Lemuel Swain's Perfect Christmas

submitted by Adellé Cavelier

Lee: I recently pulled into Massey's Luncheonette outside Jeffersonville on old 218 for a bite to eat and met the most curious figure of an old man seated at the counter. He was thin and lanky, wearing shabby fingerless gloves and overcoat and appeared around eighty with white hair and beard. And he had those kind of twinkling blue eyes I would have died for had he been sixty years younger. He snared me with his smile, so I sat down next to him.

     We soon got to talking and he introduced himself as Lemuel Swain, a retired carpenter. Before that, he had been a hobo during the Great Depression. As soon as I told him I was a writer, he grew a little apprehensive, but gradually he told me the wonderous tale of what was his perfect Christmas.

     "Good Friday morning 'round about sunrise back in '33 was when it started. I was only 23; never thought about anything 'cept myself cause I knew I meant nothin' to no none no how. I'd been riding in a box car of a train headin' east into Mt. Pleasant when it derailed over a bridge and fell into the Skunk River. Smashed to pieces. I woke up under a sheet--the room was cold. I found I was on a slab in the county morgue. Well, I scared the living crap out of the poor guy cleaning up in there---ne'er forgot the look on his face. But, the thing of it wars when he asked me my name, I couldn't remember. In fact, I couldn't remember anythin'. An' then I noticed that my hands wars all sticky and so's I look at 'em an' there wars these holes right in middle of my palms---both of 'em. An' then I saw blood seepin' through the sheet down by feet--and thar wars the same thing---holes right through my feet!

     "Well, the janitor ran off to find the head doctor. He came an' looked at me and bandaged me up and drove me over to county hospital in Mt. Pleasant. I stayed there for about 3 days, and you know those holes in my hands and feet just kept bleedin'. The doctor there tried stitchin' 'em up but half an hour later, they'd be open and bleedin' again. The doctor thought I wars doin' it, but after they watched me, they saw that weren't hap'ning. And I still couldn't remember anything about who I was or the train wreck or anything. So, they sent me off to that Massaraty Asylum and I met that Nerve Specialist, Dr. Admah.

     "He was really some sort of shrink---but back then they like bein' called 'Nerve Specialsts'. Anyway, he would come by every morning, look at my hands and ask me I remembered anything. If I did, I'd tell him. He was really a nice guy; very patient. We'd talk for a while. Then at night, this nurse named Jenny Ferson would come and change the bandages on my hands and feet. I guess Doc Admah thought it was best not to talk about the wounds---which I found out were called 'stigmata' later on---and just treat 'em like they wars some sort of normal injury. So, that's all I ever thought they wars.

     "But that Nurse Ferson told her minister the Reverend Victor Polk, who had a church down in Russelville called the 'First Church of the Redeeming Light'. He war one those what you call 'charismatc preachers'---the guys that spend a lot of time hollerin' God at you. Nurse Ferson brought him along to visit me like and he seemed a nice enough gent---never let on about how exid he wars about my stigmata or nothing. I guess Nurse Ferson told him not to. Well, one day, after I had been in there nie four months, my memory starts coming back. So, Doc Admah is all exid and the nurse is happy and she calls Polk and he rushes over. So, he and I are talkin' and he asks me about myself and my family and I told him that I had no one and that I wars just tramping through. Then he asked me how I thought I wars gonna pay the hospital bill. I told him, I didn't know. So, he asked me if I could do anything and I had worked as a carpenter for a while and that I wars fair at that. He offered to pay me to fix up his church and that way I could pay the bill. Well, that sounded generous of him and he even offered me a room in his house to stay; all I had to do wars attend church an' collect the offering.

     "So, since my memory had come back and I had someone that promised to look after me, Doc Admah let me go. He insisted on giving me a lot of bandages and said to change them twice a day until they healed. He said something to Polk, too---must have been about talking about the stigmata to me 'cause Polk never said anything about 'em. Guess they must've thought it'd set me off or something.

     So, I started fixin' up the church roof and the front of the building. On Sunday, I'd help out with the service and collect the offering---thar weren't many people there, only about fifty or so. Polk wars a good preacher--if you go in for that sort of thing, which I didn't then. At night, I'd eat with Polk and his wife. Then I'd change my bandages and go to bed in the spare bedroom. Nights wars real quiet. Too quiet---I wars young then and what with the money clinkin' in my pocket, I wanted to go off tomcatin'! But it kinda felt like they wars watchin' or somethin' so that I daren't even think 'bout women and drinkin'--let alone just boltin' out of town. I decided that after I paid off the hospital bill, I'd hop a freight and head somewhere south for the winter.

     But after services, people started coming to me to shake my hand or just touch me---and then there were days when the bandages didn't work so well, and sure enough, there'd be one or two people who want to get the blood on them. Scared me awful, them folks. After a while, I tried to hide, but they'd always find me and start telling me their goddamned health problems: 'I've got a growth on my neck' or 'My boy can't walk' and then they'd ask 'Can you do something for him, mister?' All I could do was say, 'No, Sorry.' A few times, I wished I could, 'specially when it wars a little kid or baby. But I warn't no doctor. What did they expect?

     Around September, the church started gettin' crowded and there wars more and more folks comin' up to see me after services asking me to help them. I still didn't really understand why. Anyway, Reverend Polk announced one Sunday morning that we were going to build a fifty foot addition to the church. I had pretty much finished refurbing the place and earning some more money was a welcome idea. The next day, I go to the lumber yard and run into Doc Admah, who was buildin' his self a greenhouse. We talked and I told it wars nice of Reverend Polk to help me pay my bill. Now, the Doc frowned and said that thar weren't no bill since I wars so unusual an' that I'd been a research case.

     "Then I told him all about the people comin' up to me askin' to be healed. Doc Admah figured Polk was the one spreadin' the news about me and 'fabulated the debt story to keep me on. 'Desperate people have heard about your stigmata,' he said, 'And I believe Polk is using you to increase the take in his collection plate. Or, he really believes you can heal these people. Do you? Have you tried?' he asked.

     "No, I tells him. I've got my own problems. Then he finally explained about the stigmata; I guess he figured I wars ready. Well, I thought it wars ridiculous, you know. Too ridiculous. But on my way back to the church I began thinkin' about it and you know, I thought I could make a mint by just waving my arms and shoutin' like the preacher. And the collection plate wars getting a bit heavier. But I thought about those people and decided that wars just plain wrong to mislead 'em. I decided to head south as soon as I could.

     "We finished up the new addition a few days before Christmas. It wars a wonderful looking building, and I felt very proud to have had a hand in it. But it took a long time 'cause every day, the sickly and lame came up expecting a goddamned miracle out of me! They'd mob around me, pulling and grabbing at me demanding me to heal them. Couple of 'em even tried to stick their fingers into the holes in my hands. They'd promise anything and everything they had. I'd have to climb up a ladder to the top of the church roof and pull it up behind me to tell them to go away and that I could do nothing for them. They'd get angry and throw stuff; or some of 'em would take it as a sign of this or that. All the time, Polk, though, said nothing, until Christmas Eve.

     "When the service began, Polk had me right up in front of the congregation. I was sitting in a chair up against the wall and I'd left a tool box hidden under the chair; the hammer and a saw and box of 16-penny nails wars sticking out. Everyone was smiling at me and it looked like it was going to be a nice, friendly night celebrating the new addition. All the same,I weren't really wantin' to be there; Polk was giving me the eye and making me nervous. Sure 'nuff he started in with:

     'You folks have heard 'bout this here man who bears the marks of Christ upon his body! Some of you believe this man can heal, most of you have learnt that he can't.'

     The people there wars all bubbling exid-like. Well, you know those folks who get angry or upset and suddenly their nose bleeds? That's what happened to those holes in my hands and feet; blood was drippin' all over the floor.

     Polk grabbed me to my feet and held my hands up, 'Faith, Lemuel, faith! You've been given a trememdous gift! Many are called, few are chosen! It's God's will!'

     'I didn't ask for this to happen to me and I don't care much for mysterious ways,' I says. 'I didn't ask for hundreds of people to come lookin' for me to cure their ailments. I'm a man as afflicted as they are! I just promised to finish fixing your church.'

     'But you have been given a great sign! It's a gift! All you need is faith! ' he says.

     I sat back down in my chair and leaned back; my hand brushed against the toolbox. 'Why can't a man do a good thing out of his own heart,' I says, 'ain't that more important?'

     'If those same wounds were in my hands and feet as yours, I would sing Hallelulah!' Polk says, 'I would go forth among my fellow men and raise their spirits with the word of the Ever-Living God! I would comfort those in dispair! And I would try---I WOULD TRY to heal those that came to me out of faith to be healed! That's what I would do with your gift because I have faith, Lemuel!'

     I got up and dropped a trio of nails on the floor in front of him and left.

     Now there was a little church over in Jeffersonville about half way to the freight yards in Burlington that didn't have a very big congregation anymore and the minister was an old man who let hobos come and sleep in the parish Christmas Eve provided we brought a piece of wood for the fire during the service and stayed quiet 'n' respectful. I found my log and entered the place and bedded down in the back on the floor where I could watch the fire. Something about what Polk said 'bout faith got on my nerves and, I found myself praying for the one thing I really wanted--for the stigmata to be gone.

     The next morning, Christmas Morning, I started to unravel my bandages to change 'em, just like I did every morning and I found the wounds were gone. All of 'em. I decided to stay there in that town and set up as a carpenter with the money I earned. Not long afterward, I met a girl and got married and had a slew of kids. An' you know, it occurred to me one day while watchin' them play, that those wounds never were for other people-they were just for me to show how easily I could be important to other people. Maybe that kind of responsibility's what Polk meant by faith."





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