by Andrew Roe
When it got dark, she was told to come inside, usually by the woman. The man didn’t say a lot. Often he looked like he was about to say something but then he didn’t.
There was a story about when she was born. Right after. Right after she came out of the woman, the man said something. He asked a question. He asked: “Is it a boy?”
She was many things. She felt this, knew this. But she was not a boy, would never be a boy. What did the man think every time he looked at her? Did he wish she was something else?
But sometimes the man would pick her up, tickle her, play with her and her dolls, pretending to be a prince or dinosaur or giraffe. And he became another man, one that she liked better and wished would be around more. The woman seemed to like this other man better also, and when he was around, she was another woman, too. Those times, she didn’t go out on the sidewalk as much.
Alone in her room, quiet and dark, when the lights were out and it was taking a while for her to fall asleep, and the sounds and the swish of life seemed very far away: that’s when they came to her even faster, clearer, more formed. The words. Bed was nitzobob. Blanket was adnomorkin. Plane was dragflowestumack. She made up the words and that made everything new, it made everything hers. The man and woman were not her father and mother. They were someone else. She closed her eyes and then opened them and the world would be one way. Then she closed and opened them again and the world would be another way. Opening, closing. It was like magic. One day something would happen. One day everything would change.
4
Nathaniel | Mavis & Marcus | Linda | Donald
THESE THINGS CAN be explained: the weeping icons, the bleeding statues, the healing of disease, the aberrations of sun and sky and light, the apparitions of Jesus and Mary and Springsteen. Because the answers are there. It’s only a matter of knowing how to look, how to see beyond the glow and the primitive need to believe. But wanting to believe doesn’t make it true. Truth is what makes it true. Was that a quote from somewhere?
This is what Nathaniel Zoline wants to say when his mother asks him what’s new as they browse the laminated, jumbo-sized Red Lobster menus, full of seafood specials and kids’ meals and exotic cocktails he’ll never order. The occasion: his father’s sixty-eighth birthday, a midweek evening out after a day of teaching Linnaeus and binomial nomenclature to bored teenagers, Nathaniel making the drive from Daly City down to San Jose when he’d rather be home, researching, writing, living his true life.
But instead he says what he always says when similarly queried by his mother: “Fine, good. Work is good, things are good. Moving right along. Can’t complain.”
What’s on his mind, though, is the recent increase in reports of the miraculous, the strange, the millennial. Because when he’s not teaching biology to sophomores, he’s working on his website and sporadically published newsletter, The Smiling Skeptic. And lately it’s all about the girl in the coma in L.A. That’s why he doesn’t want to be here. He wants to be online so he can see what the day’s search results yield, and he wants to start his article about the girl, about false hope, about the blind embrace of faith.
“And what about in the female department?” his mother asks, not willing to give up quite yet. “Are you seeing anybody? Anything, anyone on the horizon? Any possibilities I should know about?”
“Joan,” says his father.
Their waitress, Janelle, is taking orders from the next booth. They’re next. A table would have been better (more space, more freedom, not so trapped), but his mother likes booths, always insists even if it means waiting longer to eat.
“Well if I don’t ask we don’t hear anything,” his mother says. “We don’t know what’s going on and I’d like to know. I’d like to know what’s going on in my one and only son’s life. I think that’s fair, Edward. So I have to ask.”
There was someone once. A fellow teacher. Younger. She was a long-term sub for an English teacher who had cancer. The cancer went away and then so did the young teacher who was the long-term sub. He’d thought maybe. If there had been more time.
They order and eat their shrimp salads and lobster-fest specials. The meal concludes with dribbles of conversation, which is fine by him—updates on old neighbors who have died or are dying, the slew of medications required to keep his father halfway healthy, the cashier at Sears who’d overcharged them and they had to return to the store for only $1.50, and they probably spent more on the gas driving back there, but it’s the principle of the thing, you know? There’s dessert, too, a brownie fudge sundae with a lone candle. They all share. Nathaniel’s father handles the bill. They say good-bye in the parking lot. His mother has been using the same perfume for thirty years.
“What about that Janelle?” she tries one last time. “She seemed like a nice girl. Why don’t you go back in and ask her out? I didn’t see a ring. Waitresses are sturdy people. That might be good for you.”
“Joan,” says his father.
There’s fog on the drive home once he hits the 280, thicker and whiter the closer he gets to San Francisco, but he’s not going that far, only to Daly City, an unremarkable, largely unknown suburb just below the famous, glittering city, remaining in the fast lane the entire time despite the weather. First thing back at his apartment, he powers on his computer and attempts to jump online, the pain of the parental chain-restaurant meal just starting to recede; he really should upgrade and graduate from dialup to DSL; he spends way too much time like this, waiting to connect.
Today he’d told his students, “Someone once said, ‘God created, Linnaeus ordered.’ ” But they didn’t blink. Not until he added, “That is, if you believe God created.” He liked a good quote. He’d also quoted Linnaeus himself: “In natural science the principles of truth ought to be confirmed by observation.” He’d paused then, letting that sink in. Nathaniel was a believer in the principles of truth.
While waiting he makes the short walk to the kitchen and retrieves a Mountain Dew. Then back in his computer chair, hunkering down for another long, bleary-eyed night spent scrolling and reading and writing, clicking hopefully, eternally, on links that half the time are dead or disappointing or something he’s already read, conducting keyword searches (“miracle,” “healing,” “vision,” “stigmata”), compiling the evidence, investigating leads, and sending off e-mails all over the world (Latvia, the Philippines, Texas), updating his site with the most recent news, which, he fervently believes, has led to a slight yet substantial increase in traffic and spurred his vigilance even further.
Finally, yes, he’s online. He checks his e-mail, reads about a poll saying 96 percent of Americans believe in God and digests another millennial/miraculous story (a church statue that supposedly emitted a bright, beautiful light through its eyes, infusing onlookers with the warmth of the divine and the desire to lead better, more productive lives) in which a Modesto, California, Diocese official was quoted as saying: “I think people are mindful of their calendars these days and of what they’re seeing on TV and in the papers. There’s a kind of mild hysteria brewing.” This is the time he looks forward to most. This sacred time online with what—something like 200 billion–plus documents at his disposal. Like a cop on his beat, patrolling the streets. But not for menace. For mystery. The mystery of belief.
After doing his usual searches, he not surprisingly turns up a couple of new stories about the girl. She’s the talk of the message boards and newsgroups and mailing lists he covertly subscribes to (under the alias truebelievernate316) via a Hotmail e-mail address created specifically for this purpose. There are entire websites devoted to her, including the Official Anabelle Vincent Site, prominent among Nathaniel’s bookmarked online destinations. He knows the site’s loud background colors, the amateurish HTML design well. On one page you can post your own prayers and messages of hope, and Nathaniel can spend hours, entire evenings, devouring these mournful, rambling, typo-filled, syntactically challenged dispatches. Some offer their testimonies of
the girl’s healing power and first-hand accounts of visits to her house. Others lament they can’t make the trip to Southern California to see Anabelle, but give thanks for cyberspace and how her gifts and shining spirit can be shared like this. He copies and pastes the better examples for his files. Moves on eventually.
He opens a new Microsoft Word document.
These things can be explained, he types.
The words he’s been craving to write all day. To place in the world. And they’re out there now, documented, taking up space, weight. It feels good.
And how can they be explained? Take the weeping statue phenomenon. There’s always the possibility that it’s plain old simple condensation. More likely, though, is a flat-out hoax. Fill an eyedropper with water or Wesson oil or real tears and voilà—instant weeping effigy. Bleeding can be manipulated as well. For example, one of his favorite case studies: the so-called “Miracle of Saint-Marthe,” which happened near Montreal, Canada, in 1985. A statue of the Virgin Mary, belonging to a railroad worker by the name of Jean-Guy Beauregard, appeared to be weeping. Then, after it was taken to another home at the request of Beauregard’s landlord (the crowds, predictably, were getting out of control), the statue began to bleed. Then other nearby statues and crucifixes in the house also started to do the same. Thousands upon thousands showed up, waiting in the cold (it was December) to view the miracle. When the statue was taken in for testing, it was concluded that the “blood”—which Beauregard later admitted was his—also contained pork and beef fat. So whenever the temperature would increase, even a little, the substance would liquefy and run, and there you have your magical bleeding.
Los Angeles isn’t that far away from Daly City, only an hour’s flight south, barely time enough to run the drink cart down the aisle. The Smiling Skeptic might just have to see this miracle girl for himself.
Nathaniel continues typing, sips his Mountain Dew, gains momentum, the right words coming at the right time, beautiful when that happens. Tomorrow there will be more Linnaeus, more naming of species, more yawns from pimply boys and faraway girls. But for now he’s in the chair, writing, wondering how long he can hold out, how far he can go in one sitting. 12:37 a.m. Still and quiet. Like a church. No lights on, nothing but the blurry shine of the screen, the way he likes it, bathing in the computer monitor’s rectangular radiance and nothing else.
* * *
“They still there?” Mavis Morris asks her husband, Marcus, who for the past hour has been checking the window, pinching the mini blinds open and closed with a well-honed disapproval like the nosey neighbor that he is. He’s been spying (across the street and over one house, to the left) in growing disbelief—the spectacle continues. He doesn’t even bother answering his wife’s question this time, you’re married this long and all it takes is a look, a significant enough arching of the eyebrows. The dopes, standing in the sun and in front of the white-turned-gray house and on down the block who knows how far, trying to convince themselves that they’ll find whatever it is they think they’re looking for in the room of that comatose little girl who he remembers sitting by herself on the sidewalk and who should just be left alone, is Marcus’s take, not that anyone besides his wife is asking. It’s getting ridiculous. But what can you do once people start believing something? Marcus returns to the couch—site of naps and meals, late-afternoon periodical reading, and of course TV viewing—where Mavis finishes chewing a forkful of pasty mashed potatoes. Instant. What do you expect?
“All those people,” she starts in again. “I’m trying to understand.”
“I don’t understand anything anymore,” says Marcus, his final verdict, hoping that will be that, but probably not.
The TV going, a game show, a new one that’s actually a remake of an old one. Laughter, applause. People with nametags and bad haircuts are winning cash and prizes and pretty respectable parting gifts, none of that Turtlewax bullshit but cruises and decent-looking jewelry and gift certificates to stores where you’d really consider buying something. They made it look so easy, the contestants. How your life can change. With the spin of a wheel. With answering a question about Greek drama. Game shows are a form of religious devotion in the Morris household, and they’re dedicated parishioners. They plan out their meals and errands and doctor appointments according to the various time slots of their favorites. And not only that: they buy their lottery tickets every Sunday, send in contest entries whenever they arrive in the mail, have the phone numbers of local radio stations on speed dial. Their name and address grace countless mailing lists and computer databases. Luck: it has to come your way eventually.
“I mean tragedy strikes, that’s gonna affect you,” Mavis needing to get this off her chest, apparently. “And then what, she never leaves the house, we never see a thing, there’s all this whisper-talk about what’s going on in there and is the poor girl dead, like the mother’s some kind of reprobate. And maybe she is, I’m not saying one way or the other. That’s not my place. And now this. CNN across the street.”
No comment from Marcus. Instead he takes his own reluctant bite of mashed potatoes, the cheap taste, the cardboard blandness once again filling his mouth. Now they’ve got people camping out. Sleeping right there on the sidewalk, in the front yard. He gets up in the morning, walks out to pick up the paper, the sun already carving out its space in the sky for the day, and they’re there, rubbing dreams from their eyes and sharing boxes of donuts and tuning their portable radios. Crazies. He thinks of things: Spraying them with the goddamned hose, for instance. Telling them to get a life. Delivering a speech they’ll never forget and that will cause them to rethink everything. If you want to believe in something, believe in yourself. Believe in the randomness of the universe and how you are a speck. Deal.
“How long can it last? That’s what I want to know. How long do these things last?”
If Marcus knows he isn’t saying. He concentrates on his food. Switches over to the pork chops, slightly burnt, just the right amount, just enough to give a little extra crisp and crunch as you bite. He’s very particular about his food, how his clothes are washed, the way his sheets are tucked. He’s a picky motherfucker and he knows it. His mother used to say he was too fussy—fussy like a girl. Which probably didn’t help matters, psychologically. But we’ve all got our quirks and preferences. Take his wife. She doesn’t seem to care much for the new version of Hollywood Squares. But he does. And yet they still get along just the same. They watch Hollywood Squares and then he puts up with her PBS nature crap. Compromise being the key to any successful relationship. As a connoisseur of daytime television ever since his early retirement last year, he knows that much. And seventeen years you have to consider a success, though, sure, it could always be a little better. There’s always room for improvement. This he knows from daytime TV as well.
“Why is it always white folks with this kind of stuff? White folks and Latins. Why is it you never hear about black folks seeing Jesus in their shower curtains?”
Good point, Marcus concedes, cutting into his second pork chop, which invariably never tastes as good as the first. Good, satisfying. But not as good, as satisfying. You lose that first bloom of flavor, the way it takes over your mouth, trickles underneath your tongue. The first pleasures are the purest.
“I don’t know, Marcus. I know it’s strange. I know in some ways it probably isn’t right. But maybe we should pay us a visit. You know, to be neighborly, sure, but to check it out, see what all the commotion is. I don’t think we even officially met the woman all these years. Or the husband. And maybe she, the little girl, could help. Could help us with our . . . problem. We could just visit and see.”
Marcus stops in mid-chew. On the TV there’s a man jumping up and down, not getting much air, mostly knee flexes actually. The superiorly dressed host is maneuvering to shake his hand and offer hostly congratulations, but the man remains too transfixed by the exaltation of his win. A crazed white man from Florida who’s something c
alled a crisis management consultant and just won ten grand for a half hour’s work. Marcus loves his game shows, but he has to admit: every time he sees someone win big like this, especially white people from Florida, a little part of him dies, too. He’d like to be a contestant himself one day—who wouldn’t. He’d like to be hopeful and on TV and electric with suddenly realized potential, like you were maybe a different person—greater, vaster—from what you’d thought all these years.
“Now why would we want to go and do a damn fool thing like that?”
* * *
You think you know the body but you don’t. Not really. Not the body that’s falsely advertised on billboards and magazine covers and fitness equipment infomercials. But the body as it truly is. Finite and unforgiving. The body as memory. The body as mystery. The body as final truth. It’s what we gain and what we leave behind. And yet for the most part it remains unappreciated and unconsidered, especially among the healthy, who do not have to confront the body and its inevitable failings.
But Linda Santiago, certified physical therapist, divorced mother of two, recently liberated from her Sisyphus-like student loans, tax-paying and coupon-clipping citizen of Anaheim, California, confronts the body on a daily basis. Every day she excavates the body’s endless intricacies and delicate wonders. Every day she commands skin and muscles and limbs and tendons—where to pressurize, where to pull back, breathe, talk instead of tuck. She knows the body the way a painter knows color. It’s what she interacts with, what she touches—yes, physically touches, actual intimate human-to-human contact, silent witness to eczema and cysts and all variances of blemish and imperfection and much worse—week in, week out. The body, according to Linda’s own personal philosophy, is a map of who we are, where we have been. And if you touch it and heal it properly, with the appropriate care and respect and honed expertise, then you can follow that map right into the person’s heart. It’s why she’s a P.T. It’s why she’s doing this—which, at the moment, is working with Mr. David Trujillo, pressing his spindly legs toward his chest, as far as they will go, the old man lying on a mat spread out on his living room floor, his body brittle and light as a child’s, yet he’s trying, he’s making the effort to stop the onset of decay. A lot of her geris suffer from depression, too. They don’t want to do their exercises. They don’t want to do anything.