Jeffrey
B. Romanczuk
4,703 words
© J.B. Romanczuk
How could there be anything to the gesture itself? Jack, walking south on Broad Street, glanced at the man exiting a shoe store and heading north with a heavy limp. Reminded of when he had broken two toes landing wrong during a basketball game and couldn’t walk right for four weeks, he made eye contact with the poor guy. Despite an instinct not to, Jack curled the fingers of his right hand. As he uncurled his hand, like a chrysanthemum blooming for the lame man, Jack said, “Poof.”
There was nothing to the word, was there? Close up, the second thing Jack noticed about the man, after the watery eyes, was the uneven gait. But in the last few steps before Jack and the man passed each other, he noticed the fellow was no longer hobbling, but walking with a cadence similar to his own.
Jack’s eyes flashed over his right shoulder quizzically. At the same instant, the unlame man looked back, mirroring Jack’s disbelief. Then the man winked at him and Jack smiled. The two shrugged. Just before they turned away from each other, the man mouthed a “thank you” and kept walking. Jack continued with his shopping, not wishing to question such good providence. Even so, before he stepped into the hat shop Jack closely examined the front and back of his right hand.
“So, you’re telling me you’re some kind of healing magician?”
“I’m just telling you how it went,” Jack said to his wife.
“Do you feel all right?”
“How do you mean?” He could tell by her tone Judy was not being sarcastic.
“Do you feel any different? Special?” She hinted. “Stronger.”
“Nope.”
“Good,” Judy said. “You don’t look any different either. It couldn’t be.”
“But it honestly felt like I was making something good happen,” Jack said. Judy was studying him. “As you say, it couldn’t be.”
Jack knew he woke late when he tasted the coffee. Judy left for work ten minutes before he usually got up. Most of the time she readied a cup of coffee beside Jack’s sandwich for the day. When Jack woke on time, he appreciated the coffee; the sandwich was another matter. Judy knew Jack wouldn’t eat lunch if she didn’t leave the sandwich and knew he never ate breakfast, so she left the coffee.
Jack thought about nuking it in the microwave for a minute since he was already late. Instead he gulped the cooled coffee and grimaced. Despite the perfect milk discoloration Judy had no doubt applied, the coffee’s unmistakable room temperature flowed cruelly to Jack’s morning stomach. He looked at the clock—9:12. The cup had been sitting over two hours.
Jack gulped and winced once more. His first period Comp class had no doubt cleared the room with glee a half hour earlier. Their weekly essays were due today. However, Jack didn’t mind giving his freshmen another couple days because he hadn’t finished grading last week’s compositions. If he showered and dressed quickly, he could make the 10:30 British Authors. Jack looked into the mug and before he could give it a thought, his face twitched. He poured the remaining coffee down the drain.
After fifty minutes of asking questions about “The Fox” and “Two Blue Birds,” Jack cut across two campus lawns en route to his newly found lunch spot, feeling okay. Although the answers had been slow at first, about twenty minutes into the discussion a student mentioned Lawrence’s use of love triangles. Everybody had something to say after that and before Jack gave lunch another thought, the buzzer ended the third hour.
On the other side of the Sciences Hall was the campus radio/TV building. Between the two and just south of each was a huge satellite dish where Jack liked to eat lunch now that the weather was pleasant. He had discovered this great lunch place only this semester, in early spring. Jack had no idea how large the dish was or all it could pick up, but its cement and steel base made the perfect table and bench combination.
He sniffed the bag. Ham and cheese? Jack opened the bag and pulled out the sandwich. Right again. It wasn’t such a tough guess, really. Only when they ran out of ham and cheese did Judy make tuna, or rarely, peanut butter and jelly—whatever she made herself. Although he would have preferred no lunch at all, he gave up trying to convince Judy. Every morning the sandwich and coffee were on the counter. “You can’t skip two of three meals,” she would say, like three daily meals was not only a universal tradition, but a sacred rite.
Lunch did give Jack a valid excuse to be out on the lawns, at his favorite spot on campus. He looked up. Even though it was a warm April day, there was no blue in the sky, only white and gray. Jack knew he’d better get back to his office before the rain started. He was a fast eater anyway, and today he had appointments at 12:45 and 1:15. Lightning cracked the sky just beyond the stadium. Its thunder started as a low grumble, then picked up volume until it faded. Two large bites finished his sandwich.
As he started back to his office, he thought he saw a bolt of lightning bounce directly through the focus of the satellite dish. Jack tried to touch one of the support bars, but it was too hot and wet. Sparks jumped from the pole to his finger tips. He fell back on the grass. Pushing himself up on his hands, Jack waited for the thunder. It never came. Weird, he thought, just like last time. The raindrops on his arms sizzled like cooking oil in a warm pan as Jack rushed back to his office.
Driving home, Jack could barely concentrate on the road. He hardly remembered what kind of help he gave the two students who stopped in before sixth period, and how he got through that class. Traffic was unusually heavy this afternoon. Most days Jack beat the rush hour traffic, but now the cars were four lanes across, bumpers nearly touching as far behind and before Jack as he could see. But oncoming traffic zipped by at road speed. It was either construction or an accident. Since there were no temporary orange signs up, Jack braced himself for the worst.
The end of the conversation he had with the second student, John, came back to him. John did not “get” D.H. Lawrence, an admission which surprised Jack.
“But you were the one who helped everyone else understand Keats when we were doing his poems.”
“Keats is cake compared to Lawrence,” John said. “Prof, if I tell you something weird, you won’t hold it against me, will you?”
“My appreciation for weirdness grows daily.”
“I think I’m Keats reincarnated.”
Jack looked at the student, trying to gauge sincerity, and surrendered. “Well, Mr. Keats, I think you need to give D.H. your best effort.”
“We can only do the best we can with the talents we’re given, you know.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Jack said. Then as John stood to go, Jack added, “Don’t die so young this time around, okay?”
It was a three-car wreck, the middle car getting the worst of it. Jack came to the scene just as the ambulance arrived. A highway patrol cop halted him to get the ambulance through. Jack stopped less than six feet from where the middle car came to rest. It was a little red sporty job, but he couldn’t tell what make anymore. He saw no one inside until the cop waved him by. Jack was maneuvering around the patrol car cordon just as the paramedics pulled the driver from her vehicle, her hair matted with blood and the left sleeve of her blouse soaked tight to her arm from the cuts. Mercifully, she was unconscious. As the ambulance crew put her on the stretcher, Jack noticed her left leg hanging grotesquely and he shuddered. Every time he drove, he feared the same fate for himself.
He took his right hand off the stick on the way by and aimed it at the woman as he said, “Poof.” Continuing by, he didn’t see the driver of the middle car get off the stretcher and walk over to her smashed up vehicle. She looked at the car and began to cry. Her tears made her mascara run, leaving two small black dots on the left sleeve of her favorite blouse. The cop and the two paramedics looked at each other, mutually confused.
“Are you coming with me to visit Luke this weekend?”
“Is it that time of month again, already?”
“’Fraid so, Jack.” Their son was diagnosed autistic at four years old and had lived with them until he turned twelve. Luke was fourteen now and had been living at St. Jude’s for nearly two years. Judy had visited faithfully once a month. Jack visited often, too, but not faithfully. Jack hated to admit it, but he didn’t miss the boy. What he did miss was Luke at three, saying “Wants to eat,” calling a drink a “bink,” bouncing into their bed on a Saturday morning to say “Vake up.” When Jack thought about those days, the nostalgia fog left him wondering if they were only a good dream. Gradually Luke stopped saying everything, and by five only babbled when tired or hooted incoherently when anxious or angry. He forgot he was ever toilet trained, as well. A parent can clean up after a child for so long before it gets phenomenally disheartening. Later, Luke began to bite himself or them when frustrated. Other manifestations of autism came and went, but finally it came down to Judy not being physically strong enough to coerce Luke. So they institutionalized him.
It wasn’t like Luke missed them. He knew them, ever excited to see Jack and Judy. He knew there was a connection, but his parents were no more special to Luke than their car, or their house with its treat cabinet and backyard playset. Still, he wasn’t some wild animal. They loved him and never stopped wishing—with every coin they tossed in a fountain, every wishbone they took most of, every prayer—that they could get him back.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I’m going.”
“Good,” Judy said. “I hate that drive.”
George, the usual weekend attendant, was at the front desk when they arrived at St. Jude’s psychiatric center. As he got up to escort them to the visiting area George said, “Luke said two words to me this morning.”
“What did he say?” Judy asked.
“’Stop it’.”
“What were you trying to make him do, George?” Jack cajoled.
“Put on his socks,” George replied. “But I thought it was great. That’s the first time I’ve understood his talk.”
“That is great, George.”
“Come on back,” George said. “Luke is in the visit room already. I told him you were coming today.”
“Like he gives a shit, George,” Jack said.
“But he does,” George said. “You know he does.”
Fifteen minutes into the visit—after getting him off the window sill twice, having Luke put several dollars through the soda machine coin return, and buying drinks for two visitors whose sodas he drank or poured out—Jack wanted to go. Then he thought of something. Jack pointed his right fist at Luke, unfurled it, and said, “Poof.”
He half expected Luke to start carrying on a normal conversation with Judy. Standing next to each other across the room, Luke certainly looked as normal as Judy. Jack walked closer. Same old Luke, avoiding eye contact and not noticeably processing anything his mother said until she uttered the words he wanted to hear, “Want to go outside?” Luke got his shoes and handed them to Judy.
The hospital had a strong wooden playground set and Luke led them to it, as usual. Judy pushed him on the swing awhile, then Jack spun Luke on the tire. “He’s getting so big, hon. I can hardly push him anymore like I used to.”
“He was a lot lighter,” Judy said. “But you were a lot younger, too.”
“Ouch,” Jack said, smiling. “Let’s walk a bit.”
They did a lap around the outside of the hospital, and when they got back to the parking lot, Luke ran to their car.
“No, Luke,” Judy said. “We’re not riding you today.”
Luke screamed and climbed on the hood of the car.
“Get off,” Jack yelled. He grabbed Luke’s arm to pull him down and Luke started biting at his hand. “Owwww! Shit!” Jack yanked Luke off the car.
“Let’s take him back up,” Judy said.
When they turned over Luke to George, the attendant noticed the back of Jack’s hand. “You need a bandage for that?”
“Nah,” Jack said. “He didn’t break skin.”
“He got me a couple of times early on, but I’m a lot quicker now,” George said.
“Well, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“See you next month, George,” Judy said. “Good-by, Luke.” He ignored her, his attention already drawn to a pinball game two kids his age were playing.
The three shook their heads and smirked almost simultaneously. “See you next time,” George said.
“Take care, George.”
To get to the car quicker, they took a short cut through the burn unit. Several of the patients mulled around the hallways with various patches of their skin bandaged. They passed a child on a bed in the hallway. Jack guessed from the size the kid was about four, but in mummy gauze it was impossible to guess the child’s gender, let alone age.
He shook off a wonder what it must be like to be burned so badly so young. Without really thinking past this empathy, Jack zapped his fingers at the child and said “Poof.”
Just as Judy was about to say “Yeah, sure, Jack,” she saw a pretty little girl in a stunning pink and white dress get off the bed and run by them saying, “Momma, lookit! Momma!”
Judy looked at Jack. “Did you do that?” The patients in the hallway all looked at the little girl, then at Jack.
“I guess so.”
She punched his chest. “Then why didn’t you make Luke normal, you bastard?”
“I tried.”
“What?”
“I tried, Judy. I did the same thing I just did here. It didn’t work.” The burn victims in their vicinity were listening intently. Jack pointed at three of them in turn. “Poof. Poof. Poof .” Nothing conspicuous happened. “I guess it doesn’t always work.”
“Yeah, sure.”
They walked to the parking lot in silence. Once in the car, Jack said, “Let’s go to the mall on the way home. That always improves your spirits.” They often went to the mall on the way home from St. Jude’s.
As usual on their mall trips, they quickly arrived at the bookstore and stayed there longest. A love of books was the most common bond between Jack and Judy, but they rarely read the same book, or even the same type. Jack preferred the classics, as if authors who aren’t dead weren’t worth his time. Judy’s genre was fantasy/science fiction, as if novels with Earth as the setting weren’t worth reading.
“Ready?” Jack finally said, having abandoned the classics. Judy grabbed the two newest books of a couple series she was already a few books into and headed for the cashier. Jack walked out empty handed. He felt a touch guilty about the unread books at home and didn’t want to add to their library until he got through most of it.
They did the rest of the mall at window shopping pace without stopping. At Ben’s newspaper kiosk in the mall’s main entrance they stopped to pick up the Sunday paper. The proprietor was blind, but he knew scents and sounds, and he knew money.
“How’s it going, Ben?”
“Judy Ralston! Where have you been, girl?”
“You’re good, Ben,” Jack said. “We haven’t seen you in a month and you still know us.”
“Who’s that with you, Judy?” Ben said. “Your lover?”
“Jack’s wrong,” Judy smiled. “You’re bad.”
“He’s right though,” Jack said, and handed Ben a dollar ten. “That’s a hundred-dollar bill, by the way.”
“It’s too beat up to be, you dog,” Ben said. “And these is nickels, not quarters. That’s an easy one.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “But it’s always worth a try.”
“Speaking of dogs, where is Rex?” Judy asked.
“That lazy shep is right back here, under foot at usual.”
“You shouldn’t talk that way,” Judy said. “What would you do without him?”
“I’d be better off!” Ben said. “He’s getting up in years now and his mind is starting to go. Last night he missed the top step and we both took a little tumble.”
“Happens to us all, I guess,” Jack said.
“Reckon so,” Ben finished.
“See you next time,” Judy said as they headed out the automatic doors.
“Bye now,” Ben said.
Once outside, it occurred to Judy that probably wasn’t the most appropriate farewell to a blind man. She said so to Jack.
“Guess not,” he admitted. “But, you know, I don’t even think of him that way.”
“Is that why you didn’t ‘Poof’ him?” Judy asked derisively.
“Let’s go back!” Jack said, turning.
“Oh, come on.” But Jack’s sleeve fell from her hand as he ran back inside.
Ben was making another sale as Jack hurried to him and said “Poof,” with the accompanying hand curl as before.
“Ben?”
“Forget something?”
“Can you see?” Ben’s customer scowled at Jack.
“You feeling all right, Jack?”
“Never mind. Shit! Good-by.”
“Again,” Ben said.
Judy was waiting outside the door. “Well?”
“Nothing,” Jack said. “I don’t get it.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to get.”
“But what about the burnt girl and the man on Broad Street?”
“Why would you suddenly have a magic healing power?” Judy said. “It’s not realistic.”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I don’t get it. I have to stop thinking about it or I’ll be living at St. Jude’s with Luke.”
And Jack didn’t think about it, until more than three weeks later. He was in his office keeping the usual office hours. Since no students had come to talk, he graded essays, his red pen bloodying every page. He hardly noticed the thunderstorm’s approach until the boom rattled his desk mobile and made the flourescents flicker.
“That’s it!” he cried out, and called Judy’s office.
“Can you come to campus?”
“Now?”
“Right now!”
“You want me to drive in this stuff?”
“That’s why you have to come now.”
Judy was intrigued. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“Good.”
Jack was waiting outside the door of his office when Judy arrived, his coat on and umbrella in hand.
“What’s this about, Jack?”
“Come on.” They walked quickly over to the satellite dish, through the most spectacular lightning flashes and thunder booms Judy had been out in since she was little.
“Do you think we should be carrying that metal umbrella, Jack?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He didn’t look at her until they arrived at his favorite spot on campus. “Here.”
“What?”
“Wait for it.”
“For what?” Judy screamed. “Jack, this is dangerous. What’s with you?”
He didn’t answer, giving his full attention to the dish’s focal point. “This one,” he said. “Now watch.” He touched the metal base of the pole and to Judy it was like a cartoon. Jack briefly had an outline of jagged yellow light around his body, but it faded as the lightning in the sky did. He fell backwards onto the grass, smiling.
“Are you all right?” Judy panicked. Jack just smiled at her. She bopped him several times on the forehead with an open palm. “Are you nuts? You’ve lost it!”
Jack got up, not markedly different except for the smirk. “Now you touch it.”
“Do what?”
“Really, Judy,” Jack said calmly. “This is where the magic comes from.”
“I’m not touching that dish, Jack. You’re unbelievable sometimes, you know it? How many times have you done this?”
“This is the first time I actually touched it, but two times before the spark jumped me when I got close.”
“And you want me to touch it?”
“You won’t feel a thing,” Jack smiled. “It’s where the healing comes from. I’m sure of it.”
Judy slit her eyes at him for a long time, one eyebrow raised. “Okay,” she said, tentatively. Judy rose and touched the dish’s support beam. Nothing happened.
“You have to wait until lightning goes through the focus.”
“You want my insurance money, is that it?”
“Don’t be silly,” Jack said, watching the sky again. “Okay, this one looks good. Touch i-i-i-it. . .now!” As Judy reached toward the support beam, a spark jumped for her fingers. Other than a pinprick sensation, she felt nothing.
“Can we go now?”
“Let’s go try it,” Jack said. “The Union Building’s bound to have some handicapped folks around.”
“You’re losing your mind,” Judy said. “Big chunks at a time. I can almost see them fall from your head.”
But she accompanied Jack to the campus union. This hub of student government, study or leisure time, and dining between classes was always crowded with a variety of students and staff. The building was circular in design, with a hallway curving around the perimeter and doorways all on the inside of the hall leading into the various compartments. They stopped at the informal cafeteria. Jack scanned those eating.
“There,” he said, “the guy in the wheel chair with the leg braces on, poof him.”
“Huh?”
“You know,” Jack said, demonstrating, “poof.”
Judy curled her hand as Jack had done, aimed it at the student in the wheel chair. Fortunately, engaged in his own conversation, the student did not look their way. “Poof,” she said.
Nothing. Jack tried it. Nothing.
“This is weird,” he said, shaking his head.
“I’ll say,” Judy agreed. “Let’s go home.”
Judy tried not to give the satellite dish much thought—and succeeded a lot better than Jack did—until the following Sunday, when they were to visit Luke again. Still puzzled about this erratic power he seemed to have, Jack stayed hungry to get to the heart of it. On their way up to St. Jude’s psychiatric center, he purposely steered his wife through the cancer ward.
“Jack, this is getting real annoying. Can’t you just—?”
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Look at that thin woman with no hair. Can you imagine? Try it, Judy, on her.”
“Jack, I can’t stand this.” Judy’s whisper was thinly veiled, and the woman turned in her bed to look out in the hallway at them.
“Just do it.”
Discreetly, Judy pointed the hand at her side and said “Poof.” The woman turned away from them, annoyed at having her privacy and peace interrupted. When they continued to stare, she got up to close the door.
As she came to the threshold, Jack made eye contact with her, raised his hand and said “Poof.” As her door slowly swung closed, the woman’s cancerous cells evaporated, she put on twenty pounds, and her shoulder length chestnut hair returned.
She whipped open the door and the three just stood looking at each other for a good fifteen seconds. Finally, the woman said, “How the—?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said.
“And I don’t care,” the woman said. “Thanks. Thanks a million. Thanks.” She jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing Jack’s face several times quickly. Judy stood agape and the woman finally looked at her. “Sorry,” she said, got off Jack and ran to the closet of her room. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
As they headed up to visit Luke, Judy said “I think you need to stop in the men’s room first and clean all the lipstick off your cheeks.”
Jack beamed, feeling good for doing good. But his high spirit didn’t last very long into their visit with Luke. George started the souring by telling them they would have to visit Luke in his room because their son was locked in. During the thunderstorm earlier in the week, Luke climbed out onto the window ledge. He flapped his arms and giggled at each bolt of lightning and thunderclap, enjoying the rain too much to heed the attendants. Finally two went out to fetch him.
“Why can’t you cure Luke?” Judy asked Jack. “Why can’t anybody?”
It was a bad visit. Luke didn’t acknowledge their presence. He never made eye contact, even ignored Judy’s touch. Their son just kept watching his favorite Donald Duck video over and over, slapping the television screen and laughing during the high action scenes.
Jack tried again. “POOF.” Judy looked at him. Nothing. Damn!
Judy kissed Luke good-by and Luke wiped off the kiss without missing a frame of the show. On the way to their car, she said “I don’t get it, Jack. It has to be something with you.”
“But it doesn’t always work with me either.”
“Okay,” Judy said. “Let’s look at when it did and when it didn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Which times worked and which didn’t?” Judy asked. “What were you thinking during each incident that worked?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Were you depressed, sympathetic, concerned? I think how you felt about the people involved matters.”
“Yeah,” he said, finally smiling widely. “I think you’re right.” He recounted. “On Broad Street the man reminded me of the time I hurt myself like that. With the little girl, I think I was trying to picture what it must feel like being burned so badly. The woman with cancer made me wonder what I’d do if that happened to you.”
“Okay,” Judy said. “Now what about the times that didn’t work?”
“Guess I was just playing, seeing if the magic was real or not thinking about the handicap at all. Like Ben. We don’t think of him as blind. I’d no more need to give him his sight than turn him Caucasian.”
“What about Luke?”
“I don’t know.” Jack said. “It’s frustrating. Let’s just drop it.”
But Jack could not stop wondering about its cause anymore than he could let go of the magic itself. Eventually he did verify the dish at his favorite lunch stop was the cause. During the winter months Jack ate his sandwiches in his office and gradually lost his healing power, no matter how he felt about the impaired individuals he aimed to cure.
He did come to believe Judy had something there, the key was how he felt about victims. But what about it?
The following spring Jack lunched at the dish again, and after the first thunderstorm his erratic power returned stronger and stranger. As he and Judy watched a news story about the flooding of a small town in Texas, Jack absorbed it. When the camera panned a family of four sitting on their roof, the smallest kid holding the soaked family dog, Jack curled his hand at the television screen and said, “Poof.”
The astonished anchorman reported from a helicopter the flood water were suddenly, visibly receding. Judy looked at Jack. “Holy shit, you’ve gone national!”
“Too bad I can’t really, since it’s hit or miss. Why do I care about some family in Texas and not about my own son?”
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with Luke. Just because he’s not the son we had in mind doesn’t mean he’s not enjoying his life.”
“How can he be?” Jack asked. “You know, the more I find out about autism, the less I understand it.”
“Luke’s doing the best he can with the talent he’s been given,” Judy said.
Jack was reminded of Keats reincarnate, his student from last year. Simply put, that was the answer. Whether Jack’s empathy made the magic work while his selfish desires blocked it seemed a secondary issue not worth dwelling on. Gradually, Jack learned to use his healing grace while it worked and not second guess himself when it didn’t. The magic eventually became part of his life, part of himself. Jack hardly realized this evolution except to muse that this was true for all people, whatever handicaps they possess—and whatever magic.