The Saint of Carleton Estates

"How you feeling, Bobby? How're the hands?"

"Just fine, buddy," Bobby grinned.

"Something wrong Bobby?" the foreman was worried. If Bobby's hands were bothering him, that would put one of his star performers on the sidelines, and not be a good start to the project. "Something I need to know?"

"Nope," Bobby held up his hands, front and back. Rough and working hands, sure, but definitely intact.

Coy's mind was not so at ease.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Two weeks into the new project and the boys had avoided Nell's after work. Bobby had to specifically tell them that they needn't avoid the place because of him, by driving directly to Nell's after work and turning off the ignition. The feeling in the car was, 'Ok, then, if you say so!'

Bobby got a smile out of Benny when they entered. Emmy dropped a tray of glasses when she saw Bobby though. She ran to the Women's room, leaving the mess on the floor.

"Skirts," Benny shook his head.

Bobby went to the corner, fetching the broom and dustpan, to Benny's protests.

"It's my fault she dropped them. Musta startled her," was all Bobby said. Benny knew their order, and had a fresh iced tea ready for Bobby once he'd cleaned the wreckage. Bobby carried the order to the table the boys were sitting at, since Emmy hadn't come out yet.

Emmy was coaxed out around fifteen minutes later, her face a bright red and slick with tears.

"I better go say something, or we'll never get any service here," Bobby said.

"Good luck," the boys told him.

Bobby pulled Emmy aside, which took some efforts, as she was sobbing and full of shame for her betrayal of Bobby. Bobby sat on a barstool close to her and, sipping his tea, spoke to her slowly and softly, telling her there was only forgiveness and that he was over any issues they had. He told her that he had found a very real peace inside himself because of what happened, and that never would've happened if Emmy didn't play her part.

In minutes, Emmy had her arms wrapped around Bobby and was sobbing louder, an ugly cry. Benny gestured to Bobby to take it outside. Bobby nodded to the human Moai statue and gently escorted Emmy outside. After about ten minutes, the two came back in, Emmy still bleary-eyed and flushed looking, but not actively sobbing, and Bobby had his grin on.

"How'd it go?" Brett asked as Bobby sat down.

"Better than a trip to the dentist, worse than time with Candy," Bobby winked.

"Attaboy, Bobby!"

Emmy avoided the table as much as she could, but still had to serve them. Bobby paid for a round, and she bobbed on her toes, nervously, while their transaction was completed. Bobby still tipped generously. On the way out, Bobby made his way over and quietly spoke with her, even gently holding her hand for a moment. She nodded a few times but never spoke. When he left, fresh tears flowed, but Emmy was smiling.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A week later, and the boys were back at Nell's and things were, for the most part, normal. The boys were laughing. Emmy was friendly but still kept her distance.

A last round was ordered and being delivered by Emmy, when there was a crash somewhere else. Everyone looked around wondering what happened. Emmy put the drink tray down and then yelled. "Benny?" Emmy swung the bar partition up with a nervous moan.

Benny had gone down behind the bar. Emmy went to the bar and looked down. Benny was in a pile. "Oh God, Benny! Help!" Several people stood and walked towards the bar, including the boys. A couple guys reached for phones, calling for help. The boys were standing right at the open pass-through.

Benny didn't look good. He slumped to the ground with his head against the glass door fridge. Emmy looked up, searching before finding him standing a few feet away. "Bobby?", while straightening out Benny's head.

Bobby stepped around the partition and stepped behind the bar. It was crowded space with Benny's bulk and Emmy at his head. "Is he breathing?"

Emmy looked up, tears in her eyes, "I-I don't think so?" It came out as a question. Bobby kneeled down by Benny's feet, breathing deeply, his lips moving softly. He looked at Emmy and then down at Benny. Bobby sighed and reached out. He pushed up the trouser legs on Benny, and touched the big man's pale shins, above the white tube socks. The crowd around the bar looked down, murmuring about the ambulance being on the way. Emmy's soft sobs could barely be heard above even that low noise, but Bobby heard them clearly.

"Bobby, please do something..." He said nothing, just a slight whisper disturbing his little smile. The air conditioning blew hard and it felt like a fly buzzed in the room.

Bobby fell back from his crouch onto his butt, eyes open and breathing hard. He said nothing, his mouth was a thin line. He looked up as if wondering how he got there, and used the bar sink to pull himself up. The tension in the bar, waiting for something, anything, hung in the air.

A slow cough and rumble shook Benny on the floor, followed by a belch. The big man's eyes fluttered.

It felt as if the whole bar breathed in at once, and like that, the hush that had settled was lifted.

"Benny?" Emmy cried. She held the big man's head, tears flowing again. Emmy spoke to Benny, asking him if he was OK, telling him the he scared her to near to death.

"How'm I gon' git my ass up?" groaned Benny as several more customers tried getting back behind the bar to help with that difficult task.

Bobby leaned on the bar and quietly made his way back to the table while the attention was on Benny and Emmy. Coy and Brett were the only ones watching him; both noticed a little wobble in Bobby's step. There was more than a little fear and awe on their faces as they watched him sit down. They made their own way over as Emmy and a few of the other men there moved to get Benny up.

"Bobby, what happened?" Coy asked, voice low, while looking over his shoulder, as Bobby slid into his chair. "What'd you do?"

Bobby's hands were steepled, elbows on the table. His chin rested on his thumbs and his eyes were closed. He looked a little peaked, pale but with a flush in his cheeks. A few breaths.

"Bobby?"

"Yeah? I'm here." His voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes still closed

"Bobby, what's ... what's happening here? What did you do? To Benny?"

"It's ..." a deep breath and Bobby wiped his brow with his rough hand. "It's OK. It's nothing. He's OK, right?"

"Yeah, Bobby," Coy looked back at the bar. There was still a buzz but a few people had sat back down and Benny was upright, dabbing at his forehead, while Emmy doted on him. "He looks fine." Bobby sighed. He finally opened his eyes.

"Good. I had to believe I was helping him," Bobby said.

"What?" Coy leaned away for a moment, and leaned back in. "What are you talking about Bobby? What did you do?"

Bobby looked between his two friends. "I, uh," he paused. "I think we need to go. I'm really tired." Brett pushed his iced tea over to him, and Bobby took it and drank.

"Bobby, please," Brett said. "What is going on here? Did you do anything to Benny there?" Before he could answer, Emmy came over, wringing her hands.

"How's Benny?" Coy asked.

"He's good. Little shaky," she giggled, which was a very positive sign, all things considered. The idea of the side of beef that was Benny being shaky was a funny idea to her. "Smells like a whiskey still, and he needs a few minutes to sober up." She locked eyes with Bobby "But he's OK." The boys collectively breathed a sigh of relief, saying that's great.

Bobby rose from the table, a little sturdier but still not his usual walk. "Well, that's enough excitement for me today. You guys ready to go?" The rest just looked at him. Something was going on and it was Bobby in the middle of it.

"What?" he asked, "Let's go."

Emmy pulled Bobby aside. "Bobby, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I know you. I know you're a good man, an honest man and you don't deserve what I did to you, but I need you to be honest with me now and tell me what's happening. Benny wasn't breathing. I was holding him. I know, Bobby. You did something."

"Take care of Benny, Emmy," he said, moving towards the door. "We can talk another time. I'm tired." It came out 'tard'.

The paramedics showed up as Bobby's car pulled out of the lot.

The ride home was pretty quiet; as in Nell's, with Benny on the floor, there was tension of the unspoken hanging like a scent that won't come out. Coy and Brett looked straight ahead when they weren't giving Bobby the side-eye, sizing him up like he was a big snake that was reared up, spitting and ready to strike.

The mysteries surrounding him just grew. It was no longer 'How did Bobby O'Malley do that?', there was now 'What was Bobby O'Malley?'

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The boys still went to Nell's. Benny looked much better and had quietly said thank you to all of them as a group for their help, specifically not singling out Bobby, since he knew Bobby's humility would making praising him an uncomfortable talk. But Benny was no dummy. He knew the score, and Emmy had filled him in, in the event he hadn't been there himself. He had been there, though. And in the aftermath, Benny had been taken to the University Hospital and been given a full work up.

Benny had known he was slowly dying from atherosclerosis, or hardening and blocking of the arteries around the heart from a lifetime of plaque buildup. At his last check up, eight months before, the doctor had noted several trouble spots where there was narrowing to the point where the risk of real damage and a heart attack would, not could the doc noted, happen soon.

Well, at the follow up, the doc got Benny up on the table (no small feat in itself), stuck a catheter into Benny's meaty leg and shot a bunch of chemicals into the big man and took some pictures. The doc looked at them, did some hemming-and-hawing and then shot some more chemicals into him. The chemicals burned a bit, but the second results ended up the same as the first.

"What's up, doc?" Benny had always wanted to say that.

"Well, Benny, I've been doing this job for about thirty years. And I ain't never seen anything like this. I can only inject so much contrast into you, but I wanna just keep taking pictures of you because I don't believe what I'm seeing."

"Am I gonna make it?" The doc nodded.

Explained afterwards, Doc held up two sets of pictures that looked like a map drawn in night vision. White lines snaked back and forth, making all sorts of twists and turns, some hairpin, some rolling curves. The Doc pointed out that in Benny's old pictures, there were some narrow one lane country roads. He said that as of Benny's last visit, three or four of those roads were likely to be washed out and shut off and he'd be dead before he could reach the hospital. It would've taken less than a year, maybe a year tops, but it was a sure thing.

The new pictures, those country roads were back to two- and four-lane interstates, and traffic was moving through.

"It's like something came through and washed all the sick out of you, Benny. You have any idea how that mighta happened?"

"I just might," Benny sighed. He just wished Bobby had used red wine instead of whiskey.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Bobby's turn to host an Estate party was coming, and it coincided with the summer rains. For the week preceding, there were regular rains and some occasional heavy downpours. This slowed things down at the work site, as rain tends to hamper outdoor work but things didn't stop entirely. Brett and Coy had thawed out their suspicions of Bobby and were looking forward to Bobby's turn at hosting.

They had secretly reached out to Emmy to invite her to her first Estates party, and they made plans to set up for Bobby entirely themselves, out of respect for him. Benny overheard Emmy's calls on this and said he wanted in on this, too. The more, the merrier, after all.

Come Saturday morning, the weather had broke and the sun was out. The ground was still a bit damp and muddy, but that too was expected to dry out by afternoon.

By 10:00 a.m. Coy, Brett, Emmy and Benny had tables, food and drinks set up in a nice Estates spread outside of Bobby's place. Nothing fancy, just the things that their guests wanted. When Bobby came out to have a look around at what the noise was, his friends were there, smiling at him. Bobby's easy grin just lit up at the sight of everything.

"Ain't you all a bit early?" he stepped down to shake hands and give hugs.

"Bobby, you know we all love you, but you need to let your friends help you a bit," Brett said, lighting a joint and taking a puff, before offering it to the host.

Coy stepped forward, "You know that, but Bobby, we got some questions, and we were hoping -"

"Yeah," he cut Coy off, and looked around. The look on his face was one of holding off on doing an uncomfortable but necessary job. "Yeah, I know. Come inside, I don't want to talk about this here."

The five went inside Bobby's to talk.

Benny sat on the couch, but the rest pulled chairs from Bobby's kitchen. Bobby stood.

"Well?" Bobby leaned against the wall. He reached for the joint. He knew he was gonna need to relax.

Brett sighed, then started. "What's going on Bobby?"

Looking at the floor, Bobby said, "Simple answer is: 'I don't know'. The more complex answer is: things happen around me."

Brett's response was "Bobby, we've seen some stuff that we can't explain. It ain't exactly 'things'."

"You mean miracles?" asked Emmy.

"No. Well, maybe yes. In a really weird way. I don't know why. All I know is, I see one of you needs help, I say a little prayer or two and hopefully I can give that help."

"Like what?" she asked.

He sighed. "Well the obvious ones are setting up Brett's and Coy's parties. I could see what they had for food and drink. In my mind though, I knew that more would be needed. I could see in my head how many people would stop by and what they'd eat. It was just there in my mind.

"Once I knew that, well, the food just kinda was there," Bobby shook his head. "I know. I know that sounds silly. Sounds like I been smoking too much of Brett's weed, but that's really it."

The noise level in the room exploded as all of them, except for Benny started asking, no yelling, questions and concerns. This continued for about twenty seconds, when none of them would ease up. Bobby just put his hands out in a gentle stopping gesture.

"Bobby, Bobby," Brett sighed. "Where did it come from?"

"I have no idea. Like I said, I saw what was needed inside my head, and then it was there. Like, just there. Blink and presto!"

"Can you do it now?" Coy asked. Proof, after all, would answer the doubters.

"Nope. You guys got everything already. Near as I can tell, I need to have the belief that I'm helping my friends, and aside from a few things, I can't do things for myself. So, since you've set everything up, and this party is mine, I can't make stuff appear. I was just heading out to the market to get the shopping done when I saw you had done it already.

"Besides, when these things happen, I get real tired."

This explained Bobby's weariness during Brett and Coy's parties, where he mostly sat in the chair.

"Well why didn't you get steaks, champagne or shrimp cocktail or something like that?" Coy grinned.

Bobby chuckled. He mumbled a little bit.

"Huh?"

"There seems to be a ... a price limit to what I can do." He looked at them, their faces were blank. "I'm a simple guy. I like chips, pork rinds, burgers and dogs. I don't know anything about steak filets, or champagne. I drink cheap beer. So, that's what I get."

Coy and Brett looked confused. Emmy's face made a slow change, as a kind of realization started to break on her. Benny sat impassive.

"Can you walk on water?" Emmy asked.

Bobby looked down at the ground. A pause, then a nod. "Kinda."

The room exploded again. Coy whistled loudly and everyone quieted down.

"Kinda? Bobby what does 'kinda' mean?"

"Well, I was never a big swimmer. Never been to the beach and most of the water I was in was some shallow pond or river fishing. I swum in wading pools as a kid. So, I can walk across water that's about a little under knee depth. Or about as deep as a kiddie wading pool."

The room was dead silent.

"Water into moonshine," Benny rumbled from the back. "That was how you saved me, wasn't it?"

Bobby smiled, embarrassed. "Yeah. That's the one I'm most grateful for."

"Me too," Benny said, a smile forming on those glacially-carved features.

"You mind explaining, for those that ain't all that educated?" Coy asked, reaching for the joint. The conversation was well over his head. All eyes were on the Sasquatch on the couch.

Benny cleared his throat. "I'm dying. Or I was dying. My heart's in bad shape. Doc said I had maybe eight months to live."

Emmy moaned a "No!"

Benny nodded. "Turns out, I didn't even have that. I had a heart attack right there behind the bar at Nell's. I could just feel it shut down, and before I could say anything, I couldn't say a peep. But at the same time, I felt light, and free. Like I was out of my body. I saw everything happen, only from above and looking down. Bobby laid hands on me and fixed the problem."

They just stared. None of them had ever heard Benny speak so much.

"See the thing is, I had blockages in the arteries carrying blood around my heart and to my brain. A lot of these blockages are old, dried up blood that's clotted like old milk turned to curds, just built up over time and sitting there like little bombs waiting to go off. A bad diet and lazy living'll do that.

"One of them broke off and blocked one of the important arteries carrying blood around in my heart. Blood is mostly water. When Bobby laid hands on, he turned the water in my blood every so briefly into alcohol. That's thinner than water, and it caused the clot to break up. Blood started flowing into my heart again.

"Not only that, but all of the other clots broke up, too. Alcohol is also a solvent. It's why it's in some cleaning products. The parts of the blocks which weren't made of water got scrubbed down.

"Then before all that booze did any real damage inside me, Bobby changed it back into water. What he done was clean out my heart like a plumber snakes the pipes in a plugged-up crapper."

Everyone stared at Benny. He sat up, with a bit of indignation, but grinned. "I was a medic in the Marine Corps. I know about summa this shit. You think I was born in Nell's?"

The looks on their faces said, yes, they did think exactly that. Benny grunted.

"I felt myself come back into my slim and sexy body, and I woke up in your arms," he nodded at Emmy. "Which was a nice 'welcome back'. "

Emmy was on it. "That's why you smelled like an empty whiskey bottle! That's why you were fuzzy like you were drunk!"

"Yup. Went to the clinic after. My heart's opened back up again. All of the danger spots that were there before were now gone. Doc told me there ain't no reason I can't live another ten or fifteen years."

The room was silent. The collective minds in the room had been blown sky high. The implications were ... staggering.

Coy looked at Bobby, an awed hush. "Th-the..." the thought was unthinkable. "Bobby can you bring back the dead?"

Bobby's eyes flared for the briefest instant, before he looked down. "Roadkill," he mumbled. "Mostly 'coons and possum. It aint pretty though 'cuz they don't get fully healed. Just walk off all gutted." It was an ugly thought for all of them.

"Bobby, are you Jesus Christ?" Coy asked. The room exploded again.

Bobby just smiled until the sound died down. "Nah, and don't you ever think or blaspheme that I'm worthy of such a thought."

"But Bobby, these are miracles!"