The Miracles of Ordinary Men (8 page)

“Ah.” Father Jim nodded. “Mario. Yes. He's a good man.”

“So — what? What does that mean?”

“It might mean nothing.” The priest began to stack the plates on the counter. “I certainly don't mean to suggest that he saw the wings only because he was a good person, if that's what you think.”

Sam pushed his chair back. The dishes. “I can do that,” he insisted.

“You think I'm actually going to wash? That's what the dishwasher's for, dear boy.”

“You have a dishwasher?” Sam asked, amused. “How — ”

“Modern?” said the priest. “Yes. But practical. Less time spent ministering to plates means more time ministering to people.”

“The wayward souls of the universe?” Sam couldn't help himself.

“Naturally.” Father Jim grinned. “Keeping in mind, of course, that my soul is more wayward than most.”

“They call that the blind leading the blind, no?”

“Yes,” said the priest. “That's exactly what they say.”

—

The light that filtered through the windows of the study was green, like the trees.

“When I was in Portugal, I blessed a woman who had an arm growing out of her back — the arm could work, but the fingers had no muscle tone. She kept the arm hidden under clothes, so that it looked like a dowager's hump.
That
was strange. An unborn identical twin, that's the scientific explanation. Still, it was a fluke, no purpose. Those,” and the priest pointed at Sam, “are entirely different.”

“If that's true, then what the hell are they for?”

Father Jim smiled. “Playing chess with the Almighty is tiresome business, Sam.” He flipped another page in the book he held and stopped. “Here.
If wings were not the essential element in determining the difference between a hawk and an airplane
,
they were even less so in the recognition of angels
.”

“That doesn't sound very biblical.”

“It's Marquez. A short story. I thought you'd know it, being the English teacher and all.”

“Oh. So I've come all the way to Tofino just to sit and talk Marquez?”

“Perhaps.” The priest lit a cigar. “We could also talk about Kafka. Although your own transformation, I think, is somewhat more beautiful.”

“More beautiful,” Sam echoed. Wings, instead of countless tiny, waving arms. “Gregor Samsa dies at the end of that book.”

“He does indeed.” Father Jim offered him a cigar. “Much different from real life, you see, where everyone lives forever.”

“I went to see a doctor,” Sam said. “She saw scars. You see wings, and so did Emma, so did Father Mario. What does that mean?”

The priest shrugged. “People see what they want to see, Sam.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Isn't it?” the priest said. “Some people see magical things at every corner. And some people train themselves because they would rather see nothing. What more do you want me to say?”

Sam threw out his hand. “I don't know. Why you, then? Why Father Mario? Why Emma?”

“Or,” the priest countered, “why
not
everyone else?”

“Yes. Yes, exactly.”
This time, he wasn't surprised when the other man shrugged, when he lifted his hands, when his shoulders said
no one can know.

—

Eventually, of course, he told the priest about the cat. The surge of power through his fingers, the crackle of electricity in the air. And Chickenhead, staring up at him where before there'd been only death.

“Ah,” said the priest. They stood outside in the clearing while Father Jim chopped wood, his hands rough and confident around the axe. “That's interesting.”

“Interesting? That's it?”

Father Jim shrugged and split another log. “I was never really one for that story,” he said. “The Lazarus episode. It always seemed a bit much.”

“That's not very priestly.”

“Perhaps.” The other man grinned. “But then, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would tell you I've never been much of a priest.”

Sam scuffed his shoes in the dirt and did not answer. The wings seemed to stretch of their own accord, sliding across his shoulder blades and out into the air. “So — what? You don't believe it? You don't believe me?”

“That's different,” said Father Jim. “When we talk of Lazarus, that story — that's what it is. A story. I have no eyewitnesses, no one with whom to consult. And we know, historically, there were magicians at the time of Christ who went around the land performing ‘miracles' just like this. People who woke from comas. Stuff like that. Who's to say that that's not what happened?”

“So you're saying,” Sam said, feeling oddly let down, “that you don't believe any of it.”

“No.” Father Jim rested the axe against the ground. “I'm saying, Sam, that it's more of a mystery than anyone wants to admit. God — you have no idea about God.
I
have no idea about God. All we can do is guess, and try to follow where those guesses might lead.”

“But you're supposed to know,” said Sam. He bent down and picked a handful of grass from the ground. The blades quivered in his hand. “I need someone to
know.
What am I supposed to do?”

Father Jim gathered the split logs and lifted them onto the woodpile before answering. When he looked back at Sam, he seemed genuinely surprised. “Why would you think to ask me that when the miracle is happening to you?”

—

“Tell me,” the priest said at another point, “about Chickenhead.”

“What about her?” Chickenhead, it seemed, was growing soft. The brothers fawned over her like grandparents, and she'd taken to Father Jim like no one else Sam had ever seen. “Surely there are more productive things to say.”

“The bond between human and animal is always interesting,” Father Jim said. He grinned. “And if what you say is true, then perhaps yours is a stronger bond than most.”

Very well. Chickenhead
.
Chickenhead had come into his life six years ago this past May, a sudden surprise one morning when he'd gone to take out the trash. Something sharp in the bag had clipped her ear and she'd let out a little hiss that for some reason had reminded him of Julie. He'd looked in the can and there she was, wet and bedraggled and bleeding from the gash on her ear. After a moment's blank stare, he reached in and picked her up, all bones and air and fur.

Then she was his, and that was that. Aloof and pissy and rather heavier today than she'd been six years ago, but still his. Chickenhead. To the best of his knowledge, Father Jim was the only other person in the world who'd been able to pet her, although Sam's mother had tried. Given another six years or so, she might have been able to wear the cat down.

“And she can see the wings,” said the priest.

“Yes.”

Father Jim chuckled and ruffled a hand through the cat's fur. “I guess this gives new meaning to nine lives, doesn't it?”

Sam grunted, not wanting to laugh. He was tired of the jokes. “What does it mean?” he said, for the umpteenth time. “Should I — I don't know. Should I be expecting her to talk
anytime soon, or something?”

“I expect, Sam,” the priest said, his hands still steady, calm, “that this is less about her, and more about you.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

Father Jim shrugged. “The miracle came right from your hands. You can't deny or ignore that. Wings can be chalked up to a hallucination, but bringing someone back from the dead makes you extraordinary. It means that there are amazing things in store for
you.
Not for the cat.” Then he smiled — a sad smile, the light of God lurking deep in his tired face. “You don't hear much more about Lazarus, either. Even if it was only a story.”

—

They left on Saturday, and hit the deer late that morning, just before they reached Cathedral Grove. Sam flicked his turn signal and moved into the oncoming lane to avoid a hunk of debris on the road, and when he moved back, the deer ran out from the trees and into the car.

He felt the thud, saw in one long, panned shot the deer's shock and the sudden blossom of its fear. The Jetta cracked and crumpled and came to a lurching halt. For an instant, only that, the world was silent. Then Chickenhead hissed and Father Jim ran a calming hand through her fur.

“Are you all right?” he said, meaning Sam.

“I'm fine.”

The hood was crooked and glass from the shattered headlights shone dimly on the road. A broken moan came from in front of the car.

Then his hands began to tingle, and everything else went out of his head.

Sam got out and closed the car door. No one had stopped. The road was inky black, glistening with fresh-fallen rain.

In front of his car, the deer lay dying. It was a young doe, not quite a year old. The eyes that followed Sam were large with terror. The impact had broken the deer's collarbone— several ribs poked through its torso, the whiteness of bone gleaming stark against dark red flesh. The deer's rear legs were bent at strange angles, the outermost leg still trapped beneath the car, and its heart pumped furiously beneath a thin layer of skin and muscle, each throb adding to Sam's own rush of adrenaline and fear.

He'd watched a student die once, back in his first year of teaching. A fight in the school parking lot — always about drugs in that part of the city — had ended in gunshots. He'd rushed outside in time to see the perpetrator drive away, and had held Steve's head until the ambulance came, stroking his brow and saying three words over and over.
You'll be okay. You'll be okay.
The life had ebbed from the student's eyes like a thinning swarm of fireflies. Flicker, flicker, and nothing.

He felt the same now, crouched by the deer. Except that this time his hands tingled with fever and the air around him shone. The wings were a steady pull against his back; were he to look over his shoulder, he felt sure he'd see them glowing. The car door opened and closed. A moment later, Father Jim stood behind him.

“Do you have a knife?” he asked.

What an odd thing for a priest to say. “No.” He was out of breath, as though he'd run into the deer himself. He thought of Chickenhead. He thought of his mother. He closed his eyes and touched the deer.

A warm rush of air, and then nothing. When he opened his eyes, the deer was dead.

“I take it,” Father Jim said after the first moment of shock, “that this isn't quite what happened with your cat.”

Sam couldn't speak for a moment. “No.” The deer's eyes were still open, but the terror was gone, the surface of its eyes glassy and unfocused. It was a mess of blood and flesh and broken bones. It did not — what was it that people always said about death? — it did not look peaceful. It looked
interrupted.
It looked terrible.

Sam stood and marched into the trees. The ground beneath his feet was spongy with moss and rotting leaves. The trees blocked much of the daylight, but the wings shone milky white, showing him all of the roots and debris on the ground. He walked until the sound of traffic was muffled almost completely, and then he stopped, and put a hand against the nearest tree. His hands were cold now, the tingling gone from his fingers. He closed his eyes and saw the deer, mangled and dead. His mother, lying cold in the morgue. And Chickenhead, alive and well, who waited in the car.

He bent and picked a handful of earth from the ground — mud, rotting leaves, small stones. Then he arced his arm and let fly, and the debris thwacked
against the nearest tree. Again, more stones this time. And again. By the time Father Jim came to stand beside him, minutes or hours later, it was a rhythm, almost a dance. Stoop, scoop, thwack
.

“Someone stopped,” said the priest. “They've called the wildlife authorities, and a tow truck for the car.”

“The car will be fine.” He threw another handful of dirt. “Is Chickenhead okay?”

“She's all right. Sam.” Father Jim stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. “Sam. It could have gone on for hours like that.”

“Still.”
Thwack.
“A knife — even a gun — would have been somewhat less spectacular,
wouldn't you say?” The deer could be floating in front of the trees right now. Energy particles floating in the air, just like his mother.

“They'll be here soon,” Father Jim said. “We should go back. Be careful where you step.”

“I can see in the dark,” Sam said, mid-swing, and he choked on a bout of hysterical laughter. “Didn't I tell you?”

The priest said nothing.

“Do you
ever
crack?” Sam turned sharply to face the other man. “I just killed a deer with one touch of my hand. Don't you find that strange? Oh, but nothing surprises a man of God — I forgot.”

“Plenty of things surprise me,” Father Jim said. His face was lost in shadow, his voice both long-suffering and stern. “Come on, Sam.”

Suddenly the anger sluiced from his bones. They trudged back to the road in silence, Father Jim cautiously picking his way through the undergrowth. Sam, less careful, followed the glow of his wings and stared into the surrounding green. The trees loomed overhead and the entire world was dank and dark and smelled of night, of old decay. His hands were filthy — too late, he realized he had no way of cleaning them up. He felt as though he were walking in circles, as though he'd been lost in the forest for days. The trees he'd hit were lost now. He'd never find them again.

When they reached the road, the ranger and the tow truck were already there. The driver of the tow truck was barely five feet tall and carried a blue-green Slurpee, from which he took noisy sips. He looked as though he couldn't hold up the drink, never mind take a hitch to the Jetta. An orange pylon sat a few yards ahead, toppled against the road like a lopsided Halloween hat.