The Visitation Part 11

He reached for his gla.s.ses, unfolded them, and put them on. The prescription was so strong and the image so distorted it made his eyes water. He took them off and the world was crystal clear again. Jesus, he thought, not swearing. Jesus.

He'd read the paper. He knew what the "angels" had been saying. Had it really happened? Was this a sighting like the others?

No. It was more than that. A lot more. If it had really happened.

He looked every direction, gawking at what he could see with no lenses before his eyes. The prices on the wall, the selections in the candy machine, the pattern of the linoleum. Old Mrs. Tobin came in, her same crabby self, and found his stare offensive. "What are you gawking at?"

"You look beautiful!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah, well put your gla.s.ses on!"

He giggled with glee. "They are on! I mean, it's like they're on but they aren't! I can see you! I can see everything! It's a miracle, that's what it is!"

She put out her hand. "Stay away from me."

He ran to the door and burst out of the building. The whole, beautiful, clear-as-a-bell town of Antioch lay before him. He clasped his hands to the sides of his head, crazy with joy and amazement. He was staggering, stumbling, turning in every direction. He could read anything and everything. VCRs repaired. Main Street, 200. In loving memory of John Nathan Anderson, husband, father, and friend. No parking within twenty feet. Kiley's Hardware. Hey! His friend, Matt Kiley! Matt had to see this! What am I talking about Matt seeing this! I'm the one who can see! This is incredible!

He ran across the street and burst through the door. "Matt! Matt, you won't believe it! I can see! I can see!"

MATT WAS STANDING behind the counter, his hands resting gently on the cash register to steady himself. He was trembling, gasping in shock and disbelief, his eyes darting everywhere. A few feet away, his wheelchair stood empty.

Bev Parsons, an employee, came out of aisle two with a question. "Matt, we don't have enough-" Her hand flew over her mouth.

Norman touched Matt's shoulder. "You-you're-" He stopped. "He was here, wasn't he? You saw him."

Matt just nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. A guy with long hair and a beard."

Norman squealed, his face red with excitement. "It was Jesus!"

"Jesus . . ." Bev whispered in shock.

Matt scowled. "You're crazy."

"You're standing! Get a clue!"

"I'm standing," Matt admitted.

"You're . . . standing." Now Bev's hand was over her heart.

"What'd he do, what'd he do?" Norman urged.

Matt lifted one hand from the counter. His legs were steady under him. He reached toward the shelves behind him, reenacting the event as he described it. "He came up here, and told me he wanted a screwdriver set-you know, these little jeweler's screwdrivers-"

"Yeah? Yeah?"

"I said, *Go ahead and grab one and I'll ring you up,' and he said, *Grab 'em yourself,' and then he poked me with his finger."

Norman slapped the counter.

"And I did," said Matt. "I wasn't thinking, you know . . ." He was recovering from his shock. His voice was getting strong. He was beginning to believe it. "I stood up. I got up out of the wheelchair and I grabbed the screwdrivers!" By now he shouted it. "I grabbed the screwdrivers! I grabbed 'em!"

Norman shook Matt by both shoulders. "Look at me, Matt! You see any gla.s.ses? You see any? No gla.s.ses, Matt! I can see! I can see everything!" His eyes fell on a pen on the counter. "Pilot Precise V7 Fine Rolling Ball! See that? I can read it right where it is!" Then it occurred to him. "Where'd he go?"

Matt looked around. "I don't know." He looked at Bev. She just shook her head, still staring.

Norman was desperate. "Where'd he go? Which way?"

Matt shrugged. "I don't know. He paid for the screwdrivers and he left."

"Come on, we gotta find him!"

Matt looked at the floor stretched out so far below him.

"Come on, you can walk!"

Matt put his hand on the counter and extended his right foot. It came to rest a short step away. Yeah. Sure. He remembered what this felt like. He'd done it before. He could do it.

He did it. First another step, then another, then two more, and then he was walking, around the counter, out into the store, past the rakes and line trimmers, past the stacks of lawn fertilizer. By now he was jumping a little, flexing his knees. He danced a little jig and Norman went crazy.

They bolted out of the store, Norman reading every sign he saw, Matt hopping, skipping, turning circles, the two of them laughing like idiots.

They encountered a stranger and his wife. Both had cameras.

"Have you seen Jesus around?" Norman pleaded.

Their eyes got wide. "No," said the man. "Have you seen him?"

Matt and Norman looked at each other. They started laughing and Matt started dancing. "Oooooh, have we!" said Norman.

AT THE FORDYCE HOME, Meg heard Sally answer the phone, gasp, squeal some unintelligible questions, gasp some more, and then run out the front door. It happened so suddenly and loudly that it scared Meg. She ran into the living room and found the receiver dangling off the table and the front door still open.

Something terrible must be happening, she thought. "Sally?" By the time she got to the front door, Sally was in the car and pulling out onto Highway 9, headed for Antioch. "Sally!"

A WILDFIRE HAD BEGUN in Antioch. The first spark ignited in the laundromat, then spread to Kiley's Hardware and from there into the street. First two visitors heard, then four more, then three customers at Anderson's Furniture and Appliance. Norman waved down a carload of visitors from Moses Lake and told them. Then the pilgrims at Our Lady's heard about it, followed by the cloud watchers who presently had no clouds to watch. Pagers began beeping, phones began ringing, and up and down the street, through the storefronts, and back into the neighborhoods, the fire spread: He has been seen. Have you seen him? Where is he?

Brett Henchle got the call he'd been wanting ever since this weird stuff began. Jesus had shown up at Kiley's Hardware, the caller said. Yeah, Brett thought. It's him, the guy I'm looking for, my little angelic huckster. He switched on his siren and flashers and got over there.

From where Brett parked, Matt's store looked like a stirred-up hornet's nest. People in tight little cl.u.s.ters were squeezing past each other as they came and went through the front door. More were arriving from across the street, up the highway in both directions, and from the quiet neighborhood behind. And just as many were leaving, eager to fan out in all directions and spread the news, whatever it was. They were agitated, talking excitedly, creating a constant buzz in front of the building.

Brett got out of the car, nervously checked his handcuffs, and felt for his gun. Then he crossed the street. Those on the fringes greeted him, "Have you heard? Have you heard?"

"Everybody take it easy," he cautioned, putting just enough edge in his voice to let them know there would be no unruliness today. "Excuse me, please," he said, and worked his way through the door and into the store.

He'd never seen so many people in Matt's store at one time, not even during the big Christmas Open House. The front of the store was packed, but no one was shopping. Some he knew, some were strangers. All were excited and chattering. Cameras were flas.h.i.+ng, camcorders were blinking their little red lights. He could hear Sally Fordyce whining from somewhere in the crowd, "You don't understand! He's come here for me! We have an appointment!"

"He's come here for all of us," someone responded, and everyone wanted to know, Where is he?

"Let's get organized and start searching," one man suggested.

Finally, Brett could see Matt through the crowd, standing by the checkout counter, answering questions and looking wide-eyed. Hold on. Matt was standing?

"Brett, have you heard?" said Don Anderson.

Brett was staring at Matt when he replied, "Tell me."

Jack McKinstry told him secondhand, then Norman told him almost secondhand, prefacing it with his firsthand account of what happened in the laundromat. When Brett finally made his way up to Matt Kiley, Matt saw him coming, stepped out from the counter, and did a little jig. The crowd went crazy.

Matt told Brett his story. He'd shared it countless times by now, but it hadn't gotten old and he hadn't gotten tired of it. Neither had the visitors pressing in close to hear it again.

As Brett listened, he almost felt foolish coming in here as a cop with handcuffs and a gun. Just moments ago, he was on a case, hoping for a lead in catching the hitchhiking con man. Now, as he heard Matt Kiley's account and saw him standing, even dancing, the hitchhiker's words took on a whole new meaning. Brett remembered them clearly, and now had to steady himself against the counter as he muttered, "My G.o.d. . . ."

"Yes, exactly!" several responded.

By now Sally was crying. "You don't understand . . . I need him. . . ."

JIM BAYLOR was an ex-marine in his forties with a crew cut he'd kept ever since boot camp and a low, growly voice befitting a former drill sergeant. He wasn't a tall man, but he was built like a solid, immovable rock and had a personality to match. Right now he was a surveyor, but he'd been several other things over the years: draftsman, carpenter, mechanic, plumber, electrician, painter, oil well worker. His garage workshop was worth visiting because he still had every tool he'd ever used in all those trades. He could build a house with the carpentry tools that hung on the wall. He could fix any vehicle with the automotive tools and specialized gizmos he kept on the workbench and in a big red metal cabinet on wheels-things like a wheel puller, a spring compressor, and a spark plug wire puller. In case anyone in Antioch needed an oil well fixed, he still had adjustable wrenches big enough to turn a tree. If nothing else, he could tell you how long, wide, tall, or deep something was because he always carried a twenty-five-foot Stanley tape measure clipped to his belt.

Jim was a hunter who stuffed his own trophies and had a room full of them. He was a storyteller who could share his marine, hunting, building, plumbing, and Alaskan oil adventures for hours, never raising his voice but keeping you enthralled from beginning to end. He enjoyed his friends, liked to get involved in projects that helped others, and wasn't much of a whiner. He was a reasonable, logical kind of guy.

And he was married to Dee Baylor.

As near as I can recall his account, he first met Dee when she was tending bar at a tavern near the marine base. She was as crusty and feisty as he was in those days and could hold her own in any stare-down or shouting match with any grunt or officer, she didn't care. She won Jim's heart by showing an interest in him to the exclusion of every other man who'd come through the place- something he took as a real compliment. He always liked her because, though he could scare most anyone else, he couldn't scare her. They were right for each other.

He insisted they still were. He loved her. But I could tell by the way he kept finding excuses to come over and talk-well, work on something and talk while we were at it-that he was troubled and perplexed.

Today the excuse was the shelves I wanted to hang in the bedroom. I needed more s.p.a.ce for books, I had a small aquarium I wanted to put back into service, and I still had a portable CD player sitting on the floor. My landlord was going to deduct the cost from my rent, so I went for the idea. So did Jim. All I had to do was mention those shelves and he made plans to come over.

So we worked, finding studs, drilling holes, setting molly screws, and hanging shelves, and as we worked, we talked.

"Kinda glad the weather's cleared up," he said, sweeping my newly purchased stud finder along the wall. "At least now I get to see more of her." He looked at me suddenly, as if he'd said something amiss. "No offense, now, right, Travis?"

"No, no offense."

"I mean, Christianity's fine, I've got nothing against it. We've talked about that."

"Sure."

"And I didn't say anything when she started speaking in tongues over our dinner every night. I didn't want to get in her way if it meant so much to her." He found the stud and made a small pencil mark on the wall. "And when she started dancing and whirling around, I didn't say anything. She doesn't do it at home that much, so I don't have to worry about my floor joists. I, uh . . ." His voice trailed off and he drilled some holes.

"Yeah?" I prodded.

"I think maybe this cloud thing might be better for her. She might be getting-don't tell her I said this-she might be getting too old and too heavy to be falling down all the time. You ought to see the bruises she used to come home with." He added quickly, "Now I know it wasn't you knocking her down."

"No, it wasn't me." All I ever did was pray for her, usually during our Sunday morning service, often at midweek Bible study. She might have a cold, need some guidance from the Lord, or just need a refres.h.i.+ng in the Spirit. It didn't matter. Whenever I took her hand or rested my hand on her head to pray for her, I wouldn't get out more than one or two sentences before my hand would be touching thin air and she would be on her way to the floor, "slain in the Spirit." Sometimes a friend would be there to catch her and at least soften her landing. Sometimes she'd go over with nothing but the floor to stop her and you could hear her bones. .h.i.tting the hardwood. Nothing could stop her. I once asked her not to fall down, but she went down anyway, unable to resist the power of G.o.d. The rest of the congregation had gotten fairly used to it- sometimes the ushers would just step over her when they had to collect the offering-but it often seemed a little weird to new visitors. Adrian Folsom fell occasionally, especially if Dee fell first; Blanche never did. Anyway, I knew better than to think it was from any great anointing on my part.

Jim threw up one hand in resignation. "She said it was G.o.d that knocked her over."

"That could be." It was a safe thing to say. I wasn't one to limit G.o.d, but right now I had a real att.i.tude about the subject, so I had to be careful.

"But now she's watching the clouds and that's better. The worst she can get is a kink in her neck. Have you met that new pastor yet?"

"Kyle Sherman?"

"Yeah."

"We've met."

"What do you think of him?"

I had to skip over the first thoughts that came to mind and find some nicer ones. "He's young, but he's honest and means well. I think he'll be all right."

"Haven't met him yet, but I know I'm going to. One of these days he's going to be knocking on my door, trying to rope me in." We were ready to hang a shelf on the newly installed brackets. We each took one end and lifted it into place. Nice fit. "I've already got my wife leaving me little notes and Scripture verses on the fridge and the bathroom mirror. But if she thinks I'm going to start talking in Chinese and dancing around and falling on the floor, she's got another think coming."

"How about watching the clouds?"

He threatened me with his hammer, and we laughed.

"Did I ever tell you about Al Sutter's combine?" he asked.

"You were going to."

He launched into a tale about Al Sutter's nephew trying to run Al's thirty-year-old combine, and then we talked about a Cadillac he was thinking of restoring. The gospel came up again after that, with a few questions about Jesus and whether he ever went fis.h.i.+ng, which got us on the subject of fis.h.i.+ng, which led to the fish and game laws, which led to some political discussion, which got us back to religion again, somehow. This was Jim's way, like putting cream and sugar in a cup of coffee, and it worked for both of us. As long as we kept the serious subjects mixed in with easier ones and had some work to do, we felt comfortable and got along fine.

By the time he left that afternoon, we both felt a little better and I had a beautiful new set of shelves.

And then the phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo?"

The voice was familiar, but quiet, subtle. "I hope I'm not disturbing you. I waited until your guest left."

I could feel a tease in that last sentence, as if he wanted me to look around and wonder where he was. I didn't bite. "You didn't finish mowing John's lawn."

"Tell him to be patient. I'll get around to it next time."

I sat on the couch, taking only a quick sideways glance out the window. I didn't see him, but that didn't surprise me. "I suppose you know what's been going on in town these last few days."

"It's been exciting. I've enjoyed it."

"And I take it you're the one responsible."

He chuckled. "Hey, I'll take credit for some of it, but people seeing my face in the mildew of a shower or a hedge, that's absurd."

"What about the clouds?"

"No, no, that's pa.s.se. It's been done."

"Well, hasn't there been a weeping crucifix before?"