"Kirsten told me," Bill corrected him.
"Does Kirsten normally lie to you?" Tim said.
"No," Bill said.
"What do she and I gain by saying that Jeff has returned to us from the other world? Many people will not believe us. You yourself do not believe us. We say it because we believe it is true. And we have reasons to believe it is true. We have both seen things, witnessed things. I don't see Carl Benz in this room but I believe he once existed. I believe that the Mercedes- Benz is named after a little girl and a man. I am a lawyer; I am a person familiar with the criteria by which data is scrutinized. We-Kirsten and I-have the evidence of Jeff, the phenomena."
"Yeah, but that phenomena you have, all of them-they don't prove anything. You're just assuming Jeff caused it, caused those things. You don't know."
Tim said, "Let me give you an example. You look under your parked car and you find a pool of water. Now, you don't know that-the water-came from your motor; that is something you have to assume. You have evidence. As an attorney, I understand what constitutes evidence. You as an automechanic-"
"Is the car parked in your own parking slot?" Bill said. "Or is it in a public parking lot, like at the supermarket."
Slightly taken aback, Tim paused. "I don't follow you."
"If it's your own garage or parking slot," Bill said, "where only you park, then it's probably from your car. Anyhow, it wouldn't be from the motor; it'd be from the radiator or the water pump or one of the hoses."
"But this is something you assume," Tim said. "Based on the evidence."
"It could be power-steering fluid. That looks a lot like water. It's sort of pinkish. Also, your transmission, if you have an auto-matic transmission, uses the same kind of fluid. Do you have power steering?"
"On what?" Tim said.
"On your car."
"I don't know. I'm speaking about a hypothetical car."
"Or it could be engine oil," Bill said, "in which case, it wouldn't be pink. You have to distinguish whether it's water or whether it's oil, if it's from the power-steering or the transmission; it could be several things. If you're in a public place and you see a puddle under your car, it probably doesn't mean anything because a lot of people park where you're parked; it could have come from the car parked there before you. The best thing to do is-"
"But you're only able to make an assumption," Tim said. "You can't know it came from your car."
"You can't know right away, but you can find out. Okay; let's say it's your own garage and no one else parks there. The first thing to figure out is what kind of fluid it is. So you reach under the car-you may have to back it out first-and dip your finger in the fluid. Now, is it pink? Or brown? Is it oil? Is it water? Let's say it's water. Well, it could be normal; it could be overflow from the relief system of your radiator; after you turn off an engine, the water gets hotter sometimes and blows out through the relief pipe."
"Even if you can determine that it is water," Tim said, doggedly, "you can't be sure it came from your car."
"Where else would it come from?"
"That's an unknown factor. You're acting on indirect evidence; you didn't see the water come from your car."
"Okay-turn the engine on, let it run, and watch. See if it drips."
"Wouldn't that take a long time?" Tim said.
"Well, you have to know. You should check the level in the power-steering system; you should check your transmission level, your radiator, your motor oil; you should routinely check all those things. While you're standing there, you can check them. Some of them, like the level of fluid in the transmission, have to be checked while the motor's running. Meanwhile, you can also check your tire pressure. What pressure do you carry?"
"In what?" Tim said.
"Your tires." Bill smiled. "There're five of them. One in your trunk; your spare. You probably forget to check that when you check the others. You won't find out you've got no air in your spare until you get a blowout someday and then you'll find out if you have air in your spare. Do you have a bumper jack or an axle jack? What kind of car are you driving?"
"I think it's a Buick," Tim said.
"It's a Chrysler," I said quietly.
"Oh," Tim said.
After Bill departed for his trip back to the East Bay, Tim and I sat together in the living room of the Tenderloin apartment, and Tim talked openly and candidly to me. "Kirsten and I," he said, "have been having a few difficulties." He sat beside me on the couch, speaking in a low voice so that Kirsten, in the bedroom, would not hear.
"How many downers is she taking?" I said.
"You mean barbiturates?"
"Yes, I mean barbiturates," I said.
"I really don't know. She has a doctor who gives her all she wants ... she gets a hundred at one time. Seconal. And also she has Amytal. I think the Amytal is from a different doctor."
"You better find out how many she's taking."
Tim said, "Why would Bill resist the realization that Jeff has come back to us?"
"Lord only knows," I said.
"The purpose of my book is to provide comfort to heartbroken people who have lost loved ones. What could be more reassuring than the knowledge that there is a life beyond the trauma of death, just as there is life beyond the trauma of birth? We are assured by Jesus that an afterlife awaits us; on this the whole promise of salvation depends. 'I am the Resurrection. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.' And then Jesus says to Martha, 'Do you believe in this?' to which Martha responds, 'Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.' Later, Jesus says, 'For what I have spoken does not come from myself; no, what I was to say, what I had to speak, was commanded by the Father who sent me, and I know that his commands mean eternal life.' Let me get my Bible." Tim reached for a copy of the Bible which lay on the end table. "First Corinthians, fifteen, twelve. 'Now if Christ raised from the dead is what has been preached, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your believing it is useless; indeed, we are shown up as witnesses who have committed perjury before God, because we swore in evidence before God that he had raised Christ to life. For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. And what is more serious, all who have died in Christ have perished. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of all people. But Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep.' " Tim closed his Bible. "That says it clearly and plainly. There can be no doubt whatsoever."
"Guess so," I said.
"So much evidence turned up at the Zadokite Wadi. So much that sheds light on the whole kerygma of early Christianity. We know so much, now. In no way was Paul speaking metaphorically; man literally rises from the dead. They had the techniques. It was a science. We would call it medicine today. They had the anokhi, there at the wadi. "
"The mushroom," I said.
He eyed me. "Yes, the anokhi mushroom."
"Bread and broth," I said.
"Yes."
"But we don't have it now."
"We have the Eucharist."
I said, "But you know and I know that the substance is not there, in the Eucharist. It's like the cargo cults where the natives build fake airplanes."
"Not at all."
"How is it different?"
"The Holy Spirit-" He broke off.