Touch

  "Then don't."

  "I've never been jealous before," Lynn said. "It's a new feeling, having something I want more than anything--that's why I'm afraid it's gonna end, something will happen."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know, something."

  Serious, in a see-through apron and panties . . .

  Then both dressed, in the living room again with beer and wine, corn chips and dip, popcorn and the celery and carrots, and they were smiling again and saying whatever they wanted, dumb or not, because it didn't matter, they were playing, having fun . . . Lynn telling him about the 117-foot World's Tallest Illuminated Cross of Jesus and the battery-operated replicas and the WTICOJ T-shirts and what a hotshot promoter Bill Hill was in his day.

  They might have stayed up there, talking about goofy things.

  But Juvenal said, "In his day. He's still at it, isn't he?"

  And Lynn said, "Don't listen to anything he tells you."

  "I already have."

  There, and they were off again. Juvenal got comfortable on the couch with his beer and a bowl of popcorn and told her Bill Hill's plan for nationwide TV exposure, the Juvenal message--apologia, Juvenal's word--entering millions of Christian homes. Juvenal grinning as he told it, Lynn not grinning, shaking her head.

  "Why not?"

  "He's a con artist."

  "He's your friend."

  "He's still a con artist. You'll end up with nothing."

  "He hasn't offered me anything."

  "See? You think he's getting you into this for free? He sold them a package and he's making all the money. I know it, because he asked me to be his partner."

  "Tell him you'll do it."

  "I don't understand you at all," Lynn said. "He's using you and you want me to help him."

  "He's not using me if I let him. I'm agreeing to it."

  "Why?"

  "Why not?"

  "Come on, you don't hide out for years and then decide to go on national television."

  "I wasn't hiding, I was doing what I was told. Up to a point. Now I've got a choice," Juvenal said. "All right, here I am. This is what happens to me. This is what I think about it. I'm not ashamed of it, am I? And I'm not self-conscious especially. So why not? I don't make any claims, I don't say I'm an instrument of God . . . even though I might be."

  "There," Lynn said. "Though you might be. Tell me something. What do you think about when you heal people?"

  "I don't try to think about anything."

  "Do you ask God to heal them?"

  "No. I feel . . . sad, I guess. I feel sorry for whoever it is."

  "Somebody's gonna call up--or Howard Hart, that asshole'll say, 'All right, smart guy. You think you can heal people, why don't you visit hospitals and heal everybody?' "

  "I don't say I think I can heal people. I say it's happened. That's the whole point. I make no claims, so why would anybody try to shoot me down? From where? I'm here on the ground, I'm a realist, I accept everything that happens. I'm not trying to change the world."

  "Maybe you should," Lynn said.

  He said, still mildly, almost always mildly, "Make up your mind."

  "You get me confused," Lynn said. "I don't have any trouble at all talking to people, communicating, but I get with you, I don't know what to think or what I'm saying sometimes. I'll tell you, it's not like getting your record in the top forty."

  "I'm sorry," Juvenal said, "really. We're talking about, what? You're worried about people taking advantage of me. I say, but how can they if I know they're doing it? You're afraid people will challenge me, try to tear down my--what?--my veracity. But how can they if I make no claims?"

  "You don't know people. If you rock their boat, their safe beliefs, they'll come after you."

  "Then they'll be worrying the same as you are, over nothing. If I disturb people, if they say I'm a fake, a phony, I say, believe what you want. What difference does it make? If they say go to the hospital, buddy, let's see how good you are, I'll go to the hospital. I'll heal people or I won't. Either way, it'll be done. So what's the problem?"

  "You make it sound so simple."

  "Outside of maybe running out of blood."

  "Could that happen?" Like a wide-eyed little girl.

  "That's a stigmatic joke. You don't hear too many."

  How do you want it? Lynn thought.

  Go from the hairdo hotshots to the nice innocent guy and say to yourself perfect, no sham, no bullshit, great--to always know exactly where you are. Except that being close to him was not as simple as it looked. Or maybe it was only simple in principle: to be straightforward, honest; never lie or play roles or pretend or worry or get upset or angry. Only if it was momentary, controlled . . . or for fun, kidding around. Don't think so much, or feed on resentments or hangups. Be you and responsible for you. "You make me mad" was the same as saying, "You make me weigh a hundred and five pounds." The choice was yours. Don't say, "This is awful. Why is it happening to me?" Say, "Why do I think it's awful?" And find out the real reason, not the apparent one. Say, "Why shouldn't it happen to me?" And look at it quietly, objectively. Simple. But not easy. Get rid of years and years of crap cluttering your mind.

  Treat serious things seriously, but don't get heavy about it.

  She said, "What is it you want to be, a TV star?"

  He said, "Well, I've got to do something, and I don't think saints are making it these days. What do you think?"

  "No, your saints are a little too low-profile."

  "Unless I was a martyr--"

  "That's a short run," Lynn said. "How would you like to be a record promoter? I can see you with the Cobras."

  "I might like them."

  Lynn thought about it. "You know what? You probably would. Or what you could do, you could heal them. Straighten them out." She liked that idea and began to smile, thinking about it, thinking of others then . . . August Murray. She said, "What if you just devoted your life to healing assholes? Turning them into human beings."

  They discussed it in serious tones, Lynn supplying names, all kinds of names, and they seemed to be considering it, until the buzzer buzzed. Lynn said they didn't have to answer it; ten to one it was Bill Hill back again. Juvenal said, but if he's here and we're here--Lynn said all right, he can stay fifteen minutes, and buzzed the door, knowing it was Bill Hill. It wasn't.

  It was Kathy Worthington with her canvas bag, her note pad, and a flat little GE tape recorder: Kathy here to interview Lynn Faulkner (friend of Juvenal's or what?) and walking into what looked like a typical Somerset hot setup. (If the place wasn't famous for it, at least there was talk.) But even better than that, Juvenal himself was here, involved in popcorn, beer, and, obviously, the little KMA record promoter. Kathy said hi and they said hi.

  Kathy said to Juvenal, "You know, I caught your act Sunday and it wasn't bad." Trying to get a rise.

  They laughed and she didn't know why, until she became aware of the glances at each other, the grins, and began to feel the off-center, free-form mood, a couple of little kids playing house, or doctor, the barefoot miracle worker and the record promoter with her blouse half open, no bra, both of them subdued but still glowing, trying to suppress the feeling of whatever they had been up to in a dim, comfortable room on a sunny afternoon. It looked like a half-page Sunday feature, Women's Section, if she could get a few admissions rather than weasels or phony indignation.

  Kathy took out her tape recorder. They said nothing. She turned it on. They still didn't say anything. She began to ask questions, slipping into her no-bullshit reporter role:

  KATHY: Have you known each other long?

  JUVIE: We sort of grew up together.

  KATHY: You did? Where?

  JUVIE: Right here.

  KATHY: No, really . . .

  LYNN: Isn't he cute? I could eat him up. Actually we've been trying to figure out what he's gonna be. Like what he should do with his, you might say, particular talent.

  KATHY: What did you decide?
>
  LYNN: We're thinking he could hang out backstage at rock concerts and heal . . . well, certain performers.

  KATHY: Heal them? Of what?

  LYNN: I guess you've never met the Cobras.

  KATHY: Do you know what she's talking about?

  JUVIE: I have no idea.

  KATHY: Then what's so funny? No, forget it. Tell me, are you two living together?

  LYNN: We're dating.

  KATHY: You're serious?

  LYNN: Boy, are we.

  JUVIE: We're getting married.

  LYNN: We are?

  JUVIE: Isn't that what you do?

  LYNN: I haven't even thought about it.

  JUVIE: What've you been doing?

  LYNN: I guess when we have time to talk, make some plans. Yeah, why not?

  KATHY: You don't think it would be, well, strange, being married to a stigmatist? Is it stigmatic or stigmatist?

  JUVIE: I think either one.

  LYNN: Strange? Are you kidding? But he's really a neat guy. He's kind, considerate . . . absolutely honest. I just hate to think what's gonna happen when he gets on TV.

  KATHY: On what, a talk show?

  LYNN: On Howard Hart.

  KATHY: Oh . . . Do you know what you're getting into?

  JUVIE: Is it like Mike Douglas?

  KATHY: You mean you've never seen Howard Hart?

  JUVIE: I don't think so.

  LYNN: The only thing good about it, Howard hasn't seen Juvie either, so they're even.

  KATHY: Aren't you being a bit naive? In fact, I was going to ask you anyway . . . Why are you allowing yourself to be used, exploited?

  JUVIE: Am I?

  KATHY: Are you a traditionalist, a member of August Murray's group?

  JUVIE: No, I'm not.

  KATHY: Then you're being used.

  LYNN: He isn't if he knows it. He knows what's going on.

  KATHY: Then you have to be awfully naive.

  JUVIE: Why does that make you mad?

  KATHY: I'm not mad.

  JUVIE: You seem upset.

  KATHY: Because you're so fucking naive about all this.

  JUVIE: Yeah, but why does it make you mad?

  KATHY (pause): I don't know.

  JUVIE: You like what you're doing? Your work?

  KATHY: Not especially.

  JUVIE: Then why don't you do something else?

  KATHY: I've been with the paper ten years . . .

  JUVIE: And you like to write.

  KATHY: Yeah, it's what I do . . . Let me turn this goddamn thing off.

  Silence.

  End of tape.

  Chapter 21

  WHEN AUGUST MURRAY was a teen-ager he read how Saint Agapitus at age fifteen was brought before the governor of Palestrina, condemned for being a Christian, flogged, placed in a foul dungeon, had hot coals put on his head, boiling water poured over him, his jaw broken, and thrown to the lions. When the lions refused to eat him the governor had a seizure and died on the spot. "Agapitus was finally beheaded, but not before the example of his resolution had converted the tribune Anastasius."

  He read about Saint Agatha, who, upon resisting the advances of the governor of Sicily, was arrested on suspicion of being a Christian, had her flesh ripped by iron hooks, her breasts cut off, and was then thrown onto burning coals, "whereupon a violent earthquake shook the town of Catania and the governor, Quintian, fearing the people would rise up, ordered her taken back to prison." (August decided they would have raped her if they hadn't cut her breasts off..)

  August could tell you about Calocerus and Parthenius, who were burned alive; Sebastian, shot through with arrows; Victor, Nicephorus, Claudian, Dioscorus, Serapion, and Papias, pounded to death or hacked to pieces; Fabian, Florian, Dismas, of course, Justa and Rufina and Iraneus of Sirmium, all executed; old Nestor, lynched by a mob in Gaza, along with Eusebius, Nesturbus, and Zeno; about ten Theodores or Theodoras who were put to death; the triplets Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus, martyred with their grandmother, Leonilla; Gregory the Wonder Worker, also a martyr, who moved mountains, changed the course of rivers, and appointed Alexander the Charcoal Burner, in spite of his rags and dirty face, bishop of Comana in Pontus; and, of course, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Andrew, Peter, Laurence, Cosmos and Damian and Victor of Marseilles.

  It was too bad Saint Augustine was not a martyr. He took a concubine and had a son by her. In fact, from what August could find out, Augustine screwed a lot of women in North Africa before deciding to dedicate his life to Christ. Thereafter he was continually engaged in the defense of the Catholic faith against schismatics, heretics, and pagans. He died August 28, 430, "in a spirit of great courage, humility, and penitence."

  The first important paper August Murray ever wrote was entitled "What the Church Needs Today Is a Good Persecution."

  The paper wasn't the reason he was kicked out of the seminary; his English teacher, Father Skiffington, agreed with him. But it was an indication of August's problem. He had trouble with rules of conduct, blind discipline, all the no-questions-asked humility shit. He believed the Church needed fighters--anybody could see that--and not the bunch of good little mama's boys the seminary was turning out. It was true that Saint Augustine had died in a spirit of humility (and courage and penitence), but he was seventy-six years old and humility could be a wise move at that age; but not when the Church needed men who weren't afraid to stand up and defend their faith against the cowards within and the Communists without (the sons of bitches).

  August transferred to the University of Detroit, majored in sociology, minored in philosophy, and graduated cum laude.

  He joined the Catholic Laymen's League, which was dedicated to rooting out Communist fronters from the Church and clergy. But the CLL was never active enough for him. He left to found Outrage, along with the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost (membership, a hundred dollars a year), and began writing and distributing pamphlets. The first one he printed, and still his favorite, was the one about the Church needing a good persecution.

  August wasn't afraid to be persecuted. He had demonstrated against demonstrators, commie peace makers, political left-wing cowards, lesbian ERAers, fags of all kinds, marijuana creeps in Ann Arbor, equal housing, the right to work, and what's-his-name, the nigger mayor. He'd been arrested a half dozen times and finally convicted of assault, disrupting a Lenten service at Our Lady of Lasalette in Berkley, sentenced to a year probation and ordered to undergo psychiatric examination, which he ducked and they forgot about. Then a disorderly conduct arrest: distributing political literature within three hundred feet of a church, for which he was fined two hundred dollars by a chickenshit colored judge. And right now he was out on a five-hundred-dollar bond awaiting his jury trial in the assault on the guinea priest, Father Ravioli . . . Navaroli.

  The Romans used to take Christians, dip them in tar, and set them afire to light up the Colosseum. They threw them to lions, into boiling oil, crucified, decapitated, stoned, roasted alive, pressed them between boards, and tore them limb from limb. August had been fined two hundred dollars one time, put on probation another.

  In a daydream he used to serialize when he was younger--and still imagined from time to time--August was Augustus, a Christian of ancient Rome. He lived in the catacombs at a time when all the Christians were scared to death of getting caught and thrown into the arena, except Augustus. He always carried one of those short swords beneath his toga and made a specialty of avenging martyred Christians. He killed gladiators who killed Christians. He killed the guy who imported the lions. He killed soldiers who raped Christian girls and sold them into slavery. In one of his favorite sequences, Augustus would slip into the villa of a wealthy Roman, free the slaves, and assassinate the master as he lounged in his atrium eating sweetmeats and hummingbirds: see the guy cowering, whimpering, begging for mercy, and drive his sword into the Roman's fat body. One day Augustus would be captured--after killing about twenty of them--and crucified atop one of the seven hills of Rome. He woul
d take three days to die and people would come out from the city to marvel at this heroic martyr with the calm look on his handsome face. (August had always thought it would make a good movie, but could not decide who should play his part.)

  He'd be playing himself on television this Saturday, featured on Howard Hart's "Hartline" as Juvenal's closest friend and adviser and . . . maybe suggest to Howard something like, "the Ralph Nader of the Church." ". . . And now I would like to introduce a man I consider the Ralph Nader of the Church, a man whom, no doubt, you have read about in the paper numerous times as the firebrand leader of Outrage, but who possesses, I found in talking to him backstage"--continues Howard Hart--"a cool demeanor and what you might call a razor-sharp analytical mind. I give you the man who has given us Juvenal, Mr. August Murray."

  August didn't see why Hart had to have all those other people on: the kid and his mother, the psychiatrist, the priest--that was a lot of bullshit. Unless they were going to be there just in case.

  But if he went on first, yes, they could easily keep talking for two hours. Then he could suggest he be brought back on with Juvenal next week, right, and save the standbys for some other time. Otherwise Hart wouldn't even need them.

  August had enjoyed talking to Howard Hart on the phone--he had always respected the man--and was looking forward to the meeting and possible videotaping this afternoon. Hart had said they'd tape it unless he decided to go live for phone-in questions, audience participation. August hoped it would be live; there was less chance of getting edited, important words cut out. But he'd play it by ear. He wasn't worried about thinking on his feet, getting into a little give and take, with Hart playing devil's advocate to keep it lively. August was ready.

  He'd have to give Bill Hill credit for coming up with the TV idea. It had surprised him at first, the man didn't appear to have the brains of a used car salesman. But by now August had analyzed Bill Hill and had a clear reading: a hanger-on type, one of those people who liked to be seen with celebrities and hang around the edge of the limelight. Fine, as long as he didn't get in the way.