The Cure

by Athol Dickson

  He reached the campus on the other side of town, Bowditch, where he had hidden poorly for a year during his long fall from grace. He turned and walked back downhill again. He paused outside the empty homeless shelter and pressed his nose against the storefront glass, making out a plastic chair in the streetlight’s overflowing glow and a dead housefly on the windowsill. He thought about returning home in the back of a pickup truck with Brice, and sermons about meekness around oil-drum fires, and Dublin carved on rest-stop tables, and Willa with the cross around her neck, Willa knowing what he was but coming round that kitchen serving counter anyway, one old woman coming round to save him from a host of savages in the jungles of Maine. He wondered if she had thought she failed him that night. He hoped not. Not after he had seen her clear eyes staring at the camera, speaking from the grave to save him after all.

  How humiliating it had been to hear her story and discover that even his penitence had been foolish. He should have followed his first instinct. He had not believed Lee Hanks’s story until the moment when he stepped into the clearing littered with their swollen corpses. He had invested too much of himself to believe The People—his people—would return to drunkenness, much less the savagery required to murder servants of the Lord. But then, faced with so much apparent proof, he had become a savage too. He had assumed to full burden of that evil, thinking it was only just and fair that he should following them to drunkenness, and with that false act of contrition had begun the long, slow murder of the last victim in that place, the final child of God to die: himself.

  There had also been escape in his addiction, of course, but at the start he had mainly taken it upon himself as penance. If his work among The People had led to nothing but drunkenness and murder, then let him also die from drink; then at least the scales could hang in balance. The sense of justice had been a small comfort when he lay in gutters. Although he had been a failure in the eyes of others, it had let him think his failure was a humble choice. But if Willa’s story was the truth, if The People had not killed in drunken bloodlust, then contrition had never been required and he had simply wallowed in self-pity.

  Riley thought he understood the problem now, where he had gone wrong. The only question left was what to do? What did you do when the utter failure of all doing was the problem? You did nothing, of course. Yet how did one do that?

  He thought about going back to the jungle clearing to start over from the place where he first went wrong, but that was impossible. There was another place, however, where he could start again, and by sometime around midnight Riley had his plan. He walked to Dylan Delaney’s house, to ask that excellent man for one more service. Then at last the walking wearied him. Because the other jungle was too far to go, because he had decided on the one at hand, Riley passed into the shadows behind Henry’s Drug Store.

  The next morning he awoke on the alley bricks behind the garbage bin, still dressed in his courthouse suit. He lay still, staring up at the deep purple sky as darkness fled before the inescapable advance of light. Purple turned to ultraviolet and violet to lavender. Riley watched it happen and thought about his own methodical illumination, the inescapable rising of madness in him, given so he could be cured. Lying in the alley, he saw the death of Reverend Keep, that brave missionary, that bold evangelist. In the growing light he saw that dying man very very well—his confidence, his strength, his wisdom, his need for resurrection. The corpses in a clearing still called out for him to lie down with them in the grave.

  Church bells started ringing. Riley Keep rose up.

  He tried to make something out of his wrinkled suit, dusting himself off, straightening his tie and tucking in his shirttail. He thought of Hope, who had seen what he had seen and yet remained right where he left her to this day. Riley thought he finally understood how she had done that, and why. She knew how to do nothing, just as all the dead must know. She had been already dead long before they ever reached that clearing. Dead and born again.

  He thought of a little girl among the bodies of The People, her wrists bound by a dozen twists of yellow rope, a little girl who always seemed to be alive, and yet had put out her final cigarette and refused a fortune in favor of the way to be a Person.

  He thought of an old woman hiding for exactly as long as he himself had hidden, only to stare straight at him from death and say, “You have to embrace it.”

  He checked the inside pocket of his suit coat. Dylan’s paperwork was there. He was ready. He set out toward the bells.

  Along the way he passed the havoc he had caused with all his good intentions. Plywood over shattered glass, filthy, hateful words painted for good reason on the bricks, piles of garbage still there after all these weeks because the citizens of Dublin had to first rebuild a place to live, had to rebuild homes burned by the homeless, homes that had survived 250 years of hurricanes and blizzards, survived everything that time and nature could throw up against them, everything except the righteous indignation of those who had been cursed by Riley’s cure.

  Here and there a campaign poster had been stapled to the plywood. He saw Bill Hightower’s name. The citizens of Dublin couldn’t wait to replace Hope. Riley did not believe she could remain in her hometown, and he knew the fault for this was also his.

  They glared at him as he climbed the steps and entered the sanctuary. Accepting their enmity as his due, Riley kept his head down and took a seat in the very back. He knew not everybody felt the same. Henry Reardon was a merciful man. In the courthouse hallway, after the judge had dismissed the criminal case against him, the young attorney from away had explained that the civil suit would also be dropped. It had died with Willa, because the people who by rights should own the formula—Henry Reardon and his church—had decided to let Riley keep the cure. With yet more righteous indignation, the fresh-faced young attorney had said this was a tragedy, for it meant evil men like Riley and Lee Hanks would continue to make fortunes on the backs of the poor. But hearing what Henry had done, Riley understood he had been offered something far more valuable than any formula.

  Now he had come to collect.

  Riley rose with the others and sang an old familiar hymn. He thought of a toothless old Indian, smiling as he told an old woman that Riley knew the secret, the way to make it last. He thought of thorns plucked prematurely. Well, Waytee, he thought. Here I am, come to make it last. Can you see me very very much from way up there?

  They sat down, and Henry made announcements. Then they sang another hymn and passed the collection basket. When it came to Riley, he held the basket for a moment before dropping in a small white envelope. On the envelope was the name of the church, preprinted. Inside was a single piece of paper, which after midnight Dylan Delaney had written and Riley Keep had signed. He passed the basket on and felt the weight begin to lift. He did not worry about Henry’s reaction, or how well he would handle the responsibility of a billion-dollar cure. He thought instead about the Bible in his jail cell, and blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. He had been taught what it meant, had received the theology of it from learned men in robes, but never understood the common sense of it till now, never understood that only those who deemed themselves too weak yet took no pride in weakness could hope to bear the awful weight of love.

  Henry preached a good sermon. Riley tried to pay attention, but his mind kept wandering. He had begun to remember certain other things he had read while lying in his cell. He had begun to remember crosses to be lifted up and carried, and follow me, and follow me.

  Then it was time at last. Time to make it last. They passed the silver-plated tray. He took it from his neighbor. He stared at the little plastic thimbles. Grape juice around the outside, red wine in the middle. He thought about an old woman’s tithe, which he had stolen from the house of God Almighty, and the answer to his illness in her handwriting . . . the urge will return stronger than ever. I used to think there was a way to fix that too, but now I know there isn’t. Riley thought of all the things that he had tried to f
ix. He did not want to fix things anymore. He did not want the earth anymore. He merely wanted to be meek.

  Taking red wine from the middle with a steady hand, Riley raised it to his lips.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “HOPE,” SAID THE NURSE, “I GOT BAD NEWS.”

  She had been expecting this. Ever since they let Riley go and he had not come to see her, she had been expecting something awful, as usual.

  “Your husband was just admitted,” said the nurse. “I’m so sorry, but he’s in critical condition with some kinda poisonin’ or overdose.”

  “Overdose?” She stared straight at the nurse, thinking, have faith, there’s a reason for this too. She would not look away. She asked, “Was he drinkin’?”

  “Ya got me, sweetheart. I’m just here ta get you ta sign these forms. You’re the next a kin, right?”

  “Take me to him, will you?”

  “He’s in intensive care. They’re not gonna let ya see him.”

  “I don’t care. Please just take me down there.”

  “But there’s nothing ya can do.”

  “Becky, I’m not gonna argue with you. Either get a wheelchair and help me down there, or I’ll start crawlin’.”

  Ten minutes later the nurse parked her beside a window where she could look into Riley’s room. Hope saw Riley lying on a gurney with lots of wires attached to his chest. His face was strangely blue. Dylan came from somewhere to stand by her.

  “He was at church,” said the good man who loved her. “I saw him come in. I looked over at him a few times. He stood up and sang the hymns like he was sober, and paid attention during the sermon, then in the middle of Communion he just fell into the aisle.”

  She kept her eyes on Riley. “They didn’t find a flask on him or anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  As a doctor and a nurse worked over him, Hope saw something fall from the gurney to the floor. She put her hands on the wheelchair tires and tried to roll herself into the room. Dylan held her back.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  “Ya can’t go in there while they’re workin’.”

  “I have to!”

  “It’s better for him if ya don’t.”

  She strained at the wheels, even as the good man held the handles in the back, unmovable. “Let me go!”

  “Hope, do ya wanna help him or just make things worse?”

  She leaned back in the wheelchair. “See that thing that fell off the bed?”

  “What?”

  She pointed with her right hand. “That little plastic thing right there on the floor.”

  “What about it?”

  “Would you please get it for me?”

  “Hope—”

  “Come on, Dylan! Just go in real quick and pick it up.”

  He brought it to her after that, confusion on his face. It was a tiny plastic cup, no bigger than a thimble, something both of them knew well. She took it, put it to her nose, realized what it had contained, and remembered what she’d heard about the cure, what happened if you drank again.

  In the first weeks after waking from her coma, Hope had not remembered much about the months before, but the memories rose up in time—of Riley’s return, his sobriety, his extravagant gifts and self-induced poverty, his apparent acceptance of Dylan in spite of Riley’s obvious ongoing feelings for her, and those last few moments before the end of her memories, when the rocks and bricks had come and he had offered up his body as her shield. Hope’s near-death experience had put some things in perspective. She wasn’t angry anymore about the end results of Riley’s recent actions; she saw them for the sacrificial offerings that they were. But she also remembered the infuriating, unending burden Riley Keep refused to set aside, and knew his sacrifices would never be enough for him.

  Hope looked from the Communion cup to the man on the gurney. She sniffed the cup again, just to be sure. She frowned. Would Riley throw sobriety away so easily? Could the guilt that so intoxicated him blur his judgment this completely? She stared through the glass at Riley, and for perhaps the ten thousandth time she begged her maker for some kind of mercy for this foolish man.

  They kept Riley in the intensive care unit for hours and made Hope wait outside. They tried to send her back to her room, just as they were trying to make her abandon Dublin, but she was unmovable. She would watch the man for days from the hall if necessary, and pray for him, and wait for an explanation for the wine.

  It came at last when he awoke for one brief moment. She called to the nurses and they rushed back to his bedside, eager to learn about the poison in his system. They asked him what he took, what he drank, but he did not understand the questions. They asked again and again, and finally Hope heard him moan and say, “The blood of Christ.”

  With those words she knew for sure what he had done, and in the midst of whispered prayer she understood the reason, and although in her weaker moments she had sometimes dreamed of something easier, she had kept his clothing in her closet all these years in hopes of just this day.

  Although Hope did her best to make Dylan go, he waited with her through the night, and when they rolled Riley down the hall to a regular room, Dylan pushed her right behind him. As they moved Riley from the gurney to a bed, Dylan stood watching over her. It was a double room. The other bed was empty. When they left, Hope said, “Please put me in that one,” and Dylan bent down and easily lifted her, gently carrying her to the empty bed. She asked him to do one more thing; she asked him to push her bed up close to Riley’s. He did that for her too.

  Hope touched the good man who loved her and said, “Thank you,” then she turned away from him and reached out for her sleeping husband’s hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  WITH ONE THIMBLEFUL OF RED WINE, it was as if every drop of alcohol that Riley Keep had ever drunk returned to him. His stomach was a lathered, rabid dog howling for escape, his head a raging storm of whirling razor blades, his pasty skin a fetid, loathsome shroud. Every other hangover Riley Keep had ever suffered was a mother’s loving touch compared to this. It was two days before he knew Hope lay beside him in the hospital, and three before he cared. But it passed; by the grace of God it passed and in its place the awful urge returned.

  How it could be possible he did not know, but even as the torture finally began to ease he felt a masochistic lust for alcohol. Even as they lay together for the balance of the week, talking, healing, rediscovering each other, even then he warned Hope he might fall again, probably would fall again from time to time, because the temptation to put faith in discipline was strong.

  She accepted this, of course. When had she been unwilling to accept his weakness? It was his maddening attempts at strength she could not bear. And if he sensed a subtle sadness in Hope at the thought of his falling now and then, even so he felt a sorrow in himself at the thought of life without just one more drink. But this sadness was no weight to press him down. On the contrary, Riley Keep now took solace in his suffering, for he knew it offered holiness.

  Many ripples rolled across the world from Dublin, Maine. At the judge’s order, Dr. Dale Williams’s video was made available to the public. Within a day it had been seen by nearly a third of the nation. The price of stock in Hanks Pharmaceuticals plunged as investors rushed to sell their shares before a federal court could issue an order reverting ownership of the cure’s development and marketing rights to the First Congregational Church of Dublin, Maine. In many cases, shares were sold out of pure disgust. While the video was not enough to get Lee Hanks arrested on its own, both the United States Department of Justice and the Brazilian authorities announced new investigations into the events it described. With the story of the murders in Brazil now common knowledge and the investigation under way, Riley Keep believed he need not fear Lee Hanks. And although Riley did not know if he and Hope would be allowed to keep their fortune, they decided if they did it would be spent on Dublin Township and the homeless, every penny. No matter what was done about the
ir millions, Riley hoped to convince Henry Reardon to go ahead and cash the checks that he had given to the church anonymously, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that the rights to his part of the deal with Hanks Pharmaceuticals had already been conveyed by Dylan’s paperwork in the offering basket, much as Willa had originally desired.

  International investigations, miracle cures, and massive wealth were nothing next to Riley’s newfound place among the living. Bree came to the hospital every day, the pregnancy showing unmistakably now, her expanding belly awkwardly displayed by hip-hugging jeans and short tops. Riley hesitantly suggested that she might consider trying some of her mother’s looser, larger blouses, and to his surprise she did. Throughout that first week as he watched Bree speaking with her mother about babies, Riley thought of many things he wished to say. In time he found the courage to offer his opinions as a father, and once, when Bree asked why she ought to do as he suggested, he replied, “Because I’m right.” At that, Bree had fixed her solemn almond eyes on him, and he had shrugged and said, “Well, I am,” and she had laughed and squeezed his hand.

  By Thursday Riley’s weakness passed. They discharged him from the hospital on Friday. Hope insisted on going too, with Bree and Riley helping her to the Pontiac. Riley drove them through the wounded town and up the driveway at Hope’s house. When they entered through the mudroom and saw the rock-strewn kitchen, Riley surveyed the damage and said, “It wasn’t their fault. They never fell away like I did.”