Healing - Day 2

“The chemotherapy was bad. It made her sick, very sick. So, she stayed in the hospital while she was taking it.”

Come on, Lacy, get to the part where the doctor screwed up and killed her.

“While she was in the hospital lying in the bed, she started watching one of those television preachers. You know, the kind with the big auditorium and the choir and the music. One of those that touches a person’s head and they fall backwards. Far as I was concerned, it was just a con man doing some silly shit and she shouldn’t watch it, but she did. And obviously, she bought it hook, line and sinker because first thing I know, she wants to go see the, I think they call it a crusade.”

“She went to the, what did you call it, Crusade?”

“Yes. This guy, his name is Billy Taylor, just like the singer, was coming to Charlotte. So, I went with her to Charlotte. Damndest show you ever saw. I swear, every single second of that show was designed to bring about emotion, every single second. At a certain time, the man would talk and the lights would go down. He would say something else and the lights would come up. When he was talking low, the music was low. He said something important the music was loud. I know damn well no rock star could have a better produced show. I wanted out of there, but she was eating it up. Any idiot could see it was just a con job for the money.”

“Did she give him money?”

“Oh yes, but it wasn’t that much, That’s not it, Detective. While we were there I saw her talking to somebody, looked like somebody in the show. I can’t say I thought that much about it, but it wasn’t long before they had what they call an altar call, and Frances walked her ass right up front and before I knew it she was on the stage and that son-of-a-bitch was yelling that she was ‘healed’. At the top of his lungs, he was yelling she was healed. Jesus had healed her.”

Come on, Lacy, get on with it. Put her back in the hospital. Let the doctor kill her.

“She came off that stage and she was trembling. She said the Holy Spirit was in her. She was saved. Detective, my wife was an Episcopalian, we don’t believe in that ‘saved’ shit. That’s something those Holiness and snake charmer people believe, not us. But, from then on, she wouldn’t listen to anything. She wouldn’t go back to the doctor, wouldn’t take her medicine, all she would do was talk to those people on the phone an tell me that Jesus was taking care of everything. Well, Jesus didn’t do too well. She passed out and I took her to the hospital four nights ago. She was dead by morning.”