I Want to Show You More (9780802193742) (8 page)

On his lunch break, despite the fact that it was a felony—didn't he, of all people, know it!—Steven Ruske took the letter out to his car, which was parked on Lula Lake Road across from the post office. He opened the envelope beneath his steering wheel. It was only a form letter with a stamped signature. He read it anyhow.

Dear Mrs. Eva Bock,

Thank you for writing to express your concerns re
garding our efforts to improve the lives of the Iraqi
people. I want to assure you, personally, that I and my administration are doing everything within our power to minimize casualties, both military and civilian. Please continue to keep our troops in your thoughts and prayers as we look forward to a future in which the freedoms we enjoy as Americans—including the freedom of speech, which allows citizens like yourself to speak out against oppression and injustice—are made available to our fellow citizens at the far reaches of the globe.

Sincerely,

President George W. Bush

Steven Ruske slid the letter back into the envelope. He
finished eating his sandwich, placing the letter in his lap to catch the crumbs. He stuffed the leftover crusts, foil wrapper, and envelope into his brown lunch sack. Then he crossed the street and, before returning to work, tossed the sack into the dumpster next to the Lookout Mountain Café.

The Anointing

Seven months into her husband's depression, Diane called the church secretary. She wanted the elders to come over and anoint Mitch with oil. He hadn't put his pants on in a month. In the past week he hadn't left the bed. When he spoke, it was about endings—the end of his career, the end of suffering. This morning, at 3
a
.
m
., he'd woken her to ask if summer was over yet. It was early June. Diane was afraid he might kill himself.

She'd seen anointings performed twice before. The first time was at a Baptist summer camp when she was nine. During evening worship—held in a makeshift auditorium beneath a stained canvas tarp—a boy with braces on his legs was brought forward by his mother, his wheelchair leaving tracks in the sawdust. The camp's pastor removed the braces, knelt in front of the chair, and rubbed oil all over the boy's white calves as if he were applying sunscreen. The following summer the boy came back to camp still wearing the braces, though now he used crutches with metal cuffs around the wrists.

The second time was last year in church, during Sunday morning service. A woman with breast cancer—metastasized—knelt beside the altar while the elders crowded around her, their hands on her shoulders. Pastor Murray oiled a thumbprint on the woman's forehead and prayed that God would “strangle the tumors.” Now, a year later, the woman was cancer-free. She wore her hair gelled up into bleached spikes.

Anointings were eleventh-hour efforts—what you asked for after you'd asked for everything else. Had someone ever told her she'd be asking for one, Diane would have laughed. Three years ago Mitch's orthopedic practice was bringing in more money than either of them had anticipated. He'd been working long hours, not only seeing patients in the office and doing hospital rotation, but also testifying as an expert witness in lawsuits. “These guys'll try anything to get workmen's comp,” he'd said. “One guy rolled himself into the office in a wheelchair. Two days later surveillance caught him pitching a tent at his son's scout camp.”

Now Mitch was the one applying for permanent disability. Simple brain chemistry, the psychiatrist had said. Dopamine highs, serotonin lows. Mitch was—here the doctor had cleared his throat—bipolar. He'd pronounced it gently, as if the word itself might break in two. For one crazy moment Diane thought it meant Mitch needed glasses, the kind you wore if you were both near- and farsighted.

What it meant, in practical terms, was that for three years Mitch had been addicted to Vicodin. He'd gotten hooked after his back surgery, started mixing it with Valium and prescribing to himself using other men's names. Diane had seen the bottles on his desk—Glen Sanderson, Brian Gilbert, Gary Dennis—names of patients at the homeless shelter where they both volunteered through church. Crossroads, it was called: the logo was a cross casting a purple shadow onto a stick figure lying prostrate in the middle of a road. It was their family's ministry. Every other Saturday they drove to the facility in downtown Tucson, where Mitch handed out medications, Diane scrambled eggs or flipped pancakes, and Ellie and Kyle passed out Ziploc baggies filled with miniature bottles of mouthwash, antibacterial hand gel, deodorant, plastic combs, dental floss, tracts. The homeless people loved to touch the children's faces and hair. Diane always watched to make sure the touching was appropriate.

Then one day last November, when Mitch left early to pick up some prescriptions before work and she'd seen the kids onto the bus, the doorbell rang. Two men wearing Polo shirts and khakis held up badges. Diane led them into the living room and sat down on the couch; the men remained standing. One took out a recorder and placed it on the grand piano. “Mrs. Stewart, are you aware that your husband has been prescribing himself narcotics? Are you aware he's been using other names to obtain the medications?”

She shook her head. “He took them once,” she said, “only for a few days. After his back surgery.” The men looked at each other. Diane lifted her chin. “He volunteers at Crossroads, downtown. The medications are for the patients.”

The DEA fined Mitch $25,000. The medical board sentenced him to a monthlong inpatient detox program and three years' attendance at NA meetings. They revoked his license to prescribe narcotics and set him up for psychiatric evaluation. “At least he didn't have to go to prison,” the psychiatrist said to Diane.

Mitch withdrew from her, from the kids. He wandered around the house in his boxers. He watched the History Channel, sometimes all night long. Diane started sleeping in the guest room. She called the prayer hotline at church; she memorized scripture and took prayer walks; she went to the church and had elders pray with her. At first she begged God to heal Mitch. Now she just wanted God to extend a measured grace—something long enough to get them from
here
to
there
.

Diane wanted to believe the anointing would be that thing. But she doubted it would work. Her faith was waning. What if it was all a crock, made up to quiet fears of not existing? Near-death experiences, angelic visitations, visions—all just neurons firing, a highly evolved response system to keep the human race from going insane?

She'd made the choice to believe when she was a child living in Toledo. One winter night, when she was nine, she couldn't sleep, sweaty and panicked by the thought that she might not believe in God. She finally sneaked out of the house and wrote in the snow with her finger, in the biggest letters she could make, “I LOVE GOD.” The snow sparkled orange under the streetlamp.
He can see that,
she thought.
I love Him. Now He knows
.

Lately she was questioning everything.
Maybe Hume was right,
she thought.
We should be no more afraid of ceasing to exist after we die than we're afraid we didn't exist before we were born.

Ellie shuffled into the kitchen wearing a T-shirt Mitch had given her for her eighth birthday: a silkscreened kitten above the words
less purr, more grrr.
“What's for breakfast?”

“Pancakes,” Diane said. “From scratch.”

“Can you make them chocolate chip?”

“We don't have any chocolate chips.”

“We never have
anything
anymore.” Ellie said. “Why can't you go to the store? Or why can't Daddy?” She sat down with her knees up, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Grandma's coming the day after tomorrow.” Diane knew the singsongy voice in which she said this was overcompensation. “So I can go to the store then.” She poured one and a half cups of milk into the flour mixture, cracked two eggs into the bowl, and tipped four tablespoons of canola oil over the side. She stirred with a fork, then poured three circles of the batter onto the griddle in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head. She watched the face and ears bubble up and pop.

After breakfast Diane turned on Playhouse Disney. “Can I plug it in?” Kyle asked.

“Not
that
again,” Ellie said to him. Kyle was six and loved anything with a plug. At bedtime a few weeks earlier, he told Diane he'd decided what he wanted to be when he grew up: a plug man. “You know,” he said. “The guy who goes around to people's houses and plugs stuff in for them.” She told Mitch about it later that night. Mitch rubbed the palms of his hands up and down along the recliner's leather armrests. “I'm sorry,” he finally said. “What was it he did?”

Diane turned off the cable and watched Kyle pull the plug, then reinsert it. “Big to big, little to little,” he said. “That's what plug mans know how to do.”

Diane took Mitch's pills and a glass of juice into the bedroom. Some days she longed to curl up naked against him; other days she dreaded even looking at him. He'd aged. He was thirty-eight but looked a decade older.

Diane pulled back the curtains; Mitch stirred. She sat on the edge of the bed next to him. As usual, he held a pillow over his head. She'd hardly seen his face all week.

“I made pancakes.” She put her hand on his back. “Don't you want to get up and put your pants on?”

Mitch turned over and lifted a corner of the pillow. Red lines ran in haphazard cross-stitch from his cheekbone down into stubble. He smelled musty. She handed him the glass of juice and he reached for it, his hand shaking.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Almost nine.” A cicada rasped in the mesquite tree outside the window. “Pastor Murray is coming today,” she said. “He's bringing the elders. They want to anoint you with oil.” She pulled the pillow off his head.

Mitch flung an arm over his eyes, then sat up on his elbows. “Do the kids still think it's my back?”

Diane nodded. She walked to the closet and pulled a pair of khakis off a hanger, then folded the pants and placed them on the foot of the bed.

Mitch lay back down. “God, I want this to end.”

Diane pulled off her nightgown and stood in front of him, naked. Her breasts ached to be touched. “Then get out of bed and put your pants on,” she said.

“Come on in,” Diane said when the pastor and elders arrived. “Mitch is expecting you.” She thought they'd have a small vial, like a test tube—maybe something crystal—but Pastor Murray stepped in carrying a family-sized bottle of Wesson Oil. Diane was startled, not just by the oil (would something from Sam's Club
work
?
), but by the image of Florence Henderson that popped into her head, wearing padded mittens and frying up a mess of chicken.

The elders followed her to the bedroom. There were five of them, plus Pastor Murray. “I'm not sure he's awake,” Diane said.

“Don't worry, I've seen this done for people in comas,” one of the elders said.

Mitch was lying in the same position, pillow over his
head. Diane sat beside him. The elders gathered at the foot of the bed.

Mitch pulled the pillow away and looked down at the elders, then at Diane. His eyes were bloodshot.

Pastor Murray came around to stand beside Mitch. He was still holding the Wesson. “We're here to pray for you, Mitch. If you'll have us. Anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord. ‘And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well'— that's James, chapter five.”

Mitch cleared his throat. “This is embarrassing,” he said.

“We'd like to lay hands on you, if that's okay.” The elders were coming around to stand with Pastor Murray; one of them sat on the edge of the bed.

“Sure,” Mitch said. “But no funny business, guys.”

In seven months, it was the first time Diane had heard him make light of anything. She knew it was for the benefit of the elders. Why couldn't he make the effort with her?

“I'll leave you men to it,” she said.

“You're welcome to stay,” Pastor Murray said.

“I need to check on the kids,” she said, heading toward the door.

“Lord, we lift this man up to you,” one of the elders began. “We acknowledge you as the Great Physician.”

Diane closed the door behind her.

When the anointing was over, Diane walked Pastor Murray out to his car. “Depression's a murky thing,” he was saying. He opened the rear door and set the bottle of oil on the floor; she noticed that he was wearing his deceased wife's wedding band pushed up onto his necktie like a napkin ring. “A lot of Christians think it's a spiritual problem, with a spiritual fix. But it's deeply connected with physical causes.”

“It
feels
spiritual,” Diane said. Sweat darkened the front of Pastor Murray's shirt.

“There's heredity, for one thing. Distressing circumstances. Various illnesses that weaken the mind's ability to cope.”

“Don't you think he seems worse? He's not even getting out of bed.”

Pastor Murray put a hand on her shoulder. “Seasons of darkness are normal in the Christian life, too. Bunyan, Carlyle, Cowper—even Spurgeon suffered from depression. Because of his gout.”

“Looking back there were signs,” Diane said. “He was working too much, spending too much money. But I never thought he'd end up like
this
.”

“He hasn't ended up.” Pastor Murray reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a bandanna, and wiped the sweat off of his forehead.

“I don't feel like praying anymore,” Diane said.

He folded the rag and put it back in his pocket. “Nothing depends on your feelings.” He got into his car, then leaned out the window and took her hand. “You should go talk to him now. And remember: God holds us, even when we have no strength left to hold Him.”

Diane went back inside. Ellie and Kyle were still watching Playhouse Disney in the family room. It was after eleven; they'd been watching since eight-thirty. She needed to get out of the house for a while. Their father was right down the hall. Let him be a father.

She walked to the end of the driveway, turned, and started up the gradual incline to the top of their street. It was at least a hundred degrees already. At the top of the street she had to sit down. She folded, pretzel style, onto the steaming asphalt next to an armless saguaro. She felt the sun on her shoulders and knew that freckled red patches were forming on either side of the straps of her tank top. There was something godless about the desert. General revelation didn't apply here. The notion that even if you'd never heard of God you could intuit something of Him through nature—it didn't work in this wilderness of succulents. Only the Native Americans had learned how to bend the plants to human use, fashioning the ribs of dead saguaros into spears so they could reach up and slice off the fruits. Maybe that was the revelation of the desert: God helps those who help themselves. Well, hadn't she done that?

She stood up, brushing off the back of her jeans. She would choose to believe the anointing had worked. That there would be some change. That she and Mitch would embrace and begin the path toward healing. God would never give her more than she could handle. It said that in the Bible. Nothing beyond what you can bear. She and Mitch were only being tested, refined like silver.