He decides to buy a house near the one where he grew up — no negotiations necessary, just give them their asking price — and goes to the grocery store to buy liquor and junk food. If you asked him what his plan was, he’d say he didn’t have one, but obviously to the casual observer, all he wants to do is drink himself into oblivion, waiting for the inevitable end to come.
All is sweetness and light, right?
The problem is there are a series of casual observers in his life. The first is a nosy next-door neighbor, suitably named Esperanza (Adriana Barraza of “Babel” fame), who brings him a plate of cookies and tries hard to make his acquaintance. He just isn’t interested in being polite. No future in it. Next, he meets the little girl next door, Millie (Morgan Lily), who actually doesn’t speak. She just tapes whatever conversations he has in the backyard, and plays them back, and if he tries to speak to her, she runs away.
Soon he meets her mother, Dawn (Radha Mitchell) who explains that her daughter hasn’t spoken since her father died. Henry just shuffles back home, trying to mind his own business, but even when he goes to the grocery store for more oblivion supplies, the clerk there named Patience (Rachel Seiferth) asks him what’s wrong, insisting that he must be either sad or mad or both. He is finding out that being an iconoclast is not as easy as he assumed it would be.
And then, the dramatic happens. Well, at least everybody else thinks so. The nosy Esperanza notices a pattern on his stucco wall that looks to her like the face of Jesus. Henry says it’s just a stain where they did a bad job of re-stuccoing before he moved in, even though he insisted it wasn’t necessary (what does he care about resale value?). Apparently his well-meaning but overeager agent (Cheryl Hines) was sort of paying him back for his willingness to purchase at full price, with full commission. Henry does his best to downplay the idea of any kind of accidental image, but the religious Esperanza is by now in a fanciful flight of ecstasy. She invites her church friends to come and pray at the “shrine,” and Henry angrily drives them all away. Even the friendly parish priest, Father Salazar (George Lopez) invites Henry to talk about what’s troubling him, but Henry is so determined to be a curmudgeon that he demands that they all leave immediately.
The breakthrough comes when the little girl, Millie, touches the wall, and begins speaking again. Her mother won’t go so far as to claim it’s a miracle, but she does say that she knows that before her daughter touched the wall, she didn’t speak, and now she does (see the parents’ reaction in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John). Now Henry is conflicted, because he can’t help but be glad that the little girl has made a significant step. He also begins to respond to the gentle, unassuming demeanor of her mom. Yes, he’s argued with Esperanza that people of faith are pitiful, because they need to hope in something in order to somehow validate themselves, and how ridiculous is it to be waiting until a man comes back who’s been dead for 2,000 years?
Well, that puts faith squarely in the center of the discussion, doesn’t it? Never mind that there appears to be drops of blood coming out of the apparition. Henry, in a fit of pique and rage, just destroys the wall with a sledgehammer, anyway, but as he does, part of the roof falls on top of him, and he winds up in the hospital, where they discover that whatever rare disease he once had now no longer seems to be there.
OK, so what are we to make of this? Skeptic becomes true believer? Not exactly. Henry’s primary emotion is bewilderment. People of faith convert the unbeliever? Hardly. They are actually more of an annoyance and repellent to him. God sends a miracle in order to make a believer out of an atheist? Well, we all know that as long as God allows free will, then those will not be convinced will find a way to resist, anyway, and besides, where there’s irrefutable evidence, there’s hardly any need or room for faith.
So, at the end, all Henry Poole really knows is that he’s here. And that some people care if he is or not. And, more significantly, he now cares whether he is or not. And that may be the closest that some ever come to religion. But sometimes it’s just close enough.
RONALD P. SALFEN is pastor of Grace Church in Greenville, Texas.
