night before. John and I spent the day with some other kids, sledding down the big hill on the outskirts of town, the same hill I’d gone to the afternoon I was diagnosed with cancer. At the bottom of the hill was a short grassy strip, littered with beer bottles and fast-food bags, and beyond that, the road leading from Hanover to Spring Grove. Not a major road, but busy just the same. Truckers used it as a shortcut between towns, rather than taking the highway. The storm had dumped about two inches of sleet on top of the snow, so the hill was one big mountain of solid ice. Kids were flying down it at breakneck speeds, turning their sleds at the last moment to avoid going out into the road. All except for John . . . He’d done it on a dare. A stupid dare. Richie Wagaman had called him a pussy— told him that he didn’t have the balls to ride his sled straight across the road and into the field on the other side without stopping to look for traffic. Rich bet him a House of Pain cassette (remember, we were kids and House of Pain was still the bomb back then). John looked down the hill, glanced up both sides of the road, saw that there was no traffic coming, and took the bet. I pulled him aside and tried talking him out of it, but unlike he usually did, John wouldn’t listen to me this time. Instead, he just stared at Richie and his friends, clustered together and calling him a pussy, laughing to each other and any girl within earshot about how chicken shit John was. The next thing I knew, John ran to the edge, threw the sled down, jumped onto it (landing on his belly), and rocketed down the hill like a runaway train. Kids were cheering and shouting— and then we all heard it at the same time, the loud blast of a truck horn. The Department of Transportation’s dump trucks had been out early, covering the roads with salt and cinders, but all that did was make them slicker. There was a hiss of air brakes as the trucker tried to stop, and then the back end of the trailer began to fishtail, taking up both sides of the road. I tried to scream but my breath caught in my throat as John shot across the grass and directly into the path of the jackknifed truck. Time seemed to slow down then, just as it had done on the morning of the robbery. The truck slid toward John, John flashed across the road, and the truck slid on by and crashed into a snowbank, sending brown snow and cinders and dirt flying high into the air. The cloud obscured everything, and there was dead silence from the kids on the top of the hill.
The cloud settled, and the trucker clambered out of his cab, unhurt but shaking an angry fist. There was still no sign of John . . .
And then we saw him, clambering off his sled and waving at us from the other side of the road. I’ll never forget how my panic dissolved, how grateful I was to see him at that instant. To see him alive— there in the snow.
Alive . . .
I knew what I had to do.
“Benjy, come here.”
He finished sliding over to me, his eyes alert and urgent.
“How can you— make him better? What do you need to do?”
“I need to touch him, Mr. Tommy. I have to put my hands where that other man shot him.”
The thought of Benjy’s little hands touching that bloody mess made my stomach turn. Not to mention the image of what Sherm would do if he came back and caught us.
“Couldn’t you touch him with your head or your foot or something? Maybe rest your forehead on his?”
“No, Mr. Tommy. It has to be with my hands. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it always works.”
I took a deep breath, glanced down at John, and focused on Benjy.
“Okay. I’m going to take the tape off your wrists. But Benjy, you’ve got to promise me that you won’t try to get away. If you do, I don’t know what Sherm might do. He could get very, very angry and we don’t want that to happen right now. You were right about him. He might be sick too. I don’t want him to hurt your mommy or any of these other people. So you can’t run away, okay?”
“Okay.” He nodded. “I promise, Mr. Tommy. I just want to help. I’m good at helping.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Hold still. This might hurt a little.”
I ripped the duct tape from his thin wrists as carefully but as quickly as possible. He gritted his teeth and I could tell that it hurt him, but he didn’t make a sound. Just like T. J. would have done. He rubbed his wrists and gave me a reassuring wink. It seemed absurd, this little boy trying to reassure the bank robber who was holding his mother and him captive. But I took comfort in it. Maybe that was part of his power— not just healing people, but also making them feel better in general. Then he knelt over John, placing his palms on the bloody wound.
“I’ll make it all better.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I believe you.”
And I did. I actually did. For the first time in my life, I believed in something other than my wife and my son. I’d demanded that God prove himself to me. I’d expected it immediately, but maybe this was more His style.
While Benjy got started, I crept to the vault doorway and listened. There was silence on the other side. I thought again of that strange, muffled thumping I’d heard earlier and wondered what it had been. It occurred to me that we hadn’t heard a peep from Keith or Lucas since Sherm had taken them away. Keith was right across the hall. Shouldn’t we have heard from him? And where was Sherm? I craned my head around the corner, trying to eavesdrop, but the only sound was the blood ringing in my ears. What the hell was going on?
As if in answer to my question, I heard the faint but unmistakable trickle of piss hitting toilet water, followed seconds later by a long fart. At least I now knew where Sherm had gone and what he was doing. But then it hit me. Sherm had also told me that he locked Lucas inside the bathroom and squirted glue in the lock. So was it Sherm or the delivery driver I heard now?
There was no way to be sure. Had Sherm lied, and if so, why?
I glanced back over my shoulder. Benjy’s eyes were closed and he rocked back and forth, still holding his hands over the bullet’s entry point. The others craned their heads forward, focusing on him, absolutely transfixed by what they were seeing.
I don’t know what we expected. Maybe we’d seen too many movies or read too many novels. There was no glow, no heat, and no blinding flash of white light. Trumpets didn’t sound and no heavenly chorus appeared before us. But one thing did happen. Immediately, John’s chest began to rise and fall. His breathing was harsh, ragged— but his lungs were working again and that was all that mattered.
I’d gotten the proof that I’d demanded. I believed.
And in that newfound belief, I was both exhilarated and terrified.
“Jesus . . .” Oscar breathed.
“This is— I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kim gasped.
Down the hall, a toilet flushed. Whoever was in the bathroom, Sherm or Lucas, was finishing his business. I reached down, scooped up the torn duct tape that had bound Benjy’s hands, wadded it into a ball, and stuffed it in my pocket.
“Sharon, there’s only the one bathroom in this place, right?”
She didn’t take her eyes off Benjy and John. “Umm, yeah. The one down the hall. It’s the fourth door past Keith’s office, next to the janitor’s closet. That’s all.”
“That’s what I thought. Okay, everybody listen to me carefully. Whatever happens, we can’t let Sherm find out about this. He’ll go ape shit if he sees that I freed Benjy. Even worse, I don’t know what he’d do if he figures out about Benjy’s— power. If he even believes in it, that is.”
“You think he’d try using the boy as a bargaining chip, don’t you?” Roy asked, still watching the miracle unfolding before our eyes.
“It’s a possibility. Shit, it’s more than a possibility. So I’m going to stall Sherm. I’ve let him bum rush this whole thing and it’s time I took it back. Keep an ear out for us and keep quiet for fuck’s sake. If I can’t keep him in one of the other rooms, I’ll start coughing really loud. If you hear that, it’s your signal to get back into your positions. Sheila, if that happens, you’re going to have to do your best to keep Benjy’s hands hidden. Everybody clear?”
They nodded in unison, all except for Benjy.
“Benjy, do you understand, buddy?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he pressed down harder. I caught a glimpse between his fingers and saw something that looked like flesh-colored cheesecloth. It appeared as if John’s skin was growing, knitting itself back together over the wound in weblike strands.
“He can’t hear you when he’s like this,” Sheila explained. “He goes into a trance or something. But I’ll make sure.”
“Okay.”
John’s breathing was audible by then, and more regulated.
