said. "He's so sweet. He's been through so much pain."
They came in, one by one, and demanded or begged or praytd or just timidly whispered to him, "Heal me." Then Billy would sit there, trembling, as they reached out and touched him. When they knew that they were healed, and they always were, they cried and kissed and praised and thanked and offered money. Billy always refused the money and said precious little else. "Aren't you going to give the glory to God?" asked one lady, whose son Billy healed of leukemia. But Billy just looked at his lap robe until she went away.
The first reporters came from the grocery store papers, the ones that always know about the UFOs. They kept asking him to prophesy the future, until Billy told Mother not to let them come in anymore. Mother tried to keep them out, but they even pretended to be cripples in order to get past the door. They wrote stories about the "crippled healer" and kept quoting Billy as saying things that he never said. They also published his address.
Hundreds of people came every day now, a constant stream all day. One lady with a gimp leg said, "Praise the Lord, it was worth the hundred dollars."
"What hundred dollars?" asked Billy.
"The hundred dollars I give your mother. I give the doctors a thousand bucks and the government give them ten thousand more and they never done a damn thing for me."
Billy called Mother. She came in. "This woman says she gave you a hundred dollars."
"I didn't ask for the money," Mother said.
"Give it back," Billy said.
Mother took the money out of her apron and gave it back. The woman clucked about how she didn't mind either way and left.
"I ain't no Bucky Fay," Billy said.
"Of course you ain't," Mother said. "When people touch you, they get better."
"No money, from nobody."
"That's real smart," Mother said. "I lost my job last week, Billy. I'm home all day just keeping them away from you. How are we going to live?"
Billy just sat there, trying to think about it. "Don't let them in anymore," he said. "Lock the doors and go to work."
Mother started to cry. "Billy, I can't stand it if you don't let them in. All those babies; all those twisted-up people, all those cancers and the fear of death in their faces, I can't stand it except that somehow, by some miracle, when they come in your room and touch you, they come out whole. I don't know how to turn them away. Jesus gave you a gift I didn't think existed in the world, but it didn't belong to you, Billy. It belongs to them."
"I touch myself every day," Billy whispered, "and I never get better."
From then on Mother only took half of whatever people offered, and only after they were healed, so people wouldn't get the idea that the healing depended on the money. That way she was able to scrape up enough to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table. "There's a lot less thankful money than bribe money in the world," she said to Billy. Billy just ate, being careful not to spill hot soup on his lap, because he'd never know if he scalded himself.
Then one day the TV cameras came, and the movie cameras, and set up on the lawn and in, the street outside.
"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Billy's mother.
"Bucky Fay's coming to meet the crippled healer," said the movie man. "We want to have this for Bucky Fay's show."
"If you try to bring one little camera inside our house I'll have the police on you."
"The public's got a right to know," said the man, pointing the camera at her.
"The public's got a right to kiss my ass," said Mother, and she went back into the house and told everybody to go away and come back tomorrow, they were locking up the house for the day.
Mother and Billy watched through the lacy curtains while Bucky Fay got out of his limousine and waved at the cameras and the people crowded around in the street.
"Don't let him in, Mother," said Billy.
Bucky Fay knocked on the door.
"Don't answer," said Billy.
Bucky Fay knocked and knocked. Then he gestured to the cameramen and they all went back to their vans and all of Bucky Fay's helpers went back to their cars and the police held the crowd far away, and Bucky Fay started talking.
"Billy," said Bucky Fay, "I don't aim