The Healing Read online

  She been celibate ever since the healing power came, leastwise they say that she celibate—aw, girl, you know what celibate is, you know I don’t have to tell you what celibate is, what Big Sal say she is, but don’t nobody believe her, that Big Sal, but Big Sal say she been to the moon too, ain’t you heard Big Sal’s tale of how she been to the moon?—but girl I could tell you stories, say one of them flibbertigibbets, and then she start telling stories about me I ain’t heard my ownself.

  Hush.

  What she waiting for? Why don’t she heal somebody? Heal.

  Nicholas J. Love.

  Who that?

  Nicholas J. Love. I think that J. stand for Jess. They shoulda named him Jess Love, ’cause he look like it, don’t he? He look just like Love, don’t he? Well, he look like love ain’t a jest with him. He supposed to testify. He the one witnessed that first healing. She don’t heal till after he testify to the first healing. Anybody know anything about healing, you know you need somebody to testify. And can’t just anybody testify, gotta be a true witness to the healing. Course them healings testifies to theyself, but you know healers, a lot. of them they don’t just heal, you’s got to testify first.

  Hush. That him now. That him. That big good-looking. . . . My, he’s a mountain, ain’t he, Josephine? Mountain of a man. What they call a man of impressive height. Nicholas J. Love. Who Mrs. Love? I wonder if he got a Mrs. Love. I know a man like him gotta have hisself a Mrs. Love. Look like he got plenty wanting to be Mrs. Love. I bet he got plenty womens wanting to be Mrs. Love. I know he got plenty womens wanting to be Mrs. Love. Martha, do you know if he got hisself a Mrs. Love? Look at Martha, looking like she wanna be his own Mrs. Love herself? I bet you could be his own Mrs. Love yourself, couldn’t you Martha? Now, he look like he can heal somebody. Heal. I bet he can heal somebody. He remind me of a man I seen once at a carnival, though. They had him advertised as the tallest man in the natural world. The poster advertising him say he the tallest man in the natural world. Look like one of them Watusi. You know them Watusi. They’s supposed to be naturally tall people. Men that is unnaturally tall to us is natural men to them. I didn’t like the way they had him up there in that tent amongst them carnival freaks, though, like he were King Kong or the Mighty Joe Young or somebody—aw, you know the Mighty Joe Young, that’s the other King Kong—instead of a natural man. You’s a free man, I told him. You’s a free man, you ain’t King Kong or the Mighty Joe Young and you don’t need to be in nobody’s carnival. Is you a Watusi from over there in Africa? I don’t think he understood English, though, ’cause he musta spoken one of them Watusi-type languages. Then somebody, one of the carnival security guards, I think they call ’em security guards, come over and told me I wasn’t supposed to be talking to their Tallest Man in the Natural World. He didn’t say nothing to me, the tallest man himself, ’cause I don’t think he speak us English language, but he seem like he appreciate the fact that I was talking to him even in my own language like he a natural man and not just the tallest man in the natural world. They musta gone over there to. that Africa to get that man, though, ’cause even though they’s got some tall men in America and they’s supposed to have taller men in America than in Europe, they’s supposed to have the tallest men in the world over there in Africa. They’s supposed to have the tallest men in the world and the shortest men in the world. He ain’t exactly the tallest man in the world, though, but he do look like he can heal somebody. Did they have the shortest man in the natural world? Naw, I don’t believe they did. They mighta had the shortest man in the natural world, but when I seen the advertisement advertising the tallest man in the natural world, that’s the man I wanted, so I didn’t look around to see whether they was advertising the shortest man in the natural world. Heal. I’ve always liked average-sized men myself, though. Heal. The average-sized man is my ideal of a man. Not the tallest man in the natural world nor the shortest man in the natural world. Heal. He sho look like he can heal somebody, though, don’t he? But her, I don’t think she could heal a flea.

  Nicholas comes down into the church basement, wearing khaki trousers and a white shirt open at the collar, and strides toward me, then we goes up to the front. I’m watching the other man while Nicholas is talking. Nicholas must notice him too, though he pretend he don’t know him either. I’ve already heard and reheard Nicholas tale, so I don’t listen to all of it, only the healing part. . . . I stabbed her, but the knife bent. Wouldn’t go all the way in. Went in just enough to do some tiny damage but not what it coulda done. Then it bent. And I ain’t talking about no rubber knife neither. I’m talking about a knife knife. Went in just enough to do some tiny damage but not what it coulda done. Then it bent. And you know I’m a powerful man.

  Hush now, a woman shouts. Hush, hush now.

  Can’t explain it, Nicholas says. Some force beyond me. At first I thought it had struck a bone, that knife, and I’m a powerful man, and the bone bent it, that knife, and I’m a powerful man, y’all know I’m a powerful man, I know y’all know I’m a powerful man, but the anatomy ain’t where a bone would be. She were as startled as I was, our healing woman. Hush. Hush now. The knife bent. And I’m a powerful man. Y’all know I’m a powerful man. A powerful man amongst powerful men. Hush. Then the knife just fell out. She put her hand to her chest, to the wound on her chest, took her hand away and the blood were gone. Right then and there it mended. I ain’t seen it mend, I ain’t witnessed it to mend, but I seen it mended. The first healing. I witnessed that first healing, but I can’t explain it. She can’t explain it neither. The healing woman can’t explain it either. You ask her to explain how she heal that first healing, and she can’t explain it. The healing woman can’t explain it neither. Can’t nobody explain it. I ain’t met nobody that can explain that first healing. There’s folks believe themselves to explain that first healing, even scientifically minded people, but they ain’t explained that first healing to my satisfaction. Even the scientifically minded people ain’t explained that first healing to my satisfaction. They even wrote about her healing powers in one of them scientifically minded magazines, but that didn’t explain it to my satisfaction. They even wrote about her healing powers in one of them tabloid-type magazines, but that didn’t explain it to my satisfaction. They even wrote about her healing powers in one of them slick magazines over there in Germany, translated it into English and resold it to one of these slick American magazines, but even that transcontinental explanation didn’t explain it to my satisfaction. Maybe there’s folks that can explain that first healing, maybe even ordinary folks that can explain that first healing and even explain that first healing to my satisfaction, maybe other healers themselves can explain that first healing, maybe other healing women themselves, or even other healing men, can explain that first healing, and even explain that first healing to my satisfaction, but I ain’t met ’em. I ain’t met anyone, scientifically minded, ordinary, or healers they selves who can explain that first healing. It just healed. Y’all think only true believers try to explain that first healing? Ain’t just true believers that tries to explain that first healing. Cynics and skeptics try to explain that first healing, and even they don’t explain it to my satisfaction. That first healing. That first healing just healed. I wouldn’ta believed her healing powers myself if I ain’t witnessed them. If somebody told me this a healing woman and I ain’t witnessed her healings myself, I probably wouldn’t believe ’em. I am not a gullible man. Nicholas J. Love ain’t a gullible man. I am not a gullible man. I wouldn’ta believed her healing powers myself if I ain’t witnessed them. And I’m the one witnessed the first healing. I told y’all I witnessed that first healing. Ain’t I told y’all I witnessed-that first healing? She were as surprised as I was, though. I seen that first healing, and that’s why I’m here to testify. You can’t falsify a healing like that. You can’t falsify a true healing like that. I’m not the truest of the true believers, but I’m the one witnessed the first healing. I’m the one witnessed that true first
healing. I’m the one witnessed that first true healing. You can’t explain a healing like that, it’s just pure wonder. A healing like that is just pure wonder.

  Some look at me in pure wonder, others are looking at Nicholas in pure wonder, others are looking like they still gotta see to believe. Even if Nicholas a believable-sounding man, even if he a powerfully believable-sounding man. But a lot of them’s looking at us like it one of them confabulatory tales of them UFOs, like it one of them confabulatory UFO tales that Nicholas telling. Like he telling them how he got hisself abducted in one of them confabulatory UFOs. And how one of them little confabulatory aliens that abducted him had them special and purely wonderful and powerful healing powers. You know they ain’t gonna believe no tale like that. You know, they’s too intelligent to believe a tale like that. And ain’t none of them confabulatory aliens abducted them. If ain’t none of them confabulatory little aliens abducted them, then there ain’t no UFO and there ain’t no confabulatory little aliens. But some others are in their own private world, looking like they themselves been abducted in one of them confabulatory UFOs, and would like to tell the people about them confabulatory little aliens themselves. Maybe some of them have heard the tale before about that first healing, or read about it in one of them tabloid-type magazines, but they’ve still got to see a healing for themselves. Nicholas is on a roll. He’s on a roll. . . . And him? Perhaps he’s merely looking like a man who knows the truth of it.

  I thought she were a witch or something at first, says Nicholas. Even she didn’t know what she were. And still she don’t know. When she was healing some people up in the Dakotas, a few people started calling her the Healing Woman Healed Herself First. Maybe that’s who she is. The Healing Woman Healed Herself First. And then when she’s healing people in Memphis they just started calling her the Healing Woman. Maybe that’s who she is. Well, I’m here to testify that she healed herself first. I’m here to testify that she healed herself first. I’m here to testify that this healing woman healed herself first. And now she trying to heal everybody that want to be healed. At least everybody that want her to heal them. I’m her witness. And that the truth. And I wouldn’t trade truth like that for gold.

  There’s rumbles and hums and rustles, then Hush now!

  Nicholas turns to me and smiles. He add that new thing about me “trying to heal everybody that want to be healed.” And that new thing about “At least everybody that want her to heal them.” He ain’t had that in his witnessing before. Least he ain’t said I’m trying to heal everybody, I come forward and take his hand again. I’m considered a tall woman, but beside Nicholas I just look average height. Yes! someone shout. Lord, today! exclaim another. A unbeliever mumbles, pirates, bandits, confidence people. A few snicker at a tale like that. Another starts singing.

  I didn’t even ask for the spirit gift, I begin softly. I weren’t even prepared for the spirit gift. But it came, it came. I modulate my volume so’s my voice grow gradually loud. It came. The Lord good. Yes. What can you do but claim what the Lord give. Hush. It’s ain’t me. It God who make you whole. A lot of y’all looking at me and just seeing just a ordinary woman, and asking y’allself how come a ordinary woman like me to be given a gift of the spirit, how come a ordinary woman like me to be given a spirit gift? Y’all thinks that just spirit gifts supposed to be given to extraordinary people, to extraordinary men and women, the kings and queens of the world, the princes and princesses. But that the point of them spirit gifts, the point of them spirit gifts, is that I am just a ordinary woman. I am just a ordinary woman, that is the point of the healing. The spirit gift extraordinary, but as for me, I’m just a ordinary woman. Come up. It God who make you whole. Praise the Lord, and accept his restoration.

  And then I start calling names, like I’ve always known them:

  Mr. Buster Gentry, Mizz Faustina Brixton, Mizz Gretel Loppie, Mizz Sheba Boss, Mr. Pete Menton, Mr. Bunyan Macheath, Mr. J.J. Ray, Mizz Sal Battle. . . . Come up and be healed.

  Hush.

  I lay my hands on a young woman suffering from a skin rash and immediately her skin become smooth and clear as a baby’s. A elderly woman suffers from a bone ailment that make her lower back painful. I lay my hands on and she straightens, healthy, then bends forward and touches her toes. A baby’s got chronic earache; I kiss both its little ears and they’s made whole again. Gurgling and laughing, he don’t wanna let go of my fingers. Then they’s a young man who I’m unable to heal in public, ’cause it necrospermia he’s suffering from, so before he comes forward I ask Nicholas to go inform him that we’ll come privately to his home and heal him, and then he can expect that wife of his to have babies the very next year. Another woman’s got psychic symptoms, restlessness, delirium, hallucinations, delusions: I hold her hands, stroke her forehead and kiss her.

  I’m Mizz Sal Battle, she says. How you know my name? They calls me Big Sal. You said my name, so I figure you’s a true healer. I got to believe in somebody know my true name. I figure anybody know my true name must be a true healer. Course you could just be going around asking folkses’ true name, and just be a faker. But most folkses calls me Big Sal, they don’t call me Mizz Sal Battle, and most don’t even know my true name is Sal Battle, so if you’da asked them my true name, they’da told you Big Sal, so I figure if you says my true name, you’s a true healer. Then, Hush, she whispers her joy. Hush. Hush. Hush. Hush.

  And then there’s that smallish woman from the bus. I ain’t think she believed, but she come up. She ain’t got no visible ailment either, but she got what them psychiatrists refer to as “incipient insanity.”

  I touch her forehead and she cure.

  It’s after midnight before the session over. After the healings, we give thanks, then gather around the table to feast.

  A long time, he whispers.

  Yeah, I say, turning.

  But I know I ain’t the woman he met up at Saratoga. I’m the one who touched the horse’s phalanges and healed them. I’m the one who touched my own wound. I’m the one who healed my own self first.

  He piles a plate high with fried chicken and potato salad and hands it to me.

  Come out to the farm, he whispers, his hand on my shoulder. I haven’t seen you in a long time, N’Orleans. You look regenerated. And Nicholas is beaming. Is it you and him?

  But I shake my head. And N’Orleans, that ain’t my true name, that just his sometimes name for me.

  Then he whispers, He’s free.

  Who’s free? Nicholas?

  They freed Nicodemus.

  Who’s Nicodemus? Nicodemus? Oh, yeah, yeah. Nicodemus. That’s good.

  He stands watching me a moment, thinking maybe I’ll ask him some more about Nicodemus, or how they freed him, or maybe—since he helped free Nicodemus? or since it ain’t Nicholas and me?—agree to come back with him to his farm, then disappears up the basement stairs. I feel like I’m standing in the tropics. I wipe sweat from my forehead with the napkin. A tiny wind whips up.

  I ain’t breathed so freely in years, says Josephine, coming to me, touching her sinuses, marveling. He said we couldn’t trade this for gold, and we ain’t paid one cent over. Why, you must be a true healer, ’cause them other people they be demanding gold for this. Martha said we paid you little something, and for the transportation for you to come here, but ain’t the gold that this is worth. Course somebody said you usedta manage one of them rock stars, and they is monied people, so you probably saved up a lot of money, mucho dinero, as the people say, and don’t need to be greedy. Course monied people always wants mo’ money. You don’t look like you’s monied to me, though. I don’t know how you does it, though, being the ordinary woman that you says you is. How do you do it?

  The Lord do it, corrects Zulinda, who’s standing near the punch bowl, her phobia gone. It ain’t no mystery. The Lord do it. It ain’t no mystery at all. And if she were to demand gold for this, she might not keep them healing powers. That’s probably the only reason she ain’t demanded gold for
this, so’s she can keep these healing powers. I still don’t think no gifts of the spirit to be given to ordinary womens, though.

  Lord a mystery, says Josephine. His wonders do perform, and like Mr. Nicholas said we ain’t paid one cent over.

  When he say that? Where that Mr. Nicholas?

  He just come to witness. He never stay to socialize. He one of them strange men.

  That’s ’cause he’s amongst strangers.

  I bite into a piece of fried chicken and smile at them both.

  Mizz Battle think she dreaming. Look at Big Sal, she think she dreaming, and this ordinary woman, she got herself a mighty appetite to be so holy, ain’t she? A mighty devilish appetite to be holy. They say you’s supposed to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

  Well, she the boss, if you ast me. Eat what she want. Us supposed to invite her here to heal us and then let her go hungry? And ain’t asking no donations neither. Do that sound like a faker? Ain’t even charged the people she done healed. She told them they could give Martha a little something for her strawberry pies. Something about Martha Gaines’ strawberry pies. Martha say she likes making them Kewpie dolls. Heard her telling her she could start selling them strawberry pies they’s so good. Ain’t a healer supposed to be worth her hire? That make me a true believer even more than all this healing, though. Eat what she want is what I say. Ain’t a healer supposed to be worth her hire? The gold that this is worth.