The Second Coming

By Philip Lear

It was a hot Saturday afternoon. Mike was sitting at the table on his back porch trying to fix his son Joey's bike. Everything on it was bent out of shape- the pedals, the wheel rims, the seat. It looked pretty hopeless and it probably would've been smarter for him to buy a new one, but that would be 60 dollars.

Mike had been working on it furiously for two hours without much success. He was trying to straighten out the wheel rim when it slipped, and he hit his thumb with the hammer.

"Owwwww!" He howled, as he absorbed the pain. “I’ve had it.”

Mike took the bike and heaved it into his neighbor’s privet hedge and stormed inside. He iced his thumb, then sat there in the kitchen waiting for the pain to subside. It was a futile effort. He had a mechanical IQ of 10, but as the pain eased, he felt guilty about tossing his son’s bike. This bike fixing business deserves one last try, he thought. That little beat up thing was Joey’s whole life.

Mike went back out side and walked over to where he had tossed the bike. He reached down and pulled it out of the bushes. He looked at it in disbelief. The bike was fixed. It was like new. All the scratches were gone and it had that new paint smell. The handlebars and the rims, which had been seriously bent, looked perfectly straight. Even the tires were new.

He couldn't believe it. One minute he couldn’t fix the thing, and the next, it was fixed. Was he hallucinating? He didn't think so. When Joey came running out and saw the bike he knew he wasn't.

"Dad! You fixed my bike. Thanks," he said looking up at Mike. That look. It wasn't Joey's regular look. It was a look of admiration. He patted Joey on the head and before he could say, "You’re welcome,," Joey was off on his bike.

Mike stood there scratching his head, still trying to figure out what had happened, but he was clueless. He took another look in the bushes. Was this some kind of prank? Maybe it was one the neighbors. But the Stillmans, who lived there, were in their eighties and weren’t pranksters.

****

Several weeks later, there was a kitchen chair that needed fixing. It was a simple slat-back chair made of oak. Mike always appreciated the grace in the design. The chair needed a lot of work. It needed a doctor. The slats had come loose and the cane seat was collapsing. Nobody dared to sit in it. Alice, his wife, had been nagging him to fix it. Mike hated to see the chair in that condition, but he was ill equipped to fix it.

"It's disgusting the way things are so run down around here. I'm ashamed to invite anyone over," she said.

One again, Mike was on the back porch trying to figure out what to do. There didn't seem to be any answers. How could he get the slats back into the chair without taking the whole thing apart? How could he replace the caning? He'd need to know what he was doing, and have all sorts of clamps and glue.

Why is she always asking me to fix things when she knows I can’t? he thought.

Then Joey came up, “ Hi, Dad. What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to fix this chair,” Mike answered.

“Well, you did a super job on my bike. I know you’ll figure something out.”

“Thanks, son, I’ll try.”

Joey scooted off, and Mike was left scratching his head. He didn’t know where to start. What came to him then seemed absurd. Maybe if I threw it in the bushes somehow it would miraculously be fixed. Nah! I’m not completely nuts.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching. When the coast was clear, he picked up the chair and flung it into the bushes. Then he sauntered over to where it was. I just knowingly threw a chair, he thought. But when he reached into the hedge and grabbed it, the chair looked brand, spanking new.

Mike took a deep breath. Huh! All he had to do to fix something was to throw it in the bushes. Do the bushes have some magical power? They must. But they don't look special. They're just overgrown privet hedges that haven't been trimmed in years. Maybe that's why.

Was it the bushes at all? Maybe it wasn't throwing the things into the bushes that was fixing them, but throwing them into the air, he thought. Mike went upstairs and took his grandfather's broken gold pocket watch from his top drawer. It had been given to him years before by his dad, and was his only memento of his grandfather. The hands and stem were broken. The face was faded and stained. But he never wanted to throw it out.

He threw it up and caught it and it was fixed too.(where was he at that time?) It was shining like new. He set the time, and wound it. The watch ticked quietly. He put it in his pocket. Mike knew now that he didn't have to throw things into the bushes. How stupid to think that the bushes had anything to do with it.

Next, he took an old brass teakettle that had been sitting in a corner of the basement. It was so full of dents that it looked like it had been in a head on collision. But Mike liked its classical shape. He tossed it up and caught it, and again, it was like new. He boiled some water in it and the whistle gave off a high-pitched sound.

When Alice came into the kitchen, he said, “Tea time.”

She looked at the kettle.

"Mike, the tea kettle. Where'd you get it?"

He wasn't ready to tell her.

"I bought it in a garage sale," he said.

He was starting to feel pretty good being able to do things no one else could do.. It had a nice kick to it.

He didn't tell Alice about the chair either, but put it back in the kitchen, and waited for her to say something. He took other little odds and ends around the house and fixed them too. There was the steam iron, the radio, and the electric toothbrush. When she saw Mike using the electric toothbrush she gave him a funny look.

"I thought that thing was busted," she said.

"Nah, it was just a loose connection."

He didn't say anything further. It took her a week to notice the chair.

"I see that the chair is fixed," she said. "It looks pretty good. Who did that for you?"

"Nobody," he said. "I fixed it myself."

"Now, Mike, it's me you're talking to," she said.

"Give me something to fix, anything," he said.

"Mike," she said, "I have a drawer full of cheap, old broken jewelry that you've given me over the years. Maybe you could fix some of that?"

"How about the ugly straw hat you always wear to church?" He suggested.

"What do you mean ugly? That's a beautiful hat. It's just worn out. I wish I could afford a new one."

"You're just lucky a bird didn't mistake that for its nest and lay some eggs in it," Mike quipped.

She got the hat and gave it to him. It was rounded, and had white and pink feathers along the sides. In the front there was a square silver buckle. The straw looked worn and cracked. Mike thought about how pretty she looked in the hat when it was new.

"Here, fix this," she said defiantly, as she handed it to him. He threw it in the air. It hung there for a second and then landed back in his hands. He handed it to her.

"Now you can see what kind of fixer I am. Bring on your jewelry!" he said.

She stood there for a minute with her mouth open. Then she smiled and gave him a strange look.

"Mike! What's going on here?"

She brought him the box of her old jewelry. There were broken clasps and cracked stones, and he fixed them all. She stood there in amazement.

"Mike, this is astounding," she said.

"I always felt badly because I couldn't fix anything. And you liked wearing them so much."

"It would have cost more to fix than the stuff was worth," she said.

Mike watched as Alice enthusiastically went through her newly repaired jewelry. She turned to show him a necklace he had bought her shortly after they were married.

She smiled and said, "Do you remember this one?"

"How could I forget the way you looked in that? It still looks great on you."

It was turquoise and silver and had lines of little white beads hanging down. It seemed to lie perfectly on her chest. Seeing her smile gave him a thrill. It was like Joey's smile when he had fixed his bike.

"Now that you have this power, could you do something about that leak in the roof or the washing machine? You can start on the roof tomorrow."

"That's what I call gratitude," he said.

"Maybe you could make money doing this," she said.

"I could open a fix-it shop or become a magician. Suppose I took a melon and sliced into quarters and threw up in the air. If it came down whole, people would think I was the world's greatest magician. I would take my show on the road and make millions."

"Isn't there that annual talent show in Memphis coming up? Maybe you could enter that."

"I could saw you in half and throw you up in the air and you would come down whole."

Then she poked him and said, "Better stick to the melon."

The talent show was three weeks off and Mike put an act together. Joey was proud of him and eager to help. Mike told him not to tell any of his friends. Alice was acting differently toward him. She was very encouraging. It was great to feel that they were both with him, all the way.

Mike prepared a routine for his performance. First, he threw the sliced melon into the air. T en he took the Memphis phone book and sawed it in half. Following that, he took a variety of other broken items and fixed them. For the show’s finale, he smashed a 13-inch TV set with a hammer, and then threw the pieces up into the air.

Mike went to the show where he was scheduled behind four Elvis impersonators. His act was so different that it was a shock to the audience. He went through his routine as planned. But to add an unusual twist, after he fixed something, and to show the audience that there were no gimmicks, he'd throw the item into the audience. When he did this, the astonished audience would let out a collective gasp.

After the show, Don Louis, an agent, who wanted to book him into various clubs and events, approached Mike. Mike agreed, and off he went on tour. Mike remained on tour for the next two years; doing one or two shows a night. Don booked him into nightclubs, concerts, and at county fairs. He was making money hand over fist.

His agent booked him into Vegas for a year, and he moved Alice and Joey up to live with him. There were articles in magazines and in local newspapers and he was even interviewed on 60 Minutes. He was known as "Mike The Wizard ".

There were also product endorsements, magic kits, action figures, and many other things. Finally Mike made the big time. He moved to New York and appeared as a regular on a TV series. He had made it and was a true celebrity.

One morning, when he was coming out of his apartment on east 68th Street, he heard the screech of brakes and a women screaming. He saw a woman leaning over a little boy in blue shorts and a white shirt who had been run over by a cab. The boy's mother must have turned around for an instant, and the boy had darted off the curb, and had been struck. She was kneeling beside him and a small crowd was already forming. Mike thought about what to do. He'd never fixed anything but melons and TV sets. Could he repair this boy? What would happen if he picked him up and threw him into the air? If nothing happened they'd kill him.

He could walk away now and no one would be the wiser. But then he thought about Joey. What would he do if it were his own son on the street? It was a no-brainer.

He pushed his way through the crowd to where the boy was down. It was obvious that he wasn't breathing. He picked up the small body and threw him into the air. And as he did, the crowd let out a gasp. The boy seemed to hang in mid air for just an instant, and then settled softly back into Mike’s arms. Mike looked down at him just as his eyes started to open. He stretched his little chubby arms and rubbed his eyes like he had just awoken from a nap. He was as good as new.

Mike gently handed the boy to his mother. She looked at Mike as she hugged her son. He could feel indescribable love flowing from her. Her glow radiated as she squeezed his hand. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you." The people in the crowd were staring at him in amazement.

Somebody said, "Nobody's healed like this since Jesus."

Many of the onlookers started to kneel.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, the boy's all right, he thought. He stayed there for a few more minutes. There was an incredible surge of warmth, a connection that encircled all of them. In some way, they were all being healed.