Magnificent Vibration Read Online Free PDF Page A

It’s not herpes. And if it was, you couldn’t get it just by looking at him.”
    “But I think he rubbed his mouth before I shook his hand.”
    “I really don’t think you get it like that, Josie, honestly,” I try, although I have no real idea what herpes is or how one gets the damned thing. I suspect it may have something to do with monsters I am not yet aware of, but I have no proof. I do know that my sweet sister is terrified, with her whole being, of contracting this herpes thing. I wish I knew how to help her. She who was always there for me when I was small. She who had comforting words that healed my little broken heart. She who cheered for me like I’d won when I came in seventh place in the 100-yard dash. She who protected me, even taking on a bully once on the way home from school. She who was my avenging angel against everything that frightened and intimidated me as a young boy. She who was more a mother to me than my own mother. But not now. And I am powerless to help her.
    “So I couldn’t get it, even if he touched his lips and then his hand brushed against me?” she probes.
    “I don’t think so, Jo. I’ll go talk to them.”
    “Can you look at it? The thing on his lip,” she plaintively begs my retreating back.
    It’s hard to believe sometimes that I am her younger sibling by so many years when she falls into one of these endless mental loops. She sounds like a little girl pleading for a favor from Daddy.
    I walk down the hall to the front door. Two spectacularly clean young people stand as if to attention behind the bug screen. They are immaculate human beings.
    “What do you want?” I ask a little defensively. The dude has already worried my sister, so that’s a big strike against him.
    The girl speaks. She is fresh, polished, and, to my young eyes, another of God’s exquisite handiworks.
    “We’d like to talk to you about Jesus,” she states with a bright-eyed zeal that immediately attracts me. It doesn’t take much.
    The man has a small, dying zit in the corner of his mouth. I assume this is what has my sister in such a state. It doesn’t take much.
    Josie joins me at the door. “We already go to church,” she says.
    “That’s great,” replies the perky girl. “What church do you guys attend?”
    “The Presbyterian on Edward Street. It’s our mom’s church,” my sister replies. She can seem like she’s functioning fairly normally in public situations like this, but once she’s alone, her demons will pounce upon her like frat boys on a drunken sorority sister.
    “We’d love to come in and talk to you about our amazing church.” Again, it’s the perky girl talking. She seems to pick up on me and my unyielding gaze, directed mainly at her sumptuous breasts, as the easiest mark and begins directing her carefully rehearsed spiel to yours enthralled.
    “We’re Mormons,” she informs us, smiling at me. And I am suddenly interested in Mormons, whatever they are.
    “I’d like to sit down with you personally, young man, one-on-one, and tell you how our church changed my life, and how it can change yours, too.”
    Oh, she’s good. She’s very good.
    I push open the screen door like a zombie Mina Harker inviting Dracula in. I hear my sister’s stifled cry of opposition but I am powerless under the gaze of this bewitching . . . “Moron,” was it? Proof, I think, of what a truly crappy, selfish little brother I really was.
    “May we talk with you separately?” Dracula asks me.
    Again, Josephine’s stifled resistance. Again I ignore it.
    “Okay. Are you going to talk with me?” I ask her. Really, what a dick I was.
    “I’d love to. And Bradley here will discuss our Lord with your . . . sister, is it?” Dracula, the little stunner, continues.
    “Cool. Her name is Josephine.” My sister is giving me seriously angry, desperate looks now. I signal her, in the silent code that we’ve developed over the years, to stop worrying; that everything will be okay.