“Don’t look out,” says Rick.
Mindy turns and waggles her finger. It runs down all the walls. “Rick.”
“Do you know why I don’t want you to look out?”
“Sweetie pumpkin,” says Mindy, “I’m trying ever so hard to still be pleasant about this whole thing, but it’s wrong of you not to tell. It’s not right, and you know it.”
“My God the window’s drooling,” Rick says. He points. His wrist hangs with light. “Doesn’t it look as though the window is drooling? Salivating at the prospect of absolutely everything there is to impart ?”
Mindy starts to turn back.
“But don’t look out,” Rick says.
“So start imparting,” says Mindy.
“Haven’t I already?”
“I want to know where my husband is,” Mindy says softly, looking down into the television. “I don’t care about your ‘context,’ and I’m more than a little upset and worried that you’re sitting there with that thing on your wrist seriously trying to tell me that Lenore Beadsman died in your phone tunnel.”
“You saw the lobby floor.”
“But Andy and Lenore went to the airport tonight, I happen to know. I talked to Dr. Tissaw tonight. ”
“Context is essential,” Rick says.
“But I don’t care about context Rick,” says Mindy. “If you want to know the truth I don’t really care that much about Lenore. And I don’t care about some book, which I have no idea what you’re talking about, which first you say you wrote, then you say is the Bible, then you say is the dictionary, then you say is the Sears Catalogue, so what am I supposed to think? But anyway I don’t care about that.” Mindy crosses her arms over her bra. The moon is white jelly through the top of her hair. “Honestly,” she says.
“But it’s essential to the whole story,” says Rick. He is playing with his stomach, over the band of his underpants.
“Or about alphabets of old people, or children singing like birds, or fat men chewing on buildings, or phone crews fishing in black air, or people eating each other’s membranes—you can just stop whispering about all of it, because I don’t care about it right now.”
“What do you want,” says Rick.
Mindy taps a foot on the floor. “I either want to watch the bird’s show, here, which by the way don’t think I’ve forgotten you practically promised to call, last night ...”
“I forbid you to look at it directly.”
“... Or then I want to know where my husband and ditzy little Lenore are, so I can begin to take steps. What branch are they supposed to be at?”
“Lenore Beadsman and W.D.L. are finished,” Rick says. He looks around him, his shadow on the flowing wall. “They’re over.”
“Rick sweetie I’m so trying to be nice but that’s just a lie,” says Mindy. She comes to stand at the bed. “Can’t you tell what’s a lie? I don’t know what happened to you today, and how could I since you won’t tell me, but you’re in bad shape if you sincerely think people are done who are obviously not done, I’ve got to tell you. I’ve got to think you’re either lying for fun, or you’re maybe just not a well man. Daddy always said you weren’t a hundred percent.”
Rick looks up at Mindy.
“Honestly,” Mindy says. She looks back at the television. “I can just watch the news, you know.” Rick keeps looking at her. “I can just watch the news at eleven, if you want to be a little dung beetle about it,” she says. “Why lie if I can just find out the truth in a couple hours?”
“I think you’re confused,” says Rick.
/c/
REVEREND SYKES: And so friends if we are to be in Jesus and so never want, never ever want, what must we do here tonight? UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Use me. Satisfy me like never before. REVEREND SYKES: Tonight we must attempt to see together that to be satisfied in a spiritual sense is to be used.
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Oh yes that’s right, to be satisfied is to be used ...
REVEREND SYKES: For we’ve seen together that to be satisfied is to be in Jesus, and to be in Jesus is to be a partner. And what is a partner?
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT : Who cares how many partners I’ve had, Clinty?
REVEREND SYKES: Yes friends it makes no difference how many partners work together, what is a partner?
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Partner, oh what is a partner ... ? REVEREND SYKES: Is not an individual who is a partner with God simply an individual who recognizes, and finds within his own soul the strength to perform, the function God has assigned to him? We must ask how can we be useful to God.
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Oh, how might I personally be used ... ? 1 UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Sunflower seed, please.
REVEREND SYKES: But friends can’t we see that it’s all just a glorious living circle of faith, because now to be useful to God is merely to be apartner with God!
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Oh, it’s all a glorious circle ... REVEREND SYKES: And to be satisfied is to be used, to be used is to be a partner, to be a partner is to be a worker, to be a worker is to be one of many, locked and nourished, together, in the soil of faith. UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Sounds pretty healthy!
REVEREND SYKES: Friends, tonight I want us to think together of this humble program as the soil of faith. I want us to think of ourselves ... joined here tonight, together, in the electronic soil of faith today. I want us to feel used and satisfied by the Lord together tonight.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Miss Beaksman, hear the mandate! REVEREND SYKES: So friends, laugh if you will, but tonight I have a game for us to play together. A profoundly and vitally important game for us to play together tonight. The stakes’ll be as high as the stars in heaven, friends, I’ll warn you now.
The Partnership Singers begin to hum a harmony even more pleasing than the pleasing harmonies previously hummed
REVEREND SYKES: Friends, I want us all to get up and put our hand on our television screen. Those of you who might be unable to get up with us tonight, why you have a friend or loved one bring your television close to you. Friends I want you to come to me and place your hand on my hand, that I hold out to you tonight. Let us all place our hands together in the electronic soil.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Sow to reap a pretty boy!
REVEREND SYKES: So there is the game, friends, and now here are the stakes tonight.
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: The stakes tonight ... (They return to the pleasing harmony.)
REVEREND SYKES: Every player, every one of you who feels something, who feels what I can feel standing right here before you tonight, who can feel the individual imprisoned inside these secular shells of impotent pain and desire flow out of you, flow out into the soil, who feels the sort of union with all and with- the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ that I feel right now, when you touch my hand, each one of you who feels what I know in my heart we shall all feel together tonight ... each player who feels it will go straight to his telephone and call us here at the Partnership Pledge Center at 1- 800-PARTNER, to become a partner with us and with God, tonight. So to feel what I feel tonight, friends, is to become a partner. No two ways about it. This game is a challenge, friends. Are you up to it? I stand here challenging you tonight.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Holy holy!
REVEREND SYKES: Use me, friends. Let us play the game together. I promise that no player will feel alone. You see my hand? Here it is. I hold it out for you to touch. Touch it. Lay your hands in the soil and touch me. Here I am for you. Friends I sense we are all ready tonight.
/d
“Well no I’m not angry, you silly,” says Mindy, kneeling in front of the television. Cold light comes out from between her fingers, on the screen.
“I promise to tell,” Rick says, looking down at himself.
“I know you’ll tell,” Mindy says softly into the television. White shimmers melt down her back. Drops of light stop and start. She reaches back with her free hand, tosses her hair out of the way, unhooks herself.
“What a
re you doing?”
Mindy rises and turns and slides out of everything, moving her hips.
“I said I’d tell,” says Rick.
“I know you will,” says Mindy. “I know you’re upset, but I feel like I just know you will.” She comes to the bed. Her body moves a million ways in the wet white light. Behind her Rick can see a flickering hand, dead and cold. It covers everything.
“I really will,” he whispers.
Mindy touches his leg. Light comes out of his leg, between her fingers.
“Don’t you worry about anything,” she says. “I know you.”
“You can trust me,” R. V. says, watching her hand. “I’m a man of my
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