by Joel Arnold
“Sssshhh. Yes, hon?”
“Where are we?”
Luke’s chest hurt, his back and shoulders. “Mexico.”
“I know, but where?”
For such a slight thing, she’d grown so heavy in his arms. But he feared that the stagnant water at his feet wasn’t clean. Full of parasites, or something worse that might wreak havoc on her already ravaged immune system.
“A tunnel,” he said. “Outside Guanajuato.” He stopped. He had to set her down. “Reach around in my backpack and pull out the plastic bags. They should be near the top. Put them over your shoes.”
“Why?”
“To keep your feet dry. I can’t carry you anymore.”
“You’re not wearing any.”
“Please. Just do as I say.”
“I want to go home.”
“I do, too.”
She pulled the bags from his pack and slipped them over her shoes, then slid from his arms into the stagnant, murky water at their feet.
And so the argument went:
“When will you accept the fact that she’s going to die?” Jenna had asked a month earlier.
“I can’t stop trying,” Luke said.
“You’re making her miserable.”
“How would you know? You’re never home.”
“I’m working. I have a job.”
“I take care of Amy,” Luke said. “That’s my job.”
“Take care of her? All you do is drag her across the country, giving her false hope time after time after time.”
“You want me to throw in the towel like you?”
“I want you to accept the fact that our daughter is going to die. And damn it, Luke, let her die here, at home, with her family and friends. Someplace familiar. Not out there. Not in the middle of nowhere. Please, Luke.”
And so the argument went.
Now here, in the tunnel, Amy looked so small in Luke’s black leather jacket. “It smells like old books in here.”
Luke pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. Is it the mold? “Wrap this over your mouth and nose.”
“Geez, Dad.”
Luke stopped and listened, thinking he heard movement. He had no desire to run into anyone, especially not with his daughter here. But it was only the hollow echo of dripping water; the tunnel walls perspired with it, glistening in the weak beam of Luke’s flashlight. Bats clung like burnt lichens to the limestone.
“Can you please tell me what we’re doing here?”
Dim light ahead. Luke turned off his flashlight. Cool air chilled the sweat on his arms and neck. The tunnel stopped beneath a grate embedded in the limestone ceiling. Light spilled through the gaps between the bars.
“Dad?”
Luke wiped the sweat from his forehead. He surveyed the small area beneath the grate, finding a jagged ledge protruding from the tunnel wall. He motioned to it. “Here. Sit here.”
Amy rested her back against the hard rock. “I’m tired.”
“Close your eyes, honey. Try to sleep.” He dug a blanket from his backpack and placed it over his daughter. He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. He looked up at the grate, took a sip of bottled water, and waited.
But wouldn’t all the endless miles, the rest stops, the gas stations, the cheap motels be worth it if they found a cure? He knew there were charlatans out there, crooks taking advantage of desperate people like him for a quick buck. He wasn’t completely naïve. But maybe the doctors back home didn’t have all the answers, maybe there really were miracles out there waiting to be found. And besides, how could he live with himself if he didn’t at least try?
He’d scoured the internet, joined discussion boards, frequented chat rooms, grasping, groping for any piece of information out there, but it was like trying to build a bridge by tossing pebbles into the ocean.
One night, an email from a stranger; “Have you heard of Padre Sapo in Guanajuato?”
He didn’t even know where Guanajuato was. He looked it up on the Internet. Middle of Mexico. So far, he’d kept his search to the U.S. Couldn’t afford to globetrot. But Mexico — that was close enough, wasn’t it? And cheap?
He replied to the email, asking for more information, and received a brief message with an attached J-Peg. Padre Sapo, the caption said. Father Toad. A poor quality picture, but Luke made out a man standing on a platform of rock in a small amphitheater carved out of a mountain. An elderly woman kissed his chest, while a line of the afflicted waited their turn.
The email contained only an address and the brief message; “From his ugliness, I was cured. May he bless and heal your child.”
A burst of feedback woke Luke up. The light spilling through the grate had turned orange. He heard voices now, too, voices from the amphitheater above. He looked at Amy. She stared back at him, eyes wide, as if trying to figure out whether or not she was still dreaming. Luke ran his fingertips lightly over her cheek.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s just me.”
Recognition filled her eyes. She shivered. “How long was I out?”
He checked his watch in the dim orange light. “Little over an hour.”
Luke stood on the ledge and craned his neck trying to see past the iron bars of the grate. “Sounds like they’re getting ready.” He couldn’t see much, except for stage lights and the thin metal pole of a microphone stand.
Footsteps thudded above. Amy looked up. “Would you please tell me what’s going on?”
For a moment, Luke looked like a little boy caught playing with matches. He shrugged. “They call him Padre Sapo. Father Toad.”
“Father Toad?”
He smiled weakly. “They say his skin looks like that of a toad.”
Amy shivered. “Why are we waiting for him?”
“They say the moisture from his skin can heal anything.”
Amy stared. Shook her head. “Jesus, Dad. You’ve got to be kidding me.” She looked so tired, the shadows of the tunnel turning the dark circles beneath her eyes into a black paint.
“We’ve got to try,” Luke said. “We’ve got to try.”
When they’d first arrived in Guanajuato, they tracked down the address Luke received in the email. Amy waited in the pickup truck with the windows rolled down to let in the gentle breeze, while Luke went up to an apartment perched above a laundromat.
“Fifteen sousands.” The senorita who beckoned him in was large and sat on a wide wicker chair. She leaned forward, her jostling forearms crossing over the silver head of a cane. She smiled at Luke. A web of saliva formed between her toothless gums when she opened her mouth. She reminded Luke of a turtle. A young boy stood next to her, his skin as brown as his eyes. He tilted his head, parted his lips slightly as if in amusement as he watched Luke.
“Fifteen thousand?” Luke tried to calculate that into U.S. dollars.
Senorita seemed to read his mind and laughed. “Fifteen sousands American dollars.”
“You’re kidding.”
She chuckled, her gums forming a cat’s cradle of spit. “No kidding.” She dabbed at the back of her neck with a white handkerchief. She nodded at her boy and mumbled something that Luke didn’t understand.
The boy reached for Luke’s elbow. “We go now.”
“Wait.”
The woman shook her head and waved at him as if shooing away a fly. “Go,” she said.
Outside, the boy nodded toward Amy. “What’s wrong with her?”
Luke stared at the boy. His tongue felt thick and dry. The sunlight felt sharp on his eyeballs. “Why don’t you ask her?”
The boy turned to Amy. “What’s wrong with you?”
Amy took the scarf off her head. “I picked the wrong beautician.”
“Bootishun?”
Amy shook her head. “I’ve got cancer.”
“Oh.” The boy nodded. “Sorry to hear.” He reached out and ran his dark brown fingers through the fuzz of Amy’s hair. “You got very pretty eyes.”
&nbs
p; Amy squinted at him. She smiled. “Thanks.”
The boy turned to Luke. He seemed to study him. He grabbed Luke’s wrist. “Come,” he said. “Gimme the keys to your truck.”
“What?”
“Come on. I show you another way.”
“Another way?”
“Another way to see him.”
Luke stared uncomprehendingly.
“Padre Sapo,” the boy said. “The toad.”
“I can’t take this anymore. I want to go home.”
Luke looked down from the grate, looked at his daughter slouching on the cold rock ledge, so pale and thin. How fast her thirteen years had gone by. Luke remembered the moment, the exact moment Jenna had told him she was pregnant; the smell of the lemon ammonia tile cleaner he’d just used, the sound of snowmobiles outside their window, the rerun of Cheers playing on their twenty-four inch Sony — it was one when Coach was still on. These memories were so deeply imprinted on his mind, because good God, how hard they had tried to get pregnant. It took them five years. Five years! And two rounds of in-vitro. And haven’t those thirteen years flown by so damn fast?
Amy’s cheeks darkened with anger. “Why do you keep falling for this crap? You think some guy with freak skin is going to cure me?”
Luke sighed. “We’ve come this far. We’re not going to back out now.” What else could he say? That he was selfish? That he couldn’t imagine life without her?
“Don’t you get it, Dad? I’m tired of this. Of all of this.”
She began to cry. Luke lowered himself next to her. It was so rare that she cried anymore. He put his arm around her, wiped at her tears with his thumb. She leaned into him, her shoulders heaving. Dampness spread across Luke’s shirt. What else could he say? He stroked the back of her neck. He whispered, “I have to try.”
Soft music spilled through the grate. Cello and violin. Amy sat back against the tunnel wall and wiped her tears away. Luke stood again, trying to see through the iron bars. Over the music, Luke heard muffled voices through the rock. How many were up there? How many could afford such a donation? Yet the buzz of people entering the amphitheater quickly grew.
Amy coughed into her fist and grimaced. “That one hurt.”
More feedback over the PA system. More footsteps on the stone stage above. A sonorous voice rose from the speakers, rapid-fire Spanish Luke couldn’t follow. He glanced from the grate in the ceiling to Amy sitting so fragile on the rock ledge. He had to stop doing this to her. Jenna was right. Amy couldn’t take this any more. No matter what the outcome of this trip, he knew he had to take her back home. Back to her mother. Her friends. He prayed it wasn’t too late.
But this one last time…
He had to try.
A shadow fell over the grate. A large, lumbering shape stood over Luke’s upturned face. The announcer stopped talking. The applause that followed shook the tunnel.
The boy had been right. Luke was incredulous when the boy told him the priest performed his healings over a storm grate, but there he was. “Sometimes he pours like rain,” the boy said.
Amy strained to see past her father. “What’s going on?”
Luke held his finger to his lips. His eyes remained on the man above him. The padre shifted, letting in a small stream of light, and shed a blue velvet robe. Gasps and shrieks burst from the audience. He wore nothing but a blue swimsuit pulled tightly around his massive hips. Bumps, welts and cysts cratered his skin.
Padre Sapo. The healer priest.
His voice reverberated through the amphitheater, through the stone, through the tunnel walls like aftershocks.
“Por favor,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if his vocal chords were covered with sores as well.
Numerous feet shuffled and thudded onto the stone platform. Luke could barely make out the shapes of those who approached. He shifted to get a better view, his neck sore from the strain.
A woman with a deformed hand stood in front of the priest, leaned forward and sucked at one of the cysts. She sagged and backed away. Others approached. A man with arthritic knuckles the size of golf-balls licked at Sapo’s skin. He moaned as a man in a black suit gently pulled him away. A woman held out a baby swaddled in a tattered blanket. She swiped her finger across the priest’s oozing skin and put it to the baby’s lips.
“Gracias,” she cried. “Gracias.”
More people came. They sucked and licked at the lizard-like body.
“Dad? What’s happening?”
Luke snapped out of his trance. He reached into his backpack and grabbed an empty Tupperware container and handkerchief. He pushed the handkerchief through the iron bars and pressed it tentatively to the bottoms of Sapo’s feet. Could he feel this? Luke squeezed the handkerchief over the container, releasing little more than a drop. He repeated the process, pressing the handkerchief between the unyielding bars, lightly dabbing it against the bottoms of the scabrous feet, squeezing out scarce drops. Was it enough? Soon the soles of the priest’s feet were merely dry riverbeds of calluses.
Above, more people ambled forward and sipped at the liquid that oozed from Sapo’s skin, from his chest, legs and face.
How much time did they have? Luke wished the gaps in the grate were wider. It was impossible to maneuver the handkerchief through them any higher. Besides, what if he was seen? What would happen if someone saw a piece of white cloth poking up through the stage?
A man in a wheelchair sucked on the priest’s fingers. A boy on a splintered crutch lapped at his elbow. An old woman knelt to the floor and sucked on his shin. All of them offered their thanks in muffled Spanish.
The hollow thud of footsteps diminished. A man bent over, a tongue slipping from his deformed face, and suckled a cyst on the priest’s belly.
There couldn’t be much time left. Luke looked at Amy. She stared back with wide, frightened eyes. Could she see the monstrosity above them? Why did he bring her here? Why didn’t he leave her back in the truck? Padre Sapo turned in a slow circle. Luke dug in the front of his backpack. There was a pocketknife, but the blade was too short. He pulled out one of Amy’s spiral-bound notebooks. It was a journal she’d kept religiously since learning she had cancer. Luke tugged and yanked the metal spiral, ripping it free.
“Dad!”
“Shhh!”
Frantic now, he straightened out the end of the spiral. Sapo began to lumber away. More light spilled through the grate. Luke wiped sweat from his eyes, then grunted as he jabbed the wire through one of the gaps still covered with Sapo’s foot. He jabbed again and again, holding the Tupperware container in his other hand, catching the thin streams of liquid that trickled between the bars.
The container quickly filled with Padre Sapo’s blood.
Luke stopped and fumbled with the container’s cover, trying to press it on tightly. The light from above disappeared. When Luke glanced up, he realized that Sapo had dropped to his knees, and was now peering through the iron bars of the grate. Luke looked away, finally able to snap the cover into place.
“Get up.” Luke touched Amy’s arm. “Time to go.”
The priest’s deformed fingers hooked around the bars. “Por favor,” he croaked. “No vayas! No vayas!”
Luke shrugged on his backpack and scooped Amy into his arms. Sweat streamed into his eyes, making it hard to see.
“Sangre,” the priest bellowed. “No lo bebes tu. Malo! Malo!”
Luke ran. The cone of his flashlight wobbled over the tunnel walls. He expected someone to appear in its feeble beam at any moment. Guards. Police. Someone who would try to stop him from saving his daughter.
Sapo’s cries echoed through the cavern. “No lo hagas. No lo hagas!”
Surely someone waited for them at the entrance. Someone waiting to take the priest’s healing liquid from them and spill it onto the ground. Someone waiting to throw them into jail, or worse.
Luke stopped. Listened. All he heard was his own breathing, his own heartbeat.
He set Amy down. Tugged off his pac
k and took out the container of fluid. He pried off the cover and held the container out to Amy. If they were caught, at least the elixir would be working its way through Amy’s body.
“Drink it,” he said.
Amy looked at him with disgust. “No way.”
“You have to.”
“Dad, please.”
Luke’s voice trembled. “What harm can it do, huh? You’re already at death’s door, so what’s a few sips of this gonna do?” He felt like shit saying it, but what else could he do?
He heard something. Footsteps?
“Here, look.” He lifted the container to his lips and took a sip. “See?” He thought a moment. “It tastes like broth.” He wiped the residue off his lips with the back of his hand.
More tears welled up in Amy’s sunken eyes. She took the container from her father. Stared at him. Gulped the whole thing down without taking her eyes off him. She threw the container to the ground.
“Can we go home now, please?”
Luke reached out and hugged her. “I promise.”
Luke slowed at the tunnel entrance and peered out. The landscape was still and dark. Where were the police? The Federales? But there was no one. Luke slumped against the rough rock of the entrance. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Luke sighed. “The truck’s gone.”
They walked hand in hand along a gravel road. Luke wasn’t sure how far they were from town, but at least the night was warm, and the sky clear.
“I feel funny,” Amy said.
Luke watched her, wondering what to do. Surely he could make it back to town, but what about Amy?
Stop pushing her so hard.
He guided her into the brush a short distance off the road and found a small clearing. He set the backpack down. “Lie down. Put your head on this.”
Amy no longer questioned. Luke laid next to her, putting an arm over her, the blanket over them both. A cool breeze rustled the brush around them, and Luke rubbed Amy’s back until she began to snore. He closed his eyes against the starlight. Drifted in and out of sleep. When he opened his eyes again, the stars appeared muted. Fuzzy. They seemed to pulsate. His stomach felt scooped out. His throat threatened to close.