But she couldn’t say that to Brad. All she could say was, “I love you, brother.”
And she meant it.
“I love you too, Carrie.”
Suddenly she heard voices rising in the Big Room.
“I’ve got to go. Call me soon.”
“Will do.”
As Carrie turned away from the phone, she saw Augusta coming toward her.
“Honestly, Sister. That wasn’t my hair. Mine’s long and thick. That one Pilgrim gave you is short and fine.”
“It’s okay, Augusta.” She brushed past the old woman. “What’s going on in the Big Room?”
“Probably another fight. You know how they are.”
But it wasn’t a fight. The regulars—Rider, Dandy, Lefty, Dirty Harry, Poppy, Bigfoot, Indian, Stony, One-Thumb George—and a few of the newer ones were clustered around one of the long tables. She saw Dan standing on the far side of the circle as Dr. Joe bent over Preacher who sat ramrod straight, holding his hands before his face.
“A miracle!” Pilgrim was screeching, dancing and gyrating among the tables of the Big Room. “I always knew Preacher had the power, and now it’s come! It’s a miracle! A fucking miracle!”
Carrie pushed closer.
Preacher was staring at his hands, muttering. “I can see! Praise God, I can see!”
She stepped back and stared at the short strand of gray hair in her hand. It hadn’t come from Augusta. She recognized it now. It was the same length and color as the stray strands Carrie had been trimming from the Virgin a short while ago. It must have stuck to her sleeve downstairs and fallen into the soup as she was adding the ingredients.
A miracle...
She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to grab Pilgrim’s hands and join him in a whirling dervish.
Oh, Pilgrim, she thought as she hurried back through the kitchen and down to the subcellar. If only you knew how right you are!
Yes, it was a miracle. And Carrie had a feeling it would not be the last.
‡
“Preacher can really see again,” Dan said for the third or fourth time. Evening had come and they were cleaning up the Big Room after dinner. “Not well, mind you. He can recognize his hand in front of his face and not much more, but at least that’s something. He’s been totally blind for forty years.”
Carrie had decided to hold off telling Dan about the piece of the Virgin’s hair in the soup. He’d only go into his Doubting Thomas routine. She’d wait till she had more proof. But she couldn’t resist priming him for the final revelation.
She glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot of the volunteers in the kitchen.
“Do you think it’s a miracle?” she said softly.
Dan didn’t look up as he wiped one of the long tables. “You know what I think about miracles.”
“How do you explain it then?”
“José says it might have been hysterical blindness all along, and now he’s coming out of it. He’s scheduled him for a full eye exam tomorrow.”
“Well, far be it from me to disagree with Doctor Joe.”
Dan stopped in mid wipe and stared at her. “Aw, Carrie. Don’t tell me you think—”
“Yes!” she said in a fierce whisper. “I think a certain someone has announced her presence.”
“Come on, Carrie—”
“You and José believe in your hysterical blindness, if you wish. All I know is that Preacher began to see again within hours of a certain someone’s arrival.”
Dan opened his mouth, then closed it, paused, then shook his head. “Coincidence, Carrie.”
But he didn’t sound terribly convinced.
Carrie couldn’t repress a smile. “We’ll see.”
“We’ll see what?”
“How many ‘coincidences’ it takes to convince you.”
Fruitless Vigil in Tompkins Square
Approximately 1,000 people gathered last night for a candlelight prayer vigil in Tompkins Square Park. Surrounded by knots of curious homeless, many of whom call the park home, the predominantly female crowd prayed to the Virgin Mary in the hope that she would manifest herself in the park.
Sightings of a lone woman, described as “glowing faintly”, and identified as the Blessed Virgin, have been reported with steadily increasing frequency all over the Lower East Side during the past few weeks.
Despite many recitations of the Rosary, no manifestation occurred. Many members of the crowd remained undaunted, however, vowing to return next Sunday evening.
(The New York Post)
SIXTEEN
Manhattan
“Something bothering you, José?”
Dan and Dr. Joe ambled crosstown after splitting a sausage-and-pepper pizza and a pitcher of beer at Nino’s on St. Mark’s and Avenue A. José had been unusually quiet tonight.
“Bothering me? I don’t know. Nothing bad or anything like that, just...I don’t know.”
“That’s the first time you’ve put that many words together in a row all night, and six of them were ‘I don’t know.’ What gives?”
José said, “I don’t know,” then laughed. “I...aw hell, I guess I can tell you: I think two of my AIDS patients have been cured.”
Dan felt an anticipatory tightening in his chest and he wasn’t sure why.
“You’re sure?”
“It’s not just my diagnosis. They were both anemic, both had Kaposi’s when I’d seen them in July. They came in last week and their skin had cleared and their hematocrits were normal. I sent them to Beekman for a full work up. The results came back today.”
“And?”
“They’re clear.”
“Cured?”
Dan saw José’s head nod in the dark. “Yep. They’re now HIV neg. Their peripheral smears are normal, their CD4 cell counts are normal, their skin lesions are gone. Not a single goddamn trace that they were ever exposed to HIV. Hell, they both used to be positive for hepatitis B surface antigen and now even that’s gone.”
José sounded as if he was going to cry.
“But how—?”
“Nothing I did. Just gave them the usual cocktail, and let me tell you, man, they weren’t all that reliable about taking their meds. Fucking miracle, that’s what it is. Medical fucking miracle.”
Dan’s mouth went dry. Talk of miracles did that to him lately. So did talk of people seeing the Virgin Mary in his neighborhood.
“Miracle. You mean like...Preacher?”
“I can’t say much about Preacher. I’ve got no medical records on him from when he was blind, so I can’t say anything about the condition of his retinas when he couldn’t see. All I can say is that his vision has improved steadily until it’s almost twenty-twenty now. But...these two AIDS patients, they were documented cases.”
Dan sensed a certain hesitancy in José.
“I wouldn’t happen to know these two patients, would I?”
José hesitated, then sighed. “Normally I wouldn’t tell you, but they’re going to be in all the medical journals soon, and from then on they’ll be news-show and talk-show commodities, so I guess it’s okay to tell you they’re both regulars at your Loaves and Fishes. You’ll hear their names soon enough.”
Dan stumbled a step.
“Oh my God.”
“Well, you knew some of them had to be HIV positive.”
Dan tried to remember who hadn’t been around lately.
“Dandy and Rider?”
“You guessed it.”
“They had it but they’re cured?”
“Yep. Both with a history of IV drug use, formerly HIV positive, now HIV neg. You figure it out.”
Dan was trying to do just that.
He knew Carrie wouldn’t have to think twice about an explanation when she heard the news: the Virgin did it.
And how was he supposed to counter that? Damned if he wasn’t beginning to think she might be right. First Preacher gets his sight back, then people all over the area start sighting someone they think is the Virgin Mary, and now two of their regulars at St. Joe’s are cured of AIDS.