Some Small Magic Page 5

  What they usually talked about was whatever Abel had learned that day and what the janitor had made Dumb Willie clean up—puke mostly, which Abel believed the most awful thing in the world but which Dumb Willie approached with neither a wince nor an ill word. He talked about God too. Abel would listen, trying to think of himself as special in the best way special meant, because all the kids in his class had to sit in some old moldy trailer to hear about What Comes After but he got to hear it out in the sunshine with the birds and the breeze.

  Wasn’t ever enough birds and breeze in the world for Abel to abide hearing too much of that, though—Dumb Willie going on about things no man (and certainly no man like him) could know. Sometimes when he got to going so hard that the words started mixing and spittle began raining from the corners of his mouth, Abel had to fight the urge to interrupt. Ask if God was the one who’d made him sick like he was because his momma lay with a man not her husband, or if God had been the one to whisper in Henderson Farmer’s ear those years ago to beat his baby boy half to death and all the way senseless, so that the only future his son had was mopping up puke.

  *

  The signs begin to change about the time Abel’s ears begin popping. At the fork in the road his momma veers right, following the long line of cars toward a soft ridge in the distance. Reverend Johnny Mills and his arrow are replaced by phrases Abel takes as from the Bible, reminders that all things are possible so long as you put away all logic for a minute. A wide meadow opens up ahead to the left. Here, all the vehicles pull in like a herd of cattle setting to graze.

  Lisa chooses a spot in the middle rather than along the edge. When Abel looks at her, she says, “People got to see us here, Abel. They got to see us plain.”

  The folk who pour forth mix with those already arrived, old ones and young and the not-quite-either, people Abel knows from town and many more he’s never seen. A few look healthy and prime. Most either are hobbled or appear to be standing in death’s reaching shadow. All are adorned in their finest, whether new suits and dresses off the rack or threadbare clothes that have seen too many Sunday services and Monday burials. And everyone, even those Abel takes as the most feeble and lame, is smiling. It’s as if they already believe themselves in the grip of a miracle.

  Lisa turns the key, letting the engine die slow. People are staring. Abel sees Sheriff Barnett and his family, Mister Givens from the market, and the Fretwells from the pharmacy. He even sees Dorothea Cash, so old she hardly ever comes out of her house anymore and so broken of mind that all she wants to tell folk is how time is a circle. She’s walking with a woman Abel knows is a preacher in town but can’t remember her name.

  “All these people are poor,” he says.

  “That’s all the hill country is, and about all of town. Why they’re here. Every poor family needs a God they think can save them, or at least One they can blame for their troubles.”

  “That why we’re here?” He looks at his momma, panic flashing over him. “You ain’t gonna find Jesus, are you?”

  It’s not a smile that spreads on his momma’s face but close, that pretty grin that wakes him every morning and leaves him at every good-night.

  “We ain’t here looking for the Lord, Abel. We just need the ones think they already found Him. And the only Jesus I know’s the little Mexican that Roy lets clean up after the diner closes. Now, let’s get on, before I tuck tail and run back home.”

  He gets out of the car and meets the sweet scents of unspoiled earth, pine and honeysuckle and greening grass and all things good. Abel has come here unwillingly, accompanied by his own prejudices. And yet here is the first sign that all of those judgments should perhaps be laid aside, because this place smells of possibility. He draws in his misshapen chest as far as it can manage, wanting to breathe that air, but is set upon before he can manage it.

  *

  It’s as though the pious turn as one in that single span of time and notice the two heathens among them. Those from town and those not descend upon Abel’s momma. Welcoming her, grinning as they enfold Lisa into their arms like some reclaimed wayward child. For once, Abel finds invisibility a blessing rather than a curse. He makes himself even smaller and crouches down between his momma’s feet as Sheriff Barnett and Darnell Givens gape in a mix of shock and elation. Even the strangers seem attuned to the notion that Abel and his momma are fruit ripe for the harvest, as if the two of them have arrived bearing the mark of the lost upon them, visible only to the found. It frightens Abel, all these smiles. This onslaught of love.

  He crouches deeper as Lisa places her hands on his shoulders and eases him up. Her words crack with strain—“We just felt led to be here”—and yet the effect on the others is instant. Darnell even speaks an “Amen,” like what Lisa said was a kind of prayer.

  At the meadow’s edge waits a wide trail of grass worn to dirt. Where it snakes off is the largest sign yet, near billboard-size, tied to the side of a rusting cattle hauler: the smiling face of Reverend Johnny Mills looking down on them all. Abel follows his momma, the two of them the center of a circle made of chatter and high hopes. The trail ends a few hundred feet on at a faded red barn so tall that it looks to scrape the sky. Dozens stand here, what looks like hundreds. The chattering of their little group yields to the steady buzz of the greater throng, all of whom walk or sway or merely move their feet in place, as though the building excitement is too great for them to hold steady. Gone is the quiet peace of the meadow. Here at the barn the air feels like coming thunder, the way it does just before a train rumbles by, when the crickets and the summer birds pause for a song greater than their own.

  Even the barn itself appears a living thing, pulsing with some inward light of life that fills the gaps between the boards. The long front doors are shut. Those nearest press their faces against the chipped wood before turning to speak in high tones. Those behind then turn to repeat what they’ve heard like ripples in a pond of flesh.

  A pudgy, milk-colored hand shoots up from the middle of the crowd. It moves toward the place where Abel and his momma stand, weaving among shoulders and heads until it grows shoulders and a head of its own. Principal Rexrode beams as he breaks through to the outer ring of worshipers. The hand he raised upward now flattens into an embrace. Of Lisa first, now Abel.

  “I’m so happy y’all come,” he says. “So very happy.”

  Abel feels a poke at his shoulder.

  “We just felt led to be here,” he says.

  Lisa says, “Abel’s right, Charlie. You showed us a kindness this afternoon. We’re glad to be here. After what you said, I thought it best. About that foundation. Isn’t that right, Abel?”

  But Abel can’t answer. He looks up and can’t hide the hurt in his eyes, his tongue tied in a knot because of what his momma said. This is why they’ve come? Not for punishment, but because of the grievous state to which his heart has sunk?

  Another poke.

  “Yes’m,” he manages. “That’s so.”

  Principal Rexrode smiles with every one of his teeth. “What kindness I show you is only due to the kindness given me, Lisa. But I appreciate it. Y’all in for a treat, I promise it. Rev’rend Johnny Mills is a name that’s moved all along these parts. Man’s touched by the Spirit. He’s a genuine healer.”

  “Healer?” Abel asks.

  “That’s right, son. You’ll see miracles tonight. I can feel it.”

  Abel’s momma won’t look at him. She’s saying, “Well that’s just fine, Charlie. Do you know how many other pastors are here tonight? I’d truly like . . . ,” but Abel doesn’t care. All he wants is to run back to the car and hide because his momma didn’t bring him here for a foundation. She’s brought him here for healing, that’s how bad things have gotten.

  He decides he will do just that, hide in the car and lock the doors until it’s all over, but before Abel can move he hears his name called somewhere among the midst of the truth seekers. He stands to the tips of his shoes to find the face. His name carries aga
in, stilted and mush-mouthed, as if the two syllables and four letters have been pulled from a sea of slobber in the last seconds before drowning. The giant who steps forth wears BibAlls too short for his long frame. A white T-shirt (his finest, even with the tear on the right sleeve) flaps in the mountain breeze like clipped wings that can no longer fly. His scalp is bald but for the thinnest layer of auburn, slick with a sheen of sweat that coats his entire head in a glow not unlike the one seeping through the barn’s walls. His voice booms, “A. Bull, A. Bull,” as those big arms wave.

  Lisa remains in deep conversation with Principal Rexrode concerning the ecclesiastical makeup of the gathered, and so Abel feels fine in shrugging himself from her grasp.

  “Dumb Willie’s here,” he says.

  “Go on,” she tells him.

  The big man keeps calling, repeating Abel’s name and then his own with such fervor that those closest pause in their anticipation. They stare as the huge man stands in a kind of wonder, the way he most often does. Dumb Willie reaches down and grips the sides of Abel’s bony arms, lifting him, careful of the cast and those bones either broken or never truly whole. He never bends in Abel’s presence, choosing instead to raise Abel to his own height—an act born merely of a simple mind, yet one Abel has always regarded as an act of respect.

  “A. Bull.”

  “Hey, Dumb Willie.”

  The big man turns Abel in the air, gauging his sides and back as though a slab of beef. “I din’t know you’d be. Here.”

  “Momma brung me,” Abel says. “It’s a punishment. Or a judgment. Or a wish-upon-a-star.”

  “Naw it’sa. Preecher. Inna barn.”

  “I know. Where’s your folks?”

  “Here.”

  Dumb Willie offers nothing in the way of specificity, leaving Abel with no direction to look. Yet he feels Henderson and Rita Farmer’s presence nonetheless, in the same way one feels the only black cloud in an otherwise empty sky. Dumb Willie would never be this far from home alone. He is twenty, some say. Others say closer to twenty-five, though only in body. In mind Dumb Willie will never get much past the first grade, which means of course his folks are close and of course they’d bring Dumb Willie up here. Having a “healer” (Abel can’t help but put quotes around the word) this close must seem an answered prayer. It’s only too bad that Henderson and Rita would come seeking a remedy for their boy and not themselves.

  “You gone. Come?”

  “Don’t see as I got a say,” Abel answers. “I guess Momma’s flustered at what I done to Chris. Or disgusted. Both, I guess. She thinks my heart could get bad. You can put me down, Dumb Willie. Everybody’s staring.”

  Dumb Willie says, “Chris. Stunk,” with a seriousness that brings Abel a grin.

  “I know. Sorry you had to clean all that up.”

  “It’sa preecher. In ’ere. Da’ee say he can make me . . .” He stops, gritting his teeth. “Healed.”

  “Ain’t nothing in there heal you, Dumb Willie. ’Sides, I think you’re fine.”

  “He can make. You fine.”

  Abel looks over his shoulder to where his momma stands, still talking to Principal Rexrode. “I don’t believe none a that stuff,” he says. “That ain’t no magic, that’s just tricks. I seen the train this afternoon. You hear it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Know how many cars there were? I counted. Guess how many?” He leans up and in, wanting to whisper because that would bring greater effect, even if it does sound like a dying frog: “A hundred.”

  Dumb Willie blows the air from his mouth. A brief shower of saliva pelts Abel’s shoes.

  “I ain’t never seen a hundred, Dumb Willie. Not in my whole life. It scared me. I think something’s gonna happen.”

  “What gone. Happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Abel says. “Hey, Dumb Willie, let’s fly. You wanna?”

  He picks Abel up again, to eye level like before and then on up, high over Dumb Willie’s head. Abel settles his legs around a neck of pure muscle and grabs hold of Dumb Willie’s ears, careful not to tug on them too tight.

  “Ready?” he calls.

  “Rey. Dee.”

  Abel uses the fingers of his good arm to poke at Dumb Willie’s head, pushing imaginary buttons to work the flaps and throttle. Then he turns to a random farmer beside them and snaps a salute.

  “Take off!” he screams.

  Dumb Willie does. He beats a path through the crowd, running full-bore, weaving among awestruck children and adults driven to silence, old men and older women who grin through tobacco-stained teeth. Faster and faster, Dumb Willie gripping Abel’s ankles (not too hard) and Abel steering with a tug on one giant ear and then the next, himself taller than anyone, heads above the rest. Watching his momma grinning and Principal Rexrode mouthing, Not too fast, too fast, but Abel wanting Dumb Willie to go even faster because this is what flying must feel like, real flying, and this is as close to that as Abel will ever manage.

  Dumb Willie slows and then stops, his breath no more strained than if he were sitting on a porch and snapping beans. Abel tries one ear, then the other. Pushes more buttons.

  “What’s matter, Dumb Willie? I think we stalled.”

  Dumb Willie says, “It’s the. Time.”

  He maneuvers Abel toward the big barn doors easing open, creating a rush of moving bodies and raised voices. A man steps out and closes the doors again before anyone can get a peek inside. His white suit has gone tan with sweat, his cheeks rosy from the heat. He grins through two rows of brown teeth.

  “Friends,” he calls, “brothers and sisters. Y’all hush up now and look this way. There in the back. Y’all hear me?”

  He waits for a wave of “Yessirs” and “Uh-huhs” before smiling again.

  “Now that’s fine. Friends who don’t know me, I’m the Reverend Earl Thomas Keen, pastor at the Trinity Gospel Assembly of the Redeemer, off State Road 33. Me and my fellow pastors is who organized tonight’s meeting, which we promise will be a blessing to your souls and a balm to what weariness brought you here. Let me tell you we all met the man inside, the one you come to see. We spoke to’m, prayed with’m, and I for one can say outright that this man is a true soldier of the everlasting God and one touched by the power of Christ Hisself.”

  A cheer rises, a chorus of “Amens” as the crowd pushes forward. The Reverend Earl Thomas Keen holds his Bible as a shield. He drives them back with a polite wave and a plea to just hang on.

  When the noise subsides, Dumb Willie shouts, “A. Men.”

  “Yes,” the preacher says, “amen and praise God.” He settles his tone from joyous to near grave, marking the reality of what is to come. “There will be miracles tonight, friends. There will be signs. And there will be wonders fit to wrench the devil hisself from what hold he has upon you. Don’t you doubt it.”

  Now the smile again. Abel has never seen such grinning folk. Nor has he ever known such a man as this Preacher Keen, whose presence commands respect but whose voice carries the soothing lilt of the men who knock at the Shiffletts’ door sometimes in the evenings, peddling their wares. He half expects to hear next How many you good people suffer under the aggravation of stained carpet?

  Instead, the preacher steps aside as the barn bursts to music, piano and banjo and tambourine. The tune is foreign to Abel but not to the rest, not even Dumb Willie, who begins swaying to the melody. Abel turns to find his momma attempting to match Principal Rexrode’s rhythms. Abel alone remains still—ignored as always, only this time among a crowd of marionettes whose every movement is surrendered to something perceived as greater.

  “You’ll find a bucket just inside,” Preacher Keen says. “Have your love offering at the ready. For the infirmed and the troubled, there are prayer cards available. Please state your needs plain and deposit them at the altar.”

  With that, Preacher Keen turns and slides open the heavy doors. They rattle and squeak and pierce the air like a sinner’s cry. The gathered rush forward. They enter wit
h their ones and fives at the ready and even the occasional ten, the bills folded and placed into a metal pail hung at the end of a rusting screw, a pail already filling. Beside are stacked plain strips of paper and the sort of pencils that Abel uses to count his trains. They are snatched and the papers scribbled upon and folded.

  A voice calls Dumb Willie’s name. Henderson Farmer stands at the door beside Rita. Both have chosen black clothing for the occasion, both stare from eyes that seem dead things full of hate set deep in their gaunt, expressionless faces. It is a look Abel has seen upon many of Mattingly’s farm folk, who dig and reap what hard life they can from ground even harder. Yet there is something even more unforgiving than the soil in the way Dumb Willie’s parents carry themselves, something that never sows and yet reaps and reaps still.

  Dumb Willie lowers Abel to the ground, laughing. “It’sa preecher,” he calls, then goes after them.

  A hand comes to rest on Abel’s shoulder. He kisses it by memory, lips tasting his momma’s cracked fingers.

  “Come on now,” she whispers.

  Principal Rexrode ushers them inside. A new melody erupts, hands clap, praises to the Lord. Abel watches his momma pass by the overflowing pail without adding a tithe of her own. All she offers the Lord this night is what she scrawls on a prayer slip that she folds in half so Abel can’t see. He waits, alone and forgotten, as she walks toward the altar.

  -2-

  He stands silent and still in a darkened corner that keeps himself hid but all else visible. It is a wonder, this barn. When the Preacher Keen first reached out to him (that is the way things go now, the name Johnny Mills is big enough that preachers call upon him rather than the reverse) and said Mattingly’s hill country needed a dose of the Lord, the invitation was nearly rejected. Nearly. There were too many other towns weighed under by the same need, Spirit-starved people long on hurt and short on hope. And yet something—the Lord, perhaps—said, You go on up there, Johnny. I might show you something never been seen before, so Johnny did. Met the Preacher Keen right here at this barn not four days back, Keen saying this was a place of some renown in the town’s history. Johnny had only grinned at that phrasing, him knowing a thing or two about renown. And yet when the Preacher Keen had slid open those big double doors, Johnny’s doubt gave way. There was power here, sure enough.