— No now wait, I didn't…
— No I won't wait, no… but she did, getting breath, the corners of her eyes tearing from the whisky — because what Paul told him that's what really happens isn't it, not a lot of your whatever you were trying to make him some kind of disciple you don't have to teach outrage no, no but using it to give him some dumb kind of strength that wasn't real to try to destroy Paul with? to make him suddenly go to Africa the next day just to prove that he, he'd never have gone…
— Yes but, what it was… and he found the cigarette he'd made earlier on the table there by the phone, where he'd left it looking out at her sitting alone on that chair upturned in the drift of leaves dead on the terrace in that last light of the sun looking up, when he came out, now as though all that had happened long before because of all that seemed to have happened since, getting past her to light the stove, to bend over the burner there for the time to muster — if you want to think that, creating a disciple, the better the job you do of it… he straightened up with a choked puff of smoke, — the better you've created an apostate, I'll tell you, the…
— No you've told me, you've told me, lying out there ready to pounce while you're spending the second half of your life here cleaning up the mess of the first? While you talk about isn't it awful how we've handed these kids a trashed up world from all those great ideas of progress and civilization and you knew all the time? About not leaving things any worse at least if you can't leave them any better, that you're the only one who still has these great ideas and you're standing here just, in this house in this kitchen standing here smoking and coughing and talking and letting them all go out and kill each other over something that's not even there?
— Well good God! They've been doing that for two thousand years haven't they? And you think I, you've seen the paper this morning's paper? and you think I could stop it? Go out to Smackover knocking on doors of those little frame houses and tell them there's been a big mistake? down to that Christian survival camp where Ude's gospel singer is holding off the Federal Marshals with an M16 did you see those pictures? Stars and Bars flying overhead and the place packed with crates of fragmentation grenades, grenade launchers, M2 mortar shells, show him the proof there's nothing there and we've got a new game plan? He's read Ude's little Survival Handbook hasn't he? tells him to establish tight security against demon controlled creatures roaming the earth to torture and kill? He knows damned well that every marshal and FBI moving in on him is part of the conspiracy, that they worship the beast and wear his mark on their foreheads and they'll drink the wine of the wrath of God, says so right there doesn't it? His Commander in Chief tells him there's sin and evil in the world, that we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might and he's taking his orders now just like he did from Tiger Howell in the 11th Cav. The Lord is a man of war, that's Exodus isn't it? the voice from heaven telling him blessed are the dead which die in the Lord says it right there, doesn't it? Meet him in the clouds? No no no, talk about disciples there's your prize exhibit, that that's what I tried to do with your brother that's what you've been saying? turn him into a, gets it into his head to take off for Africa because of me? Because I said they're hell bent on a self fulfilling prophecy and every stupid, ignorant…
— Because you're the one who wants it, she said abruptly in a voice so level he stopped, simply looking at her, at the glass coming up in her hand and her head thrown back for the last of what was in it, the full swell of her throat rising in the hollowed arch of her jaw's line hard as bleached bone, as he'd seen it only once before. — And it's why you've done nothing… She put down the glass, — to see them all go up like that smoke in the furnace all the stupid, ignorant, blown up in the clouds and there's nobody there, there's no rapture no anything just to see them wiped away for good it's really you, isn't it. That you're the one who wants Apocalypse, Armageddon all the sun going out and the sea turned to blood you can't wait no, you're the one who can't wait! The brimstone and fire and your Rift like the day it really happened because they, because you despise their, not their stupidity no, their hopes because you haven't any, because you haven't any left. Because when I woke up again that morning after I'd loved you and I knew you were in the house, I heard you cough downstairs and I knew you were here and it was the first time I, when I came up the hill that night in the dark and the lights were on and you were in there in front of the fire, sitting reading in front of the fire because it had never been mine, it had never been like coming home. Because we've never had one. Because Paul it was just a place to eat and, to eat and sleep and fuck and answer the telephone because he'll never have one, he'll never have a home and when I came down that morning and I knew you were here and I thought, and I felt safe. That one night and then the morning and all those babies demanding to get born out there on a star someplace with a telescope watching what was already gone? Because it was wasn't it, it was already gone, look at this one Billy here's the missing link, talk about a dark continent they think God put them here in their bad suits and cheap neckties no no no sit down, I'll tell you something, it's all just fear you said, any fiction to get through the night when you think of all the people who are dead? It's being the prisoner of someone else's hopes but that was, but that's not being the prisoner of someone else's despair! Because it was all your, I'm not a writer Mrs Booth no because it was all your despair locked away in that room there with the smoke and the cobwebs, pouring a drink with that old man and his dustpan pretending there was some reason to get up in the morning? locked away from her hopes all out here in the open? The silk flowers and the lamps and the gold draperies all her own hopes spread out like she'd be back in the morning until they were mine, spread up there in her bed?
He'd opened a cupboard, looked for a clean glass where he might once have kept them but come down with a cup holding the bottle straight up for little more than the half ounce or less left in it, no more than enough to warm the mouth not even a swallow. — I, incidentally I called Madame So-crate she'll be here first thing tomorrow to, to clean up…
— All your gentle, your hands on my breasts on my throat everywhere, all of you filling me till there was nothing else till I was, till I wasn't I didn't exist but I was all that existed just, raised up exalted yes, exalted yes that was the rapture and that sweet gentle, and your hands, your wise hands, meeting the Lord in the clouds all these sad stupid, these poor sad stupid people if that's the best they can do? their dumb sentimental hopes you despise like their books and their music what they think is the rapture if that's the best they can do? hanging that gold star in the window if, to prove that he didn't die for nothing? Because I, because I'll never be called Bibbs again… He stood there holding the empty cup as though looking for a place to set it down, for some refuge: she was looking straight at him, and then — I think I loved you when I knew I'd never see you again, she said, looking at him.
— But that wasn't…
— And you're going.
— I, yes… he put the cup down on the counter, — yes, I told you.
— Summer things, hot places, an umbrella that's all you told me.
— Where there's work… He started making another cigarette, spilling tobacco off the paper, — New Guinea, Papua there's a big strike back in the mountains there, a million ounces of gold when their smelter's set up, half a million tons of copper, up the Fly river from Kiunga… he twisted the paper and it tore, — or the Solomons, they're all the same these hot places, only difference is the diseases you pick up and even those… crumpling paper and tobacco together — listen, I meant it I, I've got some cash, got my hands on about sixteen thousand dollars and a ticket to anywhere, we can… he reached out to break off the phone on its first ring, — we can…