The Broom Of The System Part 33

"He's A-OK," Lang said to Lenore, setting down the suitcases amid a litter of Styrofoam cups and candy wrappers and b.u.t.ts. "My Daddy watches his show all the time. My Daddy thinks Hart Lee's the spiritual b.a.l.l.s."

"Who are you?" Candy said to Lang.

"This is Andrew Sealander Lang," said Lenore, "a friend of Rick's and now a very temporary F and V employee. I'm supposed to get Mrs. Tissaw to rent him Misty's room while she's in the hospital."

"And a friend of you fine ladies, now, too, I hope," said Lang. "I-"

"Inside out! A camel! The bird has been touched by Auden!" shrieked Vlad the Impaler. A sound-man yelped and tore off his headphones.

"No, no, no!" screamed Hart Lee Sykes, stamping a pointy-toed cowboy boot on the wooden floor. "The next line is 'All contributing subscriptions are tax-deductible.' Cindy honey ... where's Cindy?" Hart Lee Sykes spotted Candy by the door with Lenore and Lang and made his way over as all heads turned toward them. Lenore began to edge toward the door. Sykes towered over all of them, even Lang. To Candy he said, "Cindy honey, you've simply got to make the miraculous little incarnation behave. Now if you'll-"

"Reverend Sykes, this is finally Lenore Beadsman, who owns Vlad," Candy said, preempting Lenore's flight with an iron hand at the small of her back.

The Reverend stopped, turned to Lenore, seemed almost to be getting ready to bow. "Miss Beadsman, at ever so long last. The owner, to the extent that any single man can be called the owner, of this animal-dare I say animal?-touched by the Lord and guided by His hand to His humble servant, me." Sykes's voice had risen from whisper to shout. A murmer went through the room from the people looking through scripts and checking equipment.

"Jesus knew the s.e.x was great!" squawked Vlad the Impaler.

"A pleasure to meet you, and a sincere expression of the profoundest grat.i.tude for allowing us into your home and into the presence of an animal of vital theological importance," Sykes was saying to Lenore, ignoring Lang's outstretched hand. "Our friend Mrs. Tilsit has told me all about you and your profound relationship with your profound pet."

"Tissaw," said Candy Mandible.

"Tissaw." Sykes smiled. "A bird through which the voice of the Lord has been personally heard by me to cry out for exposure to the American people, through the medium of, again, to my profound and humble honor, me."

"Hmmm," Lenore said.

"Lenore, Lenore," twittered Vlad the Impaler. "Make me come. I need s.p.a.ce, as a person. Let's get rid of this disgusting unprofessional mirror. You will be a star in the electronic firmament of American evangelical theology! Like Charlotte's Web!" Charlotte's Web!"

"Boy, he's gotten even worse," Lenore said to Candy.

"Worse?" cried Hart Lee Sykes. "Worse? The lady jests with us all, friends. Miss surely you are aware that your feathered companion has been touched by the hand of the Lord Himself."

"Probably bit it, then," muttered Lenore.

"Mmm-hmmm," the crowd of technicians was rumbling at Sykes.

"... that he represents a theological development of the very highest order, a manifestation of the earthly intervention and influence of the Almighty comparable in significance to the weeping fir tree of Yrzc, Poland, and the cruciform tar-pit formations of Sierra Leone! Worse, she jests!"

The crowd of technicians laughed.

"Hart Lee, sweetheart," crooned Vlad the Impaler.

"You live here too?" Lang whispered to Candy.

"Sshh," Candy hissed. Lang grinned and put his finger to his lips, nodding.

"Mrs. Tissaw told you to put Vlad the Impaler on religious television?" Lenore was saying to Reverend Sykes. Vlad the Impaler was going to the bathroom on his little director's chair.

"My little friend, the directive to afford this creature exposure to an American populace crying out for divine direction and reaffir mation came from a source far, far higher than Mrs. Tyson, or you, or I!" cried Sykes, standing on tiptoe in his pointed boots.

Lenore stared at Sykes. "Not my father."

"Exactly, young Miss. The Father Father of us all!" Sykes looked around him. "I am the recipient of the mandate which all true humble servants of the Lord pray for, all their miserable lives. Thank you. Thank you." Sykes made motions toward trying to kiss Lenore's hand. of us all!" Sykes looked around him. "I am the recipient of the mandate which all true humble servants of the Lord pray for, all their miserable lives. Thank you. Thank you." Sykes made motions toward trying to kiss Lenore's hand.

"It's Tissaw," Tissaw," Candy said wearily. Sykes gave her the fish-eye. Candy said wearily. Sykes gave her the fish-eye.

"Andrew Sealander Lang, here, padre," Lang said to Sykes, taking the Reverend's pudgy hand from Lenore's and shaking it. "One of Ms. Beadsman's closest friends and a deep admirer of her bird, and of your show, sir."

The Reverend shook Lang's hand without looking at him. He stared into Lenore's eyes. Lenore could smell his breath. "Miss Beadsman, you are in a position to aid us in delivering to the American people and to the world the Lord's true contemporary message, through His chosen feathered vehicle."

"Look, I'm afraid I just don't understand what you're talking about," said Lenore. "There's a pretty troubling explanation for Vlad's talking, I'm afraid, that shouldn't-"

"The only even remotely problematic problem is that the Lord is moving in such very mysterious ways through your pet that the miraculous little thing isn't saying quite what requires to be said, quite as quickly as he might, given the extreme expense involved in delivering the message of the Lord these days,"said the Reverend. "The bird in its secular aspect seems to be so understandably caught up in the ecstasy of the Lord's verbal presence within him that he goes far beyond what actually needs and is proper to be said, given the import of the mission."

"Little f.u.c.ker sounds pretty healthy to me," said Vlad the Impaler, crunching a sunflower seed.

"A case in point," the Reverend said solemnly to Lenore. "What you find yourself in a position to do is to help the bird deliver the message intended and required. His next line in the relevant initial message is, 'All contributing subscriptions are tax-deductible.' " The Reverend's smile reached almost to his ears. "If you could simply use your privileged position to reemphasize to the bird the vital importance of his mission, and prompt him to deliver the lines he's directed by our Father through me to deliver, and also perhaps get him to stop biting the makeup-man ..." Sykes gestured toward a pale man with a bandaged hand.

"I still don't get it," said Lenore.

"May I, Reverend?" Candy said, trying to ignore something Lang was whispering into her ear.

"By all means." Sykes folded his arms and tapped a pointed boot on the floor. The director looked at his watch.

"What apparently happened was that Mrs. Tissaw was in here dusting," Candy said, "two days ago, the day you went right from the switchboard to Clarice's and then I guess to Rick's, 'cause you sure weren't around, and I was out too, because Nick Allied and I finally ..."

"Ahem," said the Reverend.

"Anyway," Candy said, "Mrs. Tissaw was in here, and she heard the little ... the bird, and he I guess was saying religious stuff ..."

"Of the profoundest importance," Sykes added.

"... and she just had a complete spasm, from excitement, and she called 'Real People,' to try to get them to come have a look at him, because he'd supposedly been squawking something about 'Real People' ..."

"Well Candy you know how come he was saying that," Lenore said.

"We all know tonight," said Sykes, nodding solemnly. Affirmation-noise swelled from the cigarette smoke above the technicians' heads.

Candy rolled her eyes. "And I guess 'Real People' figured he wasn't their cup of tea, weird-mixture-of-Biblical-and-obscene-stuff-wise, but the guy in charge told the guy on the phone to tell her to call CBN ..."

"Which is of course me," Sykes said.

"And she did, and they flew somebody out here from the Reverend's office," Candy said. "And this was yesterday, when you were obviously totally out of town, and your Dad's office said your brother didn't have a phone, and that you were unreachable."

"LaVache and his stupid lymph node," muttered Lenore.

"But anyway the guy came and had a look, and I guess Vlad was just in incredible form, that day."

"As was of course meant from the beginning to be," said the Reverend.

"And but anyway the guy from 'Partners With G.o.d Club' saw him, and I guess just did a spiritual back-flip, and spasmed his way over to the phone, with Mrs. Tissaw like wringing her hands for joy beside him ..."

"No need to embellish, Cindy," said Sykes, looking with annoyance over at w.a.n.g-Dang Lang, who was at the cage, poking at Vlad the Impaler through the bars with a section of Styrofoam cup, while Vlad eyed him beadily.

"And first the guy tried to call me, at work, to get me to try to call you, at Mrs. Tissaw's surprisingly considerate suggestion, but I guess they never could get through, because the phone-situation at F and V is still really biting the big wazoo ..."

"Ahem," said Sykes.

"But obviously if you were phoneless I wouldn't have been able to reach you anyway, but anyway they tried, and then the guy of course called 'Partners With G.o.d Club' headquarters, and more or less told Father Sykes the story, and I guess they all decided old Vlad was much hotter stuff than just for 'Real Religious People' or whatever, and the Reverend hightailed it up here from Atlanta ... "

"And the rest you can of course glean from what you see and feel here tonight," said Sykes. "So then, if you'll simply indicate to the bird its appointed lines, we can-"

"So it looks like Mrs. Tissaw is who I ought to talk to," Lenore said. "Because if she thinks she can just put a drugged bird on television, without even-"

"Drugged with the intoxicating overdue message of the very Lord Himself!" Sykes cried. Lang suddenly yelled as Vlad latched onto his finger. The sound-man rushed over to get him loose.

"So where is Mrs. Tissaw, is the big question," said Lenore. "Maybe I could grab a quick shower, and then she and I could just sit down, and-"

"Mrs. Tissaw is out shopping," Sykes beamed.

"Father Sykes's agent gave her a really disturbing amount of money, as like an advance," said Candy.

"We sow to reap, here in America," Sykes said, drawing the loudest affirmation yet from the technicians.

"She's out buying clothes, and girdles, and getting her hair tinted," Candy said. "She's getting ready to take Vlad the Impaler down to Atlanta with the Father."

"She's going to what?" what?"

"The bird will be the first cohost in the history of the 'Partners With G.o.d Club'!" Sykes cried, pointing a finger at the ceiling. Lang, who was back by Candy with a Kleenex around his finger, looked up to see what Sykes was pointing at.

"Sow to reap!" shrieked Vlad the Impaler.

"Mrs. Tissaw says she gets the bird temporarily in return for the chewed wall, and damage from Vlad p.o.o.ping on the floor, which she says is more damage than you can pay for," said Candy. "So she says she'll temporarily just take Vlad instead. Her husband's backing her up, just to get her out of town for a while, I think."

"The bird belongs to the ages, now," the Reverend said quietly.

"Not legally, though, if you guys want to have things get unpleasant," Candy said, putting her arm around Lenore, who continued to edge toward the door.

"Of course, Mrs. Simpson needn't come at all, if you wish as would be only natural to accompany the chosen vehicle yourself into the new epoch it's made possible," Sykes said to Lenore.

"Does this mean I don't get the apartment?" said Lang.

"Bathroom," Lenore squeaked faintly in Candy's ear.

"All contributing subscriptions are deductible! Like this!" said Vlad the Impaler.

"At last!" Sykes cried. He flew to the cage.

"Action!" yelled the director.

"Lay your sleeping head, my deductible love!"

"Miss Beaksman, hear the mandate!" thundered Sykes. The camera zoomed in, filling everything.

The hallway was cool and empty, after her room. Lenore wedged the bathroom door shut with the toe of a sneaker. She looked at the painted parrots on the shower curtain.

"You say one word, and there's going to be lunging like n.o.body's ever seen."

13.

1990.

"So you're upset, then."

"I think I'm too tired to be upset. I don't know why I'm so tired."

"Like your brother."

"Which brother? The one who's flapped all the time, or the anorexic one who we've had to watch go around the bend for years and now just disappears and is maybe dead for all I know? I just want to sleep. Just put your arm ... like that. Thank you."

"I thought you said the thing with John was that he was so reluctant to be in any way involved with anything's death that he usually refused to eat, since every eating entails a death. That's not anorexia."

"It is, sort of, if you think about it."

"And that he had a horizontal proof of the indisputability of the proposition that one should never kill, for whatever reason."

"A diagonal proof."

"Diagonal proof."

"I guess."

"He ... want it published, maybe?"

"I doubt he ever wrote it down, since that would involve paper, and so trees, et cetera."

"Quite a fellow. A certain n.o.bility."

"I don't really even know him. He's like this stranger who drops in from Auschwitz every Christmas. He's also lately been very weirdly religious. He told me he wants to write this book arguing that Christianity is the universe's way of punishing itself, that what Christianity is, really, is the offer of an irresistible reward in exchange for an unperformable service."

"Obvious problems involved in actually writing the thing, of course."

"I think I'm even more worried about John than I am about Lenore."