From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: The police chase of the Christmas-tree car is headed up the East Side ramps to the Barlow Avenue Viaduct.
From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: Common to almost all spiritual beliefs is the idea of Limnal Time. To ascetics, it can be the moment of greatest suffering. To Catholics, it's the moment the Communion wafer is presented to the congregation. The moment is different for each religion or spiritual practice, but Liminal Time itself represents a moment in which time stops passing. The actual definition is a moment "outside of time."
That moment becomes the eternity of Heaven or Hell, and achieving even an instant of Liminal Time is the goal of most religious rituals. In that moment, one is completely present and awake and aware—of all creation. In Liminal Time, time stops. A person is beyond time.
Being involved in an automobile accident has brought me closer to that enlightenment than any religious ritual or ceremony in which I've ever participated.
From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: Our latest word is that the Christmas tree atop the escaping Cadillac has burst into flames, becoming a speeding, blazing bonfire, plowing along, leaving a trail of blue smoke and sparks.
The police have closed the west end of the Barlow Avenue Viaduct. A police roadblock is in place.
Shot Dunyun: It's beyond typical, but every tag I've been involved in, time slowed. Slow as stroboscopic photography, where you see the bullet creep through the air, pressing the side of the apple, tunneling inside, gone a second, then bulging out the far side, splitting the apple's skin, and coming out.
From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: Here in the newsroom, we've confirmed a telephone call from the driver of the burning Cadillac, and producers are patching the driver through. Do we have the line patched? Do we still have reception?
Echo Lawrence: It's funny, what you remember about a person.
From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: With its blue Christmas tree still shining, the still-blazing Cadillac has flipped, police report, and is now sliding toward the north edge of the Barlow Avenue Viaduct at its highest point above the river. If we're lucky, the next voice you hear should be that of the unidentified driver…
Echo Lawrence: But anytime Rant had an orgasm, or the moment after we'd been rammed by another team, right when he blinked his eyes and seemed to realize he wasn't dead, he'd smile and say the same thing. At that moment, Rant would always smile, all dopey, and say, "This is what church should feel like…"
Rant Casey on DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: "…I love you, Echo Lawrence, but I got to try and save my mom."
Shot Dunyun: Off the record, but, weeks ahead of that night, I'd been dosing Echo's root beer with that Plan B, morning-after abortion pill. Just in case. I can't say how many little Rant Caseys I made her poop out.
Rant Casey on DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: "…What if reality is nothing but some disease?"
28–Embedded Commands
Wallace Boyer (Car Salesman): Remember, car buyers will fall into one of the three learning styles: visual, auditory, or kinetic.
Talk to Echo Lawrence, for example, and her eyes are rolled up, looking at the ceiling. Every other sentence out of her mouth is "The way I see it…" or "Watch out for that bitch Tina Something…" To pace Echo, you only have to look up when you think. Do it subtly, but bunch up the fingers on your left hand to mimic hers. Speed up until your breathing is forty, maybe fifty breaths per minute. Blink your eyes at least thirty blinks every minute.
Always remember: The person asking the questions is the person in control. The way to get that huge, impossible yes is to pile up a mountain of small, easy yeses. A good salesman starts by asking what're called tie-down and add-on questions; these are questions such as "Do you want to make your wife happy?" or "Is your child's safety important to you?" Ask questions people have to answer with a surefire "yes." Ask: "Is gas mileage important to you?" and "Do you want a reliable car?" Just keep piling up those small yeses.
The more any customer says yes, the more «pliable» they become.
Another kind of questions are called "control questions," such as: "Do you like light colors or dark colors?" Or "Are you looking for a car or truck?" Control questions include the only answers the customer can give. You're limiting the answers to the options you give. Two-door or four-door? Convertible or hardtop? Do you want leather or cloth seats?
And when a person says, "Hold on," or "Listen up," that's called an "embedded command." To sell cars, you use embedded commands all day long. For example:
"Would you just look at the two-tone paint job on that beauty?"
"Treat yourself. Just feel that leather upholstery."
"Wow, would you listen to that stereo!"
If you pay attention to Echo Lawrence, half of what comes out of her mouth is embedded commands.
Control questions, tie-down questions, and embedded commands—that's how a good salesman coaxes you to open up. You pace Shot Dunyun by wiping your lips with the back of your hand while you talk. Cross your arms over your chest and flop your head from one shoulder to the other. Say "What I heard is…" and "Word on the street says…" Convince Shot you're an auditory learner. Listen for him to introduce «doors»: those little glimpses into his personal life. His dog, for example. His pug dog. And remember, he'll look side to side as he thinks about how his dog died.
But if Shot Dunyun looks at his right ear—he's lying.
For now, remember: Echo Lawrence is visual. Shot Dunyun is auditory. Neddy Nelson is kinetic.
In that last sentence, the word «remember» is an embedded command.
To repeat, the way you get to the huge, impossible yes is, you start collecting a lot of easy, small yeses.
29–Werewolves III
Neddy Nelson (Party Crasher): Did I ever tell you about the longest day of my life? The day I almost died?
Jayne Merris (Musician): If you ask me, at first it was hilarious. Droolers, my friends called them; anybody with end-stage rabies couldn't give a damn about curfew. Droolers weren't even aware they had rabies. Most infected people just felt a little more pissed off every day. Always edgy or grouchy. They'd take anger-management courses and serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They did meditation at Zen retreats, or cognitive talk therapy, to deal with their growing anger. Junk like deep breathing and creative visualization. All this junk, until, one day, they woke up not just on the wrong side of the bed but actually twitching, their throat spasming, maybe their legs partially paralyzed—a Drooler. Next thing, you'd see them staggering down the street, on the traffic cameras, violating the eight o'clock morning curfew.
Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D. (Epidemiologist): A historical precedent had existed. In 1763, during the British war against the French for territory in North America, the vast population of Native Americans sided largely with the French. In a gesture of seeming good will, the British provided the aboriginals with blankets that had been used in hospitals treating smallpox victims. With no natural resistance to the Variola major virus, countless Native Americans died.