My Pilgrims
“What would we be, without Christ, but a choir of mutes? A ballet of cripples? A consortium of morons?”
– Saint Thomasino, The Indignant Beggar
I meet them at the gate with a sign and a smile. I shake the men’s shaking hands. I fist bump the kids. They come from all over. Dallas, Omaha, Cincinnati, Boise. Places plain and beige as their names.
They like my hair dark cheeks and the glint in my eye. The sound of my voice, American. I take their worries with their bags. A cross on the van with my name right below it. A rosary and a Little Tree hanging from the mirror. They look out the window with shining, stupid eyes. Orange trees, shantytowns, fly gilded feces, a kid squatting with his pants around his ankles, waving.
I tell them the history of the site. The Virgin was found on the wall in 1897. Thomasino saw her and wept. I recount the miracles. Spines straightened, cancers canceled, brains unretarded. A paraplegic who touched his forehead to the cave wall and stood. I like the quiet in their faces as I talk. My lips move like my hands, turning the wheel, changing gears, signaling. Cracked white streets. Laundry on lines. Sometimes an African comes up to the window wearing a hundred hats, a box in his arms, bracelets, balls, toys, lighters wrapped in sunsets, puppies, crosses, an Asian woman spreading her legs, the shy smile of her slit, and other assorted crap. I roll up the window. I stare straight ahead. I don’t even wave them away.
Sometimes they ask me, Do you believe it? I tell them, I’ve been running these tours for three, four years, how could I do that if I didn’t believe it? How cynical would I have to be?
That morning I got a flat and showed up late. The couple was on the curb with their bags by their feet. Steve, Steve Leguisamo, said the man, as if that meant a thing to me. He tried to give me a firm handshake. And my wife, Marie Ann. She kept smiling and saying, Grazie. I took her bag and she said, Grazie. I opened the door and she said, Grazie. I could open her bags, dump out her clothes, and piss on them, and she’d thank me for unpacking.
A silver crucifix shone on her chest and the backs of her hands were bruised.
I told the story as I drove them to town. Thomasino went to the hills, saw the Virgin, and returned to town, saved. He held Maryann’s hand even as she slept, her bosom rising and falling. Across the hills of her chest, cows could pasture. Wild horses could run. I could spread out a blanket and sleep. I stopped talking and we listened to the beat of the potholes, the heart of the road under the wheels.
Cobblestones woke her up. Steven helped her up the stairs. I went ahead with their bags. Creased white sheets in their room, the Last Supper on the wall, a square of sun burning from the floor. Maryann sat breathless on the edge of the bed. I know the owner, I told him, she’s nice, but she’s cheap. You need anything, you call me. Otherwise I’ll be here 9 a.m. tomorrow. He said, Thank you, thank you, nodding but not listening, and put a folded up twenty in my palm.
I went downstairs and found the owner. Her gray hands soaked in a sink of gray, soapy water. Damp hairs clung to the hot breath of the back of her neck. She wiped her forehead with her arm, motioned to the table, said, Là. I parted her purse with my fingers, and there were the bills, sticking out of her wallet and smiling at me.
I got a cow, I told Lucia that night. Just gonna stand there and let me milk them. She’s practicing Duolingo. I am very glad you enjoyed your vacation, she said. I am very excited to go on vacation myself. I sat there, drank my beer, watched evening fall in the street, clouds purple above the houses, kids going home to the bounced beat of their balls, lights come on in windows, plastic chairs, flowered cloths, a lonely fat woman leaning on her sill, a kitchen rag hanging from her hand, smoking.
9 a.m., there I am with my smile and Good morning. Out of town. Into the hills. The cave is at the bottom of a ravine, but they’ve put in stairs, rails, even a ramp to help the wheelchaired. We stood in line. I tried to make conversation, play host. The two of them just nodded, smiled, stared straight ahead. Steve, from time to time, stood on his toes to look over shoulders. Carabinieri in their crisp, clean uniforms, cradling their guns, ridiculous. A guide leading a group of Americans with ST. MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH on their shirts. Like they’d get lost if not labeled. He gestured to the broad, blue sweep of sky, and spoke. They took pictures of the dirt.
We stopped at an info plaque. It read:
In 1897, Saint Thomasino, then not a saint but only a salesman and fornicator, saw the Virgin on the wall and was saved.
The two of them read it while, beside them, a girl with milk for eyes fondled the braille.
The cave was at the bottom of the stairs. From the wall Mary’s white silhouette showed like a breath. Clasped hands. Pitying smile. Striations in the stone for the folds in her robes. A woman spread herself against the wall, kissing the rock, cheeks shiny with tears. An old man raised a spotted hand from a walker. Two people stood next to a kid in a wheelchair. Touch it, they said. David, you have to touch it. A trembling young man whose private form of devotion was to tell everyone: Go ahead, and then follow them with his eyes. Steel spikes at the top to keep off the birds.
Maryann held his arm as they went to the wall. I saw his devotion in the fat folds of his neck. She raised her shaky fingers, touched the bottom edge of the stain, as if to the hem of the Virgin's dress, and drew her hand away.
It never ceases to please me, to give me a sweet, secret thrill, how stupid people can be.
We went up the stairs and drove back to town, to a restaurant on a cool, shaded street with an old man eating soup in the corner and paintings of the sea on the walls. The old man’s hand was shaking. The soup kept spilling down his chin. The waiter, Alberto, I know him, he bows and clicks his heels and opens the menu with a hospitality so exaggerated it’s insolent. Then he goes to the bar, his smile drops, his shoulders sink, he sips wine and considers a crack in the wall. The food is shit, microwaved. A hair like a question mark in the soup. My pilgrims only stop stuffing their faces to tell me how good it is.
The woman spread a napkin in her lap. She picked up a bite and put it down. She coughed into her salad, while her husband talked to me about his life, their absent son, his office job. I watched his food in his mouth. His voice followed dull, interminable stories like flat dirt roads to nowhere. And don’t get me started on A.I., he said, and I said, Okay. I won’t.
It was the same thing the next day. And the next. We came to the site, we waited in line, she touched the hem of the dress, we left. On their last day, I came to get them for their flight and found them unpacked. A forest of pill bottles on the table. The woman on the edge of the bed. Blue veins in her shins. We’re staying, he said. You’ll be happy to know we’re staying.
That night I brought Lucia a necklace so bright it shone on her face. We fucked by the window with the breeze on my ass.
Lucia. Lying there, totally still, her body runs, leaps and shines like a stream. Middle of the night, sometimes, I sit up and stare at her. Black flies masticate the cracks in the wall. The black street is full of silence. My favorite book, Shantaram, weighs ten pounds on the floor. I’ve been here three years and could be gone in an hour.
I could not believe my luck, these people. I told Lucia. I told Alberto. We sat at the bar with beers in our hands and the chairs stacked up on the tables. An old man muttered and mopped the floor. I upped my rates, I told Al, I doubled them. And every week they pay. He shook his head slow in disbelief and, laughing, coughed. Alberto liked to hit his wife and kid. Now he lives above the restaurant with their picture by his bed.
They had to move to a cheaper pensione. On the outskirts of town where the houses squat like shitting. Bad, loud light. Onion skins in the corners. Every shadow a stain. Out on the street, the Africans sold garbage from tarps. Fake Gucci bags. I <3 Italy. Don’t be Upsetti Eat Some Spaghetti. Sundown, they roll out their rugs, put down their foreheads, and pray towards a supermarket. Their fat white eyes followed us from the van. Maryann’s feet met on each step before taking another.
In the hall, I told him, it’s going to cost more now, I’ve got other customers I’m neglecting, it’s going to cost double, and couldn’t believe it when he opened his wallet, licked his thumb, and paid me.
Waiting at the site, Maryann’s color drained, her eyes rolled back, she swayed on his arm and collapsed. EMTs everywhere. They unbuttoned her blouse to check her breathing. Steven stood there and prayed.
We brought her to the car while she said, No, no, no, no, no, looking back behind her. I kept thinking, Don’t look at her, then looked at her. Tears like worms down her cheeks. Makeup getting in her mouth. We took her up the stairs. We put her in bed. She stared up, like she could see through the cracks in the ceiling, the water-stains and rooms above us, to God.
Time for the hospital, I was saying to them, time to go home. The sound of my voice sickened me. He turned to her and she shook her head. Lucia’s uncle is a stupid, sodden man with a bald spot and a drinking problem. He’s also, as the family will bring up to you at every possible opportunity, a doctor.
That night I called him. His breath stung gin. He unclasped his bag, took her temperature, knocked her knee, listened to her breathing, with the careful, practiced attention of someone suddenly aware he’s drunk. He stood and burped into his fist.
Non bene, he told me in the hall. Mi dispiace, he said, patting my arm.
After that Maryann didn’t get out of bed. Her husband sat in a chair and held her hand. She let him refill her water, wipe her forehead, bring her a piece of bread that just sat there and staled. He kept going out to make calls. I lent him my copy of Shantaram. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. He flipped to the end to check the length. He looked at his phone and then back at the page. How is it, I asked him.
Oh, great, he said. Yeah, it’s just great.
I brought them plates of pasta under paper napkins. I upped my rates so they’d leave. I told him, You cannot afford it. You cannot afford this. Go home. He paid me. I took his money like a punishment, and squeezed my hands to fists. The flies, the prayers. The pot full of vomit by her bed. Sometimes I’d take the pot to the toilet down the hall, then place it, rinsed, back on the floor. She moaned at the wall. He slept in his chair with the book on his lap. His head drooped, his snores fought for air, then his chin touched his chest and he shot awake, startled.
I brought a doctor. I brought a priest. Sunset sagged over the antennas and steeples. The priest had acne and nervous, kneading hands. His nose scrunched as he went into the room.
I watched from the door. His English was laboriously over-correct. He raised his voice to be heard over her coughing. He gave her the wafer, helped her raise the chalice to her lips. Her hands shook. Wine spilled. She wiped her chin with her hand and lay back down. He crossed her. Nothing moved but the candles.
The priest came out with a napkin over his nose and said, Come puoi sopportarlo, shaking his head. Sei un santo.
I was asleep in a chair when she called me. She said a name I’d never heard. I went to her side. Her face was wet. Her voice was fainter than the smell of her breath. I got closer to hear her, despite the stench, the sweat, the flies, I got to my knees and bent down my head, until her words were a breeze on my ear. My son, she said with unbelievable tenderness. I didn’t think you would come. He called and called. I didn’t think you were coming. She took my hand. It’s okay. My son. It’s okay.
I was always going to come, I told her.
They brought her down on a stretcher, under a sheet, her bare feet sticking out of the end.
I walked home. Gray, seeping dawn. Pigeons in their nooks. An old beggar cursing as he swept the church steps. Lucia was sleeping. I laid down. I touched her back. She said, Che cosa? I didn’t know how to begin. I fell asleep and dreamed that I couldn’t fall asleep.
Tell me, where are those fingers slow and kind enough to untangle the tails of my hearts’ ratking?
