The Healing Read online

  ALSO BY GAYL JONES

  EVA’S MAN

  CORREGIDORA

  WHITE RAT

  SONG FOR ANNINHO

  LIBERATING VOICES

  DIE VOGELFÄNGERIN

  (Germany)

  BOOK

  ONE

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  I open a tin of Spirit of Scandinavia sardines, floating in mustard sauce. The woman on the bus beside me grants and leans toward the aisle. She’s a smallish, youngish, short-haired woman, small Gypsy earrings in her ears, looks kinda familiar. I offer her some of them sardines, but she grants and leans farther toward the aisle. I nibble the sardines with one of those small plastic forks and stare out the window. The sun hitting the window makes a rainbow across a field of straw pyramids. There’s a few horses and cows grazing in the meadow, a whitewashed barn and a farmhouse, one of them three-story farmhouses, and there’s one of them little tin-roofed sheds built onto the farmhouse. It looks like one of them painted scenes, you know the sorta landscape paintings you can buy at them flea markets. Or the sort of landscapes that you see on television, where the different artists teach you how to paint pictures. You can learn how to paint pictures in oil or watercolor, and they teach you the secrets of painting and make it seem like almost anyone can be an artist, at least be able to paint pictures in their style of painting. A Bible’s open in my lap. I’m holding it cater-cornered, trying to keep the sardine oil off the pages, or the mustard sauce. When I finish the tin of sardines, I drink the mustard sauce. The woman beside me grunts again. I glance over at her, at them Gypsy earrings, She’s got smallish, almost perfect-shaped ears, and is a little but full-mouthed woman. Most people likes sardines, or likes the taste of them sardines, but maybe she thinks it’s too countrified to be eating them sardines on the Greyhound bus, even Spirit of Scandinavia sardines. Ever since I seen that movie about the middle passage, though, and they talked about them Africans coining to the New World being packed in them slave ships like sardines in a can, and even showed a drawing of them Africans, that’s supposed to be a famous drawing, so every time I eat sardines I think of that. Of course, I still likes the taste of that, and I don’t think she refuse them sardines on account of that metaphor, though, ’cause I’m sure there’s plenty of people eats sardines and don’t think of that metaphor. I deposit the tin in a plastic bag that’s already brimming with paper cups, Coke cans, and crumbled paper napkins, then I open a bag of corn tortillas, you know the ones usedta use the bandito to advertise themselves, till the Mexican-American people protested about that bandito, though I remember hearing a song once about a real bandito, not one of those commercialized banditos, but one of those social bandits that the people themselves sing about, like they’re heroes.

  You teach Sunday school? the woman asks, her head still tilted toward the aisle.

  Naw, I’m a faith healer, I say. I give her one of my brochures. I start to ask her whether them sardines reminds her of the middle passage, but I don’t, ’cause everybody, like I said, don’t think of that metaphor. So I just give her one of my brochures. That brochure don’t have no famous drawings in it, like the middle passage, though. It just got a few clippings talking about the people I’ve healed, some of them famous, but mostly ordinary-type peoples.

  She don’t say anything, and don’t look at the brochure, though she’s probably thinking a brochure commercializes the profession of faith healing, that is, if you can call faith healing a profession. I think she going to put that brochure in that trash bag with that sardine can and them paper cups, Coke cans, and crumbled paper napkins, but she don’t, she put it in her pocketbook, one of them Moroccan leather pocketbooks, look like real Moroccan leather, not that imitation Moroccan leather. Course some people say that that real Moroccan leather don’t look no different from the imitation Moroccan leather, ’cause the people that makes imitation Moroccan leather is more subtle and sophisticated than in the old days when you could tell imitation leather from real leather. You can buy you imitation purses these days, even Gucci, and think it’s real. When she put that brochure in her pocketbook, though, I see one of them paperback books peeking out. I don’t see the title of that book, though it seem like it the name of some kinda insect, a mosquito or something like that. Maybe it’s a book about them African mosquitoes. I know about them African mosquitoes. And them Caribbean mosquitoes. I got me a friend nicknamed Mosquito, though she ain’t named after none of them African or Caribbean mosquitoes. Her real name Nadine. I don’t call her Mosquito myself, I tall her Nadine. And she also got coupla them magazines, I mean the young woman I give my faith healing brochure. I’m thinking maybe she’s reading Essence or one of them type magazines, you know, for the African-American woman, but it ain’t, it’s Scientific American and Popular Culture, It look kinda like National Geographic ’cept it say Popular Culture. I like that National Geographic myself. But them Americans on the cover of the Popular Culture magazine with they tattoos and nose rings and sculptured and painted hairdos kinda look like the kinda folks you usedta just see in the National Geographic-type magazines. But now people all over the world look like they could be in them National Geographic-type magazines, and not just the so-called primitive peoples.

  She ain’t say anything about that faith healing, though, that woman with the Gypsy earrings, but I know what she’s thinking: that I’m some kinda charlatan and mercenary, or some kinda crazy woman. All that. If I ain’t a faker, then I’m a crazy woman that just believes in her own fakery. There’s people like that; they’s innocent believers, or gullible believers, but it’s they own fakery or somebody else’s fakery they believe in. And it might not be fakery, it might just be other people believe it to be fakery. You don’t always know fakery from fakery. ’Cause I can tell she’s one of them skeptical types. One of them skeptics. Gotta be a skeptic to be reading that Scientific American, ’cause ain’t that the magazine of the skeptical. The gullible reads the National Enquirer. Or maybe they ain’t gullible, but just likes to be entertained. Fictional science and popular fantasy. And a lot of movie stars. You’s got to have a lot of movie stars in a magazine to interest popular culture. Maybe I’m a crazy woman, though, ’cause there’s been plenty to say I’m crazy, but in the small tank town I’m going to they’ll welcome me. At least those who believe. The others, well, you know, when they witness the healings, then they’ll come ’round. Most of them, anyway. In my head, I’ve already got pictures of my destination, as clear and vivid as if I was already there. And all them little southern and midwestern tank towns, they’s all alike. I don’t have to describe them little tank towns to you, ’cause they’re all alike. I don’t know why they call ’em tank towns, though. Them little towns. I think they call ’em tank towns on account of them water tanks, you know them water tanks, where the trains stop to take on water. And that water tank is always higher than all them little buildings in them towns.

  I don’t know if the modern trains still use water, but them old steam locomotives usedta stop in them little tank towns to take on water. They didn’t have depots in a lot of them little towns, ’cause some of them was too small to even have depots, but they’d have them tanks. In some of them little western and southwestern towns where there’s always droughts, probably them tanks collects water for the people themselves and not just for them trains. Sometimes the names of the towns themselves are printed on them tanks, you know, or the chief industry in the town sometimes uses them to advertise theyselves. The chief industry might be wine making or cigar making or coal mining or tractor manufacturing or maybe it’s a cannery town, then the name of the town’s leading employer is on that tank. Maybe that’s free advertising for that employer, so’s that employer’ll stay in that little tank town and not take his business to Mexico
or Korea. If it’s one of them little tourist towns, though, the chief industry is the town itself. Then the name of the town itself is on that tank. Anyway, I think that’s why they call ’em tank towns. If you ain’t from a little tank town yourself, you’ve probably seen ’em on television or at the movies, one of them documentaries on television or one of them movies about ordinary working-class people. I remember there was a controversy when one of them movie stars bought herself a little tank town, bought herself her own little town, though I don’t remember if that little town had a tank in it, though. I remember some of them townspeople was glad to have a movie star buy their town, and others were complaining that that movie star ain’t done a thing for them but to buy their town. That movie star ain’t done a thing for us since she bought our town, said one of the people in one of the newspaper articles where they talked about that movie star and her buying that town. Then the newspaper reporter asked them people whether they’d ever even seen that movie star in their town, and most of them said they’d never even seen her in their town. We seen her in the town when she first bought the town, one of them said. But after she bought the town they ain’t seen her in the town. She didn’t buy the town like in the movies, though, where this corrupt person is supposed to own the whole town and control the people in that town, and’s got his hired gangsters to help him control the town, but her notion were the notion of a virtuous person buying a town so’s to make it a better town. I guess they had visions of glory when she bought their town, her being a movie star, and their visions of glory wasn’t satisfied, so they started complaining, or that newspaper reporter encouraged them to complain about that movie star so’s he could get a story. Course there was others didn’t want anybody to buy their town, movie star or not, or whether the movie star a virtuous movie star or a corrupt one. They wanted to own their own town. But whenever they talk about one of them little tank towns, they always show the town’s tank that’s usually got the name of the town on it or the chief industry. ’Cause them little tank towns don’t have anything like the Golden Gate Bridge or the Empire State Building or Lady Liberty or even them Las Vegas casinos to give them distinction, so they show the town’s tank. If somebody like Wayne Newton is from one of them little towns, they might put the name of Wayne Newton on that tank. This is Wayne Newton’s town, it might say. It don’t mean he owns the town, it means it’s the town where’s he’s from, and the town’s claim to fame. And it ain’t just little southern towns that’s tank towns, though, there’s little towns up North that’s tank towns too. Little towns in Maine and New Jersey and Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and somebody said that all the towns in Rhode Island is tank towns, though I don’t remember seeing any tanks in any of them Rhode Island towns. But them that ain’t got them water tanks, though, they still call ’em tank towns. So that tank town is just a metaphor for them little towns.

  Anyway, in this little tank town, I’m supposed to stay with this woman name Martha Gaines, who right now’s making ginger cakes, some of them egg salad sandwiches and probably some of that strawberry pie. This region’s supposed to be known for its strawberry pie. And Martha Gaines supposed to make the best strawberry pie. If this region known for its strawberry pie, and Martha Gaines make the best strawberry pie in the region, then she must make the best strawberry pie in the nation and maybe even the best strawberry pie in the world. She ain’t thought, though, to commercialize them strawberry pies and refer to them as Martha Gaines’ strawberry pies. She could commercialize them strawberry pies, call them Martha Gaines’ strawberry pies and sell them all over the world. I think she still work at one of them little factories in the area, though, one of them little doll-making factories. I think they make them Kewpie dolls, them little types of carnival dolls and them little dolls that’s sold in gift shops. And she don’t even get to put her name on them dolls that she makes; she’s got to put the company name on them little dolls. And that’s even the Kewpie dolls that is her own original design. I don’t think she gets to make Kewpie dolls her own original design, though. I think them manufacturing companies like that have got they standard design. So’s anyone who makes they Kewpie dolls makes the same design, though they’s got several different designs for them Kewpie dolls. Course this region better known for its tobacco and its thoroughbreds, and there’s a place in the area called Wigwam Village near Cave City, I think Cave City is somewhere near here, where you can spend the night sleeping in a wigwam, the motel is made up of these little wigwams or tepees, so that attracts a lot of tourists to the region, them people that’s got a romance about them wigwams and tepees. ’Cause there’s people that might not know one Native American or want to know ’em, but they romances their wigwams and tepees. I don’t believe that it’s in the ownership of true Native Americans, that Wigwam Village, though I think once that Wigwam Village or another Wigwam Village, they hired someone with a little Cherokee in ’em that poses as a full breed to tell the tourists Cherokee tales, or whatever the dominant Native American tribe in this area, I think Cherokees, but in the culinary arts, this region known for its strawberry pie. I told my friend Nadine about that Wigwam Village and she say she wouldn’t stay in a wigwam or a tepee neither unless it were a real wigwam or tepee and in the ownership of a true Native American. I don’t know what’s the difference between a wigwam and a tepee myself, but I likes them strawberry pies, though. I asked Nadine, though, whether Native Americans has got they own cuisine, though, like other peoples, because I ain’t never seen no Native American restaurants like other peoples’ restaurants. She say that most American food has got Native American origins, and especially anything that’s got corn in it, except she don’t use the word corn for corn, she use another word for corn. I think she say maize. Like when I was in the Southwest I made sure I had me some of that fried cactus and some of them tacos that weren’t Taco Bell tacos. Them tacos is made from corn, but you can also have wheat tacos. Any of y’all see that futuristic movie where all the restaurants supposed to be Taco Bell?

  Maybe these tank towns is all alike, but in the culinary arts there’s still some distinction. Even though McDonald’s and Colonel Sanders and Taco Bell and McDonald’s and Colonel Sanders and Taco Bell architecture is everywhere, you still find some distinction in certain of the culinary arts. In the evening we’ll go to the basement of the Freewill Baptist Church and then I’ll show ’em my miracles and wonders. Of course they’s always three kinds of people there: them that believes without questioning, those that believe only when it’s themselves being healed, and those who could suck a cactus dry—they ain’t got cactus in this region, but the region I just come from, little town name Cuba, New Mexico—and’ud still tell you it ain’t got no juice in it. I’ll tell y’all the truth. If I wasn’t the one doing the healing, I’d be among the tough nuts.

  That’s a big beautiful Bible you got there, the woman says.

  Thank you.

  It’s one of those King James Editions put out by the Spiritual Harvest Bible Company. And Nicholas is on his way there to meet me, catching a plane from Kodiak Island, that’s in Alaska, where he bought himself some land. He tell me he always have him them dreams of going to Alaska, though, ever since he were a youngster, during the days when Alaska first joined the Union, and again when they was working on the pipeline, when there was a lot of mens going up there to Alaska to work on that pipeline, maybe even that Anchorage, and then he heard about that Kodiak Island. Kodiak Island, not Kodak. I think there’s bears that inhabit that island. Ain’t they got bear that they refers to as Kodiak bears. Then they’s got the Eskimo people. I don’t know if they inhabits that island, them Inuit and them Inupiaq peoples. I remember when one of them talk shows was doing a segment, though, maybe Sally Jessy Raphael or Geraldo, though probably Sally Jessy Raphael, on the men from Alaska and was trying to match them up with women, and them men from Alaska even had they own magazine advertising theyselves, and wasn’t a Inuit or Inupiaq amongst them. I think there were one African American,
though, that kinda remind me of one of them men in that singing group, the Village People, who somebody said is all supposed to be American masculine stereotypes or American stereotypes of the masculine hero—the “Indian,” the cowboy, the soldier, the construction worker, the cop. Like them men that dances for them women in the nightclubs, you know, usually they costumes theyselves to resemble the masculine stereotypes of men. But Nicholas, even Nicholas kinda resemble them masculine stereotypes of men. Maybe this the last time he’ll come along to bear witness to that first healing, that Nicholas, though, ’cause he’s been hinting about retiring from the faith healing business, you know, saying that I can tell about my own first healing my own self better than any other witness. I thought about hiring me another “witness” but that would be duplicitous and Nicholas the true one witnessed the first true healing, and that ain’t the same as a hired witness. He’s thinking of maybe going into the private investigations business or maybe opening himself up a little shop, maybe selling sporting gear for the fishermen-tourists, up there on that island. Seem like he would be good at that private investigations business, for although he might resemble one of them masculine hero types, he still seem like he too much of a thinking man to be content with just selling sporting gear for the fishermen-tourists. Anyway, he’s bought hisself some land up there in Alaska. I think he’s originally from Denver, Colorado, somewhere out there in Colorado. To tell the truth, I ain’t really sure where Nicholas from, though I think it’s Colorado. It ain’t Boley, though I remember once him telling me about that town of Boley, Colorado, supposed to be a town originally chartered by African Americans, one of they own towns. Least I think it’s Nicholas told me about Boley. He ain’t from Boley hisself, though.

  Course there’s probably a lot of fakers that hires they selves witnesses, y’all know like them evangelist fakers—there’s true evangelists and there’s evangelist fakers—and some of them probably do better witnessing than the true witnesses. You know, maybe one of them evangelist fakers have a true witness to they healings, but the people don’t believe the true witness so’s they’s got to hire theyselves a fake witness, ’cause the fake witness to the healings is more believable than the true witness. Now I’m wondering whether that would make the healer a faker, if the healings theyselves is real, but the healer got to hire a fake witness, ’cause even the true believers don’t believe the true witness. ’Cause maybe the fake witness got more confabulatory imagination than the true witness that just got a knowledge of the healings. Ain’t one of them scientists say something like that, about imagination being superior to knowledge in them scientific experiments and scientific theories. But Nicholas he say that I can tell about my own first healing my own self better, though, than any hired witness. Maybe that’s the truth. All I know is that Nicholas himself usedta tell the tale with more fanfare, more flourish, more confabulatoriness. And when he tells about that healing, it sounds like a true tale; it don’t sound like no confabulatory tale. Least the way he usedta tell the tale of that healing. Now he tends to be kinda dry. And those people that come to faith healing most of them want to hear confabulatory-sounding stories, which don’t mean they’s confabulatory stories they ownself. It’s just that when people come to be healed, they just likes to hear them confabulatory-sounding stories. And there’s other folks that comes to them faith healings not to be healed but to be entertained, like it’s a circus or a carnival rather than a faith healing. Them sorts you don’t know whether there’s true believers amongst them or not. And then, of course, there’s the scientific-minded people that comes to some of them healings, and you see them jotting down in their notebooks, and questioning the people that claims they’s been healed, even questions Nicholas—I tell them they can watch me heal, but I don’t answer they questions—and most of them decides it’s the people’s own gullibility that’s healed them. There ain’t many true believers amongst the scientific-minded, though there’s them that says that science itself is a religion, just another form of the modern world’s religion. So you can’t categorize all the scientific-minded as a skeptical people. I think I read that in the People’s Almanac, that that modern science just supposed to be another religion. When I first seen that People’s Almanac, though, I thought it was like the Communist Manifesto, but it ain’t. You know, talking about its being the People’s Almanac, like the People’s Republic of China.