CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MIKE

Lacy knew right away something was bothering me. She put her hand on her hip as soon as I walked into the house. I shut the door behind me and leaned against it like I could keep all the ills in the world out by the strength of my back.

I knew what Lacy wanted to hear.

“Zoe’s fine. Looks like she got a new dad,” I said, hanging my coat in the closet. I kicked off my sneakers.

“Do I even want to ask?”

“No, you don’t. But she is fine.”

“What about Gina?”

I sighed from deep in my chest. “Not so fine.”

“What do you mean, Mike?”

Lacy laid her hand on my shoulder, eliciting another heaving sigh from me. “Mike?” her gentle voice prodded.

“I need to pray, Lace. I need God’s sure guidance on this one. This isn’t your run-of-mill pastoral crisis.”

“She’s mentally ill, Mike.”

“We’ve got mentally ill people in our congregation, people suffering from depression, addiction, bipolar disorder. None of them have spontaneous bleeding wounds.”

“Wounds. As in plural?”

“She’s got three now, Lace. Both hands and a foot.”

“Mike, that sounds crazy.”

“I know.”

“She did it herself. Somehow. What else could it be?”

“A miracle?” I looked at her sheepishly. She looked back at me, incredulous.

“You don’t mean that,” she sighed. “Even if you do mean it, whatever their cause, bleeding wounds need the attention of a doctor.”

“You haven’t seen her since church, Lacy. It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can still smell that flowery scent.” I shook my head, trying to find a way to rationalize it all.

“Mike, people have been calling the house. Somehow it’s been leaked. I guess Jesus’ concept of ‘tell no one’ is lost on Nita and Norah. You’re going to have to do something.”

“The concept of ‘tell no one’ is lost to more than those two if the Bible is any indicator. This is going to get completely out of control, and I don’t know how to stop it. Any ideas, Lacy? Because I’m fresh out of them. There aren’t any handbooks I can pick up at Family Christian about what to do when somebody in my congregation gets the wounds of Christ.”

I think she saw in my face how serious I was. She took my head in her hands, stroking my temples. “Oh, honey,” was all she said before we held each other.

“I’m going to go pray.”

Mostly I spend quiet time in my study. This time I went straight to the bedroom and lay down on our bed. My thoughts felt too scattered to utter a coherent prayer. I closed my eyes and mostly let my sighs speak to God, with the exception of my saying, “I’m listening.”

The only comforter I experienced was the one spread across the bed.

GINA

Priest and his mom had locked horns in a bloody battle of wills. She wanted him to leave, and he wanted her to do the same.

My vote would have gone to him staying. Veronica was creepy. She was one of those people who never gave you a second of her time unless she benefited somehow. I remember once I went up for prayer and she swooped down on me.

She’s such an odd woman, squat and heavy, more than just spiritually. That terrible haircut. And she wore those fat-lady clothes, made to look like deplorable floral tents. Those were just outward things. Veronica reeked of desperation.

That day at church she prayed for me, spouting off what I guess she thought was a “word of knowledge.” But everything she said was wrong. All wrong. And her eyes? Her eyes are what I remembered most. They looked kinda crazy, and she kept searching my face for affirmation for what she was saying, like I could prove with a nod of my head that God really spoke to her.

I gave her that nod, I’m ashamed to say. The whole scenario was painful, at least to me. And now she was taking over my house. Burning candles. Asking for my blessing. Trying to pry a “message to God’s people” out of me that I didn’t have. She wouldn’t let Priest near me, and I couldn’t get out of bed except to hobble to the bathroom. For an hour she lay prostrate on my bedroom floor.

God forgive me, but I prayed she would leave, and soon.

PRIEST

I spent most of the day with Zoe. Apparently I’d forgotten the intricacies of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. I wished I had my Xbox, but it went the way of Foxy three months before.

When she got bored with board games we watched Nickelodeon on her Mickey Mouse television—the speakers were shaped like mouse ears. Cute. As much as I enjoyed being with her, I felt like a kid myself, banished to my room by my mom.

Who was I kidding? I always felt like a kid when it came to Veronica. A rotten little scoundrel she hated at that.

Zoe fell asleep watching Sponge Bob. I had to face my life eventually, so I took a few minutes to check the messages in my cell phone’s voicemail.

Fox: “Where you at, baby? You feeling all right? Foxy is getting worried about you. You need your medicine, baby. Don’t you worry, if you ain’t got the money right now—”

I pushed the delete button to spare me having to hear the rest. It would be the same story. She would take care of me if I took care of her. I’d done a lot of dirt to get junk, but I hadn’t yet resorted to being a smack ho. And I certainly wasn’t interested in meeting the needs of a six-foot-three transvestite drug dealer. I didn’t care how good her dope was.

How I rued the day she failed as an Internet minister and makeup artist.

Larry’s voice bellowed out at me, the next one in the queue. Come back into the office. He had something for me. This was my last chance. If I didn’t come up with something better than the drivel I was turning in—

Delete. But I did take a moment to call him.

“I’m on something, Larry,” I said before he could rage at me. I meant a kid’s floor, but that was confidential.

“What? What are you on, Tony?”

“I can’t get into it now,” I stage whispered. “Somebody might hear.”

“You serious?”

“I’m totally serious. This is something big.” Zoe’s bedroom floor was quite substantial for a townhouse in the ’hood.

“I’ll call you in a few days, or a week or two. I promise.”

I hung up before he could scream profanities, and turned the phone off. Better to have as little of my life as possible invading.

Watching TV in Zoe’s room was more fun than my life anyway. But how long could I stay with Gina? Everything I felt yesterday seemed to be dissipating in the cold of Veronica’s shadow.

My thoughts must have conjured her up. Ronnie marched into the room and announced she needed to do a twelve-hour shift at the hospital.

Was that the “Hallelujah” chorus I heard? I couldn’t be sure. I was so overcome with gratitude, everything went all warm and fuzzy. Of course, she couldn’t leave without a last strike.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Would I do that?”

“I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

She turned her nose up, spun on her heels, and headed on out to her real job.

GINA

I think I heard the “Hallelujah” chorus when she walked out of my townhouse. I would have leapt out of bed if I hadn’t known my foot would cry out in pain. But I did manage to drag myself out of bed and make my way to the bedroom door, which she’d closed. Made me wonder if she didn’t do it to create another obstacle to me getting at her son. I didn’t know how I’d manage to turn the knob with my bandages.

Everything, even the simplest act, was a challenge to me. And I thought I knew something about disability! I was so lonely in that bed all day. I mean, Veronica, when she wasn’t driving me crazy trying to take care of me, talked on and on, spitting venom about Priest.

He seemed so … reduced … in her presence. Not the same sparring partner who showed up at my door. And the way she talked to him! One reason I got up was to see if he was all right. I kinda missed him.

As I pondered how I could possibly open the door with my elbow, it swung open and Priest stood there. We both laughed, but he immediately went into help mode.

“Can I get you something?”

“Your mom took care of everything I needed, and then she took care of things I neither needed nor wanted.” I scrunched up my face when I said this. “I thought she’d never leave. Don’t hate me.”

“Don’t hate you? Like I didn’t beg God to take her away.”

We didn’t laugh that time. We stood there at that door, neither of us moving. We were like a couple of teenagers with a crush on each other, finally alone—almost—and not knowing what to do.

I was so aware of him. Just a few inches stood between us. I felt a little shy in front of him, and my gaze went to my foot. Veronica had wrapped it tightly. I didn’t have to worry about dotting the floor with my blood. But it did hurt. Priest must have noticed me wince, but every wound hurt, constantly, even when they weren’t bleeding.

“You look like you’re in pain,” he said. “Let me help you.”

“I need to lose twenty pounds so you can pick me up, and you need to find them.”

He laughed. “You stay just like you are. You feel good to me.”

“Excuse me?”

His cheeks reddened. “Did I say feel?” He chuckled. “I meant look.”

“Do you ever write fiction?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“You don’t know how to lie.”

“I can lie. Believe me, and I can write fiction too. Or I used to.”

He put his hand on my waist. That was a bad idea. Butterflies fluttered around my belly. “Oh” slipped out of my mouth.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re not a good liar either, Gina.”

I lifted my face and we gazed at each other. He was as affected by me as I was him.

He cleared his throat. “Put your arms around my neck.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “Why?” I thought he wanted to kiss me. And maybe he did.

“So you can put your weight on my shoulders and off your foot.”

I felt silly. “Oh.”

“That ‘oh’ wasn’t as much fun as the first one.”

He told the truth about that.

I slipped my arms around him, and he drew closer to me. Now my heart hammered like it wanted to wound me. I felt giddy wrapped around him. I tried to pull away.

“Wait,” he said.

So I waited. For him to kiss me, but he didn’t. For him to pull away, but he didn’t do that either.

All he did was hold me for the longest time.

PRIEST

Veronica was going to kill me.

For a few moments—okay, more than a few, I didn’t care—Gina was exquisite in my hands. I don’t think I could have let her go if I tried. At first.

I knew I was wrong. She was vulnerable just like Mike said, but so was I.

Man, when am I going to stop being so selfish?

I knew I didn’t have some whirlwind romance straight out of a grocery-store paperback to give her. The best I offered was a cheap thrill—if I worked hard at it—and a premature grave.

“Time to man up,” I told myself. Sure, I held her longer than I should have, but I let her go, eventually.

“Let’s get you into the living room.”

I supported her while she limped, tottered, and lurched into the living room and then hoisted herself onto the orange love seat.

“Do you want me to get something to prop your foot up with?”

“No,” she said, shyly.

Her heart beat with such intensity I could see it thumping through her gown. What a jerk I was.

I gave us both time to collect ourselves, and was glad when she finally broke through the tension between us and got down to business about exactly what she wanted. It wasn’t what I thought it would be—or maybe hoped it would be despite the fact that I knew we were hopeless.

“What’s a gonzo journalist?” she asked.

Gonzo journalist?

My heart hammered inside of me. I didn’t know where she was going with this. Nobody had called me “Gonzo” since I was twenty-two.

“You can’t believe everything you read about me on the net.”

“I didn’t see it on the net. Your mom told me that was your nickname. She said it was a journalism thing.”

“Back in the day it was.”

“Back in the day?”

“I’m entitled to use the vernacular. Didn’t you insist I was black?”

“And you insisted you weren’t.”

“I’m sorry. I had the impression that I have freedom of speech.”

“You do, Priest. You can say whatever you want. I just want you to be yourself. And maybe tell me what gonzo journalism is.”

“I’m not into that anymore.”

“So what is it?”

“Why do you ask, Gina?” The edge in my voice was sharp enough to give her another bleeding wound.

“I’ll get to that; just tell me.” She stared at me with those doe eyes of hers. “Please,” she said, looking just like Zoe. Like I could deny her anything with those peepers.

But I didn’t speak too soon. Memories pummeled me, nearly taking my breath away. I stared ahead at the entertainment center while she waited, patiently. Finally I took a deep breath and dived into my glorious past.

“Gonzo journalism is a way to tell stories. Bottom line: The journalist weaves factual events into a fictional tale. He plunges himself right in the middle of the story, and gets down and dirty in it, whether or not he belongs there.”

“Sounds pretty subjective. I thought journalism was all about being objective.”

“Not gonzo journalism, baby. The fact is, no matter what the story is about, the writer can put himself, in a very personal way, into the context of the piece. You have to be a little crazy to do it, with some big stones. It’s all about style—gritty, earthy style. And it kicks the cool veneer of ‘polished’ journalism in the teeth with its filthy boot.”

“So, you just make up stuff?”

“It’s truthful. Maybe more than the factual content. It’s like fiction. Or maybe you could call it friction. Good fiction always tells the truth, but gonzo has a heckuva bite. I was an expert at it, but I don’t write like that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, Gina. I sabotaged myself. Maybe I just didn’t know how to be successful. I’m back to the status quo now. I am wildly, magnificently, brilliantly unsuccessful. No one remembers Anthony Priest, except a few die-hards on the net.”

That wasn’t completely true. Larry kept trying to give me a chance. I kept letting him down. “Why do you need to know about me as a journalist?”

She hesitated.

“Spill it, toots.”

“Veronica thinks maybe you should do a story about me.”

“Veronica thought I should be your bed wench.”

“Was that a problem for you?”

Yes. I was thinking of her in Song of Solomon terms. But I didn’t let on, even though her face fell at my silence. She was a real soldier though. Plowed right through.

“I want you to help me find my story. You can get deep inside of it, dirty boots and all. I want you to see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, touch it, smell it.”

Why did that sound as hot as being her bed wench? But the idea sparked, flickered, and flared in me.

“You want me to write a story about you?”

“That’s not what I said. I said I want you to help me find my story. I want you here, in my life, living through this with me. You can find out stuff. Help me figure out why this happened to me.”

I tried to talk both of us out of it. “Besides the fact that gonzo journalism has nothing—and I do mean nothing—to do with spiritual mysteries, I’m not gonzo anymore.”

“Yes, you are.”

I wished I were. I couldn’t even stand up to my mother.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me for, Gina.”

You know how preschool teachers look at “challenging” kids? That’s the look she gave me, which felt more than a little patronizing since I wasn’t Zoe’s age.

“Priest, I’m asking you to approach what’s happening to me like you were gonzo. If you were gonzo, and writing a story about me, what would you do? What kind of research? What kind of anything?”

“You don’t understand what that will cost.”

She sighed, her face downcast. “I don’t have money, Priest. I’m a sandwich artist at Subway. Part-time because I’m sick so much, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen with that now. I’m not sure the health department wants people with blood-soaked palms preparing submarine sandwiches. I’m so fired in about five minutes.”

“I know you don’t have money. I wasn’t talking about paying me cash.”

Her brow rose slightly to punctuate the suspicion in her voice. “What did you mean?”

“Remember how we spooned?”

She paused. Glared at me. Her postured stiffened and she bit at her lower lip.

“We’d have to get closer than that.”

I knew what she was thinking. She was wrong.

“How close is closer than us spooning?”

Close enough for me to be sprung. As it was I’d made her my Shulamite. It wouldn’t be long before I was reading the Song of Songs to her and declaring my love, but could it be after knowing her at least forty-eight hours? Please, God?

Reflecting on my pathetic juvenile emotions gave me some modicum of strength. I rolled my shoulders back, resolved.

“I can’t help you, Gina.” I didn’t expect her to play hardball.

“You’re already in my story. Filthy boots and all. What’s going a little deeper going to hurt?”

Me!

Or her.

But she was right. I’d been in her story since I got behind her in line to get ashes on my forehead. We were a Möbius strip twisted together, and I could tell if only by my reactions to her, and hers to me, we could get more tangled in a very bad way. As tempting as her request was I couldn’t let that happen.

“It’ll expose too much about you. Think about it, Gina. Your story has everything: God, mental illness, a kid, a junkie, racial profiling.” I snickered. “It has Veronica! By necessity we’d have to reveal what’s happening to you to public scrutiny, and that’ll be a bear.”

“Only if you write and publish the story. You don’t have to do that. ”

“I write to publish.”

“Then publish. By then it won’t matter. I’ll know what I need to.”

“You don’t even want to go to the doctor, Gina, scared they’ll take Zoe from you.”

“Then you have to help me protect her.”

“Me?”

“That’s what you’ve been doing for the last twenty-four hours.”

“I’ve been playing Romper Room with the kid! Did you have a single conversation with Veronica? Surely she told you everything about me. I lie. I steal. I manipulate. She probably told you my rear end stinks, and everything else you didn’t want to know about me.”

“She gave me an earful, but all I can see is the guy that keeps showing up.”

“You can’t really afford to be that naive. I’ve been here a day. Anybody can show up for a day. A lousy, stinkin’ heroin addict can show up for a day.”

She needed a reality check. I tugged at the button of my shirt cuff, freeing it from its constraints. Shoved my sleeve up and showed her my stigmata.

“Look at this, Gina. I want you to see my needle tracks and these sores and scabs marking my arm. These are my I-tried-to-commit-suicide scars, only there are a lot more of them than you have. I try to take myself out every time I shoot up. Mine aren’t holy. Jesus didn’t kiss me and leave those.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She reached for my arm, but I drew back.

“You can’t touch mine. My blood doesn’t heal people.”

“Neither does mine.”

“Apparently it does, Gina. You healed Mike. His knee. You healed me. My drug hunger is gone, and I haven’t had a single withdrawal symptom. I couldn’t go three or four hours without using. Right now I should be rolled in a fetal position, shaking, sweating, and hurting, with my entrails coming out at both ends. But none of that is happening. That’s why I showed up here. I wanted to know what you did to me.”

I added, so there’d be no question about the matter, “And I can’t be gonzo for you because gonzo is dead. I killed him myself.”