeseburger combo. Mom said she could always go see Mary's shrine some other time. But I bet if she'd known I was one of the stars of the show, she'd have come just to see me. I didn't tell her though because I didn't want her embarrassing me out in public, like lining me up to take pictures and dumb stuff like that.

Being as wiry as I was and having pretty sharp elbows, I was able to shove my way up to the front row pretty easy. Father Tom was standing there in front of Mary's little house all dressed up in his white robe, and when he got the signal from the mayor he started swishing the air with his hand and blessing Mary and her new house. But since he'd already blessed her once, I mostly tuned him out and checked out all the pilgrims instead. There were plenty of sick ones too, and it looked like Mary was in for a busy day.

Finally it was Carlos's turn to talk, and he rose up from the big stuffed leather chair where they had him sitting and thanked everybody for coming. Then he called out my name and asked me to step forward where everybody could get a good look at me. I walked up to him real straight and tall just like he'd told me to. As he led me in the front doors I could hear all the cameras flashing and clicking, and it felt kind of nice to be famous and popular again for a little while.

I was all set to run up and lay my hand right on Mary's face like I did sometimes, but I couldn't because they'd built a little glass case around her. I could still see her all right through the glass but I couldn't touch her, and I asked Carlos why they'd covered her up. Carlos said they didn't want her wearing out from all the flash bulbs going off in her face, and from air pollution and sunshine and people's grimy fingers and bad breath and whatever else might bother her.

They had some fat blue and white candles set up on either side of her too, but not as many as there used to be on that banged-up little metal cart that the St. Sebastian's people had dragged down. The town must have decided that because not everybody coming to see her would be Catholic, folks might not like all that smoke going up their noses.

Mary looked just the same as far as I could tell, and I breathed out a big sigh of relief because I'd been worried that those construction guys might have messed her face up by accident. Carlos bent over me a little and whispered to me again that it was a good thing she was still crying. He said that after thinking about it awhile he'd decided the reason was that she looked more spiritual that way, and spirituality was what folks were after these days.

I asked him what he meant by spiritual, and he stumbled around for a minute or so but really couldn't say, at least not that I was able to understand him. Then he reminded me not to tell anybody about seeing him jab his penknife into Mary's face.

“Don't even tell your mom.”

“She's the last person I'd tell. She'd raise as big a stink about it as Mr. Grimes would, unless Pastor Mike was able to keep her in line. But I'm not sure he has the guts.”

“Maybe he'll end up surprising you. That young fellow has got some backbone, I think—brains too.”

We couldn't exactly stand there gabbing forever with all those jazzed-up pilgrims jamming and pressing to have a look at Mary for themselves. So I wandered out the other end of the house, and it wasn't but a minute or two that I was pretty much a nobody again. Carlos and Mr. Santelli kept the line moving along, and it was a good thing too since some folks seemed like they wanted to tell Mary their whole life story. When it came to the cripples and the sick ones, Carlos let them have a little more time with Mary so they could get their prayers and requests for favors out. The TV reporters liked seeing that too, because whenever somebody threw away his crutches or turned over her wheelchair, they went right up to them and stuck a big fuzzy microphone in their faces and asked them all sorts of questions.

I heard some people behind me mumbling that they were faking it, and that it was all just a publicity stunt so that the town and St. Sebastian's could rake in more money. I felt like spinning around and telling them they were full of it, but because I was just a kid still I decided I better keep my mouth shut.

Just like at the blessing ceremony not everybody waiting in line got healed either, and plenty of folks ended up shuffling away from the shrine just as sick and twisted up as before and looking pretty down in the dumps about it too. I even went up and asked Carlos why Mary didn't heal anyone who wanted it, and he said he didn't know for sure but that Mary was a good person and must have had her reasons.

“Maybe they're not ready to get healed yet. Did you ever think of that? There's more important things in life than just the body, you know. You have to worry about your soul too.”

I didn't really follow him, especially the part about the soul since it sounded like another one of those Catholic words that didn't apply to me. But I didn't see where it mattered much what I thought so long as Mary knew what she was doing.

Watching all that healing got me to thinking if I needed to ask Mary for any special favors. But I hadn't had a cold for months and was feeling pretty strong and healthy. Then as I was staring down at my shoes I remembered how sometimes I got ingrown toenails on my big toes. I whispered to Mary if she'd please ask God not to let my toenails grow into my skin anymore and get them all infected. I hated it when Mom had to dig out the nail with her clippers with me the whole time squirming all around and sweating up a storm.

I was pretty sure Mary could recognize my voice even though I was standing outside her house. Mary seemed to have good ears under all that hard brown hair of hers, and of course by then she was used to a bunch of people talking to her all at the same time. After I'd said my little prayer I didn't feel any different, but since my toes weren't hurting to begin with I didn't see why I should.

Mary stayed as busy as ever, and by lunchtime you should have seen how many crutches and wheelchairs and oxygen tanks were stacked up next to the door where the people were filing out. A lot of wailing and screaming came close by all that healing too, along with plenty of laughing and shouting and singing, especially by the folks who had driven in from way out in the country. Some were even throwing their hands up in the air and jabbering real fast in some language that nobody could understand, like a bunch of crows squawking it sounded like to me. After a while all the noises kind of blended together into this big roar that just kept coming at you, like the waves of the ocean or something.

A little after twelve thirty the cops opened up Main Street to cars again, but the pilgrims kept on piling in anyway, even though it was so hot that some were passing out and had to get hauled away in ambulances. It wasn't long before the line snaked all the way past the Laundromat and around the corner to where you couldn't even see the end of it. The only person from our church who I saw marching past Mary that day was Pastor Mike. After he got through the line I ran up to him and asked him what he thought of Mary and her new house. He seemed a little embarrassed that I'd spotted him, but he got over it quick and took off his sunglasses. “I'm glad that the good news of God's mercy and grace can still bring out so many people.”

“Do you think that the healings are for real? Carlos believes they are, at least most of them. He says that there might be a few fakers sprinkled in here and there trying to get some attention, but he says that isn't Mary's fault.”

Pastor Mike said he didn't know for sure but that he hoped so. I asked if there were ever any healings done at our church, and he said there might have been a few once but that he couldn't prove it.