An Imperfect Miracle (3 page)

“Do you think if Mary does another miracle, that'll stop the town from building the parking garage here?”

“It can't hurt.”

“Why don't you tell her to get busy then and do one when all these people are around to see it?”

Carlos smiled and shook his head.

“You can't tell Mary what to do. You can ask her nicely though. Maybe you should ask her, Nate. I bet she'd listen to you.”

I felt a little funny praying out in public with all these strangers around. So after promising him I would when I had the chance, I told him how some kids at school were saying that it was all just a big scam. They said that according to their parents once you're dead you stay dead, and your face doesn't show up out of nowhere and land on a banged-up block of concrete, especially not in some miserable little hole like Millridge.

Carlos scowled and grunted and snorted a few times, until I guess he just couldn't stand it any longer and had to break in.

“People with small brains are always working their big mouths.” Then his scowl turned into a grin, and his eyes brightened up again too. “Like that fellow over there.”

I looked over to where he was pointing, and there was my English teacher, Mr. Grimes, the same guy who'd snitched on me about talking to Chewy, arguing with Mrs. Marcella about something. He was stroking his little fluffy gray mustache with his pointy fingers, just the way he always did when he was lecturing us at school. And his little eyes were so bright and shiny that they looked like two lightbulbs that someone had just switched on in the basement.

“He claims that somebody must have ground some dirt into the concrete to make it look like Mary.” Then Carlos tapped his finger off one of the gravy stains on his shirt, or at least it looked like a gravy stain, all brown and splotchy I mean. “Like maybe me, for instance. And he claims that all these people you see honoring Our Blessed Mother are nothing but a bunch of dummies for believing in such hocus-pocus.”

I felt a little scare roll around inside me. I still wasn't completely sure that Mary did stuff like this—show up on concrete I mean.

“You didn't, did you?” I asked. “I mean smear her face on.”

Carlos blinked at me a few times, like I'd just insulted him or something. But I think he was just putting me on, because right away he started smiling real sweet and relaxed again.

“Of course not, Nate. And nobody else did either. She's the real thing. You can take that to the bank.”

“But how do you really know for sure? Did you see her face land on the concrete?”

Carlos lifted his arms up and shook his head a little.

“Slow down, Nate. You said yourself that you were the first one to spot her.”

I felt my belly tighten up, because I couldn't really prove that I'd been the first one. Plenty of drunks slept down there along Main Street when the weather got warm. Maybe one of them had stumbled on to her and hadn't told anybody yet. For a second I wondered if I could get in any trouble for it. Then I pointed at a bar across the street with the front screen door propped wide open, so that you could see the drunks lined up on swivel stools inside smoking and drinking.

“How come she picked the lousy part of town to show up in? Why couldn't she have found some place nicer and more important, like up by the county jail, for instance? Why couldn't she have appeared down in Pittsburgh even, where more people could get to see her? And why didn't she make a little announcement first to tell people she was coming? That would have cleared up a lot of the mix-up, it seems to me. And why does she just sit there on the concrete staring at us? Why doesn't she say something?”

Carlos must have liked me asking so many questions, because he patted me real gentle on the shoulder and said how I was “a curious little fellow.” Then he waved his hand toward some stony-faced kids in baggy suits being pushed along toward the steps by their parents.

“Mary seems to be whipping up a lot of interest already, even here in these rather humble surroundings. And you said yourself that she healed that little homeless fellow without having to say a single word. Maybe she's smarter than we give her credit for. And as smart as she is, she picked you to be the one to discover her. Doesn't that make you feel good?”

“I guess, although some kids are calling me a publicity hound. I think they're just jealous, though.”

I glanced down and spotted Chewy sniffing the ground where some old people had just tramped over. It hit me that Chewy must have had a good life now that she was invisible and didn't have to put up with people anymore, other than me, that is. Carlos must have seen the gloom on my face and tried to cheer me up, because his smile fired up even brighter.

“When you're the instrument of the Lord, it's always possible that you might run into some opposition. But I wouldn't worry about it. Mary is here among us now, and I'm sure she'll figure out a way to resolve any problems that might pop up.”

I wondered if he was just being funny, or if he was trying to scare the living daylights out of me.

“What kind of problems?”

He wagged his finger at my nose a few times, which was when I noticed how thick and hairy his knuckles were.

“The important thing to remember, no matter what happens, is that the power of the invisible is stronger than the things you can see. It's the power of the invisible that's at work here.”

I never remembered Pastor Mike and the other minister at our church, Pastor Bob, the one Mom didn't like nearly as much, ever talking like that. I was about to ask him what he meant when some people came up and started squawking about the price of the six-by-twelve framed pictures of Mary staring off at a bright red sky. They wanted to know whether Carlos was willing to give them a discount, since they were long-standing members of St. Sebastian's. I decided that this invisible power was probably just some Catholic thing that didn't apply to me, and that I could always ask Carlos about it later.

On account of the mob pressing and shoving to get close to Mary, I couldn't wriggle in far enough to see if she was still crying, or whether there was anything else that I might have missed about her. I began staring at all the people instead to see if I recognized anyone. But after a while their faces looked like just a bunch of old cracked dishes, and all of a sudden I got bored with it all. As I started to walk home, I noticed Mr. Grimes throwing me a sharp, nasty kind of look. But he was always glaring at me that way at school, and I didn't think much of it. Then Chewy came over wagging her tail and I felt like petting her up good, but I decided not to with all the people around.

Chapter 3

Chewy was a mutt, mostly Australian sheepdog with a little German Shepherd and Collie thrown in, at least according to Mom, who rescued her from the shelter when she was just a puppy. She was a good dog though, smart and friendly, and always liked to keep things organized around the house, so that whenever we had company she'd try to herd everybody into the same room where she could keep an eye on us. She liked digging up Mom's little garden out back too, and she loved car rides, which my dad used to take us on once in a while before he grew a beard and pierced his nose and ran off someplace.

Chewy was already nearly three years old when I was born, but she never held that against me, and we were friends right from the start. She was always trying to get me to run faster too. She liked to sprint ahead whenever we were out on the street and then bark real loud and run circles around me. Our house was kind of narrow, but it had two stories and she loved to go tearing up and down the steps, until Mom put a stop to it because the little wooden planks in the floor were starting to shake loose. Chewy never slowed down much either, even when she got past thirteen years old, which is pretty ancient for a good-sized dog like her. Then one day she up and died.

I was way more sad about Chewy dying than when Dad had run out on us. Mom must have been too since she cried almost as much as me. That Sunday at church right at the end of the service when Pastor Mike was praying for all of us, I got an idea. The way our church worked was that when the minister was praying out loud, everybody else shut up and listened. But I decided that this special prayer of mine was so important that I better at least whisper the words to make sure God heard me. I started whispering that if it was all right with Him and Chewy, I'd sure like it if instead of shuffling her off to dog heaven right away, He could let her hang around with me for the rest of my life. Then we could both fly off to heaven together, or to wherever we were going. I kind of figured that Chewy would go along with my idea, but I asked her permission anyhow just to be polite, like Mom was always lecturing me about.

It turned out just like I'd been hoping for too, because right away God said it was okay with Him. I didn't actually hear God say okay. But He must have because Chewy showed up right as we were leaving church, and she's been with me ever since.

Now you might ask how I really knew that Chewy had come back to me since, like I already told you, she was invisible to everybody but me. Well, there were signs. For instance, when I was climbing out of the car that morning I saw fresh slobber stains on the upholstery. Chewy was always slobbering over everything, a lot more than I ever did anyway. Then that night I saw dog hairs; at least they looked like dog hairs since Chewy's hair was a lot browner than mine or even Mom's, bunched up in the corner of the bathroom near the tub where Chewy always liked to sit and rest herself after supper. And the next morning I saw Chewy taking a snooze down at my feet while I was eating breakfast, just like she always did. I knew I wasn't seeing things either because I felt her fur brush up against my ankle. Or at least I felt something soft tickling my skin and I didn't think it was some spider crawling over me either, because when I reached down and slapped my ankle I didn't see any bug leftovers staining my fingers.

I wasn't all that surprised about Chewy returning from the dead either, on account of how our preachers were always bragging that God can do anything if we'd just ask Him for it with the right intentions. After school, when I told Mom about Chewy coming back to live with us, she said that I had to be brave and that she'd get me a new dog so I wouldn't miss Chewy as much. I told her that I didn't want a new dog because looking after a dog was too much work. But the real reason was that I didn't want to hurt Chewy's feelings. I was afraid Chewy would get jealous of some new dog and take off for dog heaven and never come back. That was when I decided to keep Chewy a secret from Mom. I would have pulled it off too if that nasty Mr. Grimes hadn't snitched on me.

Anyway, it had been over a week since I'd first spotted Mary on the concrete, and the line of people trying to see her was still pretty long most of the time. I hadn't really gotten a good look at her since I'd discovered those two tears on her face. I was beginning to worry that I'd never get to study her up close again, at least not without some pack of smelly old grownups pressing in on me.

It was Saturday morning and Mom busted into my room real early and threw open the drapes so that the sun burned into my eyes. I wondered what her problem was, because she usually let me sleep in on Saturdays. It was my only day for sleeping in, because we always had to get up early to go to church on Sundays. Then she told me, “Time to rise and shine because there's big doings down on Main Street, and I don't want you to miss any of it.” She said she was going too since it was such a nice day, and she'd heard that some of her friends would be there.

I wondered why she was acting so bouncy and cheerful about getting together with her friends, because Mom was always talking to her friends on the telephone or wherever. And I didn't see what the big rush was to go outside just because it was sunny and warm out, since the weatherman was predicting it would be nice all week. But Mom was hard to figure sometimes.

I rubbed my eyes and groaned and was about to roll over and go back to sleep when she plunked down on the side of my bed and started raking her fingers through my hair. My hair was pretty thick, and her hand got snagged once and it felt like she'd just ripped out a big clump. She was smiling bright and happy too, which worried me even more than losing my hair because Mom came up with some of her worst ideas when she was smiling.

“You were partly the cause of all this silliness. So you might as well be there to see what happens. I read in the paper that it's going to be quite a show. Father Tom and Carlos have it all planned out.”

I patted the spot on my head that she'd yanked on and then looked at my fingers. At least there wasn't any blood yet, although it was still smarting plenty.

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you'd know since you're always sneaking off after school to go see her.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. I rubbed the warm slimy wet off as fast as I could, because I didn't like Mom kissing me anymore, even when nobody else was around. I glanced down at Chewy to see if she was laughing at me or anything, but she was still sleeping.

“I guess there's no harm in it though, so long as you don't get too carried away.”

Mom wore black clothes a lot because she claimed they made her look skinnier. That morning she was wearing black pants that fit her so tight that I could see the pale spotty skin under her shirt rolling up a little over her belt. The machine at the tanning salon she was always going to must not have reached that far. Then I remembered seeing her wear those same pants when they fit her loose, back before Dad left us. But it really didn't matter how snug or loose they fit, because Mom was always worrying about how much she weighed. I couldn't understand what the big deal was, because I just ate when I was hungry, and according to the doctor I weighed just right.

Mom clapped her hands real quick a few times and then yanked the bed sheet off my feet.

“Get dressed and put your good sneakers on. Time's a wasting.”

Even in the summer I liked to have my feet covered while I was sleeping, because if I didn't I always woke up with a runny nose. With the cover gone I gave up on trying to get any more rest and put on the blue shorts and gray T-shirt that Mom had laid out for me. Then I tramped downstairs in my only pair of running shoes that didn't have holes in them. We must have been late already, because Mom didn't even feed me breakfast but instead pulled me right out the door after her.

A pile of other people were headed down to Main Street too, like Mr. Yeager the 7-Eleven clerk and his new wife, Betsy, who sold Amway, and Patricia Seals, who'd just served thirty days for being drunk and disorderly. She was strutting alongside her new motorcycle boyfriend with his red, white and blue handkerchief wrapped around his head. Some of the old people like Mrs. Marcella were all dressed up, but most looked like they'd just rolled out of bed like me.

Then I spotted this big guy a little ways behind us who looked familiar. He was dressed kind of strange, even for Millridge, and had on a black leather vest, with no T-shirt underneath so that you could see the thick gray hairs curled up all over his chest. His black leather pants were kind of wrinkly too and fit him so tight that they looked like they might hurt him if he tried sitting down too fast. And he had a red handkerchief with faded white spots tied around his forehead, even though he was only sweating a little, and wraparound silver sunglasses that made my eyes sting for a second because of how sharp the sunlight was shining off them. His head was shaved and he was all tattooed up, but he didn't have a beard like Dad had when he ditched us. And his legs kept bowing in and out a little at the knees, like he was walking on top of a big sponge.

Mom spotted the guy right after I did, and I could feel her seize up a little. I looked at his face again but still couldn't place him. Then he saw Mom and started grinning at her, and it seemed like every other tooth was either missing or all black and yellow. Mom kept yanking me along beside her until we got around the corner and out of sight.

“Tim Runyon is his name,” Mom said when I asked her about him. “I guess he's back in town for a visit. It doesn't look like he's raised his game any though.”

Then I remembered that he was a friend of Dad's. At least I guessed he was his friend, because all they ever seemed to do was grunt and mumble at each other. They'd both worked over at the big old mill on the edge of town before it closed up, and sometimes he'd come over to our house for barbecues along with a lot of other people I mostly didn't know. Back then Mom wasn't friends with Pastor Mike yet and didn't go to church nearly as much. She was a little louder and wilder too, especially at the barbecues, and she'd laugh and joke with some of the guys, including this Runyon fellow. After Dad moved out this guy came around maybe two or three more times, but Mom kept making up excuses why she couldn't stay and talk with him. The last time he stopped by she didn't even let him in the house. Since then I hadn't seen him until just now.

Mom was still looking straight ahead with her jaw set stiff and her neck held so tight that I could see the muscles popping up in stringy little cords along her throat.

“If you ever notice him sneaking around near our house, tell me right away.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going to use your karate moves on him and knock him out?”

I must have said something funny, because she loosened up a little. Then she smiled down at me and rubbed my hair, although this time at least she didn't dig her fingers in near as deep.

“Just keep an eye out. It's nothing to lose any sleep over though.”

“Does this mean that maybe Dad is back in town too?”

She stopped all of a sudden, knelt down in front of me, squeezed my shoulders and told me that Dad wasn't coming back. When I asked her how she could be so sure, she said what she always said, even though it never seemed like much of an answer to me.

“He had a nice little family, and he chose to throw it all away. Now he just has to live with the consequences.”

Then Mom got a little misty in the eyes for a few seconds, like she was getting ready to start bawling. I hated when that happened, so I didn't bug her about Dad anymore. I just said that I hoped this Runyon guy wasn't moving onto our street, because he seemed like the type who'd blast his stereo all night and keep me awake. She said it wasn't likely, because he was just like Dad and never had any money.

When we got to Main Street I was expecting we'd go left up toward St. Sebastian's and the better part of town, where they held all the parades and strawberry festivals and things. But instead we headed the other way, and pretty soon I could see all sorts of folks crowding around the abandoned lot where Mary was. Most I didn't know, and Mom said she didn't recognize a lot of them either and that they were probably from out of town. She said that on account of Mary's face showing up and all the publicity, the town was getting more visitors than it had in years, maybe ever.

“So long as they don't cause a lot of noise and commotion, I guess I don't mind.”

Since I'd been the one to discover Mary, or at least the one who'd gotten the credit for it, I was starting to feel like I had to stick up for her.

“It's not Mary's fault that so many rowdy people want to come and visit her.”

Mom frowned and shook her head a little. Then she grabbed me by the collar and whipped me along beside her, because she said she didn't want us to miss the ceremony. I asked her what ceremony and told her to let go of me. She said Father Tom was about to officially bless the “Weeping Lady of Millridge,” and that it was some sort of Catholic thing. After she finally let me loose, I straightened out my shirt and asked her who the “Weeping Lady of Millridge” was.

“It's the water stain you found that supposedly looks like Mary. That's what some people are calling her now.”

“Is Father Tom gonna bless her for saving that little drunk's life? They must have found him then.”

“How should I know?” she answered kind of short and snippy. “I'm not Catholic.”

Then Mom spotted one of her nurse friends and went over and they started chattering away. Mom was always pulling that trick on me, dragging me along to see something and then running off and leaving me stranded. I began looking around and noticed that people were starting to bunch up tight right in front of Mary's lot. Being kind of small and wiry I had no trouble sliding my way up to the first row, which ran right along the sidewalk facing the concrete steps.