Save the Stain!

A hundred years ago, Big Timber was a busy logging town. Then a pest moved in, the forest died, and the people moved out. I’m one of three employees at the Big Timber Tribune and I can probably name every member of our subscriber list. 

Most of the stories I cover are like this one: boring. It’s either human interest or something about our local economy, which has been on life support for over a decade. Lately there had been talk of a tech company called Perseus moving in to revive us. 

Unlike so many other plans to bring back industry, this one was actually making progress. The abandoned elementary school was chosen for the location, though it would be mostly demolished. The CEO of Perseus bought land to build himself a house, made an offer on the school property, and ordered an inspection. But then there was the stain.

In the beginning, opinions were mixed. 

“It’s disgusting.”

“It’s incredible.”

“It’s a pain in my ass.”

The latter opinion belonged to the Mayor, Neil Richards. He shook his head and took a loud sip from his coffee cup. I scribbled notes from the plush chair in front of his desk, trying not to smirk.

“Don’t use that quote, please.” he said.

I crossed out the line I was writing.

“Lowering unemployment was my biggest campaign promise,” he explained, returning to a professional tone. “After months of work, we had a prospective buyer within reach, someone that was going to not just bring jobs, but modernize us. Young people leave this town and never come back. A twenty-first-century trade is exactly what Big Timber needs. Weeks away from a sale, a property inspector squinted at a water stain too long, and now here we are.”

“Have you seen it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you think it looks like?”

“I think it looks like a God da– I’m sorry–,” he cleared his throat. “A water stain. It’s right next to the bathroom pipes. Water has been dripping on it for ten years, probably longer. I don’t think it looks like anything. I could have one in my basement just like it.”

“Is your official stance to move forward with demolition?”

“Yes…if the company will still have us.” 

He reached for a pile of paper on his desk. “Look at the hate mail that’s coming in. One of them just says ‘You are the devil.’" He held up a creased letter with the large crooked handwriting. "No signature, no return address. Just ‘You are the devil.’ And I know that the CEO of Perseus is getting letters too. Half of the county is mad at us.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“So,” the mayor said. “You’ll meet with Jim this afternoon to go see the stain for yourself. He’s the new inspector that we hired. Take some pictures, look over Jim’s inspection report, and hopefully once your article is published, people will see how silly this is.”

When I parked my car and shut off the engine, I could hear commotion. People were chanting rhythmically and clapping. I wondered if they yell like that all day or just when people like me show up. If a protester shouts and there’s no one to hear it, do they still make a sound? 

I took some photos of the sign on the front lawn of the elementary school. It was yellowed with age, obscured by overgrown weeds and bird poop. A few letters remained on the reader board: “HANKS FOR 42 YER. COSED.” An ‘L’ had jumped to the bottom.

A group of about fifteen people stood before the front entrance, which was blocked by yellow caution tape. The windows were boarded up. Some of the walls were spray painted. After taking a few photos and introducing myself, I started interviewing. 

One man wore a homemade shirt that read “Save the Stain!” A woman with a baby on her hip recalled being a student here. My favorite attendee was an old woman, seated in a rollator walker.

She lifted a disfigured hand. “I got rheumatoid arthritis, honey,” she said. “Every day I’m in pain. But since I’ve been on the property, I have felt so healed. Just being on the property is having an effect on me. I haven’t taken my pain meds in two weeks. That’s why I’m out here every day. I want to get in there and pray with her so bad.”

“Pray with who?” I asked.

“The stain, honey.” 

Some time later, Jim arrived. He walked up to the entrance briskly, wearing a reflective orange vest and a hard hat. He handed me a hard hat of my own, along with eye protection and a dust mask. We ducked under the caution tape and walked to the front door. Jim situated a mask on his face and unhooked a ring of keys from his belt loop. He selected a key without pause and opened the front door, locking it again once we were inside. 

The interior was dark; Jim led me by flashlight through the halls. I found it strange that my footsteps did not echo. Looking closer, I noticed the layer of dust that softened the noise and left footprints behind us.

We stopped at a classroom to the right of the women’s restroom. Jim flipped to another key and unlocked the door. Inside were two broken desks, but otherwise nothing. He turned the beam of the flashlight to the wall on our left, illuminating a dark shape.

“That’s her?” I asked.

“Yep.”

The stain was large, brown and orange in color. I stared at it, cocking my head left and right, squinting, stepping further back. I had already seen the photo on Facebook, the one the first inspector took with his ancient flip phone. Other posts had drawn over the outline of the pixelated image, circled various details, and placed it next to famous paintings of the Virgin Mary.

The longer I looked, the more I could see. The dark lips, the uneven eyes, the incomplete halo, a fat mitt for a hand.

“Huh,” I said at last.

Two days after my article was published, I was bombarded with emails and phone calls. The story had gone viral, appearing on morning talk shows and on social media. The internet called her “The Moldy Madonna.” At the Tribune, we sent the memes we found to each other, all using the photo I had taken. Outside, new faces were arriving in town, wearing hastily-made merch. 

The city council meeting a week later was packed full. For years, I had most of this room to myself, struggling to stay awake as the one or two citizens that showed up complained about trash pickup, noise, and other inconveniences. On this day a chair was reserved for me in the front row, next to three journalists from other cities.

A representative from Perseus attempted to explain the benefits of continuing with the build. Every other sentence was interrupted with jeers. Someone from the department of labor stepped forward and read a short prepared speech with a monotone voice. Other than that, there was no opposition. 

Time was filled with a line of testimonials standing behind the public microphone. There were stories of spiritual awakenings, ailments cured, demands for constitutional rights. Some people were moved to tears. Many people I knew for a fact did not live here. The old woman I had interviewed shuffled forward without assistance from her walker to speak.

The mayor’s office sent me a press release a few days after. The stain would remain.

5 Years Later

I decided to do a follow-up story for the anniversary of the Virgin Mary stain. Somehow I managed to arrange a telephone interview with the bishop of the Catholic church that bought the elementary school. He gave quick answers and would not speak on the site’s current miracle status. He hung up as I was thanking him for his time.

The school had been carefully taken apart around the classroom with the stain. The facade was now flawless white concrete with large reflective windows. A foreign architect had designed it to be a sloping, angular building. The grounds were well kept, with a fountain in front of the entrance. Inside, there was a gift shop and a display of other religious “artifacts” such as a burnt Jesus lasagna, preserved in epoxy resin. The Virgin Mary stain was protected behind glass and kept in dim lighting.

I waited in line for half a day with the many people making a pilgrimage to the wall. Several families that I approached did not speak English. Most people looked ill in some way. There were children with twisted bodies in wheelchairs, women with bald heads under their scarves, amputees, blind people. All were smiling.

Mayor Richards grinned when I stepped into his office, though I had seen him many times since the stain's controversy. I settled into a chair and opened my notepad.

“Well,” he clapped his hands. “We’re five years past the Virgin Mary stain. We made a decent profit from the sale to the Catholic church. Unemployment is down, population is up, our budget is in good shape. Lots of plans for infrastructure. I was reelected, obviously. Things are good, knock on wood.” he rapped his knuckles on the desk. 

“How do you feel about Perseus backing out,” I asked. “in hindsight?”

“A lot better,” Mayor Richards was nodding slowly. “When it first happened, I thought it was the end of this town. The jobs I had promised were leaving, the world thought we were a town of religious nuts. Maybe they still do,” he chuckled. “But I look out of my office window now and I see the spas and the hotels, the variety of restaurants, the new school, the parks we’ve restored. Maybe the town would still have grown if Perseus had stayed, but it would not have affected so many people so positively. It all worked out the way it was supposed to, I guess.”   

I mentioned the bishop’s hesitance to call the Virgin Mary water stain a miracle. "Do you believe it's holy or magical?" I asked.

“Hundreds of people, maybe thousands at this point, have claimed they were healed by looking at this dirty wall,” the mayor said. “According to my doctor, the results are real. He’s seen so many patients get better. Is it a placebo? Probably. But if it makes people feel better, then it’s real. At least in that sense.”

“Is it a miracle?” he shrugged. “Who’s to say?”