Race the Sky

by Michael Galloway

  He repeated several variations of that last line for effect and kept his eyes closed. The random keyboard notes continued in the background and soon were accented by guitar playing. The colored lights that backlit the black curtain behind the stage dimmed to put more emphasis on Jared. It also made the shadows on stage grow even longer.

  Madeline sensed something hostile and foreign in the room and watched the crowd with a nervous wariness. She set down her pen and clutched her mother’s hand. Eager and with hands uplifted, several of those gathered rose up from their seats and mimicked Jared’s words with their eyes closed. Some rocked back and forth on their feet while one man who was bound to a wheelchair looked ready to fall asleep from boredom.

  “Glory, Lord,” Madeline’s mother whispered with her eyes closed.

  Jared chanted several other phrases such as “heal them Father” and “fill this room.” As the instrumental music droned on, he called out to the audience to see if anyone wanted to come forth and be healed. In less than a minute, the woman with the cane stepped forward. She was helped up to the stage by another man, probably her husband, who walked upright. When she arrived in front, Jared laid both of his outstretched hands onto her head and mumbled a few words that Madeline could not understand. His arms were covered in tattoos and although Madeline never studied them up close, she was sure one of them was a dragon breathing fire.

  Somewhere in the back of the sanctuary a door slammed as if a sudden gust of wind pushed it shut. A slight breeze swept over the crowd and some of those gathered looked around to see where it came from. Madeline noticed that the air conditioning system kicked in but she was unsure if that was the source of the air movement.

  Jared spoke to the woman. “Can you try it without the cane? Here, take my hand.” He extended a hand and led the woman across the stage. Her movements were labored and tentative at first, but eventually she walked without assistance. She smiled and raised her hands in the air to thunderous applause and shouts of “thank you God”.

  Her husband tried to take the cane from her but she shook her head. Instead she held it up in the air and tossed it across the stage. The cane whirled about and fell out of sight. She did a brief dance and gave Jared a bear hug. Meanwhile, Madeline silently wondered how many times they practiced this skit ahead of time.

  Soon others approached the stage and a line formed off to the left. The music intensified as did Jared’s antics. Again he outstretched his hands and placed them on the forehead of another woman whose right arm was in a white cloth sling. In seconds the woman fell backwards but was caught by her husband or boyfriend. He then set her down onto the floor. Madeline stood up, as did others, to see what was happening.

  The woman, who looked to be in her early thirties, began to laugh and writhe on the floor as if she was having a seizure. Although some members of the crowd moved about uncomfortably, others praised God even more. Jared chanted “More! More!” and stretched out his hands at the woman as if he was channeling energy toward her twitching body. Madeline’s mother rose to her feet. Madeline sat back down to take more notes.

  After a minute of uncontrolled movement, the woman was helped to her feet. She wobbled on unsteady legs but moved her arm freely in her sling. In an act of triumph, she slipped off the sling and swung it around over her head a few times. The entire way back to her seat she giggled at random times and had trouble holding her head in a steady gaze.

  Madeline’s mother stepped into the aisle and got into line.

  “Mom!” Madeline whispered as loud as she could.

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” her mother whispered back.

  “Mom, no.”

  Her mother cast a sharp glance back at her. “I came here to get healed and that’s what’s going to happen. Now sit down and be quiet.”

  Taken aback, Madeline gave her mother a questioning look. When her mother made it to the front of the line, Jared called out, “Evelyn. Good to see you. Come up here.”

  He waved her on.

  Madeline clenched her fists and crossed her arms. She stood and watched as Jared laid hands on her mother’s forehead and then on her mother’s left side. In seconds Evelyn moved across the stage with an exaggerated smile and raised her hands in the air to scattered applause.

  The service went on for another hour and all those who came up front acted as if they had been healed in one way or another. Madeline documented all she could and then closed up her notebook. She had seen enough. As the event ended, she escorted her mother toward the nearest exit. On the way, she stopped to talk to a man who came in for healing for a stomach ailment.

  “So how is your stomach?” She said in the most sincere voice she could muster.

  The man nodded his head. “It’s better. Not one hundred percent. But it’s a little better.”

  “Do you come to church much? I’ve never seen you here before.”

  “No. This is my first time.”

  “Can I talk to you outside for a moment?”

  Just as Madeline felt like she was going to make some headway, Alicia swooped in next to the man with a beaming smile. She put a hand on his shoulder and walked in between Madeline and him.

  “I’m so glad to see you made it. Thanks for stopping by. Hope that stomach heals up!” Alicia said with a gushing voice. “We’ve seen so many people healed here. Couldn’t you just feel the presence in the room tonight?” Alicia seemed to be on the verge of tears and her eyes shifted back and forth as if she could barely control them. She walked and spoke with jittery movements as if she drank a pot of coffee before the event. Madeline knew this was her normal demeanor now, ever since coming in contact with Jared’s version of God.

  Alicia increased her pace. “Here, there is someone I want you to meet.” She pulled the man away from Madeline and toward Pastor Anbusch. “Oh, and good to see you Evelyn!”

  Madeline turned to another couple whom she had never seen before in church and clutched her notebook tight against her side. Before she could even open her mouth, the guitarist swooped in and struck up a conversation with the couple. Frustrated and alone, Madeline inched her mother out through the side door and headed to her car.

  As she drove off toward her mother’s house, more than once Madeline’s thoughts caused her to lose focus on her driving. “Were you really healed back there?” She said.

  “Oh, yes dear. My side has been bothering me lately.”

  “Are you sure it’s not your diverticulitis acting up?”

  “If it was, it feels better now.”

  “So what did he say to you up there?”

  “I don’t…remember. Does it matter?”

  “It does.”

  “Is that because you’re taking notes? If you want to know what happens you should go up there yourself, young lady. But I did feel warmth coming from his hands. See? Feel my side. It’s still warm.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourself. Why did you come here anyway?”

  “For you.”

  “Oh, Maddie. If you got out of those books once in a while maybe you’d see things our way.”

  “Our way?”

  “Jared’s way. He’s a good man, you know. I’ve followed him for years.”

  “I know.” Madeline clutched the steering wheel tight. “But there’s something wrong with him.”

  “How so?” Her mother said defensively. “No, it’s like Jared said. Stop putting God in a box. Remember what he said in Are Miracles Electric? We don’t worship a dead book.”

  “It’s not a dead book, Mom. It’s alive.”

  “Maddie, the Bible doesn’t talk to you. You need to get out and live a little. Get your head out of all those books. How is it with John by the way? I still want to meet him.”

  Madeline sighed loud and pulled into her mother’s driveway. “In time, Mom. In time.”

  “I hope you don’t run off and get married without telling me.”

  “Mom, no. I barely know him and we haven’t even kissed.” />
  Her mother climbed out of the car and walked up to the front door of the house. “Okay, then. But remember, like Jared said, God has great plans for you and for this town.”

  Madeline watched as her mother went inside and shut the door. The entire drive home she wanted just once to pull over and scream at the top of her lungs.

  Chapter Eleven

  John did not update his chase log for several days following the Ingot tornado. His nighttime sleeping pattern had been disrupted as of late, which was routine after sifting through the remnants of people’s lives. Emotions, he realized, often turn color when exposed to the light, much like freshly turned earth after a storm. When he finally summoned the courage to look over the radar images, the damage survey, and the Ferganut sensor data, two things jumped out at him.

  First, the damage survey contained a map of the path of the first tornado. The path made a sharp swerve right over Jared’s church. There were some indications in the sensor data that a path shift was going to occur, but he needed more sensors to test his theory. Second, after the path shift the sensor data graph flattened out. It was as if he had reached the upper limits of what the sensors could handle in terms of velocity and pressure readings. Despite the abundance of sensors, the data still fell short and was incomplete. The solution, he feared, was just out of reach.

  After he entered his log notes on his computer, he pulled up the video clips that Captain recorded while out in the field. He sat mesmerized for a few minutes as he replayed one of the clips over and over, watching the suction vortices appear and disappear only to yield to a larger rotation that overtook them all. He tried to push the thoughts of the aftermath out of his mind and focused on getting the clips edited, cataloged, and uploaded online. He was sure he could sell some of the footage to a news outlet if he worked fast enough.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  He stood up, stretched, and answered the door. It was Madeline and although she looked a bit weary at first, her expression changed as soon as she saw John face-to-face.

  “You’ll never believe what happened,” she said as he led her inside. She proceeded to launch into a summary of the most recent healing event at Spirit of Grace, before sitting down on the couch. He fixed them both a cup of coffee and sat down next to her.

  She pulled out a notebook and opened it to a page full of notes. “I followed up with some of the participants. Some of their symptoms came back. But all of them swear something great happened that night. It’s like we went to two totally different shows.”

  “So he’s getting bolder?”

  “Oh, but there’s more. People were dropping to the floor and rolling around. After I dropped my Mom off, I found some new videos of him online. Check this out.” She withdrew her cell phone from her pocket, loaded up a video, and showed John. “This happened after we left.”

  John watched a two-minute clip which showed two lines of people laying hands on another line of people passing between them. It looked like a human tunnel. When the participants passed through they came out the other side and fell into an out-of-control laughing heap on the carpet. If the two lines of people were rails, then it looked like a massive human train wreck on the other end.

  “They look drunk,” John said. “Reminds me of a party I went to in college.” His arm brushed against hers. He handed the phone back and stared into her eyes. He knew she meant well by doing all of this research but he wondered at what point she would lose hope and give up the fight. “Why do you keep putting yourself through this?”

  “Because a lot of broken people are coming in there to find hope. People like my Mom.”

  “Do they find it?”

  “Not the kind of hope that makes a difference.”

  “How come I’ve never met any of these broken people? Last time I showed up to one of those places it was like a country club. No one talked to me. So I just left.” He watched her move through some screens on her phone.

  “They exist, John. Sometimes you have to reach out to them first.” When she looked up again her gaze locked onto his eyes. At that point he knew he was in trouble.

  Before he could say another word, their lips met in a kiss. All of his previous concerns about the last chase disappeared in a swirl of anxiety and joy. His heart raced and it made him nervous.

  He pulled back and turned away.

  “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?” She asked.

  He shook his head no and stood up.

  “This is about Rebekah, isn’t it?”

  John smiled and stepped over to his desk. He glimpsed at his chase notes to buy time. He did not know what to tell her at this point. Despite his growing feelings of attraction for Madeline, unsettling parallels to Rebekah kept surfacing in his mind. Worse, it seemed that every salvo of questions he launched into the past to search for an answer to Rebekah’s death just led to more questions and no answers. The data, like his sensor graphs, was hopelessly incomplete.

  “Sorry,” Madeline said with a frown. She stood up and folded up her notebook. “Maybe I should come back another time.” She took a step toward the front door.

  “No. Don’t go. Stay. Here, sit next to me.” He motioned for her sit back on the couch again.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. About the healing event. Was that lady there? The one from the gas station, I mean. And the town.”

  “She didn’t make it. I have a feeling she’s never coming back.”

  “Think she understands the word was a lie?”

  “John, that church is full of those people. It keeps growing all the time.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes again and this time John did not look away.

  “You should show up with me next time,” she said after a moment. “Then you can see what I chase.”

  He turned away. “I don’t know. What if I end up punching the guy?”

  “Jared?”

  “Yeah. I mean, what if I ran up on stage and let him have it? What would they do to me?”

  “They might have you arrested.”

  John entertained the thought and stared at his hands. They both trembled slightly and he did his best not to clench his fists.

  “So what do you think?” She asked again.

  “You’re asking a lot of me.”

  “Sorry.”

  He let a period of silence open up between them while he worked through his irritation. On the outside chance the encounter would lead to valuable data, he finally conceded. “Can I take video?”

  Madeline laughed. “Only if he approves of it. And you can also meet my Mom.”

  John took a gulp of coffee and reread the damage survey from the Ingot tornado. “What have you told her about me?”

  “That I went on a chase with some crazy guys in a pickup truck.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “That I shouldn’t run off and get married without telling her first.”

  John took another gulp of coffee but nearly choked on it. “Have you done that before?”

  Her eyes widened. “Never.”

  He gave her a smile that lasted several seconds. The rest of the time he sat next to her, his thoughts alternated between kissing her and getting into a car and driving off to be alone for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Twelve

  John was not used to getting up this early on Sunday mornings, unless it was a chase day. He let it be known in not-so-subtle body language that he preferred to be somewhere other than sitting in a wooden chair for an hour. With his arms crossed, legs outstretched, and his head tilted back, he sat next to Madeline, who sat next to her mother, Evelyn. Jared paced through the aisles of the sanctuary and dropped off piles of brochures into the ends of each row. As Jared passed by, John could hear him humming the song “Silver and Gold” by Burl Ives.

  John reached over, picked up a brochure, and studied it. He found it to be similar to the one Captain picked up at the China House Restaurant in Canton. As he set it bac
k onto the chair at the end of the row, he noticed something sparkling on the seat next to him. He swept his index finger across the seam where the seat cushion met the chair frame and held it up for Madeline to see. There, on his fingertip, was gold dust.

  The service opened with music he did not recognize, and from the looks of it, Madeline did not recognize it either. Alicia stood in front of her microphone, strumming a guitar, but her eyes shifted back and forth across the crowd with a nervous regularity. The crowd rose to its feet, and many put their hands in the air, including Evelyn. John remained seated and kept his arms crossed. He looked twice at the exit sign in the back corner of the sanctuary.

  As the music dragged on, John felt his eyelids become heavy, until the final song. All John heard was the phrase “Spirit of the Living God” repeated over and over, slower and slower. In between the repetition the percussionist swept her hand across a set of studio chimes. At the end, Madeline elbowed him in the side and he woke up just as everyone was sitting back down again.

  Once again Jared paced the stage like an irritated lion. He eventually returned to the podium. After some introductory remarks from the head pastor, he immediately launched into a sermon. “I’d like to start this morning by asking you all a question. How do we know we’re walking with God? How do we know we’re not just getting in the way of the grand plan? The other day I was meditating in my office and it occurred to me: years ago I thought I was walking with God. I read my Bible, went to church, sat in a chair or a pew, just like you. Heck, I even gave money to the local food shelf.”

  He paused for effect and gazed out upon the crowd as if he contemplated his thoughts. “But there was something missing. Everything started to feel like work. Who’s with me?”

  A smattering of voices said amen.

  “But God wasn’t interested in that. How do I know? I know because one day God gave me a wakeup call. Little ol’ me…can you believe it? It happened when I went to a retreat with some other pastors and I was struck by how the Spirit moved through them. It was like they were walking energy fields, if that makes sense. So I asked God: why can’t I be more like that? Why can’t I have what they got?”