The Normals

by David Gilbert

  It's all the normal crap, Billy thinks.

  Flip around and you see the same portrait in different colors.

  Click.

  Pilgrims gather around the home of Lily Savitch, mother of Chuck. Filmed from above, the crowd sit on the lawn and sing and pray under the hot Wisconsin sun, the shadow of the helicopter in buzzardlike relief. They're keeping vigil. They're witnessing. They're waiting for a glimpse or maybe an audience. "The Lord shows up so rarely in this day and age," says Frank Vernon from Chester, New York. "You seek Him where you can. Even if it's not Him, it's Him, if you know what I mean." Though they're from all over the country, they might have shopped in the same stores. They could be related, the atmosphere family-reunion friendly. Children buddy up. Picnics are shared. Every day new friends are delivered into the crowd's loving grasp.

  Click.

  "Every hotel, motel, bed-and-breakfast within a twenty-mile radius is booked solid with you folks and pilgrims," Tyrone Ophuls, mayor of Menomonee Falls, tells a reporter. He wears a wide tie on a wide stomach hanging below a wide smile. "All our restaurants are packed. Business is booming well above our normal October-in-August fest traffic. I hear Milwaukee's doing well too. On average ten tour buses are arriving every day and charter flights are coming in from all over the world. Yesterday, Hungary; today, Colombia. The Chamber of Commerce is estimating fifty million dollars will be pumped into our local economy, maybe more, depending on the, well, longevity of the event." The mayor seems widely pleased with his tact. "You know most small towns only get this kind of attention when, God forbid, something awful happens, a multiple homicide, a school shooting, something like that, so we feel fortunate for the positive circumstance behind this coverage. Menomonee Falls is a lovely community."

  Click.

  "Hey, have you heard the latest about Chuck Savitch?" a late-night host asks his bandleader. "No? Well it seems the guy picked his nose and"— grin—"spread the word of God under the kitchen table." Rim shot and the audience groans.

  "You're going to get some letters," the bandleader says.

  Click.

  The modest front of the Savitch home is covered with 1) candles, votive candles along with large colored candles that melt on a hardpan of their brethren, encasing the stoop in red, blue, green; 2) a quarter-life-size creche pulled early from Christmas storage; 3) bundles and bundles of flowers, mostly lilies of the valley and palm fronds and holly; 4) notes taped to the wrought-iron banister and aluminum siding, also children's drawings in thick crayon, and devotional pictures, and banners as if Christ is the best football player ever; 5) six wooden crosses leaning like an uncompleted trellis; 6) photographs of loved ones too sick to travel positioned along the perennial border of pansies and geraniums blooming with despair. The bay window curtains are always closed, though the fabric is near sheer and works like a scrim. "He's in there," says Bruce Nole, from Missoula, Montana, as people around him sing hymns and lift cell phones for friends and family back home. "You can feel it, sometimes see it, him right behind those curtains, watching us on TV."

  Click.

  The talk show guest, a university professor of popular culture, nods and smiles like he'll always get the joke long before the punch line, nods and smiles as he waits for the end of the question, which is dragging, which is typical for this serious interviewer who squares his question—"Which is to say . . . " "In relation to . . ." "What I mean, I guess . . . " "So the whole issue, really, in hindsight is. . ."—and smiles and nods along with his guest, though his smile is more uncertain, like he's in under his head, leaning forward, leaning backward, telling a long flamboyant story around this one question hoping he might hit upon a single good idea, which seems to revolve around mass hysteria vis-a-vis religious fervor combined with millenarianism and, of course, the self-perpetuating media event, the feeding frenzy, the need for eyeballs that stick, and the obvious strength of the ratings for this story, a story for our times, the host punching his final words about, "What. This. All. Means. In. This. Day. And. Age?"

  "Well," the guest—

  Click.

  Neighbors of Chuck have been infused with the entrepreneurial spirit. They rent their driveways to satellite vans. They sell sandwiches and lemonade and cookies. They charge two dollars for bathroom privileges. "What with all the hassle, all the traffic around here, we might as well make something," says Peter Lauffesen, local resident, standing in his yard surrounded by fifty folding chairs that face the Savitch house. Every chair is taken, five bucks a day. It's a better deal than his neighbor Geoff Carlson who charges seven.

  Click.

  "I usually have terrible asthma," says Frank Toffelson, a local resident and friend of Chuck. "And come summers allergies can kill me, especially this summer, high pollen, high rag, a tough summer for me. But three weeks ago, and this is before we knew anything about what this thing looked like, we just knew Charlie was sick, so I went on over and dropped off an apple pie my wife baked—we're all friendly—and when I walked into that house, the air seemed different, like purer, cooler too, and I wondered, I remember wondering, did they put in central air-conditioning? I gave them the pie and since then I've had no allergies." Then he stares into the camera. "Go ahead and make fun us, all of you out there. I know what you're thinking because I thought it myself. Rubes, right. Religious nuts. But what you are seeing is love. That's what you're spitting at."

  Click.

  The oncologist and the older sister of Chuck stand in front of the attached two-car garage. A small podium has been constructed for an informal press conference, a sort of state of Chuck address. Dr. Nathan Vartan, of Mercy Hospital, bobs over the microphones like a ferret wondering if these black eggs have gone bad. Nancy Savitch Karansky lingers behind his right shoulder, more family representative than spokesperson. She stares at the only place where there's no camera: her feet.

  The doctor reads from a prepared statement, at times embellishing his words poorly. "Our treatment of Charles Savitch has progressed to the point of pain management. That means palliative care." He spells palliative. "We're not trying to cure him, as some rumors have, uhm, rumored, we're trying to make him as comfortable as possible." Dr. Vartan blinks rapid-fire, like his eyelids are Morse code beating Get me out of here. "The truth is, his condition is grave. Charles Savitch is dying. He's made it clear that he wants to die in his childhood home surrounded by friends and family. It's a sad situation for everybody involved. Mr. Savitch is saying his good-byes. How long will this last? Hard to say. As a doctor I take no stock in prediction. His condition is deteriorating daily. The tumor is suffocating his ability to function, but the tumor itself is located in the cerebrum, in the lobes, while the brain stem, in particular, the medulla oblongata, is still persisting under the assault. It's like a fire on the fifth floor but the mechanicals in the basement are still working. As you can imagine, it's a terrible way to die, especially for the loved ones, but I feel I must remind the people of the media, again, that beyond the personal tragedy there is nothing unique about Mr. Savitch's condition. He is one of the thousands of people with a malignant glioma and one of the millions of people with cancer. His signs and symptoms are neither rare nor special, certainly not miraculous. His clinical features have been wholly characteristic of the disease. His MRI, unfortunately famous, shows nothing more than a typical glioblastoma multiforme in both hemispheres of the brain. I will remind you, again, that the rate of incidence for this disease is four-point-five persons per one hundred thousand people. Our initial strategy in terms of treatment was hampered by both the location and size of the tumor. Mr. Savitch chose—I think rightly—a nonaggressive approach knowing the slim chance of a therapeutic success. Let me make this perfectly clear, again, that in no way was his treatment precluded because of a coincidental resemblance to anybody living or dead. We gave Mr. Savitch his options, none very appealing, and he decided on refraining from an aggressive course of action. He wanted to spend his remaining time with friends and family, free from w
hat can be debilitating care."

  Dr. Vartan pauses, a dramatic pause, which he plays for rage. He tightens his face and clenches his mouth. Every word that follows is strained through colander teeth. "But let me tell you, ladies and gentleman of the media, you've made a dying man's life even worse. You've robbed him of his remaining freedom. He's trapped in his own home, unable to savor the outdoors, his greatest joy. All he can do is watch TV, and thanks to you people here, he's constantly reminded of his situation. Being from the great state of Wisconsin, it reminds me of another period from our past when something else ran wild. It seems we've entered a comparable age but instead of McCarthyism, we have the media shouting and pointing fingers and claiming to report nothing but the facts when the whole system is corrupted. So I ask, in a similar vein, have you no shame."

  Dr. Vartan folds his slip of paper, steps back. He reaches for Nancy Savitch Karansky; she flinches as if his hands are too severe. "If I could add something," she says, reluctantly approaching the microphones. "The doctor is not talking about you pilgrims. My brother is touched by you people and says thanks for the kindnesses and prayers. Thank you."

  A voice off camera shouts, "Will you release the most recent MRI?"

  She glances around, lips wallowing, and then says, "No."

  The doctor bends forward. "These are not press releases. These are diagnostic tools and as such are the sole property of the patient. As everyone well knows, the MRI now in circulation was stolen from the hospital and sold to a tabloid. It was not released to the public nor will subsequent material pertaining to the patient be released."

  "Unless authorized by the family," the sister interrupts.

  The doctor corrects himself. "Of course. Unless the family so desires."

  "But does the latest MRI reconfirm the image of Christ?" somebody shouts.

  "You mean the Shroud of Turin." The doctor grins, obviously pleased the subject has been broached. "That's what we're talking about, right, the Shroud of Turin. This cancer resembles, if it resembles anything, the Shroud of Turin. And as we all should know, the Shroud of Turin has been scientifically proven a fake."

  "So are you saying the MRI is a fake?"

  "You're putting words in my mouth. What I'm saying is all this excitement is over a similarity with a known fake."

  "So this MRI is the real thing?"

  "Yes, absolutely. The cancer is real. But the portrait of Jesus Christ could just as well be a portrait of a butterfly or a cloud formation or Charles Manson for that matter."

  Nancy Savitch Karansky frowns.

  "It's ambiguous stimuli," the doctor continues. "It's the equivalent of a Rorschach, but in this case the projection of Christ has been made and that's all anyone can see. You know what I see, as a doctor. A late-stage tumor."

  "Excuse me but can I say something?" asks Nancy Savitch Karansky.

  "Certainly."

  "Charles Manson is not the person in my brother's brain. He's a good Christian. I don't want TV reporters saying Charles Manson could be up in there. Let's stick with Jesus at least."

  A shout of, "Any truth to the rumors of blood weeping from the eyes."

  "Not really," the sister says.

  "Absolutely not," Dr. Vartan clarifies. "And those aren't eyes, they're tissue contrasts, light and dark spots, shadows."

  The sister turns to the oncologist. "Actually, I have a question."

  "Sure."

  "Has anyone ever come across a pattern exactly like this?"

  "No. But all neoplasms are different. They're like fingerprints." He offers his frustrated hands, stares into his palms, shakes his head like he's been thrown into the Dark Ages and he's explaining an eclipse. "Look," he says, "as humans we're biased to recognize an image within disorder, and Christ is certainly a very visible, very hopeful image. Nevertheless, at some point image has to give way to ideas and the idea here is that Mr. Savitch is a very sick man, a dying man, who deserves some peace. We can't invest images with hard truth."

  "So are you saying Christ is just an image?" is yelled.

  "I'm not here for a theological debate. But I will say that I think Christ as an idea is fundamentally more important than Christ as a historical fact."

  "And what's your religion?"

  "My parents were Episcopalian."

  There's a groan from the Baptists.

  Nancy Savitch Karansky edges in front of Dr. Vartan. "With regards to the earlier question about blood, I'd like to clarify that the house has had some strange leaking, particularly in the pantry, sticky yellowish stuff on the walls, like sap."

  "How about the rumors of healing?"

  "My mother has been feeling better. She's had horrible arthritis in her hands and I swear she could probably play jacks right now. And my best friend said her migraines eased up when she was having coffee in the house. Yeah, people've been feeling better. Even the twelve-year-old dog seems spunkier."

  "Psychosomatic," the doctor says.

  "Psycho nothing, they really have. Maybe not on the level of miracles, but it's still early and it's still something and it's still special." Like time-lapse photography—those filmstrips in biology class of a flower exploding or a dead mouse melting—Nancy Savitch Karansky transforms in less than a minute. Her bearing becomes more confident. Her pupils go from soft to steely. The clouds could be speeding over her head as she rises into her new role. "From now on," she tells the collected media, "I don't want anybody listening to this man here. For now on you only listen to me."

  Click.

  The front door of the Savitch home opens and two attendants appear holding the MRI in a baroque gold-painted frame. It's paraded through the crowd. It's a sin-clearing Zamboni looping the lawn in ever-tighter circles and leaving behind glistening flesh and chills. Hands stretch for the slightest brush. Sickly children are raised aloft by desperate parents who bat them toward the icon, the small hands reaching back toward their parents. The feeble and the infirm, the terminal, strain for their moment to kiss the lips, one of the attendants discreetly wiping away the plexi before the next person puckers. People faint. During the nightly prayer service, the bay window curtains slowly slide open and reveal Charles Savitch lying in his rented hospital bed (courtesy of Hogarth Medical Supplies in Milwaukee). He's like living stained glass. The crowd inhales forward. Nancy Savitch Karansky, dressed in blue, sits by his side and clutches his hand with less sibling grace and more self-promotion. She seems to squeeze the fame from his fingers.

  Click.

  The Catholic Church, like a bad joke, has sent forth a priest, a psychologist, and a canon lawyer. "What we might have here," says Raymond Dellacorte, spokesperson for the archdiocese, "is a victim soul whose suffering benefits the community around him. He absorbs their pain, takes upon himself their hardship. The scapegoat of Leviticus. There is a long history of victim souls that the church has recognized. Audrey Santo is the most recent example and perhaps most famous. She's been featured in People and Dateline. A movie is in the works. What we're doing here is convening a commission to investigate the possibility of victim soul status. Because of the progressive nature of the disease, the process has been put on fast track."

  Click.

  Victim soul or not, who will land the exclusive interview is the buzz among television types who talk about television on television. Word is the Savitch family is ready to open up, and with the right offer they're promising unlimited access including a chat with Chuck himself. The competition is fierce from network to network, the brightest lights pitching their services. Serious money has been offered by syndicators. "In the high hundreds of thousands," an industry source reveals. A pay-per-view outfit is floating the idea of a tent revival with Muhammad Ali and various ailing superstars in attendance. "We could get these people for nothing," a source is quoted. "The buy-in would be epic." Bids are rushed due to the terminal quality of the event—everyone wants a breathing Chuck; everyone agrees Chuck is essential. "Without Chuck," a former head of programming tells a cable pe
rsonality, "this deal isn't nearly as attractive. He's the keystone. Or capstone. Whatever. The entire package would have to include rights, that way the entertainment division could pay big bucks while the news division could maintain its integrity. You'd have something like a six-month broadcast delay between the interview and the docudrama. The local affiliates could double dip with lead-ins and follow-ups on their evening newscasts. It'd be a real revenue maker with possible overseas appeal. But you need to air Chuck, the interview, while he's still alive. You need the thing fresh. Chuck dead is depressing. Just another cancer story. Chuck alive, now there's tension. Chuck alive is full of questions. Maybe even Chuck Live. Oh man." The former head of programming (famously fired from a half-dozen jobs for poor public behavior) claps his hands. He's become a raconteur who specializes in his own decrepitude. "I could pitch that like Sandy Koufax," he says.

  Click.

  The Savitch family has decided to go with a living legend of broadcasting, the face-lift formerly known as the Elizabeth Cady Stanton of network news. Immediately the promos begin—the teases, the flirtations of something special happening next Wednesday at 9 P.M., 10 P.M. central, when all your questions will be answered. Billy—click—watches this, watches all of this—click—it's inescapable—click—the publicity flooding the airwaves—click—and Billy knows—click—that despite himself—click—he'll tune in—click—and embrace this farce—click—for no good reason—click—except that there's nothing else to do—click—but watch.

  23

  THERE WAS nothing holy in Doris's brain, no Son of God interred, only a slow wiping away of the neural face. But there was a pilgrimage, if humble, on a beautiful spring day, when the weather was just getting warm and Doris was scheduled for admission into the limbo of assisted living. During the flight home, Billy tried recalling his last visit for any clues of Alzheimer's. It was two years ago. He had returned to Cincinnati for the non-holidays—Christmas and Hanukkah canceled out in his family. No matter his relationship with his parents, being alone in his apartment was worse, and he had hoped, like he always did, that maybe things would be different, that time apart, and distance, and age, and even the season would bring about some charity. He envisioned a week not of love, but of understanding. After the first five minutes he realized what a crock. His parents tensed up and Billy became tight-lipped but hard-edged. Instantly the three of them regressed into simply surviving the remaining days together, like a vacation gone bad. But on the plane, Billy searched that last visit home for a loose thread auguring further unraveling. His mother had been quiet, yes, but she was always quiet around him. Nothing unusual there. Growing up, Billy would hear Abe and Doris talking excitedly, and when he'd enter the room, they'd clam up and greet him formally and wait for whatever he wanted. Maybe her eyes carried a bit more fear; they gravitated toward Abe for reassurance, as though a gun-toting madman hid in the closet and had told them, "Act cool and nobody gets hurt." But this reaction still was well within her bounds. Had she been moody? Hard to say because Billy was so moody. He assumed she was suffering from him. How about forgetful or confused? Sure, but once again, this seemed normal. She was always distracted around him, tripping through motherhood with little inspiration. Billy was a series of chores she really should write down.