Touch

by Elmore Leonard

  "Tell them it's blood, that's what blood looks like. 'Suddenly his hands began to bleed, blood pouring out as though nails had been driven through his palms. His side began to bleed, as though from a spear--' "

  "I didn't see his side bleed. Did you?"

  "It bled," August said. "When he gets the stigmata he bleeds from all five wounds, hands, side, and feet."

  "Where is he now?" Kathy said.

  August hesitated. "He's okay. Look, the reason I gave you the literature--read 'Miracle Worker of the Amazon,' it documents the first appearance of his stigmata when he was down in Brazil and gives the doctor's report, wounds bleeding from no natural cause, the same wounds suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross. Read the one, 'Stigmata.' "

  "I did," Kathy said. "Who was that with him, his sister?"

  "He doesn't have a sister."

  "I thought there was a resemblance. Her name's Lynn something."

  "Look," August said, "if it's not a natural phenomenon then it has to be supernatural. What else is there?"

  "Unnatural," Kathy said.

  "What do you mean, like from the devil?"

  "Let's keep it simple," Kathy said. "No natural cause means they don't know. It could be psychosomatic; he believes it--" She paused.

  "Yeah?" August waited.

  Kathy had to think. "He concentrates so hard, like a mystical experience, hallucinating--"

  "Yeah?"

  "--that he thinks it's happening to him."

  "But it is. We saw it," August said. "If he'd taken his clothes off, his shoes, we would have seen the five wounds of Christ crucified. He wasn't meditating or hallucinating, he was showing us that he's been singled out by God and given this special sign. You saw it, real blood. It wasn't ketchup, it wasn't some kind of trick."

  "Most readers--"

  "What?"

  God, he was annoying. Sitting there, all his pens and pencils in his shirt-- "Most readers won't believe it."

  "You know that for a fact," August said, "or you going by some pseudo-sophisticated idea of your own? Write what you saw, that's all you have to do."

  "I'll write something," Kathy said. "It's up to the city editor whether it gets in or not."

  "Long as you don't slant it with all that alleged, would appear to be . . . put down what you saw. You want to quote from my stigmata pamphlet you have permission, use as much as you want."

  "I'll say, according to August Murray, an unbiased source," Kathy said.

  "An honest source, interested in the truth."

  "As you see it."

  "I'm talking about absolute truth, standards of morality--" August paused. "What we're suffering in this country, and I don't mean just the Church, is a . . . pandemic erosion of ethical standards and feelings."

  "Where'd you read that?"

  "Write it down, they can read it in the Free Press."

  "A pandemic erosion--"

  "Listen," August said then, "you're the one mentioned it, using me as an unbiased source, thinking ha-ha, that's pretty funny, like you're talking over my head. I've read you people, everything you ever said about me you have to put snide little jabs in. You think the people out there buy your bullshit? They say, the good honest people, they say, 'Who's that broad? Who does she think she is?' You want to do a service for the people who read this opinionated piece of shit you put out?-- and I'll tell you the only thing it's good for too--start writing the facts for a change and quit acting like you're smarter than everybody else. That's what I advise you to do. You saw a man with the stigmata, the marks of Christ, which haven't appeared on a living soul in ten years, and go back to Saint Francis of Assisi himself, the first one to ever have it and only three hundred and twenty people since him. Three hundred and twenty-two now. You saw it--I'll give you that, you were the only person from the news media who came; not even the Michigan Catholic was there, for Christ sake--but that means you have a responsibility to report exactly what you saw and tell the implications of it."

  "What implications?"

  "The fact it's a sign from God and a very probable indication of sainthood."

  God, Kathy was thinking, any God; get me out of this. "I'll write something," she said, "and we'll see what happens. But it's up to the editor."

  "Okay," August said, "write it, keeping in mind you have three different stories to tell."

  Kathy didn't ask what they were. She knew August was going to tell her as he held up a finger and took hold of it with his other hand.

  "You got your stigmata story, miraculous marks of Christ appear the first time in this decade on a humble man, a one-time missionary by the name of Juvenal."

  "That's his real name?"

  "That's the name he took as a Franciscan."

  "Why'd he leave the order?"

  "You'll have to ask him that."

  "Did they throw him out?"

  "He left of his own accord."

  "What's his real name?"

  August hesitated. "That's up to him, if he wants to tell you."

  "Do you know it?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why don't you tell me?"

  "Because it's up to him." August was irritated now. "It's his name. If he wants to tell you, he will."

  "Okay," Kathy said, "if I see him, I'll ask."

  August settled back. He crossed his legs, resting a brown sandal with heavy straps and studs, on his knee.

  "Second, you've got you've got your Outrage story. The rapid growth of the traditionalist movement, a counterrevolution, a renaissance, rebirth of time-honored ecclesiastical and sacramental rites as they affect the more than one million Catholics in the Greater Detroit area."

  Kathy scribbled something on her note pad. "I've got my stigmata and my traditionalist movement . . . what else?"

  August gave the smartass reporter a tight-jawed stare, taking his time. "And you've got the miraculous healing of little Richie Baker."

  "Who's Richie Baker?"

  "A ten-year-old victim of acute lymphocytic leukemia, a terminal illness he's had for two years . . . until twelve twenty-five this afternoon."

  Kathy said, "You mean the bald-headed kid?"

  "Richie Baker lost his hair from cobalt treatments, Children's Hospital. He goes there every week for therapy. Check it out."

  "Who says he's cured?"

  "Talk to him; talk to his mother."

  "I mean how do you know?"

  "Check it out."

  "There's no way to tell by looking at him, is there?"

  "Check it out. Richie's been healed, not cured. Medical science had nothing to do with it. Go on, check it out."

  If he said it once more--Kathy laid her ballpoint on the desk. "Okay, let me get to work."

  "There's your three stories," August said. "Maybe you'll need some help."

  "We'll manage," Kathy said, "somehow." Actually, she was thinking, there were four stories. The stigmata, the movement, Richie Baker, and a profile of a guy who carried five pens and pencils in his shirt pocket and wore socks with his Roman sandals.

  She thought, How would you like to go out with him? Do the Stations of the Cross. Maybe take in a perpetual novena somewhere . . . as she began looking at the photographs of Juvenal . . . the hands . . . the face, the mild expression even as he held the blood in his hands . . . the eyes that seemed to be looking at her . . .

  Kathy said, "Hey, what're you doing?" Not sure then if she was talking to herself or the photograph.

  The good-looking black girl turned from the switchboard and came over to the desk. "No, he doesn't answer. I know he went out this morning."

  "I picked him up," August said.

  "Well, you know where he went then."

  "And I know he came back." Because where else would he be? August held her gaze, hard-eyed, to make her tell the truth.

  The good-looking black girl said, "If he did, he didn't check in and that's something he always does."

  "I'll go up and look around."

  "I'm afraid you won't.
Less you get permission from Father Quinn."

  "Call him."

  "He's not here either."

  "He's told me, I can go anywhere I want in this place."

  "He hasn't told me."

  "You know you're gonna be in serious trouble," August said, "as soon as I talk to Quinn. I hope you realize it."

  "Yeah?" the good-looking black girl said, leaning on the counter now. "I never been in trouble before. Tell me about it."

  August walked out and got in his black Charger standing in the no-parking zone . . . thinking of a new pamphlet he'd write.

  The problem of proselytizing minorities.

  He should have written it a long time ago. Trying to reach the unreachable . . . the unteachable.

  Hell, tell it like it is.

  Why there are so few niggers in the Catholic Church.

  August was tired, feeling the great weight of all the work he had to do.

  Chapter 16

  "NO, IT'S NOT MY REAL NAME," Juvenal said. "My real name's Charlie Lawson."

  "Charlie? Come on," Lynn said. "Guys named Charlie don't have things like that happen to them. God, can you see it? This big statue in church--someone says, 'Who's that?' And someone else says, 'Oh, that's Saint Charlie.' "

  "There was a Saint Charles," Juvenal said.

  "What did he do?"

  "I don't know. He probably got martyred."

  "How'd you get Juvenal?"

  "You pick three names when you go in," Juvenal said. "I liked Raphael or Anthony. They said, 'What else?' and showed me a list of names. I said, 'I guess Juvenal,' and that's the one they gave me, Brother Juvenal."

  "Why didn't you become a priest?"

  "I think I was sort of edging in, because I wasn't that sure, I mean of a vocation. I thought if for some reason I left the order as a brother it wouldn't be as bad."

  "Maybe you should never have entered."

  "But how else would I find out?" He seemed to shrug. "It wasn't wasted. It's still part of my life."

  "Saint Juvenal," Lynn said. She paused, looking at him sitting in the cranberry crushed velvet with Waylon's face above him. He was barefoot and wearing a "shavecoat," a little blue-striped thing like a short bathrobe the TV anchorman with the hair had left behind. Juvenal didn't ask whose it was. He showered, put it on, and handed her his pants and shirt and socks to throw in the washer. There was an odor of flowers she thought was a new Oxydol scent. She had said, "Do you think it's all right?" The idea of stigmata blood going down a wash drain, remembering the scent of flowers; it was strange. He said, "It's my blood. I don't see anything different about it." She threw in the Dacron cassock and surplice, too, the scent lingering. Then washed away the blood that stained her left hand, his blood . . . and changed from the eighty-dollar dress to tight jeans and a cotton shirt, leaving the two top buttons open, answered the phone twice while he was in the shower--Bill Hill and then Artie--and unbuttoned the third button before Juvie came out.

  Juvie, when she was thinking about him; Juvenal when they were talking.

  He was easy to talk to, interested, he listened, looking right at her while she told him about Bill Hill and Doug Whaley and KMA Records, Artie, the Cobras, the guy from William Morris; he grinned and was like a little kid. He seemed to know without having things explained to him, savvy and yet naive. God, and he was a very good-looking guy, the first good-looking guy she had ever met who didn't come on with a lot of bullshit, working up to a little sack time. This one--he had an innocence about him, no pretense; like he didn't even know he was good-looking. Thirty-three years old, eleven of them spent in the Franciscans, either in a monastery or a Brazilian mission.

  Could he still be a virgin? The thought hit her cold. My God, it was possible. Even with all the singles bars and casual sex, girls carrying their toothbrushes and nighties in their handbags--he had been away from all that, sheltered, protected. And if he had known before that he was going in--gotten the religious call when he was younger--he might have avoided girls. She wondered if she could ask him. By the way, are you still a virgin? The possibility intrigued her more than his stigmata. Incredible.

  Looking at him on the couch--was he the same person as the one on the altar? That seemed a long time ago.

  She said, "Do you suppose by any chance you're a saint?" (Was it all right to fool around with saints? It was getting heavy.)

  "I don't think so," Juvenal said.

  Amazing. Not laughing or saying oh, no, horrified at the thought; simply, he didn't think so.

  Lynn sat on the floor looking at him across the coffee table, past the ice-cold wet Spumante bottle, watching him reach for his glass, take a sip, and ease back again in the shorty shavecoat, bare legs, bare feet-- He seemed comfortable. But he always seemed comfortable. Even on the altar when he didn't know what to do. He had waited quietly for whatever would happen next.

  "This is really weird, you know it?"

  "You mean sitting here?"

  "Yeah, I guess," Lynn said. "I mean your being here considering, well, you're a little different than most people I know. Like a celebrity."

  "Not freaky?"

  "No, actually, if you saw some of my friends, they're the freaks. That's what's weird, you and I sitting here--I mean after what happened, and all those people and what they must be thinking--we sit here and it seems so natural. I think to myself, How am I supposed to act with you? Should I act reverent, real serious, or what? But we just talk like, you know, it was nothing. I go, 'You suppose you're a saint?' And you go, 'I don't think so.' All this blood pours out of you, you don't even get excited."

  "I'm getting used to it," Juvenal said. "The first few times, I was scared to death."

  "I can't imagine you being scared."

  "I was numb."

  "Really? How many times has it happened?"

  "Twenty. No, twenty-one now."

  "In how long?"

  "Next month will be two years."

  "And you healed somebody each time it happened?"

  "I think so, I'm not sure."

  "What was the first time like?"

  "Well, it was a little boy who was crippled. He came up to me in the street--"

  "This was in Brazil?"

  "Uh-huh, in a village near Santarem. The boy--I don't know why he came to me or why I touched him, but in that moment I knew something was going to happen and I wanted to run."

  "God," Lynn said.

  "I felt something wet--I thought the boy was bleeding. Then I saw my hands, the marks in my palms, and I saw my feet, I was wearing sandals. I couldn't believe it. Then a little girl came over--"

  "Can I look at your hands?"

  She rose to her knees and leaned over the coffee table as he offered his hands, palms up, lined, calloused, pink, with faint purple scars in the hollows, like marks from an indelible pencil.

  "Wow. Do you always have those?"

  "No, they go away."

  "Well . . . what do you think?"

  "What do I think? I told you about the stigmata, what I know."

  "I mean, do you really think that's what it is?"

  "What else? All five wounds--"

  "Do you, like pray and think about being holy all the time?"

  "I pray, yeah, but not the way I used to, or for anything in particular. It's more like talking to God."

  "Do you think He hears you?"

  "Sure, or I wouldn't pray."

  "How do you know He does?"

  "I don't know it, I believe it."

  "Do you ever pray to a crucifix?"

  "Not to. You pray before a crucifix," Juvenal said. "Sometimes I do, but not as a regular thing."

  "Well . . . do you believe God's doing this to you?"

  "He could be. Or it could be psycho-physiological, I don't know. Like when we're sad, we cry. We get mad or upset, there's a physical reaction. If my mind's causing it, then it's psychosomatic. If God's doing it, it's supernatural."

  "Which do you think it is?"

  "I h
ave no way of knowing. But when you get right down to it, what difference does it make? It seems to do some good."

  "You're awfully cool about it."

  "I accept it, that's all. Do I have a choice? I'm not gonna pretend it's something mystical and then find out I'm psycho and should be put away."

  "You don't believe that."

  "No, not really. Even trying to keep an open mind."

  "What did the other Franciscans say about it?"

  "Down there? Nothing really. There wasn't any need to make a formal statement; most of the people believe in magic and witchcraft anyway. Some of the friars were turned on by it--Christ, a real stigmatic; let's see. The others, I guess the general reaction was stigmata, huh? No shit. And went about their business. You have to know Franciscans."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Well, I think for the most part they're childlike, in a good way."

  "What about your superiors?"

  "They said to keep quiet. They didn't want another Lourdes or Fatima on their hands, the carnival atmosphere, all the religious hucksters moving in."

  "That's what Bill Hill said. Pretty soon they're setting up stands to sell Juvie dolls, or something like that."

  "I'm gonna have to meet him," Juvenal said.

  "He already called while you were in the shower. He wanted to come over but I told him to wait. I said I didn't know what happens next in something like this."

  "Nothing happens; it's over."

  "Until the next time," Lynn said. "Do you feel it coming?"

  "No. Sometimes I think it's gonna happen and it doesn't."

  "Have you ever healed anybody and you didn't bleed?"

  "No. That's why I'm not sure which comes first. Or if they both happen at the same time."

  "Does your Church know about it?"

  "My Church? You mean Rome? I doubt it," Juvenal said. "But when I came home from Brazil I was sent to Duns Scotus, over on Nine Mile, west of here."

  "I've seen it," Lynn said. "Gorgeous place, like a monastery."

  "Yeah, it's a seminary really. I got there, I thought, fine. But then I was told not to have any communication with the students. They put me to work as a gardener. I said, Why don't you send me someplace where I can do some good? I wanted to work in a hospital." Juvenal grinned, the way Lynn's eyes opened wider. "No, not to heal anybody, I like working in hospitals, I always have. They said wait. I waited, asked a few more times, waited seven months, and walked out. Which was not the way to do it, but I did."