The healer comes down from the podium. The fire of God is still in him. The wheels of the wheelchair are mired in the sawdust. The mother has already begun to feel what has come inside the tent. She faints, falls over. An uncle stands up. The healer lays his hands on.

“Now I said heal! I don’t give a damn! About what’s happening over there in Saudi Arabia! I don’t care what else You got on Your mind! You got to heal this boy! Either heal him or take him right now! Heal him! Or take him! We don’t care! He’s with You either way!”

The child wobbles in the wheelchair. The healer digs his fingers down deep into the flesh. More people stand up to see. The mother wakes up, moans, and faints again. The lightning cracks overhead and the lights go out and then come back on dim. The ushers are moving more quickly through the crowd. An aura of Presence moves inside the tent to where everybody feels it. The child grips the armrests of his chair. His feet dig for purchase in the sawdust. He cries out with eyes closed in a racked and silent scream.

“Yeah!” the healer shouts. “Didn’t believe! Look at him! Watch him walk!”

The boy struggles up out of the chair. People have come to his mother’s side with wet handkerchiefs and they revive her in time to witness him make his stand. He rises up on his wasted legs, the healer’s hands octopused on his head.

“Heal! Heal! Heal! Heal! Heal! Heal! Heal!

The boy shoves the hands away. The mother looks up at her son from the dirt. He takes a step. His spine is straight. He takes another step. People are falling to their knees in the sawdust. They are reaching for their purses and wallets.

Mr. Redding has to be taken outside because he is bothering the other customers. Flenco lets him lie on the seat of the truck for a while and fans him with a Merle Haggard album.

“Oh shit,” Mr. Redding says. “Oh arrrrgh.”

“It’s gonna be all right, baby,” Flenco says.

Mr. Redding is almost beyond talking, but he gasps out: “What do … you mean … it’s … gonna … be … all right?”

“Oh, baby, I heard he’d be through here by nine o’clock. And they say he can really heal.”

“I don’t … believe … none of that … bullshit!”

Mr. Redding says that, and goes into great whoops of coughing.

A lot of money in the plates tonight. The mission can go on. But some helpers have wives back home, trailer payments have to be met, others want satellite dishes. The healer requires nothing but a meal that will last him until the next meal. He gives them all the money except for the price of steak and eggs at a Waffle House and heads for the car. The road is mud. The tent is being taken down in the storm. The memory of the woman is on him and he doesn’t feel very close to God.