Удушье (Choke)

The hay itches up through the back of my shirt.

The chickens scratch in the dust and hay. The spiders spin.

Chapter 38

How to make an ear candle

is you take a piece of regular paper and roll it into a thin tube. There's no real miracle to it. Still, you have to start with the stuff you already know.

This is just more flotsam and jetsam left over from medical school, something I teach now to the field trip kids at Colonial Dunsboro.

Maybe you have to work your way up to the real bona fide miracles.

Denny comes to me after stacking rock outdoors in the rain all day and says he's got earwax so bad he can't hear. He sits in a chair in my mom's kitchen with Beth there, standing by the back door, leaning back a little with her butt against the edge of the kitchen counter. Denny sits with the chair pulled sideways to the kitchen table and one of his arms resting on the table.

And I tell him to hold still.

Rolling the paper into a tight tube, I say, 'Just supposing,' I say, 'Jesus Christ had to practice being the Son of God to get any good at it.'

I tell Beth to turn off the kitchen lights, and I twist one end of the thin paper tube into the tight dark tunnel of Denny's ear. His hair's grown out some, but we're talking less of a fire hazard than most people have. Not too deep, I twist the tube into his ear only far enough so it stays in place when I let go.

To concentrate, I try and not think of Paige Marshall's ear.

'What if Jesus spent all his growing up getting things wrong,' I say, 'before he ever got a single miracle right?'

Denny sitting in the chair, in the dark, the white paper tube juts out his ear.

'How is it we don't read about Jesus' failed first attempts,' I say, 'or how he didn't really crank out the big miracles until he was over thirty?'

Beth pushes out the crotch of her tight jeans at me, and I use her zipper to light a kitchen match and carry the little flame across the room to Denny's head. Using the match, I light the end of the paper tube.

From striking the match, the room smells full of sulfur.

Smoke unwinds from the burning end of the tube, and Denny says, 'You're not going to let it hurt me, are you?'

The flame creeps in closer to his head. The burned end of the tube curls open and comes apart. Black paper edged with worm­ing orange sparks, these hot bits of paper drift toward the ceiling. Some bits of black paper curl and fall.

That's really what this is called. An ear candle.

And I say, 'How about if Jesus got started by just doing nice things for people, you know, helping old ladies cross the street or telling people when they'd left their headlights on?' I say, 'Well, not that exactly, but you get the idea.'

Watching the fire curl closer and closer to Denny's ear, I say, 'How about if Jesus spent years working up to the big loaves-and-the-fishes thing? I mean, that Lazarus deal is probably some­thing he'd have to build up to, right?'

And Denny's eyes are twisted over to try and see how close the fire is, and he says, 'Beth, is it about to burn me?'

And Beth looks at me and says, 'Victor?'

And I say, 'It's okay.'