The Healing Read online

  Still the wonder’s in what happened, the wonder’s in the healing, ain’t in how it’s told. It’s the healing itself ain’t how it’s told that draws the folks like bees to wild nectar. Or like flies to honey. But I think bees is fonder of wild nectar than even flies is to honey. Course the bees makes they own honey.

  But that’s always been the procedure, though. Nicholas stands up in front of the people and tells them all folksy-like about the first time I ever healed someone, and then, after they’s caught up in the tale, whether they thinks it’s confabulatory or not, I begin the healing. I tell them a little about the first healing my ownself, and sounding more folksy than I naturally am, ’cause when you’s doing the healing you’s got to talk about the healing yourself, ’cause amongst some that lends as much credibility as the healing itself, but like I tell the scientific-minded people or them media people that wants to write up they own confabulatory stories about faith healing in America, I’m mostly there to do the healing. You’s got to heal people to prove to most people that you ain’t just talk. Course there’s some of them disbelievers, even amongst them that ain’t scientific-minded and ain’t the media types, that believes it’s the talk itself that do the healing. That all you’s got to do is talk that healing talk and there’s some gullible folks that is healed. Or they thinks that you’s some kinda hypnotist. After one of them healings, somebody ask me whether I’m some kinda hypnotist. I don’t even know the laws of hypnotism. Ain’t all the scientific-minded cynics, though, and ain’t all the mystical idealists true believers.

  But she don’t look like no preacher woman. I wouldn’t want her in no roodloft of my church and no pulpit neither.

  She ain’t a preacher woman, she’s a healing woman. And us church don’t allow women to preach anyhow. They allows a woman to teach but they don’t allow her to preach. You know that preacher woman that come here and they told her she couldn’t preach. They said she could teach, but they wouldn’t let her preach. And what if a woman is called to preach the same as a man? she asked. But us church don’t believe a woman is called to preach, even if she herself believe she is called to preach, and one of the women, you know the one from Memphis, say, Maybe she called to teach and thought she were called to preach. Maybe the Lord say teach and she thought he say preach. So she give that little lecture. She referred to it as a lecture, but it sounded like preaching to me.

  Same difference.

  I can already hear ’em talking about me, those flibbertigibbets. She ain’t no preacher woman or a teacher woman neither, she a faith healer, one of them others be saying. What’s the difference? She look like she belong on a submarine or on a motorcycle. They don’t allow womens on no submarine. On the modern submarine they do, ’cause this is the age of feminism. Her and that bum’s jacket. It’s what they call a bomber jacket. Anyway, I seen her heal someone in D.C. I seen her when she healed in Memphis and then again in Kansas City. She even healed folks in Milan, that’s over there in Italy. Dottoressa is what they calls her there in that Milan. I seen this picture of her healing over there in Italy and she were surrounded by all these Italians who looked just liked colored people to me. Say she’s even healed folks in Brazil. I know they’s got colored people in Brazil. Curandera’s what they call her in Brazil. She sent us them article clippings about that. And them looking at her like they believes in that healing, and others like they’s sure that she’s a shyster. And she don’t just include them clippings that quotes the true believers but also them that say they think she’s a shyster and a subversive. Seems to me like if you’s going to advertise your healing powers that you’d just include clippings of them people that says you’s a true healer, ’Cept it just she wants us to make up us own mind whether she a true healer or not? I don’t know if she’s healed anybody over there in that India, though, but they’s supposed to have a lot of they own healers over there, you know them yogis and such fabulous people, like them healing monks, and they probably wouldn’t want to import no healer from over here when they’s got they own true healers. They’s got they own true healers everywhere, shamans the Native Peoples calls ’em, but that don’t mean they might not want to import another one. I don’t know whether she’s ever healed any white peoples, though, I mean true white peoples, even there in Memphis, ’cause somebody say she especially likes to heal people over there in Memphis. What you mean the true white peoples? ’Cause in one of them articles she’s with these peoples from West Virginia and they’s looking like true white peoples, but then when you read the article it says they’s colored people, or they white people claiming they’s colored and’s prouder to be colored than a lot of the true colored people. That’s ’cause they’s got the pride of being colored and ain’t the prejudice. They’s gullible when it comes to they own healers, the true whites, though, and them evangelists, but I don’t believe they’d be true enough believers to believe she could heal ’em, I mean a woman of us persuasion, I mean true colored women. Seem like in all them clippings and them brochures they’s colored-looking peoples in them photographs being healed, or white-looking peoples claiming to be colored. Not to say that they’s true colored, even them looking colored. You know they’s colored-looking people in the world that claims to be white the same as they’s white-looking peoples claiming to be colored. What were her first healing? She healed herself. Aw, girl, you don’t believe that! Yes, I believe it, ’cause that’s the proof of a true healer. They’s got to heal theyself first. You’s got to work your own salvation first, even us preacher say you’s got to work your own salvation first. He say when he preach it ain’t to work us salvation for us, we’s got to work us salvation usself. He say he can tell us how to work us salvation or how us religion say work us salvation, but we’s got to work us salvation usselves. He say that almost every religion say that, ain’t just us religion. He say he don’t like to compare them religious books to them how-to books, ’cause he ain’t a sacrilegious man, but most of them is how-to salvation books. But ain’t none of them religious books works your salvation for you. There’s people that hides from they own salvation, but even they’s got to work they own salvation first.

  I take off my bomber jacket in the heat, roll it up into a pillow and place it in the crevice near the window. The mustard and sardines still gives off its pungent odor.

  She really do do some powerful healing, though. And she ain’t a root doctor neither. She don’t need no root to heal. Some people say that that is a superior form of healing when you don’t need no root to heal. When you just healing people by knowing that they is healed. You know, that Christian Scientific woman that Martha know was talking about that. That they just heals people by knowing that they is healed. Other people, they trust them roots and herbs and potions, though. This woman just heals by healing. I don’t know if she claims to be Christianly Scientific, though, or a Scientific Christian. I know she heals by healing and don’t use no roots or herbs or potions. Wait till y’all hears about that first healing she done. I don’t rightly recall the man’s name that witnessed it, who was there at that first healing, I mean. He supposed to be here too, tonight, though. Wait till y’all hear. Wait till she sees, you mean. She healed me. You don’t say. What was it you had? I don’t rightly recall what it was called, or even if she named it, but when I walked I felt like I was walking in chains. I felt like I was in the old days of slavery and walking in chains. Or like them men we seen in them chain gangs that they’s trying to renovate down South, down there in Mississippi or Alabama, I think. One of them states in the Deep South, Said they had brought back the chain gang in one of them southern states in the Deep South. Ain’t that how they got the name gangster on account of them chain gangs? Naw, a gangster’s a gangster. Somebody said that they made that against the law, ain’t it?’ Them chain gangs, I mean. I think somebody said that they made that against the law, that they can make them prisoners work, that that ain’t against the law, but that they can’t tie them together on no chain gang, ’cause that chain
gang is cruel and inhuman. How come you don’t see no womens on them chain gangs, though? In all the history of the chain gang, I ain’t never seen no womens on ’em. They usedta say there ain’t as many criminally minded women as the mens, ’cause they say it’s always easier for the womens to find work than the men, even that domestic work, but now they say they’s almost as many criminally minded womens as mens. You’ve got freer women, but you’ve also got more criminally minded women. I felt like I was walking in chains. Doctors couldn’t do nothing or didn’t want to. I would go from doctor to doctor and couldn’t none of them heal me, or didn’t want to. The women doctors or the men. Then she just looked at me and know my trouble. She said the trouble would end, and touched me, and it did. That’s what I mean by she heal by healing. Now I moves easy as wind through trees. Sometimes she speak a word audit’s done. Other times she got to lay on hands. She don’t prescribe none of them herbs and roots and potions, though. She ain’t that sorta healing woman. Well, I heard other vile things and notions about her. Say she was a gambler. Say she was loose-virtued before she become a celibate. You don’t always begin on the right road. Especially saints and prophets don’t. They says that saints and prophets always begins as sinners, even them minor prophets. In fact, I don’t know a prophet or a saint—I don’t think they’s any minor saints, a saint’s a saint, ain’t they? they talk about the minor prophets, but I ain’t heard them talk about no minor saint—that ain’t began as a sinner. When you reads tales about them saints and prophets, whether you reads about them in a book or sees it on the Learning Channel or TNT, or even learns about the modern-day saints and prophets that appears on the talk shows, though, seem like they all of them begins as sinners. Especially them male saints. Seem like they demands more of they female saints than they do of they male saints. Seems like they allows they male saints to sow they wild oats, but not they female saints. That’s why you’s got so many criminally minded modern women, ’cause they believes they oughta be able to sow they wild oats the same as the mens. Naw, there is female saints that also begins as sinners. You ever heard of that Saint Mary of Egypt? Is that the other Mary? Or is that the same Mary as that Magdalene? Was a rock ’n’ roll singer they also says. Naw, but she did used to manage one, they says, that were her profession, a business manager. One of them rock ’n’ roll and rap singers business managers. I don’t know if she sing that rap or not, but I know she sing that rock ’n’ roll. That Tina Turner–type rock ’n’ roll. ’Cept she ain’t no Tina Turner. Talk about them minor saints and prophets, one of them minor rock ’n’ roll singers. And nothing to glorify the Lord in none of that music, Talk about people hiding from they own salvation. One of the beautiful people, though. And somebody even say she usedta be a beautician or one of them makeup artist out there in Hollywood. Seem like she’d know how to beautify herself.

  Martha, tell us what stuff you know.

  I got my sweet cakes and strawberry pie to make. All this gossip about gossip. Ain’t gossipmongering a sin? Seem like gossipmongering oughta be a sin. Y’all is gossips’ gossips. Y’all learn all there’s to learn when she get here. And when that Mr. Nicholas get here too. She ain’t gonna tell you no more about herself than’s in them brochures, though, and what y’alls read about in them clippings, ’cause she believe that the important thing is the healing. Who Mr. Nicholas? He the one that witnessed that first healing. I like to hear him talk about that first healing almost as much as to witness the healings.

  Saint Nicholas. Ha-ha-ha. Is he a saint too?

  I want everything to be so fine. I’m honored that she chose to stay with me. And Mr. Nicholas too. I remember when I got healed, he witnessed for her, and a fine specimen of a man. She don’t just pause with anybody y’all know and Mr. Nicholas neither. Course Mr. Nicholas usually stays at the hotels or the boardinghouses, ’cause he’s the reclusive type. But she don’t just pause with anybody, especially amongst the skeptical-type peoples that just wants to test her healing powers, you know. She knows I’m a true believer. And I’m one of the first people that she healed in them old early days when she first started with her faith healing. And I fancied myself to be one of the skeptics myself. I didn’t believe she could heal a flea myself. And then I witnessed it when she healed her own grandmother. Straightened out her shoulders. Say she have a hump in her shoulders just like a turtle’s. In fact, there’s people usedta refer to her as a turtle woman on account of them shoulders, Other say it ain’t on account of them shoulders, that she usedta be a real turtle, which is nonsense, ain’t no real turtle turn into no human being, not in the natural world, but I know them shoulders kinda look like that turtle shell. They say she look like she have a turtle shell on her back and the healing woman healed that. But that’s a whole nother story. Mr. Nicholas don’t tell that one. He just tell the tale about her first healing herself. I could witness for her myself, but I ain’t as good at witnessing as Mr. Nicholas. He one of them charismatic-type people. He more charismatic than the healing woman herself. What charismaticism she got come from them healing powers. When you heal, you creates your own charismaticism. But you needs somebody like that charismatic Mr. Nicholas to witness for you, though. If I was a healing woman, I’d sho want a man like Mr. Nicholas to witness for me.

  I first seen her picture in the Louisville Defender before she started printing up them brochures. It talked about all the travels she’d done over there in Africa, and somebody asked her whether she had learned her healing powers from one of them Africans, whether she were a apprentice to one of them African healers, but she said she had never been a apprentice to none of them African healers, but did say that she knew of a African healing woman, but they didn’t heal exactly the same way. And the woman who were interviewing her said that maybe that African healing woman had transferred some healing powers to her without her knowing it. I don’t know, she said, maybe she put some healing powers in some zebra stew or something, but I do know that I never apprenticed myself to any of them healers over there. And then they did this little tabloid story about her, “I Healed Kong’s Daughter,” and made it so you’d think it’s King Kong, you know with all that talk about Africa, at least that’s what I thought when I read that blurb, ’cause there’s only one Kong that I know about and that’s King Kong, and then it turn out it this little Chinese girl named Kong, you know, that famous little musician prodigy she supposed to healed, so’s she could continue playing her music, you know. Naw, she don’t play the violin. I know who you thinking about, naw this little prodigy I think she play the flute. That’s the healing that’s supposed to made her world famous. I don’t mean the little Chinese girl, I mean the healing woman. ’Cause that little Chinese girl she already famous. You know, that Chinese woman named Kong that’s got all those Kong restaurants all over the world heard about her healing powers and hired her. That’s her claim to healing fame. ’Cause if she was just healing ordinary colored people, I don’t think anybody woulda heard about her at all or written about her in no tabloids. She mighta been written about in Ebony, but I don’t think she’da appeared in no tabloid, and there’s a lot of colored people that wouldn’t want her to heal us usselves if she hadn’t healed that famous Kong little girl, ’cause we’s like that usselves. It’s Kong that made her a star, at least in the world of faith healing. She don’t look like she can heal a flea, though. Or them bees. You know, they’s talking about them bees around here that needs to be healed, naw I’m not talking about them African bees, I’m talking about the native American bee, unless they’s colonized bees, I mean originating in England, ’cause the farmers needs them to pollinate. Bees don’t just produce honey, they pollinates. That’s what they refer to as the ecological system. I wonder if she can heal them bees, if she can heal the human species. Do that Mr. Saint Nicholas heal? Is he a healer? A healer ain’t necessarily no saint, is it, Martha? You can be healer and don’t mean you’s a saint. Bible say to be wary of folks of that sort. It warn you about them false prophets and them fal
se saints. But the Bible also talk about them gifts of the spirit, and God don’t give gifts of the spirit to looks. Tell her, Martha. Bible says Jesus was ugly, and He is the greatest spirit gift His ownself. Course the description they gives of him don’t sound ugly to me. Sound like a man meant to be glorified. Supposed to have hair like lamb’s wool and to be the complexion of brass. That sounds like a man meant to be glorified to me. If most of these people talking about Jesus see the real Jesus, though, they would probably run from him. These holy evangelists and religionists. I mean them that thinks he’s supposed to have blue eyes and blond hair and them Nordic peoples from Sweden or them Germanic looks, I mean them Aryan-type Germans, not them dark-haired Germans, ’cause them pictures you see of that Jesus even in us church that ain’t the real Jesus, that ain’t the true Jesus that even the Bible describes. Like that little Buddha that Martha got that they make out there at that factory where she work, now supposed that little Buddha was to have blond hair and blue eyes? Suppose they made that little Buddha to look like them little blond Kewpie dolls they make out there? Now I ain’t amongst the folks to say that Jesus is a African or even a North African, like that schoolteacher telling us about, you know Little Sal, but that ain’t even a Mediterranean Jesus, Devil came as a angel of light. Ain’t that what the Bible say? Aw, girl, I know that. I usedta belong to the A.M.E., the African Methodist Episcopals, before I joined y’all’s church. That’s what it says, don’t it, Martha?