The Visitation (10 page)

I would be civil. I would be Christian.

By the time I retrieved my mail from the mailbox, I’d dealt with my anger. I’d cooled down a bit.

But the pain was still there. The Mower Man had gotten to me. His words and actions, like slow venom, were still working, and by the time I reached my front door I felt nineteen again. Not young, just burdened with an old sorrow, a deep loneliness, a familiar despair.

Certain smells, like the odor of your grade school or even the scent of an old girlfriend, remain in your memory forever. An old song can bring back the feelings you had when you first fell in love. You may think you don’t remember how the back door of your childhood home sounded when it swung shut, but if you could hear it again, you would know the sound.

As I sat on the couch and picked up my banjo, I knew this feeling. I knew when and where I’d felt it before. I was nineteen at the time, sitting alone on the bed in my room in Seattle. I still remembered the “new house” smell of that room, the texture of the Sears bedspread, the feel and color of the blue-green carpet on the floor, the exact position of my Glen Campbell poster on the wall. I had a banjo in my hands then too—a brown, fifty-dollar Harmony with a plastic resonator, and I could have been playing the same song I was playing now.

I was nineteen, alone, and there was absolutely nothing happening in my life.

It was a pivotal moment, I suppose, frozen in memory like a historic photo from the
LIFE
magazine archives, a passage out of childhood and a painful end to illusions. I’d been in love, but lost the girl; I’d been a prophet of God, but proven wrong; I’d prayed for the sick, but they didn’t get well; God had called me to a faraway city, but hadn’t met me there; my friends and I were going to change the world for God, but they had all scattered after graduation. I had been a young man of such hope and faith, but now my hope and faith were gone, slowly suffocated by disappointment and disillusionment. I felt desperately alone with no idea where to go next or why I should even want to go there.

Sitting on my couch at forty-five, banjo in hand, I could feel it all. The lawn mower man brought it all back. He was trying to be Jesus. He spoke of Marian. It made me realize how much I missed them both.

T
HE
Harvester
didn’t come out again until Tuesday, and when it did, Penny Adams was on the front page, holding her right hand high and wiggling it for the camera. It was a great picture and a great article, but oddly enough—and virtually unheard of in our little town—a big, out-of-town paper actually “scooped” Nancy Barrons on a local story. Someone—I’m guessing it was Penny’s mother, Bonnie—called the Spokane
Herald
, and they sent a photographer and reporter to Antioch on Thursday afternoon. The story ran in the “People” section of the
Herald
on Friday, with a color picture of Penny and Arnold Kowalski standing on either side of Father Al and the crucifix visible on the wall behind them. But the outside news coverage didn’t stop there.

Reporters and producers from three different Spokane stations saw the Spokane
Herald
article on Friday morning and had their crews out to Our Lady’s before ten o’clock. Al, Penny, and Arnold posed in front of the crucifix again and did their on-camera interviews with the crucifix specially lit by TV lights. Bonnie, being Penny’s mother and therefore worthy of quoting, elbowed her way into the story and got her face on television. The camera operators made sure to record the crowd of pilgrims sitting in the pews waiting for it to happen again, and also got sweeping shots of the outside of the church. When I drove by about noon, I saw the news crews still walking up and down the highway, cameras aimed at the church, the highway through town, Mack’s, Judy’s, the street signs, and any people who might happen along. Our town—even our street signs and Maude Henley walking her three-legged toy poodle—had suddenly become interesting. But it didn’t stop there.

Anything interesting enough to get the attention of the Spokane
Herald
is interesting enough to make the wire services. That same Friday morning, major newspapers and news broadcasters all over the country were reading the wire copy, perusing the wire photos of Penny, Father Al, Bonnie, and Arnold, and raising their eyebrows. They wanted more. The big newspapers called the
Herald
. The networks called their Spokane affiliates.

Of course, by this time the local reporters were after sidebars and spin-offs to the core story. Sally Fordyce made the Saturday editions and the weekend television news, her story corroborated by an anonymous, silhouetted member of the local Baptist congregation and the testimony of a police department spokesman who declined to appear on camera. By Sunday, the pilgrims coming to Our Lady’s had doubled. That became a story in itself, which further increased the number of out-of-town reporters.

On Sunday, all the Christians and ministers in town were gathered at their respective churches, making them easy to locate and interview on camera as their services let out. Sid Maher expressed astonishment as the reporters interviewed him standing in front of his church, while Burton Eddy at least sneered civilly as he expressed skepticism in front of his. Bob Fisher had the Word of God to comfort him and that was enough. Morgan Elliott was indignant that such a private matter would become so public.

When a cameraman and reporter from Seattle came by Antioch Pentecostal Mission, Kyle didn’t want to limit God but still called for caution.

Dee Baylor was waiting in the parking lot with a whole new spin-off. She had other witnesses camera-ready, Blanche had video and photographs, and Adrian had written records. By two in the after- noon, three stations from the west side of the state and two from the east side were aiming their cameras at the clouds while Dee provided the shape-by-shape commentary. That little twist on the story attracted more attention, which drew more pilgrims, which better filled the parking lot. All of which made it a better news story.

And people
did
start seeing things up there.

BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON
, the Wheatland Motel had filled eight of its ten rooms, something Norman Dillard, the owner, hadn’t seen in years. By the time a married couple and the man’s brother-in-law arrived from Yakima to take the ninth room, Norman was beginning to reel off information like a tour guide.

“The weeping crucifix can be seen at Our Lady of the Fields Catholic church, up the highway and on the left, open twenty-four hours. Also, I understand they’re seeing Jesus in the clouds at Antioch Pentecostal Mission, one block over and up the hill. Well, yes, I suppose you could stand anywhere, but Antioch Mission is the traditional place to gather, and facilitators are there to answer your questions. For angels—well, that could happen anywhere, any time. That’s part of the thrill. Yes, cameras are allowed at all locations. Cloud watching will be pretty good for this afternoon, but the forecast is for decreasing clouds this evening and clear skies tomorrow, so keep that in mind as you make your plans.”

Just outside, an older couple Norman had never seen before halted abruptly as the wife pointed at the hedge bordering the driveway. “I see him!”

The husband, somewhere near eighty and squinting through trifocals, studied the hedge. “Where?”

She was digging for her palm-sized camera. “Right there! Right there in those leaves!”

He muttered, “You’re seeing things already?”

She yanked him by the arm. “You have to be standing here!”

He stood where she put him, studied the hedge, and never got the puzzled look off his face while she snapped pictures.

Norman signed in the new arrivals and gave them the key to Room Nine. Only one vacant room left, and that older couple was heading his way.

Hm. This religious stuff was good for business.

JACK MCKINSTRY
noticed a lot of new faces coming through Mack’s Sooper Market as well. The news crews stopped in for crackers, chips, and soft drinks. Out-of-towners were buying whole loads of groceries as well as film and batteries for their cameras. Others were stocking up on carry-along snacks for the vigils under the clouds or below the crucifix. He and his wife, Lindy, had little time to rest during checkouts at the cash registers.

“Hey,” he called to Lindy, “what if we dress up our employees like angels? You know, little angel wings or something?”

He was at cash register two; she was at cash register three. She started speaking louder so she could concentrate—“Two at fifty, dollar twenty-nine, dollar forty, three ninety-nine . . .”—and then vetoed the idea with her eyes.

He chuckled as he counted cans of beans, sliding them along the counter with shuffleboard precision. Well, maybe that idea was a little too daring, but the way business was picking up lately, one couldn’t be too quick to frown at new ideas.

Mack’s was a family business, begun by Jack’s father back when misspelling
Super
was still clever. It wasn’t a large place, but Jack worked hard to keep pace with the big-town supermarkets while maintaining a neighborhood grocery attitude. The store had four checkout counters with one designated “Ten Items or Less,” but the laser bar-code readers were still something he’d only read about. The automatic doors were still activated by pressure pads instead of motion detectors, but Jack saw no need to upgrade them as long as they worked and the customers didn’t mind waiting a little. He kept a magazine rack at each checkout with a fresh rotation of
Cosmopolitan
,
People
, and
The National Enquirer
, but drew the line at any magazine that had to have its cover concealed. He’d finally put in a video rack, but only at Lindy’s insistence. At heart, Jack was a grocery man, the kind of guy who did his own meat cutting, bought produce from local farmers, and always provided floor space for church bake sales.

“And that will be . . .” He scanned the register’s display. “Forty-nine eighty-two.” He got the money, gave the customer the receipt, Ronny the box boy took over, and Jack was free for a moment. “Hey Nevin, the widow called. She’s wondering where you are.”

Nevin Sorrel, a gaunt-looking, blue-jeaned ranch worker in his thirties, had been waiting by the Rent-a-Vac carpet cleaners, fidgeting and fretting. He hurried forward and spoke in quick, low tones, “Jack, I can’t find those groceries nowhere.”

“Those four sacks you bought?”

“Yeah, they were the ones.”

“Ronny took them out to your truck. I saw that much.”

“But they ain’t there!”

“I saw Ronny put ’em in.”

It upset Nevin to have to repeat himself. “They ain’t there!”

Jack stared at him a moment. “So . . . what am I supposed to do?”

“Have you seen ’em?”

Now Jack was getting impatient. “Yeah! I saw Ronny put ’em in the back of your truck and that was the last time I saw ’em. Mrs. Macon is wondering where you are. She sent you down here two hours ago and she wants her strawberries.”

That was no comfort to Nevin whatsoever. He started reliving the past two hours. “I got in the truck, drove out toward the Macon place, I got sleepy . . .”

“Wait. You got sleepy?”

“Yeah. I pulled over and fell asleep, and when I woke up the groceries were gone.”

Jack was amused even as he realized it was rude. “Well, there you are. You got ripped off.” Nevin stared at him blankly, so Jack expounded. “Somebody stole the groceries while you were sawing logs.”

Nevin had a hard time getting that to sink in. “What am I gonna tell Mrs. Macon?”

IT WAS BECOMING
a fruitful day for sightings. As the number of pilgrims in town increased, so did the sightings of Jesus; and as more Catholics arrived, so did the Virgin Mary. It reminded me of a large scale, grown-up Easter-egg hunt. Everywhere you looked, folks were scouring the town—searching the sky, the potholes in the roads, the bark of trees, the water stains in ceiling tiles—hoping to see the Savior or his mother looking back. Both Jesus and his earthly mother appeared on the back of the highway sign denoting how many more miles it was to Coulee City and the junction with Highway 174. Mary did a solo appearance in the growth ring pattern where a tree trimmer sawed a rotting limb off the big willow tree next to Sawyer Memorial Playground. The pavement stones on the front steps of the library drew attention, but Catholics and Protestants were divided as to whether it was Jesus or Mary. The most unusual sighting I heard of was the face of Jesus beckoning from the mildew on the shower tiles in Room Five at the Wheatland Motel. Norman didn’t know what to do about that one—whether to clean a dirty shower or desecrate a holy shrine.

As for me, I finally managed to catch John Billings at home. It turned out he had been gone most of the week installing a sprinkler system in Missoula, Montana.

“Hey, what happened to my lawn?” he asked me the moment I walked over to talk with him.

It seemed the Mower Man only mowed the lawn until he had his talk with me. Now John had a ring of mown grass around the outside of his yard and a wide border of shaggy lawn closest to his house.

“I saw a guy mowing your grass on Thursday,” I said, eager to hear his reaction.

John was a tough old bird in his fifties who took great pride in his yard. He was a bit miffed. “Who?”

“Uh . . .” I almost answered, but then realized I didn’t have an answer I could actually use. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me who he was. But he was driving your Snapper around the yard, cutting the grass. I thought he was working for you.”

“He wasn’t working for me.” He looked around his yard in disgust. “I wouldn’t hire a guy who only does half a lawn. Did he think I was going to like this?” Then he jerked his head around to look at me as if something had finally sunk in. “He was driving my mower?”

I could see the Snapper from where we were standing and I pointed it out. “That one right there.”

“On Thursday.”

“Yeah.”

“Ever seen him before? What did he look like?”

Well,
who
he looked like would have made a better question, but I proceeded to tell John what I saw, leaving out the details of the conversation we had. I was feeling an odd mix of triumph and mystification that I tried not to show: I
knew
that guy was some kind of phony . . . but if that was the case, who was he really?