She flushed at that, and looked down at her sneakers. Con, meanwhile, was scribbling on his pad. He held it up. WILL IT HURT?
“I don’t think so,” Jacobs said. “The current is very low. Minuscule, really. I’ve tried it on my arm—like a blood-pressure cuff—and felt no more than the tingle you get when your arm or leg has been asleep and is just beginning to wake up. If there is pain, raise your hands and I’ll kill the current right away. I’m going to put this thing on now. It will be snug, but not tight. You’ll be able to breathe just fine. The buckles are nylon. Can’t use metal on a thing like this.”
He put the belt around Con’s neck. It looked like a bulky winter scarf. Con’s eyes were wide and scared, but when Jacobs asked if he was ready, he nodded. I felt Claire’s fingers close over mine. They were cold. I thought Jacobs might get to the prayer then, asking for success. In a way, I suppose he did. He bent down so he could look Con directly in the eyes and said, “Expect a miracle.”
Con nodded. I saw the cloth around his throat rise and fall as he swallowed hard.
“All right. Here we go.”
When Reverend Jacobs slid the switch on top of the control box, I heard a faint humming sound. Con’s head jerked. His mouth twitched first at one corner, then at the other. His fingers began to flutter rapidly and his arms jerked.
“Does it hurt?” Jacobs asked. His index finger was hovering over the switch, ready to turn it off. “If it hurts, hold out your hands.”
Con shook his head. Then, in a voice that sounded as if it were coming through a mouthful of gravel, he said: “Doesn’t… hurt. Warm.”
Claire and I exchanged a wild glance, a thought as strong as telepathy flowing between us: Did I hear that? She was now squeezing my hand hard enough to hurt, but I didn’t care. When we looked back at Jacobs, he was smiling.
“Don’t try to talk. Not yet. I’m going to run the belt for two minutes by my watch. Unless it starts to hurt. If that happens, hold out your hands and I’ll turn it off at once.”
Con didn’t hold out his hands, although his fingers continued to move up and down, as if he were playing an invisible piano. His upper lip lifted a few times in an involuntary snarl, and his eyes went through spasms of fluttering. Once, still in that grating, gravelly voice, he said, “I… can… talk again!”
“Hush!” Jacobs said sternly. His index finger hovered over the switch, ready to kill the current, his eyes on the moving second hand of his watch. After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed the switch and that faint hum died. He unloosed the buckles and pulled the belt over my brother’s head. Con’s hands went immediately to his neck. The skin there was a little flushed, but I don’t think that was from the electric current. It was from the pressure of the belt.
“Now, Con—I want you to say, ‘My dog has fleas, they bite his knees.’ But if your throat starts to hurt, stop at once.”
“My dog has fleas,” Con said in his strange grating voice. “They bite his knees.” Then: “I have to spit.”
“Does your throat hurt?”
“No, just have to spit.”
Claire opened the shed door. Con leaned out, cleared his throat (which produced an unpleasantly metallic sound like rusty hinges), and hocked a loogie that to me looked almost as big as a doorknob. He turned back to us, massaging his throat with one hand.
“My dog has fleas.” He still didn’t sound like the Con I remembered, but the words were clearer now, and more human. Tears rose in his eyes and began to spill down his cheeks. “They bite his knees.”
“That’s enough for now,” Jacobs said. “We’ll go in the house, and you’ll drink a glass of water. A big one. You must drink a lot of water. Tonight and tomorrow. Until your voice sounds normal again. Will you do that?”
“Yes.”
“When you get home, you may tell your mother and father hello. Then I want you to go into your room and get down on your knees and thank God for bringing your voice back. Will you do that?”
Con nodded vehemently. He was crying harder than ever, and he wasn’t alone. Claire and I were crying, too. Only Reverend Jacobs was dry-eyed. I think he was too amazed to cry.
Patsy was the only one not surprised. When we went into the house, she squeezed Con’s arm and said in a matter-of-fact voice, “That’s a good boy.”
Morrie hugged my brother and my brother hugged him back hard enough to make the little boy’s eyes bug out. Patsy drew a glass of water from the kitchen tap and Con drank all of it. When he thanked her, it was almost in his own voice.
“You’re very welcome, Con. Now it’s well past Morrie’s bedtime, and time for you kids to go home.” Leading Morrie to the stairs by the hand, but not turning around, she added: “I think your parents are going to be very happy.”
That was the understatement of the century.
They were in the living room, watching The Virginian, and still not talking. Even in my joy and excitement, I could feel the freeze between them. Andy and Terry were thumping around upstairs, grousing at each other about something—business as usual, in other words. Mom had an afghan square in her lap, and was bending over to unsnarl the yarn in her basket when Con said, “Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad.”
Dad stared at him, mouth open. Mom froze, one hand in the basket and the other holding her needles. She looked up, very slowly. She said, “What—?”
“Hello,” Con said again.
She screamed and flew out of her chair, kicking the knitting basket over, and grabbed him the way she sometimes had when we were little, and meant to give one of us a shaking for something we had done wrong. There was no shaking that night. She swept Con into her arms, weeping. I could hear Terry and Andy stampeding down from the second floor to see what was going on.
“Say something else!” she cried. “Say something else so I don’t think I just dreamed it!”
“He’s not supposed to—” Claire began, but Con interrupted her. Because now he could.
“I love you, Mom,” he said. “I love you, Dad.”
Dad took Con by the shoulders and looked closely at his throat, but there was now nothing to see; the red mark had faded. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God, Son.”
Claire and I looked at each other, and once more the thought didn’t need to be spoken: Reverend Jacobs deserved some thanks, too.
We explained about how Con was supposed to use his voice sparingly to start with, and when we told about the water, Andy went out to the kitchen and came back with Dad’s oversize joke coffee cup (printed on the side was the Canadian flag and ONE IMPERIAL GALLON OF CAFFEINE), filled with water. While he drank it, Claire and I took turns recounting what had happened, with Con chipping in once or twice, telling about the tingling sensation he’d felt when the belt was turned on. Each time he interrupted, Claire scolded him for talking.
“I don’t believe it.” Mom said this several times. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Con. Several times she grabbed him and hugged him, as if she was afraid he might sprout wings, turn into an angel, and fly away.
“If the church didn’t pay for his heating oil,” Dad said when the tale was finished, “Reverend Jacobs would never have to pay for another gallon.”
“We’ll think of something,” Mom said distractedly. “Right now we’re going to celebrate. Terry, fetch the ice cream we were saving for Claire’s birthday from the freezer. It will be good for Con’s throat. You and Andy put it out on the table. We’ll have all of it, so use the big bowls. You don’t mind, do you, Claire?”