Fruit, Part III

It is now late afternoon, and at least twenty people have received salvation. The cold sun dips behind the skyscrapers, the downtown core flushes out its workers in a mass exodus, but the faithful mob remains. I offer a blanket from my car to Ash, but she refuses. She says she doesn’t get cold at night; says the ‘Thing’ has been protecting her, keeping her warm. No frost-bite yet, but I see her shiver, all the same. She makes a junky look like Miss Universe: her muscles have atrophied, and recently her bowel movements have completely stopped. She hasn’t left this spott for nearly two months because it hasn’t let her. It’s asserted control, and yet, her personality is somehow still intact.

I’ve brought us both some boxed rice vermicelli and shredded pork. But all Ash wants is water. “You’re anemic,” I say. “Eat.”

Ash’s hands are practically limp right now, so I have to feed it to her. I ask her about people who haven’t been as enthusiastic about the idea of her being there. Between swallowing and chewing she tells me about Reverend Karl Novak, from Church of the Redeemer. He paid her a visit last week with a posse of board members who were upset at what she was doing, and that it was taking parishioners away from their church not three blocks away.

“‘You are stealing God’s flock from Him’” she says in a nasal, flat Novak impersonation. “I told them it was a free country so they can shove it.” Her face beams with pride. “It was rich.”
“Why didn’t you try to ‘convert’ Novak?”
“I can’t really decide who gets healed and who doesn’t. Plus, I think you have to want it. He’s happier going around bullying homeless teenagers with his Jesus Club thugs, anyway. And I don’t think he deserves to know the truth about himself.”
“Why should he feel threatened by you, Ash?”
“He knows I’m right. I’m the real McCoy,” she says, eyeing my notepad, perhaps hoping I quote her verbatim.
“You believe you’re helping these people?”
She pauses. “Sure. What do you think?”
I think the placebo effect is a powerful thing. “I think you need a doctor.”
“I think you need help. You want me to heal you yet?”
“That won’t be necessary, thanks.”
“You miss your hair, don’t you?”
I hold vermicelli up to her mouth. “Eat.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have--”
“Eat.” Suddenly I feel very conspicuous with my toque on.

The food helps ease the headaches a little, she tells me, but it’s always there. Like drugs and painkillers, food is no better of an anesthetic. She says the Thing is trying to make her hate her body, so she’ll be glad to be rid of it when the time comes, which she insists is soon.

My phone rings. I step away from her and the congregation. It rings three times before I pick it up. A tinny voice from somewhere far away comes on the other end.
“Holly?”
“What is it?”
“Dr. Baum called. Your test was at noon. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m downtown right now, with my story. I’ll worry about the test, okay?”
“You mean you didn’t go?”
“Whatever, Bo. It’s my problem, right?”
“It’s our problem, Hol.” The line goes quiet for a moment. “Anyway, how are you feeling?”
“See you, Bo.” I snap the cell shut. We are a family of three: Bo, myself, and my pelvic exams.
“Who’s Bo?” says Ash.
My cancer. “Husband.”
“He’s leaving you.” She seems surprised at her own words.
I put more vermicelli in her mouth. “Did your tumor predict that?”
“It’s not a tumor!” she says in her best Schwarzenegger parody, sputtering out noodle. “And it didn’t have to.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“‘Can we talk about something else?’ They teach you that at reporter school?”
“Tell me about your parents.”
She shakes her head, and closes her eyes. “Again, won’t have to.”

The world is blue in the overcast evening. The crowd has surged. People are back from work and they’ve brought others, bundled but faithful, numbered at almost a hundred. If they’re not in line they stand about, talking to each other in low voices, not wanting to miss what happens next, assuming there is something next. A lot of them have brought sleeping bags and thermoses; there are two tents in the park, so far. I’ve been sitting just a few feet away to the Ash’s side, as the queue grows all the way down the path, to the street corner.

At the altar now is another couple. The man is tall and gangly, but his coat is puffed up so he looks like an egg on stilts. His face is thin with a salt and pepper beard and his jaw is tight. The woman is shorter, with broad shoulders under a long red overcoat. She has too much makeup on, but I can still see her hazel eyes, and blonde hair cut to her shoulders. They aren’t kneeling. The man is holding a photograph, glancing at it--at Ash--and back at it. The girl doesn’t look at them, but stares forward cloud-headed, like she does with everybody. She doesn’t look until the woman approaches her and takes her hands. And when she looks it’s not at the woman, just at the hands holding hers. Ash examines them with mild, clinical interest.

“Ashley?” Says the woman, the word quivering out.