Virtual Light

33. Notebook

rice

scouring pads broom

detergent liquid sleeping bag

stove fuel oil/gasket

He sleeps now. Rice with the curry from the Thai wagon. Asks where the girl has gone. Tell him Fontaine has heard from her but does not know where she is or why. The pistol on the shelf. Reluctant to touch it (cold, heavy, smelling of oil, the dark blue finish worn to silver-gray down the sides of its muzzle, around the fluted segments of the cylinder. (‘SMITH & WESSON.’ Thomasson.) Tonight he spoke again of Shapely.

How they did him like that, Scooter, that’s just some sorry shit. Same shit all over. Always some of ’em, anyway, makes you wonder how these damn religions last so long or what started it in the first place. Could be he’ll be that himself one day, crazy fuckers out killing people for him, or they’ll say it’s for him. Used to be these Crucified Jesus people, they wouldn’t talk at all except on Mondays, and that was the day they’d go and dig a spadeful of dirt out of their grave, Scooter. Every little while they’d get one of them thought he’d got the spirit in him and they’d just do it, do it with these special chrome nails they all carried, leather neck-pouch, see, it had to be unborn lambskin. Hell, you’d have to say they were crazier than the ones got him, Scooter. Put ’em all away, finally. Weren’t any left at all, after about 1998.

“Inner Tube, honey” Mrs. Sublett said, “Talitha Morrow, Todd Probert, Gary Underwood. 1996.” She was leaning back in the recliner with a damp washcloth folded across her forehead. It was the same color blue as her slippers, and they were terrycloth, too.

“I never saw that” Chevette said, flipping through the pages of a magazine all about Reverend Fallon. There was this has-been actress, Gudrun Weaver, and she was up there hugging Fallon on a stage somewhere. If he’d turned around, Chevette thought, his nose would’ve barely come up to her breastbone. Looked like he’d had some kind of pink wax injected, all under his skin; had the creepiest-looking hair she’d ever seen, like a really short wig but it sort of looked like it might get up and walk off by itself.

“All about television” Mrs. Sublett said, “so naturally it’s of special significance to the Church.”

“What’s it about?”

“Talitha Morrow is this newswoman, and Todd Probert is a bank robber. But he’s a good bank robber, because he only needs the money to pay for a heart-transplant for his wife. Carrie Lee. Remember her? In a mature role, honey. More like a cameo. Well, Gary Underwood is Talitha’s ex, but he’s still got it for her, bad. In fact he’s got—whatcha callit?—erotomania, like it’s all he ever thinks about and, honey, it’s turned pure evil. First he’s sending her these chopped up Barbie dolls; sends her a dead white rabbit, then all this fancy underwear with blood on it…”