Touch

So, LL...

Oh, can I call you LL? Or should l call you J, or Mr. Cool, maybe?

What's your problem? What's your problem?

What?

-I don't have to take this (BLEEP). All right? -No, no.

LL? Mr. Cool?

What's LL Coo! J doing? What's Debra Lusanne doing?

...his pants. Did you see that?

Elwin! Elwin! What is she doing?

-Oh, my God! -That's it.

Please. Please. Elwin! Elwin, please, no!

Not my presidential plates!

There goes Ford! No!

-There goes Carter! -No!

-Elwin, stop! Reagan!

Elwin!

Shut up! -No!

I'll shut you up.

Hello.

-!t's me. Bill?

Oh, boy!

Ginny.

-What did he hit you with, his fist? -Yeah.

How !long has he been drinking? A!! day?

A!! day. A!! day yesterday.

She ca!!ed you, huh? Why did she do that?

You're a beauty, you know that?

That goddamn woman, I shut her mouth for a while,

now ! got you starting in on me?

I want to know what's wrong with you, beating up on Ginny like that.

! shut her goddamn mouth, that's what.

Elwin, listen to me. What happens every time?

You smash something or somebody,

you end up in jail! or back at the rehab center.

Is that the way you want to live?

That sounds like a good idea. You want to take me?

Instead of getting drunker than you are, why don't you clean up this mess?

Okay.

This is the Worrels', isn't it?

What happened?

Are you a friend of the Worrels?

I know Elwin a little bit from when he was at Sacred Heart.

Are you from the Center? Great, just the guy we need.

-What's your name? -Juvenal!.

Elwin, it's Juvenal!.

-Elwin, what are you doing? -He's breaking dishes.

!'!! be right back.

You having fun? No, no, no. !it's a!! right. ! a!ready ate.

-Is she all right? -I think so.

He hit her a good one but ! don't think he busted anything.

-No, I mean something else. -Yeah, she's blind.

All her life? -Since I've known her.

Here, put this on her face.

You know, Ginny's mother gave us these dishes when we got married.

Christ.

Twenty-one years ago, ! hated these goddamn dishes.

They got rosebuds on them, like a little girl's tea set, you know.

All that time, you know, you get through your mashed potatoes

and you wipe your gravy,

and there's those goddamn rosebuds looking at you.

Elwin!

Elwin!

I'll tell her I got rid of them goddamn rosebud dishes.

I finally got the nerve to get rid of them.

Jesus, I cut her, didn't I?

No, you didn't.

I'm sure you didn't.

Ginny, what are you doing with that broom?

Ginny?

You all right?

I can see.

I can see you both as plain as day.

Hi.

-Is Juvenal around? -Juvenal?

No, Juvie's off today.

-Are you in the program? -No, but a friend of mine is, Elwin Worrel.

I met Juvenal at Elwin's.

Do you want to talk to Father Donahue?

Sure.

Elwin's problem, he knows he's an alcoholic.

He just hasn't hit bottom hard enough to feel it.

Well, he's hitting other people pretty good and he's doing a job on his house too.

Do you know Virginia, Father?

Yeah, she's been here.

I understand she used to play organ at your church.

That was years ago.

You're an ordained minister, right?

Well,

nowadays I sell recreational vehicles, but yeah, I had a church. Uni-Faith.

It's more of an outdoor setup. You know, amphitheater for 1,500 people.

Had a chapel, a gift shop, kind of like Stuckey's, but what got the crowds,

we had the world's tallest illuminated cross, 117 feet,

"Jesus Saves" across the top in blue neon.

At night you could see it all the way from the interstate.

Around here?

Georgia, outside a place called Dalton,

but then I moved the show out here and went bankrupt.

Well, that's fascinating.

Ginny was our organist. You know that?

You must know also that she recovered her sight.

I understand you were there.

Yeah, and a fellow from the Center here, name of Juvenal.

See, Ginny believes he performed a miracle on her.

A miracle? I don't know.

Maybe it was just a jolt to the head.

I don't know. See,

her face was clean before this happened.

Then when I looked at her after,

there was blood on it, up here.

Maybe it was from her nose.

She wasn't bleeding from her nose.

I don't know. It's not my area. So, you want to talk about Elwin, right?

He's part of it. This Juvenal is the other part.

I wondered if he spoke with you about Virginia.

We're going to have to make it another time.

I've got volleyball scheduled. I'm late as it is.

-Maybe I can talk with Juvenal. -Sure.

-They said he's not here today. -Come back anytime.

Hey, you got any clothes you don't want, bring them along.

You are a pretty snappy dresser.

Everybody is so serious and uptight, you know,

like somebody in the next room is having a baby or dying or something.

I mean, you know, Jesus, all they're doing is representing a rock-and-roll band.

I keep thinking, what am I doing here?

Making money.

You know what my view is?

The parking lot out back of the building I live in. How much you pay here, 8?

$950.

And all the hotshots they come in, they take over.

I'm the one who sets up the hospitality suite.

I mean, I do all the shit work.

I go to get the Heinekens, you know, the vodka and mix, Scotch,

a nice cheese tray, lay it all out.

-Which one is this? Which group? -Flaming Dogs.

-Bunch of shitheads. -Never heard of them.

You have to be just into puberty.

They wear, oh, you'd love this, actually.

They wear these sort of skintight, snakeskin-style jumpsuits

cut down to their pubic hair. You know what I mean?

Showing off their skinny white bodies. I mean white.

These two brothers, Toby and Abbot,

and four other creepy guys I think they got from an institution.

You're not happy, you should quit.

-I know. Well, I did. -Come on.

Well, not in so many words, but...

You know who's a happy girl? Virginia Worrel.

I know. She called me.

Did she? I didn't know you were that close.

Well, you know, I think she called everyone she knows.

Getting your sight restored, that's heavy.

Yeah. Did she tell you about this guy, Juvenal?

She was asking me about makeup.

Like I'm some kind of an expert or something, you know?

What'd she say about him?

I told her that she should try some mascara, you know,

and tried to tell her how to apply it without saying her eyes.

Like if I said "your eyes," she'd go blind again.

It was really weird.

What'd she say about Juvenal?

Said he was cute and clean-cut looking, which would be a switch.

Want to meet him?

I don't know? Why?

I tried to see him four times. It's like they're trying to hide him.

So I figured, "What the heck?

"I bet you Virginia spoke to him." So I called her.

Sure enough, she went to see him, they had quite a talk.

See, Virginia believes he healed her.

Well, why not? It's better than thinking it's your husband beating on you.

She tell you he spent time in a monastery?

I don't think so.

He was a monk. He was a Franciscan monk for seven years,

some place down the Amazon.

He came back after four years, then he quit the order.

Why would he quit the order?

I don't know. I mean, maybe something about it irritated him.

Like Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story.

I'm thinking along those lines.

I'm thinking he's down in Brazil healing people

and the head Franciscan gets jealous.

People coming from all over to get cured.

Pretty soon they're setting up stands, they're selling Juvie relics.

Religious items. See what I'm saying?

Well, yeah, I ought to. I worked for you long enough.

All right, maybe, just maybe, this Juvenal is the genuine article.

-What would you think about that? -You know, gee, I don't know, Bill.

What if he is?

Are you curious or not?

You want to get out of the RV business, wasting your talents selling motor homes.

You understand, I can't do a study on him.

The priest there at the Center knows about Uni-Faith.

So he's suspicious.

Also there's the "anonymous" part of Alcoholics Anonymous to deal with.

These people wouldn't give you his last name.

I'm wondering, how would you like to join them for a few days?

Me?

Do you know how many of these I drink? I mean, maybe two a week.

You can fake it.

Act hung over, you know. Like, shake a little bit.

What do you mean? Pretend like I have some kind of an ailment? Like what?

We'll think of something.