"Please slow down," Bill said.
"Please," I said, "when we get to the toll gate, get out of the car and hitch a Tide with somebody else. And you can tell Edgar Barefoot to go stick his-"
"Don't blame him," Bill said sharply. "I only told him; he didn't tell me. Slow down!" He reached for the ignition key.
"Okay," I said, putting my foot on the brake.
"You will Toll this sardine can," Bill said, "and kill us both. And you don't even have your seat belt fastened."
"On this day of all days," I said. "The day they murder John Lennon. I have to hear this right now."
"I did not find the anokhi mushroom," Bill said.
I said nothing; I simply drove. As best I could.
"I fell," Bill said. "From a cliff."
"Yes," I said. "I read that, too, in the Chronicle. Did it hurt?"
"By that time, I had become unconscious from the sunlight and the heat."
"Well," I said, "apparently you are just not a very bright person, to go out there like that." And then, suddenly, I felt compassion; I felt shame, overwhelming shame at what I was doing to him. "Bill," I said, "forgive me."
"Sure," he said, simply.
I thought through my words and then I said, "When did-what am I supposed to call you? Bill Or Tim? Are you both, now?"
"I'm both. One personality has been formed out of the two. Either name will do. Probably you should call me Bill so that people won't know."
"Why don't you want them to know? I would think something as important and unique as this, as momentous as this, should be known."
Bill said, "They'll put me back in the hospital."
"Then," I said, "I will call you Bill."
"About a month after his death, Tim came back to me. I didn't understand what was happening; I couldn't figure it out. Lights and colors and then an alien presence in my mind. Another personality much smarter than me, thinking all sorts of things I never thought. And he knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and all about theology. He thought about you very clearly. He had wanted to take you with him to Israel."
At that, I glanced sharply at him and felt chilled.
"That night at the Chinese restaurant," Bill said, "he tried to talk you into it. But you said you had your life all planned out. You couldn't leave Berkeley."
Taking my foot from the gas pedal, I allowed the car to slow down; it moved more and more slowly until it came to a stop.
"It's illegal to stop on the bridge," Bill said. "Unless you're having motor trouble or run out of gas, something of that sort. Keep on driving."
Tim told him, I said to myself. Reflexively, I down-shifted, into low; I started the car up again.
"Tim had a crush on you," Bill said.
"So?" I said.
"That was one reason he wanted to take you to Israel with him."
I said, "You speak of Tim in the third person. So, in point of fact, you do not identify yourself with Tim or as Tim; you are Bill Lundborg talking about Tim."
"I am Bill Lundborg," he agreed. "But also I am Tim Archer."
"Tim wouldn't tell me that," I said, "about being sexually interested in me."
"I know," Bill said, "but I am telling you."
"What did we have for dinner that night at the Chinese restaurant?"
"I have no idea."
"Where was the restaurant?"
"In Berkeley."
"Where in Berkeley?"
"I don't remember."
I said, "Tell me what hysteron proteron means."
"How would I know that? That's Latin. Tim knows Latin; I don't."
"It's Greek."
"I don't know any Greek. I pick up Tim's thoughts and now and then he's thinking in Greek but I don't know what the Greek means."
"What if I believe you?" I said. "What then?"
"Then," Bill said, "you are happy because your old friend is not dead."
"And that's the point of this."
He nodded. "Yes."
"It would seem to me," I said carefully, "there there would be a larger point involved. This would be a miracle of staggering importance, to the entire world. It is something that scientists should investigate. It proves there is eternal life, that a next world does exist- everything that Tim and Kirsten believed is, in fact, true. Here, Tyrant Death is true. Don't you agree?"
"Yes. I suppose so. That's what Tim is thinking; he thinks that a lot. He wants me to write a book, but I can't write a book; I don't have any writing talent."
"You can act as Tim's secretary. The way your mother did. Tim can dictate and you can write it all down."
"He rattles on and on a mile a minute. I've tried to write it down but-his thinking is fucked. If you'll pardon the expression. It's all disorganized; it goes everywhere and nowhere. And I don't know half the words. In fact, a lot of it isn't words at all, just impressions."
"Can you hear him now?"
"No. Not right now. It's usually when I'm alone and no one else is talking. Then I can sort of tune in on it."
" 'Hysteron proteron,' " I murmured. "When the thing to be demonstrated is included in the premise. So it's all in vain, the reasoning. Bill," I said, "I've got to hand it to you; you have me tied up in a knot, you really have. Does Tim remember backing over the gas pump? Never mind; fuck the gas pump."
Bill said. "It's a presence of mind. See, Tim was in that area-the word 'presence' reminded me; he uses that word a lot. The Presence, as he calls it, was there in the desert."
"The Parousia," I said.
"Right." Bill emphatically nodded.
"That would be anokhi, " I said.
"Would it? What he was looking for?"
"Apparently he found it," I said. "What did Barefoot say to all this?"
"That's when he told me-when he realized-I was a bodhisattva. I came back. Tim came back, I mean, out of compassion for others. For those he loves. Such as you."
"What is Barefoot going to do with this news?"
"Nothing."
"'Nothing,'" I echoed, nodding.
"There's no way I can prove it," Bill said. "To skeptical minds. Edgar pointed that out."
"Why can't you prove it? It should be easy to prove it. You have access to everything Tim knew; like you said-all the theology, details of his personal life. Facts. It should be the most simple matter on Earth to prove."
"Can I prove it to you?" Bill said. "I can't even prove it to you. It's like belief in God; you can know God, know he exists; you can experience him, and yet you can never prove to anyone else that you've experienced him."
"Do you believe in God now?" I said.
"Sure." He nodded.
"I guess you believe in a lot of things now," I said.
"Because of Tim in me, I know a lot of things; it isn't just belief. It's like-" He gestured earnestly. "Having swallowed a computer or the whole Britannica, a whole library. The facts, the ideas, come and go and just whizz around in my head; they go too fast-that's the problem. I don't understand them; I can't remember them; I can't write them down or explain them to other people. It's like having KPFA turned on inside your head twenty-four hours a day, without cease. In many respects, it's an affliction. But it's interesting."
Have fun with your thoughts, I said to myself. That is what Harry Stack Sullivan said schizophrenics do: they have endless fun with their thoughts, and forget the world.
There is not much you can say when someone unveils an account such as Bill Lundborg's- assuming that anyone ever unveiled such a narration before. It did, of course, resemble what Tim and Kirsten had revealed to me (that is the wrong word) when they returned from England, after Jeff's death.