The Healing Read online

  Yes, it does say that all right. It most certainly does. And Jesus is Jesus.I know there’s folks who searches for the real, historical Jesus. But Jesus is Jesus.

  That smells so good, Martha. What is it? Ginger. Will she be here one night or two?

  Depend on how big the crowd is and how much healing need to be done.

  Do she heal crazy peoples?

  Yes, I do believe she do. Seem like I heard she healed some crazy woman in Memphis. Some crazy woman from over there in Memphis, Seem like that one of her first healings, some crazy woman, or at least amongst her first healings. I do know the crazy peoples do come to her healings to be healed the same as the sane peoples, them that knows they’s crazy or has the suspicion of it. I know when she healed me, I think there was several crazy peoples there that got healed, at least they didn’t seem to have no visible ailments. Yeah, that brochure do mention insanity as one of her cures. Yeah, that brochure do say something about insanity as one of her cures. I know that old brochure she usedta distribute when she first started advertising her healings don’t say nothing about insanity, though, it just list the physical cures, I don’t think a true healing woman should advertise herself myself. I still know her to be a true healing woman, though. But that new brochure do mention insanity. She don’t refer to it as insanity, though, she refer to it as a ailment of the spirit. She don’t mention insanity at all in that brochure, or even eccentricity, she just mention ailment of the spirit, which she say encompass a lot of the metaphysical things.

  Be here two days then, maybe three. Maybe stay the week. ’Cause they’s plenty crazy people round here to heal, ain’t it, Zulinda? Ailment of the spirit nothing, Metaphysical nothing. They’s crazy. Big Sal is crazy. I know Big Sal is crazy. Y’all know Big Sal. Now I ain’t talking about Little Sal, ain’t that Little Sal, speak of the devil, I seen that bicycle she rides around on, I said that looks like Little Sal’s bicycle chained up there, look like a little girl don’t she, woman her age riding around on a girl’s bicycle, now that’s eccentric, a schoolteacher, you’d think she’s one of her students, I’m talking about Big Sal, Everybody know that Big Sal is crazy. She look crazy her own self, if you ask me. Looking like she belong in a comic book. Though looking crazy don’t mean you is. Do looking crazy mean you is? If that looking crazy mean you is, then them psychiatrists and psychologists would have more work than they’s got now. Lotta people say us Wisdoms looks crazy us ownselves, but I know insanity don’t run in us. Maybe some of the New York Wisdoms is crazy, ’cause that’s New York, and seem like I heard some of them has been psychoanalyzed, but the Wisdoms from around here ain’t crazy. I know that for a fact, though like the poet says sometimes the facts about a people obscures the truth about ’em. There might be some ailment of the spirit people amongst the people she heals in her world travels, or even amongst the New York Wisdoms, but around here the crazy peoples that’s crazy is crazy. Ain’t they, Zulinda? Martha, you acts like all crazy people is sane.

  I get off the bus carrying a small overnight case made out of imitation crocodile. To meet me at the station’s three middle-aged women in a Ford convertible. Martha’s the driver and she’s the slender one and the tallest, the others are the proverbial stereotypes of plump church womens. Cotton print dresses, pillbox hats, oversized vinyl purses that dangles from their wrists or elbows, Zulinda and Josephine don’t hide their disappointment. I know they’s expecting me to be more impressive, look less like some ordinary, common woman and more like a legend. More like some legendary healer. Even them pictures of me in them clippings and in that brochure looks more legendary. But people always say I don’t look like my photographs. There’s people look more impressive than they photographs, others look less impressive than they photographs. A lot of them models and movie stars, people say, looks more impressive in they photographs. Or if they do still look impressive in person, I know a lot of them movie stars people’s always telling them that they looks taller on the screen. They might be the shortest man in Hollywood, but onscreen they look like the tallest. Now that rock star I usedta manage, she look more impressive in reality than in her publicity photographs and her album photographs. That’s the same with them movie stars, like I said. That’s why they always insists on giving them them screen tests, to test whether the camera loves them. The camera’s gotta love them. They’s gotta be photogenic. Now she’s making herself them videos, that rock star, but them videos ain’t half so interesting as the woman herself. It’s Martha who comes forward to greet me first, bringing with her that odor of ripe strawberries and fresh ginger. We shakes hands. Hello, Martha.

  The other women step forward to introduce themselves. They’re staring at my blue jeans and bomber jacket, worrying that I’ll appear in church dressed so outlandish. Josephine gives me a look, then holds out her hand. We shakes hands, then I shakes hands with Zulinda, but I know they’re eager to test my healing powers. Josephine Wisdom’s already telling me about her sinus problem and Zulinda Tage’s already mumbling about her fear of cats. We walk together toward the car. I ride in the front with Martha, while Josephine’s in the backseat taking Kleenex from her purse, hawking into it, and Zulinda’s glancing up at the tattered ceiling and wishing they coulda borrowed the reverend’s car, the Cadillac or the Mercedes, but though he’s opened his church to me, he’s one of them skeptical ones, and ain’t about to lend them his Cadillac or the Mercedes either for some fool calling herself a faith healer. Still, she thinks that Martha oughta mend that tattered roof of that convertible. Gifts of the spirit ain’t modern gifts anyhow but ancient ones, he believes, that skeptical preacher, though the Lord Himself supposed to be the same yesterday today and tomorrow.

  Martha, why don’t you ever convert your convertible? asks Zulinda.

  I prefers the top up.

  I wouldn’t have me no convertible not to convert it, says Zulinda. I wouldn’t have me none o’ these old reckless tops if I didn’t use it.

  Martha got style, say Josephine through her Kleenex. Them fast womens rides around in them converted convertibles. You know them fast womens always got them converted convertibles. Martha got class.

  Well, I likes me them converted convertibles and I ain’t a fast woman, nor a slow one neither, and I got as much class as Martha. Everybody says I gots class.

  When I’m scheduled to appear? I ask.

  Aw, you got plenty of time to rest and freshen up, says Martha.

  And change, adds Zulinda from the backseat.

  Josephine hawks into the Kleenex. The show don’t start till eight, she says, making sure I hear her call it show. Martha turns on the radio. This is an old Memphis song, the singer announces. Do y’all guys feel funky tonight? Martha turns off the radio, then turns it back on, twists the dial, only to find more funky music, then some of that gangsta-type rap, then little D’Angelo. She listen to a little of that D’Angelo music, some love’s melody, sophisticated-type rap, which she say sounds more like real music, like intelligent music, than some of that other music, then she cuts the radio off.

  I’m really looking forward to tonight, says Josephine. I wants you to cure my sinusitis. You going to, ain’t you?

  I don’t say nothing. To tell the truth, I don’t like to say what I’ll heal until I heal it.

  I guess for you it’s easy to heal folks now after the long time you been doing it, says Zulinda.

  The first time is easy when you got the gift of the spirit, says Martha. It ain’t like them learned things, things you got to master. It were easy the first time, weren’t it?

  Yes, it were, I admit. I wasn’t trying to be no healing woman. In fact after that first healing, I denied I was a healing woman, that that healing was just a fluke, then I healed a horse, I touched a horse’s phalanges and I healed it, somebody was talking to me about one of their horses and I touched it and healed it. I guess I coulda just kept healing horses, worked for the racing industry healing their horses, you know, and then I went down to Memphis and healed a craz
y woman. I don’t just heal physical ailments, I heal ailments of the spirit, like my brochure says. Anyway, someone heard about my healing powers and someone else heard about my healing powers and then I just started healing, but in the beginning I denied I was a healing woman. I know a lot of people are skeptical of my healing powers. I was skeptical of them in the beginning myself, but I just kept healing people. Like you say, one of them gifts of the spirit.

  Zulinda’s thinking of a furry ball and gray radar eyes perched on her lawn. Martha even give her a book of cat poetry to help her get over her fear of cats. But that poem about that galloping cat, even galloping about doing good, made her more skeptical of cats. She’s thinking that if I’m a real healing woman I’d know what she’s thinking and heal her right then and there. How do you know who to cure first? she asks. I just know.

  The car turns a corner and climbs a hill. The narrow road’s lined with duplex houses, green and white and yellow. Beyond them the land slopes down to a railroad track. Zulinda’s thinking that if I’m a real healing woman, I’d piece out the deeper fears, deeper than the fear of cats, and heal them too. She thinking she just test me first to see if I can cure her fear of cats. I reach down and scratch my ankle.

  You ever got lost coming to these little out-of-the-way towns? Martha asks.

  Naw, not really, but then I always got nice people to meet me like y’all. And it’s mostly in these little towns that there’s true believers. Ain’t too many true believers in the big cities.

  Martha smiles, but that cynical Josephine just blows her nose. Or true fools, she thinking. Them big city people ain’t such fools, she thinking. They say she healed people in Rio, though, Ain’t Rio a big city? And maybe them true believers in Rio is actually from them little towns, and they just comes to Rio to the big city. Zulinda hums a jaunty tune then changes it to a more holy one. The car sloping down bumps into the railroad track, crosses it, then climbs another hill.

  Didn’t know the train came through here, I say.

  It don’t anymore. Depot’s closed down. A lot of these little train depots around here have closed down. Just the tracks left.

  The women in the backseat are still thinking how common I am, how full of chitchat, and my vocabulary sounds elementary, it don’t even sound like that preacher-teacher woman that give that lecture, ain’t that wondrous and fantabulous vocabulary them healers uses, and if I could really heal, wouldn’t I already just know about them trains too? And I don’t talk that revelation talk, that prophet passion. Just some ordinary woman, could be one of them, or one of their daughters, one of their own girls. They’re staring at my bomber jacket, its gray fur collar, imitation fox, ’cause I wouldn’t have a collar with no real fox, like I wouldn’t have no real crocodile, and my greased and braided hair. I’m one of their own girls, they’re thinking. “Except maybe more streetwise and jazzy,” thinks Josephine. “Full o’ all that city flash,” I know Martha’s told them grand things about me, ’cause Martha’s like that. It’s Martha showed them all them clippings about me. “She a regular boogie-woogie,” thinks Zulinda, clucking. Josephine blows her nose almost into the back of my head. Then Martha turns into the driveway. We climb out among honeysuckle bushes and them maple trees. Inside, Martha’s house is spotless and smells like lemon oil. There’s two of those comfortable flowered sofas, a long beige coffee table loaded with them whatnots—wooden elephants, a brass Buddha, state fair mugs, a little glass tiger. There’s some of them little Kewpie dolls she makes, even a few multicultural Kewpie dolls. They usedta just make them white Kewpie dolls, but I guess now they makes them multicultural Kewpie dolls, or maybe they’s Martha’s own inspiration. There’s an upright Steinway piano, mahogany and shining, standing beneath a gilded mirror. I watch the women reflected in that mirror. Martha’s the gingerbread woman, Josephine’s a chocolate eclair, and Zulinda’s a lemon snap. I’m thinking of the names of horses I would’ve bet on if I was still a betting woman: Regal Fawn, Box o’ Chocolates, and Banana’s Kin.

  I take you upstairs so’s you can get refreshed up after all that long ride, says Martha. It’s a real great pleasure, though, to have you here. Ever since you healed me, I’ve been wanting to invite you here to do a healing, but they says that your schedule has always been filled up with that healing in them other little towns. Well, when you first healed me, I wouldn’t’ve known that you’da developed into a healer to be known worldwide. At least amongst the true believers.

  At the top of them stairs, I can hear the women downstairs just chattering. She got on mascara. Teal blue. Did y’all see that? Teal blue. And dressed up like a soldier. But we’s God’s army, anyway. Aw, girl, I’ll have to see to believe. I’m a true believer, but that don’t mean I got to believe in that bogger. Harm a flea, but cure one?

  You can rest up here, says Martha, reaching into one of them drawers and holding up a clean towel and washcloth. I’ll call you. We can have a light meal here, but they want to have a real supper at the church, after your . . . presentation. I mean, the healing. Bathroom’s down the hall. Where you headed after here, up North again?

  Naw, Tennessee. Memphis.

  There must be more true believers in Memphis than anywhere, ’cause seem like you’s always healing folks in Memphis.

  And there’s a group in London, in Brixton, who’ve heard about my healing powers too, and want me to come over there to Brixton to do some healing.

  I’ve heard about that Brixton. I know some folks name Brixton. They might be at your . . . healing.

  Performance, she’d started to say at first. The healing? She hands me the rose and cinnamon towel and washcloth, then heads downstairs. I go in her bathroom and toss water onto my face and rearrange my braids. Listening to those voices downstairs. It ain’t a auditory hearing, I should tell y’all. I mean, to y’all their voices would be inaudible or merely whispers, but to me they’re as clear as Martha’s glass tiger.

  Is she gonna change? whispers Zulinda.

  Why don’t y’all come back and help me pack the cakes and my strawberry pie, says Martha. I thought we’d have us light ham and potato soup—for her—before we go on account of all that healing she be doing. Poor child looks weary . . .

  If she were a true healing woman she wouldn’t take no thought to light ham and potato soup.

  We can put everything into this straw basket.

  I’ll have to see to believe. Don’t look like she could cure a flea. If it’s true, I don’t see why God don’t give such gifts of the spirit to good women like you, Martha, and a woman with class, instead of who . . . trollops.

  Hush, girl. It ain’t for us to judge. Zulinda, you hold my strawberry pie right. Hold it up like this . . . The last time you held my pie . . .

  I come downstairs wearing a plain-cut beige dress, plain beige pumps, and a paisley scarf around my waist. Poised in front of the Steinway, Zulinda frowns at the paisley but grins approval at the beige dress and round-toed pumps. And Martha’s palms are held up to demonstrate how to hold a imaginary pie.

  Don’t you tell me how to hold no pie, now Martha, says Zulinda. If I knows anything, I knows how to hold a pie.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Seeing him in the crowd. He look like he grown a little broader, even his facial features look broader, and there’s more gray at his temples, and gray in his mustache, but other than that he look like the same handsome man, the same good-looking man. Seem like in all the men I know, there’s something of the same man, or maybe it’s just that women don’t know men the same way that men know themselves; maybe we only know us idea of a man, and if we got us a certain idea of a man, then we see something of the same man in every man, ’cause it’s us own idea of a man us own archetypal man that we think we see in every man, like maybe only all men know is their idea of a woman or they idea of the archetypal woman. Even that novelist that wrote that Portrait of a Lady, seem like that’s just a man’s idea of a woman or of a certain type of woman. ’Cept she a American lady
in Britain and the American lady ain’t the same type of lady as the British lady, ’cause in Britain you’s got to be a true royal to be a lady. How I meet him? I met him one summer I spent up at the racetrack in Saratoga Springs, upstate New York. He was buying yearlings. After my show, he’ll probably come up and whisper, A long time, and I’ll say, Yeah. But for now I’m just watching him out of the corners of my eyes, pretending I don’t know him, pretending I don’t know him no more than the others come to the healing, pretending I don’t even know his name, and listening to them flibbertigibbets.