Touch (1987) (23 page)

August raised the revolver and aimed at her short blond hair. He wanted to say something to her, wanted her to see it, but was afraid if she did she might scream and try to run and then the newspapers on the floor wouldn't do any good. He could see her bare knees and thighs; she was wearing a short little sleeveless sundress or something, the hem pushed up and bunched between her brown thighs because of the way she was sitting, cross-legged, hunched over the papers.

She said, "Listen to this," and August jumped. " 'It occurs at first glance these two could be sister and brother, the resemblance is that striking . . .' Did you know we look alike?"

August glanced toward the kitchen, the opening above the counter.

" 'But any suspicion of kinship is forgotten immediately once you see the way they talk to each other with "inside" straight-faced remarks, and notice their lingering looks and glances.' Did you know we did that?"

"I didn't think anyone noticed," Juvenal said from the kitchen.

August looked that way again, then back to Lynn. He saw the glass had been picked up.

"You want mustard?"

"A little," Lynn said.

"The lettuce isn't any good."

"Just mustard's fine."

August listened to it: Juvenal in the kitchen; she sits on her ass letting him wait on her, because she can make him do anything she wants. Raises up her dress and makes him do things.

Juvenal came in from the kitchen carrying a plate of sandwiches and a bowl of potato chips.

He stopped. After a moment he said to August, "What you have there, that's more than disturbing the peace, even if you're kidding."

"I'm not kidding," August said.

Lynn said, "Oh, my God," looking around, and August swung the gun back to her, seeing her scrambling to her feet. He yelled, "Don't move!" But too late. She was standing, holding her hands against her thighs. Now Juvenal was moving.

August swung the revolver on him, not wanting to but had to. "Stay where you are!" They were too far apart; yet he didn't want them close together.

Juvenal placed the sandwiches and potato chips on the counter and walked past August, not looking at him, to Lynn and said something to her--August unable to hear the words--and put his hand on her shoulder. It was easier to cover them, but they were too close together, standing by the glass coffee table. August could see her falling, smashing the table, and began to think, What's wrong with that? In fact, good, smash it. Found in broken glass in a pool of blood-- A burglar, someone caught in her apartment, killing her spontaneously, wouldn't worry about being neat.

Juvenal said, "August?"

August said, "You don't have to explain anything to me. I know what's going on, I can see what she's doing to you."

Juvenal said, "All right," showing August he was calm and relaxed so August would be calm and relaxed. "Tell me what you have in mind?"

A question along the line of questions August had anticipated. He had rehearsed several replies, but liked his first one as well as "Rid your life of a malignancy," or any of the others. He said, "I'm gonna get her out of the way once and for all." Plain and simple.

Lynn said, "Out of the way? Out of whose way?"

"His," August said.

"How am I in his way? He can do anything he wants."

Juvenal said, "August, I think you've got a mistaken idea about what's going on. We haven't done anything wrong. Or else I'd realize it, wouldn't I?"

"You've examined your conscience?" August said. "I doubt it. I don't see how you could as long as you remain in an occasion of sin. It's impossible."

"That's what I mean," Juvenal said. "We're talking about my conscience, aren't we?"

"Not hers," August said. "She's past having a conscience."

"Well, just to keep it simple," Juvenal said, "if we're talking about mine, then let me say, let me assure you my conscience is in good shape and isn't trying to beat on me or tell me anything."

"That's what happens," August said. "Ignore your conscience and after a while it ceases to function and you're cut off from your moral guidelines. I've seen it happen, a good, scrupulous conscience becoming lax, then losing every bit of its fiber and finally it becomes limp, worthless."

"For Christ sake," Lynn said, "why don't you think I have a conscience?"

"You don't," August said. "You're . . . hollow, without a spark of spiritual life left in you."

"How do you know?"

"You can protest all you want, it won't do you any good. But what you're looking at now is the summation and conclusion of your life." He extended the revolver. "This is what it's added up to."

"Jesus, August, come on," Lynn said. She felt helpless and wasn't even sure she understood what August was talking about. She said to Juvenal, "Tell him we're okay. We're really nice and we're not doing anything bad. Christ--"

Juvenal said to him, "You're talking ethics with a gun in your hand. You realize that?"

"I certainly do," August said. "We can talk about it later. I'm taking you up to Almont for a few days of recollection; a retreat, you might say. You can talk to Father Nestor or myself, or not speak at all if you feel silence, contemplation, might be better. I'll give you some pamphlets."

Juvenal said, "August, why don't we sit down and talk now?"

"After, we can talk all you want."

Juvenal started toward him. "Put the gun down, okay?"

August backed up a step. "You have nothing to do with this; stay out of it."

Juvenal continued toward him. "If I weren't here, you wouldn't be either."

August moved back again. "You have nothing to do with this, right now. Your time's coming and we'll prepare for it."

Juvenal, stepping toward him, almost within reach, said, "Let me have the gun, August. Okay?"

August moved back again and stopped as his left shoulder bumped against the edge of the sliding door. He put the gun on Juvenal, aiming pointblank at his chest.

Lynn said, "August, for God sake, give him the fucking gun, will you?"

She saw August past Juvenal, part of him; saw him look toward her and then at Juvenal and then saw him push Juvenal hard with his left hand and swing the gun toward her in the moment that he was able to aim directly at her.

And fired--the noise, the awful sound ringing close in the room--and fired again and fired again, the third shot into the ceiling as Juvenal came in under August's arm, raising it with one hand, grabbing August's collar in his fist and twisting the fist into August's throat as he rushed him backward onto the balcony, drove him against the rail and over the rail, arms and then legs in the air, August screaming, and then gone.

Lynn could still hear the ringing, her eyes on Juvenal. His back was to her, hands on the iron railing, looking down. When he didn't turn she went out to him and stood close, taking his arm and pressing her body against his hip.

"He hasn't moved," Juvenal said.

She looked over the railing to see August lying at the edge of the cement-slab patio below. Two metal porch chairs, tipped over, were on either side of him where he lay on his back, arms spread above his head, as if looking up at them with a gesture of surrender.

Juvenal said, "I think I killed him."

Chapter
24

HOWARD HART spoke for twelve minutes on chicanery, legerdemain, apparent miracles, oracles, sensitives, Lourdes, Fatima, faith healing, bending spoons, Uri Geller, the old Oral Roberts, God--using the words psychogenesis, psychobiological, psycho-physiological, psychosomatic, almost every psych but psychedelic to give his remarks little rings of authority; though none of it made much sense to anyone listening for a topic sentence.

There was a packed house of more than 150 people in the studio audience, including the "miracle crowd" sitting down front: Lynn Faulkner and Bill Hill; Antoinette Baker and Richie's doctor from Children's Hospital (where Richie was still under observation and, Antoinette hoped, watching on TV); Kathy Worthington and Kathy's theology expert from U of D, Father Dillon; Dr. Kaplan, author of Psychoanalysis: Trick or Treatment; twenty-seven young men from the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost, in white shirts but without arm-bands; Father Nestor, sitting in the last row, on the aisle; about forty parishioners from Saint John Bosco; and the rest, fans of "Hartline," sitting, standing, extending out into the WQRD hallway and lobby.

All those people in the studio audience and "all you out there" watching Howard Hart rub the side of his nose and talk about psycho-hyphenated things, half of Howard showing behind the giant Mediterranean desk--bookshelves in the background--the buttoned-up top half in double-breasted silk and big Windsor; the nationally televised star acting natural, caressing the side of his nose, touching his hairpiece. Look at the smile; a regular guy but, hey, brilliant . . .

". . . as we attempt to reconcile our guest's mystical claims with metaphysical reality . . ."

The psychiatrist sitting behind Lynn and Bill Hill said, "He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about."

Lynn was looking way up at the grid of lights and cables high against the studio ceiling, crisscrossed rows of at least a hundred lights to shine down on Howard Hart's little fake-library set in the corner of the studio.

Bill Hill said, "He doesn't know how to smile either. Look at him, he clenches his jaw and shows his teeth."

"As opposed to his natural shit-eating grin," Lynn said. "He's a honey."

"I'm told," Howard Hart was saying, "the boys at the network expect this evening the biggest audience response we've had since a son of a . . . famous singer"--pause, shit-eating grin--"walked off the show a few weeks ago." Pause, smile. "Now, if you've got questions for our guest, keep your phone handy and call them in. Or if you have comments to make, come on, let's hear from you. I guarantee our guest is going to be controversial, to say the least. I've put a dozen extra operators on duty just to handle your calls and I know, at least my regulars out there"--pause, smile--"won't let me down. So right now, let's bring on our guest."

The floor manager, wearing a headset, standing midway between the two Ampex cameras on the stage, turned to the audience clapping his hands. The audience picked it up, maintaining the applause as Juvenal came out from somewhere, took Howard's extended hand--Howard reaching across his giant desk--and sat down in a swivel chair that was a scooped plastic shell on a chrome base.

Bill Hill said, "Jesus, he looks like he just got out of the hospital."

"It's from the Center," Lynn said, "the clothes room."

The suit, a gray-striped seersucker, hung on him, lifeless, at least a size too large.

"I tried to get him to buy a new one. He likes it."

Howard Hart was leaning on his desk staring at Juvenal, letting the silence lengthen dramatically. Finally he said, "Your name is Charlie Lawson and you're sometimes referred to, affectionately I presume, as Juvie. Well, I'm going to be noncommittal this evening and call you Juvenal. How'll that be?"

"The only way he could be noncommittal," Lynn said, "is if you cut his tongue out." In a moment, staring at Juvenal, her mood changed and she said, "Awww, look at him. Isn't he neat?"

Howard Hart was saying, "What I'd like you to do first is explain your stigmata in your own words, exactly what it is, and then tell us how you do it. But first, this word from one of our sponsors."

Lynn said, "You see what he's doing? The first thing he says, for God's sake."

"Just take it easy," Bill Hill said.

"I don't do it," Juvenal said. "It just happens. I'd like to add that I don't say it's mystical, either, as opposed to your reference to metaphysical reality. What do you mean by that?"

"You believe in God," Howard said, ignoring the question.

"Yes."

"You believe in miracles."

Juvenal settled back, resigned. "Yes."

"You were a Franciscan, which is a particularly . . . mystic-orientated order, weren't you?"

"I was a Franciscan brother. I don't know how mystical they are."

"You believe God can work wonders, if He chooses, through you."

"If He wants to."

"Would you say you're quite impressionable . . . suggestable, perhaps naive?"

"I probably am," Juvenal said.

"So that your five so-called wounds are not a miraculous mystical representation of Jesus Christ's wounds, divinely given to you by God, but are very probably caused by your own psychic suggestion."

"It could be," Juvenal said.

"What do you do, squeeze your eyes closed, concentrate on a crucifix, and hold your mouth a certain way?"

"No, I don't do any of that."

"You pray? Say, come on, God, give it to me? Let's show 'em I'm a holy Joe, a living, breathing saint, a miracle-working mystic right out of the Middle Ages?" Howard Hart waited. "Well?"

"Would you repeat the question?"

(Lynn laughed.)

"Why do you think God would single you out for this . . . wondrous gift? What's so special about you?"