Revival (5 page)

“When I put this puppy back together,” he said, slinging an arm around my shoulders and producing a handkerchief from his back pocket, “I'll be able to get TV stations in Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Wipe your eyes, Jamie. And your nose could use a little attention while you're at it.”

I looked at the eyeless TV with fascination as I cleaned up. “Will you really be able to get stations in Chicago and Los Angeles?”

“Nah, I was kidding. I'm just trying to build in a signal amplifier that will let us get something besides Channel 8.”

“We get 6 and 13, too,” I said. “Although 6 is a little snow-stormy.”

“You guys have a roof antenna. The Jacobs family is stuck with rabbit ears.”

“Why don't you buy one? They sell them at Western Auto in Castle Rock.”

He grinned. “Good idea! I'll stand up in front of the deacons at the quarterly meeting and tell them I want to spend some of the collection money on a TV antenna, so Morrie can watch
Mighty 90
and the missus and I can watch
Petticoat Junction
on Tuesday nights. Never mind that, Jamie. Tell me what's got you in such a tizzy.”

I looked around for Mrs. Jacobs, hoping she'd spare me the job of having to tell everything twice, but she had quietly decamped. He took me by the shoulders and led me to a sawhorse. I was just tall enough to be able to sit on it.

“Is it Con?”

Of course he'd guess that; a petition for the return of Con's voice was part of the closing prayer at every Thursday-night meeting that spring, as were prayers for other MYFers who were going through hard times (broken bones were the most common, but Bobby Underwood had suffered burns and Carrie Doughty had had to endure having her head shaved and rinsed with vinegar after her horrified mother discovered the little girl's scalp was crawling with lice). But, like his wife, Reverend Jacobs hadn't had any idea of how miserable Con really was, or how that misery had spread through the entire family like an especially nasty germ.

“Dad bought Hiram Oil last summer,” I said, starting to blubber again. I hated it, blubbering was such a little kid's trick, but I couldn't seem to help it. “He said the price was too good to turn down, only then we had a warm winter and heating oil went down to fifteen cents a gallon and now they can't afford a specialist and if you could have heard her, she didn't sound like Mom at all, and sometimes he puts his hands in his pockets, because . . .” But Yankee reticence finally kicked in and I finished, “Because I don't know why.”

He produced the handkerchief again, and while I used it, he took a metal box from his workshop table. Wires sprouted from it every whichway, like badly cut hair.

“Behold the amplifier,” he said. “Invented by yours truly. Once I get it hooked up, I'll run a wire out the window and up to the eave. Then I will attach . . .
that
.” He pointed to the corner, where a rake was propped on its pole with its rusty metal tines sticking up. “The Jacobs Custom Antenna.”

“Will it work?” I asked.

“I don't know. I think it will. But even if it does, I believe the days of television antennas are numbered. In another ten years, TV signals will be carried along the telephone lines, and there will be a lot more than three channels. By 1990 or so, the signals will be beamed down from satellites. I know it sounds like science fiction, but the technology already exists.”

He had his dreamy look, and I thought,
He's forgotten all about Con
. Now I know that wasn't true. He was just giving me time to regain my composure, and—maybe—himself time to think.

“People will be amazed at first, then they'll take it for granted. They'll say ‘Oh yes, we have telephone TV' or ‘We have earth satellite TV,' but they'll be wrong. It's all a gift of electricity, which is now so basic and so pervasive we have a way of ignoring it. People like to say ‘Thus-and-such is the elephant in the living room,' meaning a thing that's too big to be ignored, but you'd even ignore an elephant, if it was in the living room long enough.”

“Except when you had to clean up the poop,” I said.

That made him roar with laughter, and I laughed along with him, even though my eyes were still swollen from crying.

He went to the window and looked out. He clasped his hands at the small of his back and didn't speak for a long time. Then he turned to me and said, “I want you to bring Con to the parsonage tonight. Will you do that?”

“Sure,” I said, without any great enthusiasm. More praying was what I thought he had in store, and I knew it couldn't hurt, but there had been a lot of praying on Con's behalf already, and it hadn't helped, either.

 • • •

My parents had no objections
to our going to the parsonage (I had to ask them separately, because that night they were barely talking to each other). It was Connie who took convincing, probably because I wasn't very convinced myself. But because I had promised the Reverend, I didn't give up. I enlisted Claire for help, instead. Her belief in the power of prayer was far greater than my own, and she had her own powers. I think they came from being the only girl. Of the four Morton brothers, only Andy—who was closest to her in age—could resist her when she got all pretty-eyed and asked for something.

As the three of us crossed Route 9, our shadows long in the light of a rising full moon, Con—just thirteen that year, dark-haired, slender, dressed in a faded plaid jacket handed down from Andy—held up his notepad, which he carried everywhere. He had printed while he walked, so the letters were jagged. THIS IS STUPID.

“Maybe,” Claire said, “but we'll get cookies. Mrs. Jacobs always has cookies.”

We also got Morrie, now five and dressed for bed in his pj's. He ran directly to Con and jumped into his arms. “Still can't talk?” Morrie asked.

Con shook his head.

“My dad will fix you,” he said. “He's been working all afternoon.” Then he held his arms out to my sister. “Carry me, Claire, carry me, Claire-Bear, and I'll give you a kiss!” She took him from Con, laughing.

Reverend Jacobs was in the shed, dressed in faded jeans and a sweater. There was an electric heater in the corner, the elements glowing cherry-red, but his workshop was still cold. I supposed he had been too busy tinkering away on his various projects to winterize it. The temporarily eyeless TV had been covered with a mover's quilt.

Jacobs gave Claire a hug and a peck on the cheek, then shook hands with Con, who then held up his pad. MORE PRAYER I SUPPOSE was printed on the fresh page.

I thought that was a little rude, and by her frown I could see Claire felt the same, but Jacobs only smiled. “We might get to that, but I want to try something else first.” He turned to me. “Whom does the Lord help, Jamie?”

“Them that help themselves,” I said.

“Ungrammatical but true.”

He went to the worktable and brought back what looked like either a fat cloth belt or the world's skinniest electric blanket. A cord dangled from it, going to a little white plastic box with a slide-switch on top. Jacobs stood with the belt in his hands, looking at Con gravely. “This is a project I've been tinkering with on and off for the last year. I call it the Electrical Nerve Stimulator.”

“One of your inventions,” I said.

“Not exactly. The idea of using electricity to limit pain and stimulate muscles is very, very old. Sixty years before the birth of Christ, a Roman doctor named Scribonius Largus discovered that foot and leg pain could be alleviated if the sufferer stepped firmly on an electric eel.”

“You made that up!” Claire accused, laughing. Con wasn't laughing; he was staring at the cloth belt with fascination.

“Not at all,” Jacobs said, “but mine uses small batteries—which
are
of my invention—for power. Electric eels are hard to come by in central Maine, and even harder to put around a boy's neck. Which is what I intend to do with this homemade ENS gadget of mine. Because Dr. Renault might have been right about your vocal cords not being ruptured, Con. Maybe they only need a jump-start. I'm willing to make the experiment, but it's up to you. What do you say?”

Con nodded. In his eyes I saw an expression that hadn't been there in quite awhile: hope.

“How come you never showed us this in MYF?” Claire asked. She sounded almost accusing.

Jacobs looked surprised and a tiny bit uneasy. “I suppose I couldn't think how it connected to a Christian lesson. Until Jamie came to see me today, I was thinking of trying it out on Al Knowles. His unfortunate accident?”

We all nodded. The fingers lost in the potato grader.

“He still feels the fingers that aren't there, and says they hurt. Also, he's lost a good deal of his ability to move that hand because of nerve damage. As I said, I've known for years that electricity can help in matters like those. Now it looks like you'll be my guinea pig, Con.”

“So having that handy was just a lucky break?” Claire asked. I couldn't see why it mattered, but it seemed to. To her, at least.

Jacobs looked at her reproachfully and said, “
Coincidence
and
lucky break
are words people with little faith use to describe the will of God, Claire.”

She flushed at that, and looked down at her sneakers. Con, meanwhile, was scribbling on his pad. He held it up. WILL IT HURT?

“I don't think so,” Jacobs said. “The current is very low. Minuscule, really. I've tried it on my arm—like a blood-pressure cuff—and felt no more than the tingle you get when your arm or leg has been asleep and is just beginning to wake up. If there
is
pain, raise your hands and I'll kill the current right away. I'm going to put this thing on now. It will be snug, but not tight. You'll be able to breathe just fine. The buckles are nylon. Can't use metal on a thing like this.”

He put the belt around Con's neck. It looked like a bulky winter scarf. Con's eyes were wide and scared, but when Jacobs asked if he was ready, he nodded. I felt Claire's fingers close over mine. They were cold. I thought Jacobs might get to the prayer then, asking for success. In a way, I suppose he did. He bent down so he could look Con directly in the eyes and said, “Expect a miracle.”

Con nodded. I saw the cloth around his throat rise and fall as he swallowed hard.

“All right. Here we go.”

When Reverend Jacobs slid the switch on top of the control box, I heard a faint humming sound. Con's head jerked. His mouth twitched first at one corner, then at the other. His fingers began to flutter rapidly and his arms jerked.

“Does it hurt?” Jacobs asked. His index finger was hovering over the switch, ready to turn it off. “If it hurts, hold out your hands.”

Con shook his head. Then, in a voice that sounded as if it were coming through a mouthful of gravel, he said: “Doesn't . . . hurt.
Warm
.”

Claire and I exchanged a wild glance, a thought as strong as telepathy flowing between us:
Did I hear that?
She was now squeezing my hand hard enough to hurt, but I didn't care. When we looked back at Jacobs, he was smiling.

“Don't try to talk. Not yet. I'm going to run the belt for two minutes by my watch. Unless it starts to hurt. If that happens, hold out your hands and I'll turn it off at once.”

Con didn't hold out his hands, although his fingers continued to move up and down, as if he were playing an invisible piano. His upper lip lifted a few times in an involuntary snarl, and his eyes went through spasms of fluttering. Once, still in that grating, gravelly voice, he said, “I . . . can . . .
talk
again!”

“Hush!” Jacobs said sternly. His index finger hovered over the switch, ready to kill the current, his eyes on the moving second hand of his watch. After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed the switch and that faint hum died. He unloosed the buckles and pulled the belt over my brother's head. Con's hands went immediately to his neck. The skin there was a little flushed, but I don't think that was from the electric current. It was from the pressure of the belt.

“Now, Con—I want you to say, ‘My dog has fleas, they bite his knees.' But if your throat starts to hurt, stop at once.”

“My dog has
fleas
,” Con said in his strange grating voice. “They bite his
knees
.” Then: “I have to spit.”

“Does your throat hurt?”

“No, just have to spit.”

Claire opened the shed door. Con leaned out, cleared his throat (which produced an unpleasantly metallic sound like rusty hinges), and hocked a loogie that to me looked almost as big as a doorknob. He turned back to us, massaging his throat with one hand.

“My dog has
fleas
.” He still didn't sound like the Con I remembered, but the words were clearer now, and more human. Tears rose in his eyes and began to spill down his cheeks. “They bite his
knees
.”

“That's enough for now,” Jacobs said. “We'll go in the house, and you'll drink a glass of water. A big one. You must drink a lot of water. Tonight and tomorrow. Until your voice sounds normal again. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“When you get home, you may tell your mother and father hello. Then I want you to go into your room and get down on your knees and thank God for bringing your voice back. Will you do that?”

Con nodded vehemently. He was crying harder than ever, and he wasn't alone. Claire and I were crying, too. Only Reverend Jacobs was dry-eyed. I think he was too amazed to cry.

Patsy was the only one not surprised. When we went into the house, she squeezed Con's arm and said in a matter-of-fact voice, “That's a good boy.”

Morrie hugged my brother and my brother hugged him back hard enough to make the little boy's eyes bug out. Patsy drew a glass of water from the kitchen tap and Con drank all of it. When he thanked her, it was almost in his own voice.