The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [36]
And he did. Two agonizing minutes later, the Miracle Worker completed his task. Wiping sweat from his brow, he told the audience, “There, the ankle is as good as new.” But the man’s pain was worse than ever.
The painter looked at his ankle and appeared more desperate. We thought he was still in shock.
Just as the crowd was beginning to applaud the Miracle Worker, the painter’s cousin finally managed to untie his tongue. He came swinging at Edson, shouting, “Get away from him, you butcher! You worthless liar!”
No one understood what was happening, not even the dreamseller. We all thought the stuttering painter was being ungrateful. Then, stammering, he explained:
“My cousin’s crippled. He’s had a limp for thirty years, but he’s never had surgery to correct it. Now this bastard comes along and fixes it—without anesthesia.”
A crowd, that only seconds earlier was ready to applaud the Miracle Worker, was now growing into a mob ready to pummel him. But the dreamseller stopped them. With one question he tamed an angry mob and rescued the man who loved power:
“Wait! Why do you want to hurt this man? What matters most, his actions or his intent?”
Tempers cooled and people began to disperse. Bartholomew, still confused, said, “Chief, you need to explain to me what you just said.”
Calmly, with the Miracle Worker still shrinking from the crowd, the dreamseller explained:
“A man’s actions may warrant our outrage. His methods can be criticized. But what we should focus on are a person’s intentions.”
For the first time in his life, Edson had performed a real miracle—and had almost been lynched for it. We had criticized his attitude, looking only at his actions. Unlike the dreamseller, we hadn’t seen the altruistic reasons for what he had done; we simply wanted him as far away as possible from us and our little sociological experiment. But before we could say a word, the dreamseller did what we feared most. He looked at the Miracle Worker and casually told him:
“Come, follow me and I will show you miracles unlike any you’ve ever known, miracles that can cure our ailing society.”
When we heard the dreamseller’s call, my two friends and I embraced one another. Some might have thought we were moved, but actually we were disappointed in ourselves. In that moment, we realized how easy it is to fall under the spell of prejudice. We had accepted scoundrels, drunks and stupidly prideful people into our group, but we had discriminated against the religious types, especially so-called miracle workers. We had to adjust our thinking to the dreamseller’s will with a heavy dose of patience and tolerance.
Edson was euphoric about being called. He didn’t understand it, but knew that this dreamseller, however strange, possessed great powers of persuasion. He thought that if he learned the dreamseller’s techniques, he could use them to go far. He couldn’t imagine the depths of the journey he was about to begin. He couldn’t imagine the bitter pain he would suffer curing himself of his obsession with power. Deep down, he was as addicted to power as Honeymouth was to alcohol, as I was to my ego, as Angel Hand was to the art of the con. We were addicts, all of us.
An Obsessive Dream
WE WERE NO SECT, NO POLITICAL PARTY. WE WERE NOT part of a foundation or any official organization. We didn’t rely on public welfare, didn’t even know where we’d sleep or what we’d eat. We depended on spontaneous donations from people, and sometimes we bathed in public shelters. We were a band of dreamers who wanted to change the world, or at least our world. Still, we had no guarantee whether we would change anything or cause more confusion. But I was beginning to love this lifestyle, a pleasant sociological experiment, albeit one full of unknowns.
Some were starting to recognize the dreamseller from the news. They would interrupt his walk, feeling the need to tell him their problems. He enjoyed listening