Ray Bradbury. The Miracles of Jamie

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                The Miracles of Jamie
                1946

     Jamie  Winters  worked his first miracle in the morning. The second, third,
and  various  other  miracles  came  later in the day. But the first miracle was
always the most important.
     It  was  always the same: "Make Mother well. Put color in her cheeks. Don't
let Mom be sick too much longer."
     It  was  Mom's  illness  that  had  first  made him think about himself and
miracles. And because of her he kept on, learning how to be good at them so that
he could keep her well and could make life jump through a hoop.
     It  was  not the first day that he had worked miracles. He had done them in
the  past,  but always hesitantly, since sometimes he did not say them right, or
Ma  and  Pa  interrupted,  or the other kids in the seventh grade at school made
noise. They spoiled things.
     But  in  the  past  month  he  had  felt his power flow over him like cool,
certain  water;  he  bathed  in it, basked in it, had come from the shower of it
beaded with glory water and with a halo of wonder about his dark-haired head.
     Five days ago he'd taken down the family Bible, with real color pictures of
Jesus  as  a  boy in it, and had compared them with his own face in the bathroom
mirror, gasping. He shook all over. There it _was._
     And wasn't Ma getting better every day now? Well- _there!_
     Now,  on  Monday  morning, following the first miracle at home, he worked a
second  one at school. He wanted to lead the Arizona State Day parade as head of
his class battalion. And the principal, naturally, selected Jamie to lead. Jamie
felt  fine. The girls looked up to him, bumping him with their soft, thin little
elbows,  especially  one named Ingrid, whose golden hair rustled in Jamie's face
as they all hurried out of the cloakroom.
     Jamie  Winters  held  his head so high, and when he drank from the chromium
fountain  he  bent  so  carefully  and twisted the shining handle so exactly, so
precisely-so godlike and indomitable.
     Jamie  knew  it  would  be useless to tell his friends. They'd laugh. After
all,  Jesus  was  pounded  nail  through  palm and ankle to a Calvary Hill cross
because  he told on himself. This time, it would be wise to wait. At least until
he  was  sixteen  and  grew  a  beard,  thus  establishing  once and for all the
incredible proof of his identity!
     Sixteen  was somewhat young for a beard, but Jamie felt that he could exert
the effort to force one if the time came and necessity demanded.
     The  children poured from the schoolhouse into the hot spring light. In the
distance  were  the  mountains,  the  foothills  spread  green  with cactus, and
overhead  was  a  vast  Arizona sky of very fine blue. The children donned paper
hats and crepe-paper Sam Browne belts in blue and red. Flags burst open upon the
wind;  everybody  yelled  and formed into groups, glad to escape the schoolrooms
for one day.
     Jamie  stood  at  the  head  of the line, very calm and quiet. Someone said
something, and Jamie realized that it was young Huff who was talking.
     "I hope we win the parade prize," said Huff worriedly.
     Jamie  looked  at  him.  "Oh,  we'll  win all right. I know we'll win. I'll
guarantee it! Heck, yes!"
     Huff was brightened by such steadfast faith. "You think so?"
     "I _knew_ so! Leave it to me!"
     "What do you mean, Jamie?"
     "Nothing. Just watch and see, that's all. Just watch!"
     "Now,  children!" Mr. Palmborg, the principal, clapped hands; the sun shone
on  his  glasses.  Silence  came  quickly.  "Now,  children,"  he said, nodding,
"remember what we taught you yesterday about marching. Remember how you pivot to
turn a comer, and remember those special routines we practiced, will you?"
     "Sure!" everybody said at once.
     The  principal  concluded  his  brief  address  and the parade began, Jamie
heading it with his hundreds of following disciples.
     The feet bent up and straightened down, and the street went under them. The
yellow  sun  warmed  Jamie  and he, in turn, bade it shine the whole day to make
things perfect.
     When  the  parade  edged  onto  Main Street, and the high-school band began
pulsing its brass heart and rattling its wooden bones on the drums, Jamie wished
they would play "Stars and Stripes Forever."
     Later,  when  they  played  "Columbia,  Gem  of  the  Ocean," Jamie thought
quickly,  oh,  yeah,  that's  what he'd meant-"Columbia," not "Stars and Stripes
Forever"-and was satisfied that his wish had been obeyed.
     The  street  was  lined with people, as it was on the Arizona rodeo days in
February. People sweated in intent layers, five deep for over a mile; the rhythm
of  feet  came back in reflected cadence from two-story frame fronts. There were
occasional glimpses of mirrored armies marching in the tall windows of the J. C.
Penney  Store or of the Morble Company. Each cadence was like a whip thud on the
dusty  asphalt,  sharp  and  true, and the band music shot blood through Jamie's
miraculous veins.
     He  concentrated,  scowling  fiercely. Let us win, he thought. Let everyone
march  perfectly:  chins  up,  shoulders back, knees high, down, high again, sun
upon denimed knees rising in a blue tide, sun upon tanned girl-knees like small,
round  faces  upping  and  falling. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfection surged
confidently through Jamie, extending into an encompassing aura that held his own
group  intact.  As  he  moved,  so moved the nation. As his fingers snapped in a
brisk  pendulum at his sides, so did their fingers, their arms cutting an orbit.
And as his shoes trod asphalt, so theirs followed in obedient imitation.
     As they reached the reviewing stand, Jamie cued them; they coiled back upon
their  own  lines  like bright garlands twining to return again, marching in the
original direction, without chaos.
     Oh, so darn perfect! cried Jamie to himself.
     It  was hot. Holy sweat poured out of Jamie, and the world sagged from side
to  side.  Presently  the  drums  were  exhausted  and the children melted away.
Lapping an ice-cream cone, Jamie was relieved that it was all over.
     Mr. Palmborg came rushing up, all heated and sweating.
     "Children, children, I have an announcement to make!" he cried.
     Jamie  looked  at  young Huff, who stood beside him, also with an ice-cream
cone. The children shrilled, and Mr. Palmborg patted the noise into a ball which
he made vanish like a magician.
     "We've won the competition! Our school marched finest of all the schools!"
     In  the clamor and noise and jumping up and down and hitting one another on
the  arm  muscles  in celebration, Jamie nodded quietly over his ice-cream cone,
looked  at  young  Huff, and said, "See? I told you so. Now, will you believe in
me!"
     Jamie continued licking his cold cone with a great, golden peace in him.

    
    
     Jamie  did  not  immediately tell his friends why they had won the marching
competition. He had observed a tendency in them to be suspicious and to ridicule
anyone  who told them that they were not as good as they thought they were, that
their talent had been derived from an outside source.
     No,  it  was  enough  for  Jamie to savor his minor and major victories; he
enjoyed  his  little secret, he enjoyed the things that happened. Such things as
getting high marks in arithmetic or winning a basketball game were ample reward.
There  was  always  some  byproduct  of his miracles to satisfy his as-yet-small
hunger.
     He  paid  attention  to blonde young Ingrid with the placid gray-blue eyes.
She, in turn, favored him with her attentions, and he knew then that his ability
was well rooted, established.
     Aside  from  Ingrid, there were other good things. Friendships with several
boys  came  about  in  wondrous  fashion. One case, though, required some little
thought  and  care.  The  boy's name was Cunningham. He was big and fat and bald
because  some  fever  had  necessitated  shaving  his skull. The kids called him
Billiard;  he thanked them by kicking them in the shins, knocking them down, and
sitting on them while he performed quick dentistry with his knuckles.
     It was upon this Billiard Cunningham that Jamie hoped to apply his greatest
ecclesiastical  power.  Walking through the rough paths of the desert toward his
home, Jamie often conjured up visions of himself picking up Billiard by his left
foot  and  cracking  him  like a whip so as to shock him senseless. Dad had once
done  that  to  a  rattlesnake.  Of course, Billiard was too heavy for this neat
trick.  Besides,  it  might hurt him, and Jamie didn't really want him killed or
anything, just dusted off a little to show him where he belonged in the world.
     But when he chinned up to Billiard, Jamie got cold feet and decided to wait
a  day  or two longer for meditation. There was no use rushing things, so he let
Billiard  go  free.  Boy,  Billiard  didn't know how lucky he was at such times,
Jamie clucked to himself.
     One  Tuesday,  Jamie  carried  Ingrid's  books  home.  She lived in a small
cottage  not  far  from  the  Santa  Catalina foothills. Together they walked in
peaceful content, needing no words. They even held hands for a while.
     Turning  about  a  clump  of  prickly  pears,  they  came face to face with
Billiard Cunningham.
     He  stood  with  his  big  feet planted across the path, plump fists on his
hips,  staring  at  Ingrid  with  appreciative  eyes. Everybody stood still, and
Billiard said:
     "I'll carry your books, Ingrid. Here."
     He reached to take them from Jamie.
     Jamie fell back a step. "Oh, no, you don't," he said.
     "Oh, yes, I do," retorted Billiard.
     "Like heck you do," said Jamie.
     "Like  heck  I don't," exclaimed Billiard, and snatched again, knocking the
books into the dust.
     Ingrid yelled, then said, "Look here, you can both carry my books. Half and
half. That'll settle it."
     Billiard shook his head.
     "All or nothing," he leered.
     Jamie looked back at him.
     "Nothing, then!" he shouted.
     He  summoned  up  his powers like wrathful storm clouds; lightning crackled
hot  in  each  fist.  What matter if Billiard loomed four inches taller and some
several  broader?  The  fury-wrath  lived  in  Jamie;  he  would  knock Billiard
senseless with one clean bolt-maybe two.
     There was no room for stuttering fear now; Jamie was cauterized clean of it
by a great rage. He pulled away back and let Billiard have it on the chin.
     "Jamie!" screamed Ingrid.
     The only miracle after that was how Jamie got out of it with his life.

    
    
     Dad  poured Epsom salts into a dishpan of hot water, stirred it firmly, and
said,  "You oughta known better, darn your hide. Your mother sick an' you comin'
home all banged up this way."
     Dad  made  a  leathery  motion  of  one brown hand. His eyes were bedded in
crinkles  and  lines,  and  his  mustache was pepper-gray and sparse, as was his
hair.
     "I didn't know Ma was very sick anymore," said Jamie.
     "Women  don't  talk  much,"  said Dad, dryly. He soaked a towel in steaming
Epsom  salts  and  wrung  it out. He held Jamie's beaten profile and swabbed it.
Jamie  whimpered.  "Hold still," said Dad. "How you expect me to fix that cut if
you don't hold still, darn it."
     "What's  going  on  out there?" Mother's voice asked from the bedroom, real
tired and soft.
     "Nothing,"  said  Dad, wringing out the towel again. "Don't you fret. Jamie
just fell and cut his lip, that's all."
     "Oh, Jamie," said Mother.
     "I'm  okay,  Ma," said Jamie. The warm towel helped to normalize things. He
tried  not  to  think of the fight. It made bad thinking. There were memories of
flailing  arms,  himself pinned down, Billiard whooping with delight and beating
downward  while  Ingrid,  crying  real tears, threw her books, screaming, at his
back.
     And then Jamie staggered home alone, sobbing bitterly.
     "Oh,  Dad," he said now. "It didn't work." He meant his physical miracle on
Billiard. "It didn't work."
     "What didn't work?" said Dad, applying liniment to bruises.
     "Oh,  nothing.  Nothing."  Jamie  licked  his swollen lip and began to calm
down.  After  all,  you can't have a perfect batting average. Even the Lord made
mistakes. And-Jamie grinned suddenly-yes, yes, he had _meant_ to lose the fight!
Yes,  he  had.  Wouldn't Ingrid love him all the more for having fought and lost
just for her?
     Sure. That was the answer. It was just a reversed miracle, that was all!
     "Jamie," Mother called him.
     He went in to see her.

    
    
     With one thing and another, including Epsom salts and a great resurgence of
faith in himself because Ingrid loved him now more than ever, Jamie went through
the rest of the week without much pain.
     He  walked  Ingrid  home,  and  Billiard  didn't bother him again. Billiard
played  after-school  baseball,  which  was a greater attraction than Ingrid-the
sudden  sport  interest  being  induced indirectly by telepathy via Jamie, Jamie
decided.
     Thursday,  Ma  looked  worse.  She bleached out to a pallid trembling and a
pale  coughing.  Dad  looked scared. Jamie spent less time trying to make things
come out wonderful in school and thought more and more of curing Ma.
     Friday  night,  walking alone from Ingrid's house, Jamie watched telegraph.
poles  swing by him very slowly. He thought, If I get to the next telegraph pole
before that car behind me reaches me, Mama will be all well.
     Jamie  walked casually, not looking back, ears itching, legs wanting to run
to make the wish come true.
     The telegraph pole approached. So did the car behind.
     Jamie whistled cautiously. The car was coming too fast!
     Jamie pumped past the pole just in time; the car roared by.
     There now. Mama would be all well again.
     He walked along some more.
     Forget  about  her. Forget about wishes and things, he told himself. But it
was  tempting,  like  a hot pie on a windowsill. He had to touch it. He couldn't
leave it be, oh, no. He looked ahead on the road and behind on the road.
     "I bet I can get down to Schabold's ranch gate before another car comes and
do  it  walking easy," he declared to the sky. "And that will make Mama well all
the quicker."
     At  this  moment, in a traitorous, mechanical action, a car jumped over the
low hill behind him and roared forward.
     Jamie walked fast, then began to run.
     I bet I can get down to Schabold's gate, I bet I can-Feet up, feet down.
     He stumbled.
     He  fell  into the ditch, his books fluttering about like dry, white birds.
When he got up, sucking his lips, the gate was only twenty yards further on.
     The car motored by him in a large cloud of dust.
     "I  take  it  back,  I  take it back," cried Jamie. "I take it back, what I
said, I didn't mean it."
     With a sudden bleat of terror, he ran for home. It was all his fault, _all_
his fault!
     The doctor's car stood in front of the house.
     Throught  the  window,  Mama looked sicker. The doctor closed up his little
black  bag and looked at Dad a long time with strange lights in his little black
eyes.
     Jamie  ran  out  onto  the  desert  to  walk  alone. He did not cry. He was
paralyzed, and he walked like an iron child, hating himself, blundering into the
dry riverbed, kicking at prickly pears and stumbling again and again.
     Hours later, with the first stars, he came home to find Dad standing beside
Mama's bed and Mama not saying much-just lying there like fallen snow, so quiet.
Dad tightened his jaw, screwed up his eyes, caved in his chest, and put his head
down.
     Jamie  took up a station at the end of the bed and stared at Mama, shouting
instructions in his mind to her.
     Get well, get well, Ma, get well, you'll be all right, sure you'll be fine,
I command it, you'll be fine, you'll be swell, you just get up and dance around,
we need you, Dad and I do, wouldn't be good without you, get well, Ma, get well,
Ma. Get well!
     The  fierce energy lashed out from him silently, wrapping, cuddling her and
beating into her sickness, tendering her heart. Jamie felt glorified in his warm
power.
     She _would_ get well. She _must!_ Why, it was silly to think any other way.
Ma just wasn't the dying sort.
     Dad  moved  suddenly.  It was a stiff movement with a jerking of breath. He
held Mama's wrists so hard he might have broken them. He lay against her breasts
sounding the heart and Jamie screamed inside.
     Ma, don't, Ma, don't, oh, Ma, please don't give up.
     Dad got up, swaying.
     She was dead.
     Inside the walls of Jericho that was Jamie's mind, a thought went screaming
about in one last drive of power: Yes, she's dead, all right, so she is dead, so
what  if  she  is  dead? Bring her back to life again, yes, make her live again,
Lazarus,  come  forth, Lazarus, Lazarus, come forth from the tomb, Lazarus, come
forth.
     He  must have been babbling aloud, for Dad turned and glared at him in old,
ancient horror and struck him bluntly across the mouth to shut him up.
     Jamie  sank against the bed, mouthing into the cold blankets, and the walls
of Jericho crumbled and fell down about him.
     Jamie  returned  to  school  a  week  later.  He  did  not  stride into the
schoolyard  with his old assurance; he did not bend imperiously at the fountain;
nor did he pass his tests with anything more than a grade of seventy-five.
     The  children  wondered  what  had  happened to him. He was never quite the
same.
     They did not know that Jamie had given up his role. He could not tell them.
They did not know what they had lost.