It's a Miracle!

by H. Claire Taylor

  Which, of course, she didn’t.

  The Tacoma came to a halt on the curb right by the front doors, and Chris had to slam on his brakes to keep from rear-ending her. The shock of the sudden stop caused a lag in reaction time and gave Destinee a head start as she left the front door of the truck wide open and took off at a dead sprint.

  Had Jessica ever seen her mother run? She couldn’t recall a time. Not even a jog. Destinee’s form was awkward and flailing, but it didn’t seem to slow her down.

  Thankfully, Miranda didn’t take her responsibility lightly, and she leapt out of the truck, already off on a dead sprint and almost to the front doors of the church before Jessica’s feet had even landed on the sidewalk.

  “Go, McCloud, go!” Coach Rex shouted from behind her.

  Any chance of stopping Destinee before she made it inside had been immediately dashed the moment she’d parked Rex’s truck in the fire zone and gotten the jump on them. So now it was a matter of not letting things go from bad to worse, and that proved enough motivation to keep Jessica’s legs moving and arms pumping as fast as she could will them.

  A tingling sensation began to spread out and intensify on her skin as she passed under the Arc de Jimmy and made it to the front steps, but she had more urgent things to focus on than a dumb, presumably heavenly phenomenon.

  In the years between when Jessica had last entered through the perfectly Windex-ed glass front doors and the current moment, her memory had exaggerated the length of the aisle between the pews in the sanctuary to nearly a mile long. That’s what it’d felt like the last time she was there, at least, fleeing from persecution by her mother’s side.

  But once she made it through the foyer and saw it again, she estimated it to be only about two-hundred feet long; not much further than from home plate to first then second base, if she understood those distances correctly (which she wasn’t sure she did).

  Destinee screamed incoherently as she tore down the aisle toward Jimmy, who seemed almost pleased to see her there.

  Then Jessica realized what was happening, what had been happening, what would inevitably happen.

  Shit. It’s a trap.

  But it’s one I couldn’t avoid. Checkmate.

  She continued sprinting after Miranda, though, who was only a few feet behind Destinee as they rapidly closed the distance between them and the stage.

  She glanced up at Jimmy where he stood. He didn’t have a single drop of attention to spare for the rabid woman charging at him, spouting obscenities in between her strings of gibberish; he only had eyes for Jessica.

  “Look who the Lord has brought us, as He promised me, and as I relayed to you only moments ago. How could I have known that Jessica Christ, of all people, would enter freely into this holy place, were it not something that God Himself had told me?”

  Destinee slowed just for a second before she climbed the stairs on the side of the stage, and it was enough for Miranda to leap.

  The image of a cheetah and gazelle popped into Jessica’s mind, but she knew now wasn’t the time for National Geographic, so she shoved it aside and caught up to the pair where they wrestled on the ground. She searched fruitlessly for an opportunity to jump in and help secure her mom so that Miranda didn’t take a quick elbow to the chin.

  Miranda took a quick elbow to the chin. She yelped and fell backward, and Destinee tried to get to her feet, but then Chris was there and he managed to hold her down in such a way that she couldn’t get any leverage against him. A moment later, Rex jogged up, huffing and puffing, and tried to help Chris bring Destinee to her feet, but mostly he just clutched his heart.

  Jessica tried not to think about how this would play out on Vine or Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter. Did Twitter do video? She’d have to check on that. Wendy would have a massive aneurysm when she saw it either way.

  “Come here, sweet child. I beg your forgiveness as the Lord commands.”

  She glanced back at her mother, who seemed to be mostly subdued, and then sighed deeply. It looked like she had no choice but to try to confront Jimmy head on and see if she couldn’t beat him at his own game.

  Her expectations for such a positive outcome were not high.

  She climbed the stairs onto the stage and Jimmy outstretched his arms.

  Does he really think I’m going to hug him?

  The idea was laughable. And yet … There was a part of her that was drawn to those open arms, a part that wanted to be embraced by him. Despite everything she knew about Jimmy, he still managed to be so damn huggable. How was that possible? Was it their history? Was it because she still, unfortunately enough, thought Jimmy was a little hot? Ugh. But screw that. He was a jerk. Jerks didn’t deserve hugs.

  When she denied him, he frowned and pouted exaggeratedly so that the camera could pick up the emotion clearly. Shitballs. Her impulse to hug him intensified.

  FIGHT IT. RANDY WANTED A HUG, TOO.

  But it’s just a hug. It doesn’t mean—

  THOU SHALT NOT HUG THAT ASSHOLE.

  Obviously I won’t. But what do I do? How do I beat him?

  YOU CANNOT. HE’S WON THIS ROUND.

  What?!

  SORRY.

  Change it!

  NOPE.

  Please?

  NOPE. HE’S WON. NOTHING SHORT OF A SMITING COULD—

  Sounds good.

  THOU SHALT NOT SMITE JIMMY DEAN! I— HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS?

  “Look! See the way her face glazes over as she communes with the Lord? That was the same expression I wore when He spoke to me. Jessica”—she snapped out of it and looked at Jimmy, who’d given up on the hug thing, thankfully—“tell me what the Lord has said to you. Tell us all!”

  “He called you an asshole,” she said as loudly as she could, hoping the cameras picked it up clearly. Maybe Jimmy had won, but insulting him at least made her feel better.

  Until Jimmy fell to his knees, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and stared up at the ceiling. “Oh Lord! You see all my sins, and You hath deemed me an asshole. I throw myself at the mercy of Your only begotten daughter, in hopes that You will work through her to forgive me.”

  He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and fell silent. Jess planted her feet where she stood. What the hell was Jimmy doing? Was he … praying? No, surely that couldn’t be right.

  She glanced out over the pews, where each member of the church stared wide-eyed at the spectacle. They seemed to be holding their breath, and she wondered what sort of nonsense they’d been subjected to in the time between when she’d stopped watching in the news van to when she’d first sprinted from the foyer into the sanctuary.

  This had to stop. If he’d already won, better to get it over with. She took a step forward, then another, until he was within arm’s reach. She leaned down and extended her hand toward him, but before she made contact, his eyes shot open and he jumped up. She managed to control her bladder, which was full of Dr. Pepper from Gordon’s, before she had a whole new situation on her hands.

  “Yes, O Lord! I hear Your words,” he shouted at the arched ceiling. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of pale blue liquid. “Lord God has told me that it is now time for my cleansing.” He held up the bottle. “One sip of this cyanide will be enough to kill me almost instantaneously, but the Lord hath commanded me to drink all of it to show my commitment and faith in Him and the miracles He works through his flesh and blood.”

  Is he really about to drink that?

  YEP.

  And how does drinking poison help him win? It seems like that would help him lose.

  Jimmy tipped back the bottle, and she didn’t try to stop him as it emptied down his throat and members of the congregation gasped and screamed. He recapped the bottle and slipped it back into the pocket of his white suit jacket.

  Somewhere a child began crying.

  “Now my life is in the Lord’s hands. I shall approach the pearly gates and be judged. If He deems my repentance wor
thy of his mercy, He has promised to send me back through a miracle performed by his daughter. And I will return purified and ready to serve as her voice in a world that so desperately wants to reject the word of God through filthy sin. As I die a pig, may I humbly return, born again as a piglet.”

  Mrs. Wurst sat with her hands folded in the front row, looking quite sure of herself, a serene smile on her lips as she nodded her head gently.

  I wish I’d never brought her back.

  OH FOR SURE.

  Jimmy coughed then gagged before stumbling over to the pulpit to hold himself up as he began gasping for air.

  A woman in the front row jumped up and screamed, “Someone help him!” But Jimmy looked up at her, his eyes becoming more bloodshot with each passing second of choking, and he held up a hand to stop her, even as he gasped and clutched at his throat.

  “It’s God’s will,” proclaimed Mrs. Wurst, and Jessica realized for the first time that Chief Wurst was not present. Neither were Courtney or Trent. Small blessings …

  She turned her attention back to Jimmy, who collapsed onto the velvety white carpeting of the stage. Horrible wrenching pushed its way up his windpipe in small bursts, and his face began to turn purple.

  Jessica allowed herself the luxury of simply observing it. There wasn’t anything she could do until he was dead anyway, so might as well enjoy the show.

  A final perverse desire to hug him flowed through her body as his legs twitched one last time and then he was still. The silence was stifling. Even the sobbing from the audience had ceased.

  As she looked out over the hundreds of faces in the pews and the hundreds more crowding into the back of the sanctuary, packed like sardines, she wondered if she’d be allowed to simply leave unharassed if she said, “Nah, I’m good,” and refused to resurrect Jimmy.

  The thought was tempting, oh so very tempting …

  Eugene Thornton’s microphone hung dumbly in his fist, similarly to how his jaw hung dumbly open as he watched a man who Jessica could only assume he’d spent a significant amount of time plotting with lately, draw his last breath. Perhaps Jimmy was the closest thing Eugene had to a friend in Midland. That idea did nothing to increase Jessica’s desire to resurrect the reverend.

  “Do it, Jess!” yelled her mother from behind her.

  Destinee was the last person Jessica would expect to hear that from. She turned to look at her mother, who then solved the mystery with, “If he stays dead, I don’t get to whoop his ass!”

  There was that. If watching her mother physically assault Jimmy wasn’t on her bucket list before, now it was. High chance Chief Wurst would help dismiss the charges, too, even if this wasn’t his jurisdiction.

  Jessica knelt down next to Jimmy’s unmoving corpse, leaning over him to inspect his purple face, which was starting to return to its normal golden tan.

  He looked peaceful lying there, his eyes closed, voice shutting the hell up for once. If he was peaceful and his death made her life more peaceful, it didn’t make much sense to change things.

  Nope. She’d just leave his dead ass right where it was. There had to be a fire escape nearby she could make it to before anyone knew what had happened.

  As the decision to let dead pigs lie began to take root in her brain, she reached down out of morbid curiosity, searching for a pulse. It was just good practice in the miracle biz, even if a resurrection wasn’t going to be taking place.

  She leaned forward, bringing her face closer to his as her fingers searched around for the jugular.

  A small stream of air from his mouth flooded her nostrils with a minty-fresh scent.

  What the—

  And then her fingers found the jugular, and the pulse though his vein was hard and rapid.

  I TOLD YOU HE’D WIN.

  “God dammit, Jimmy,” she hissed before he cracked open an eye and the corners of his lips twitched slightly.

  He closed his eye again before gasping for air, drawing his knees up toward his chest and splaying his arms out from his side, clawing at the carpet.

  “God … dammit …” Jess muttered again, as she stood up and backed away a few steps, giving him room to indulge in his theatrical thrashing as he pretended to convulse with God’s mercy.

  “Praise God!” came a man’s voice from the crowd.

  “Soo-ie!” called a woman.

  Similar exclamations followed.

  “It wasn’t me,” Jessica spoke into the mic on the podium. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t bring him back. He wasn’t—”

  Jimmy stumbled forward and shoved her to the side, looking worse for the wear, despite the whole thing being faked. He was really, really good at this.

  “She tells the truth!” he said. “She didn’t bring me back from the dead. God did! He worked through her because He knew how much more I have to do on this earth before I’m allowed to enter the pearly gates, which He’s assured me I’ll be allowed to do, so long as I do not stray from the path He has laid out before me.”

  “It was mouthwash!” she shouted, but no one heard her words, which were drowned out by Jimmy’s primal call to his people: “Soo-ieee!” and their divine Pavlovian response: “Soo-ieee!”

  She turned her back on the reverend and walked toward the side of the stage, where Destinee, Miranda, Rex, and Chris waited patiently. She shrugged as she approached, saying, “What can ya do?”

  Destinee looked too stupefied by the events that had just unfolded to even want to fight anymore.

  “Why’d you just bring him back?” Chris asked, as she reached him and then walked past, down the stairs and around toward the aisle leading out of White Light. He and the others followed at her heels.

  “I didn’t. I decided bringing him back would be a stupid decision.”

  “Then what the hell happened?” Destinee asked from her left side.

  Jessica fixed her eyes on the glass doors, knowing she could leave White Light Church today, but she wouldn’t be rid of it for a long time, maybe not ever.

  “Jimmy won. That’s what happened.”

  The standing parishioners began pouring out of the pews, snorting and rushing the stage at Jimmy’s beckoning. Seemed like another good call for Jimmy; him crowd surfing after supposedly being brought back from the dead by God Himself would go viral in no time.

  Jessica shoved a young man who tried to push past her, sending him sprawling on the floor between an older couple, who stepped over him without hesitation.

  “He can’t win!” Destinee protested. “There’s gotta be a next move for us.”

  “There is,” Jessica tossed back over her shoulder. “We go home.”

  To get to Mr. Foster’s office, Jessica had to pass by the trophy case at the front of the school. A third state championship football trophy had been added before the holidays.

  If there was one upside to Jimmy Dean’s victory over her narrative (and that was a huge if), it was that she’d been able to rejoin the football team again as the media fervor died down, losing interest in the daughter of God, preferring instead to go directly to the source, to God’s mouthpiece, who had a much better way with words and who the camera loved.

  A third state championship would have to be consolation enough for now.

  Mr. Foster’s door was closed as she approached his office after school. It was a big day, and not just because she’d had another awful week and finally, finally it was Friday. The day was notable because she’d made an important decision and she needed to tell the college counselor before she went and changed her mind again. After a year of meetings with him, which had mostly evolved into him leaning back in his chair, nodding and sighing along, while she informed him which college was the new top contender and usually discovered a new top contender by the end of it, she wondered what life would be like when she no longer had Mr. Foster to vacillate to.

  She’d started to wonder things in a similar vein more and more frequently, now that the end of high school was so close.

  What will like
be like when I don’t have to see any of the Wursts if I don’t want to? She imagined it’d be great.

  What will it be like to live in a big city? She imagined it would be like a dream come true to move around anonymously.

  What will happen when Chris and I live in different cities? She imagined it would involve a lot less making out.

  It was the last one that bothered her. She’d talked with her boyfriend earlier in the week, and he’d informed her solemnly that he had set his mind on Tech, knowing full well that she’d scratched that off her mental shortlist once she realized that Lubbock would be more of the same from Mooretown. And she knew that more of the same, with the exception of making out with Christopher Riley’s face, just wasn’t something she could take anymore of. The bottom line was that she didn’t know if she could take another year in a small town. She’d heard rumors that the bigger the town, the less citizens gave a shit about one another, and while she usually heard it said like it was a bad thing, it sounded a little like Heaven to her.

  So once it was settled that she wouldn’t be in the same town as Chris, her school selection could be based on other things. Things like whether or not she wanted to play college football, how far away from Mooretown she wanted to be, and whether hemorrhaging money for the next four years was worth living out of state.

  The door to Mr. Foster’s office opened, and Jessica jumped back when Courtney Wurst came flying out, a rare genuine smile on her face until she almost ran smack into Jessica, at which point she stopped in her tracks and the smile turned into the familiar sour-lemon face that Jess knew and loved so well. Courtney turned up her nose and walked by, clipping Jessica’s shoulder with her own as she passed. That was a new behavior that had begun after Jimmy Dean’s faked resurrection and was now a once-daily occurrence, if Jessica was lucky. If she wasn’t lucky, which was mostly the case, she found herself shoulder checked an average of eight times a day by the Wurst daughter—before class, between each class and lunch, and then after school. It was clear the girl was going out of her way to find Jessica just to accost her.