WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.450 --> 00:00:04.950 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:04.950 --> 00:00:09.500 align:middle line:90% I'll start-- Is that Flanoy? 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:11.510 align:middle line:90% Do you remember me, Flanoy? 00:00:11.510 --> 00:00:13.940 align:middle line:90% It's Mr. Quiz. 00:00:13.940 --> 00:00:16.250 align:middle line:90% Hi, Mr. Quiz. 00:00:16.250 --> 00:00:21.230 align:middle line:84% What a shame a kid like you dead as a door nail as dodo dead. 00:00:21.230 --> 00:00:22.880 align:middle line:90% How'd they get you? 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:24.680 align:middle line:84% You go against, you break their rules. 00:00:24.680 --> 00:00:26.930 align:middle line:84% How'd they eat too much sweets or touch yourself? 00:00:26.930 --> 00:00:28.370 align:middle line:90% What you in for? 00:00:28.370 --> 00:00:29.168 align:middle line:90% What's the charge? 00:00:29.168 --> 00:00:29.960 align:middle line:90% How'd they get you? 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:32.420 align:middle line:90% Dead to rights? 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:33.890 align:middle line:90% "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." 00:00:33.890 --> 00:00:36.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.470 --> 00:00:40.400 align:middle line:90% Lesefario was a thinking man. 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:42.500 align:middle line:90% A long time dead. 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:44.510 align:middle line:90% They had time. 00:00:44.510 --> 00:00:48.830 align:middle line:84% They had minutes, seconds, hours, years. 00:00:48.830 --> 00:00:52.010 align:middle line:84% What they lacked were calendars, clocks. 00:00:52.010 --> 00:00:56.130 align:middle line:84% Only the Speidel niceties, digital readouts, 00:00:56.130 --> 00:00:57.920 align:middle line:84% the quartz accounts, only the Greenwich 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.740 align:middle line:90% and atomic certainties. 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:05.180 align:middle line:84% He'd begun to speculate about the meaning of death. 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:08.480 align:middle line:84% He had never questioned life's meaning. 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:11.150 align:middle line:90% He had assumed it had none. 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:15.320 align:middle line:84% Life was its own gloss where conditions changed you 00:01:15.320 --> 00:01:18.530 align:middle line:90% didn't look for explanations. 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:22.220 align:middle line:84% He'd lived in Minnesota, a Minneapolis kid, 00:01:22.220 --> 00:01:28.730 align:middle line:84% schoolboy, adult. He'd had his friends and later his cronies. 00:01:28.730 --> 00:01:32.330 align:middle line:84% He'd had his shot at stuff, enjoyed much and been 00:01:32.330 --> 00:01:35.510 align:middle line:90% disappointed by the rest. 00:01:35.510 --> 00:01:39.860 align:middle line:84% He'd like television, a wonderful invention 00:01:39.860 --> 00:01:42.920 align:middle line:84% but had not known when he'd married her that his wife would 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:46.310 align:middle line:84% turn out to be a depressive, a woman who she couldn't help it, 00:01:46.310 --> 00:01:47.960 align:middle line:84% he guess, but it made things awful 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:51.020 align:middle line:84% and spoiled everything that should have been fun. 00:01:51.020 --> 00:01:53.660 align:middle line:84% Their trips to restaurants, their cruise 00:01:53.660 --> 00:01:57.350 align:middle line:84% to the islands, their daughter's childhood 00:01:57.350 --> 00:01:59.630 align:middle line:84% was never to be pleased by things who wore 00:01:59.630 --> 00:02:02.720 align:middle line:90% her melancholy like a rash. 00:02:02.720 --> 00:02:06.590 align:middle line:90% Life had not signified. 00:02:06.590 --> 00:02:09.240 align:middle line:90% Death was another story. 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:12.110 align:middle line:90% So time consuming. 00:02:12.110 --> 00:02:14.270 align:middle line:90% We had time. 00:02:14.270 --> 00:02:16.730 align:middle line:84% So draining, demanding, taking not just 00:02:16.730 --> 00:02:19.160 align:middle line:90% kids but all their attentions. 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:21.380 align:middle line:84% He went over the pain not causeless sadness, 00:02:21.380 --> 00:02:24.290 align:middle line:84% like his wife, but to a suffering like Wallenda stage 00:02:24.290 --> 00:02:27.740 align:middle line:84% fright, the not knowing from one moment to the next 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:29.510 align:middle line:90% they had time. 00:02:29.510 --> 00:02:33.170 align:middle line:84% Whether what had to be endured and would be endured ever 00:02:33.170 --> 00:02:36.230 align:middle line:90% could be endured. 00:02:36.230 --> 00:02:37.470 align:middle line:90% Death made no sense. 00:02:37.470 --> 00:02:40.490 align:middle line:90% But it meant something. 00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:43.310 align:middle line:84% Unless a farrier formulated this last proposition 00:02:43.310 --> 00:02:48.620 align:middle line:84% he decided that he must try to save them. 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:51.800 align:middle line:84% To become heroic in hell who had been a clerk in a Minneapolis 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:56.030 align:middle line:84% liquor store in a red line neighborhood, who had opened up 00:02:56.030 --> 00:02:59.240 align:middle line:84% in the morning always a little scared of the winos 00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:02.870 align:middle line:84% around the entrance, always a little scared of the Blacks, 00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:04.490 align:middle line:84% always a little scared of people who 00:03:04.490 --> 00:03:07.700 align:middle line:84% asked him to cash their checks, always a little 00:03:07.700 --> 00:03:11.750 align:middle line:84% scared of teenagers, of miners who showed him phony ID 00:03:11.750 --> 00:03:17.630 align:middle line:84% cards of the big beefy delivery men of customers of anyone 00:03:17.630 --> 00:03:21.200 align:middle line:84% who would even come into a liquor store. 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:23.900 align:middle line:84% What could he do, he asked himself. 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:26.240 align:middle line:90% And why should he do it? 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:27.530 align:middle line:90% Who was he? 00:03:27.530 --> 00:03:29.900 align:middle line:84% Stuck away down here stashed for the duration 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:32.570 align:middle line:84% in some nameless base camp of hell. 00:03:32.570 --> 00:03:35.540 align:middle line:84% A thoughtful fraidy cat formerly in the liquor trade, 00:03:35.540 --> 00:03:37.100 align:middle line:84% or no, not even the liquor trade. 00:03:37.100 --> 00:03:41.660 align:middle line:84% A clerk in the making change trade whose last human contact 00:03:41.660 --> 00:03:45.900 align:middle line:84% would be had been with the trigger happy jerk Lesefario 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:47.788 align:middle line:84% had known was coming for 15 years. 00:03:47.788 --> 00:03:50.330 align:middle line:84% And so scared he knew because he knew as soon as the guy came 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:52.163 align:middle line:84% through the door he was the last human being 00:03:52.163 --> 00:03:55.700 align:middle line:84% he'd ever see trying to size him up, though fear hurt his eyes. 00:03:55.700 --> 00:03:58.640 align:middle line:84% And Lesefario lost his face like to center fielder, a ball 00:03:58.640 --> 00:03:59.810 align:middle line:90% in the sun. 00:03:59.810 --> 00:04:01.310 align:middle line:84% That even if he lived he would never 00:04:01.310 --> 00:04:04.130 align:middle line:84% be able to pick the thug out of a lineup, 00:04:04.130 --> 00:04:06.980 align:middle line:84% acknowledging even in that first brief bruised view of him 00:04:06.980 --> 00:04:09.650 align:middle line:84% all that he and his murderer, did they get good reviews? 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:11.053 align:middle line:84% Were their names household words? 00:04:11.053 --> 00:04:12.470 align:middle line:84% Was their health all it should be, 00:04:12.470 --> 00:04:16.070 align:middle line:84% or their children top drawer had in common? 00:04:16.070 --> 00:04:18.649 align:middle line:84% And if this was the fellow and if this was it, 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:20.540 align:middle line:84% why shouldn't the killer be made to feel 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:24.830 align:middle line:84% the force of that astonishing fact? 00:04:24.830 --> 00:04:30.220 align:middle line:84% If you're all I have for death bed, Lesefario had said, 00:04:30.220 --> 00:04:33.290 align:middle line:90% then I want your attention. 00:04:33.290 --> 00:04:35.320 align:middle line:84% I guess most folks die out of their element, 00:04:35.320 --> 00:04:39.070 align:middle line:84% DOA by circumstance and only, hey, you, no tricks. 00:04:39.070 --> 00:04:41.650 align:middle line:84% The night shift in attendance, no tricks, I said. 00:04:41.650 --> 00:04:43.510 align:middle line:84% Hands high and shut up because I'm 00:04:43.510 --> 00:04:45.010 align:middle line:84% going to have to teach you a lesson, 00:04:45.010 --> 00:04:46.760 align:middle line:84% the killer said and cut him down before he 00:04:46.760 --> 00:04:49.030 align:middle line:90% could teach the killer one. 00:04:49.030 --> 00:04:52.600 align:middle line:84% His last word because in a life he'd already decided it 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:55.030 align:middle line:90% didn't make sense. 00:04:55.030 --> 00:04:58.030 align:middle line:84% And a good thing too, Lesefario thought. 00:04:58.030 --> 00:04:59.710 align:middle line:84% Groping for the last words, he still 00:04:59.710 --> 00:05:03.490 align:middle line:84% couldn't formulate that given months, years 00:05:03.490 --> 00:05:06.500 align:middle line:84% he could not finally have put together. 00:05:06.500 --> 00:05:09.580 align:middle line:84% So he had an idea that they would have been simple. 00:05:09.580 --> 00:05:11.110 align:middle line:84% Why had he wanted to make the point 00:05:11.110 --> 00:05:15.730 align:middle line:84% that he would have been 52 years old on his next birthday? 00:05:15.730 --> 00:05:17.380 align:middle line:84% So who in hell, ha, ha, he thought, 00:05:17.380 --> 00:05:21.040 align:middle line:84% was he who had missed out on life to discover death meaning 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:23.650 align:middle line:90% or to try to save them? 00:05:23.650 --> 00:05:27.670 align:middle line:84% Just who in hell did he think he was, the Christ of the boonies? 00:05:27.670 --> 00:05:30.250 align:middle line:90% 00:05:30.250 --> 00:05:34.150 align:middle line:84% So we grabbed the first one he saw stinging him 00:05:34.150 --> 00:05:35.350 align:middle line:90% with his temperature. 00:05:35.350 --> 00:05:36.610 align:middle line:90% [GRUNTS] 00:05:36.610 --> 00:05:39.245 align:middle line:84% The fellow shrieked, pushing Lesefario off. 00:05:39.245 --> 00:05:41.620 align:middle line:84% It's all right, he said from where he had fallen in hell. 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:42.245 align:middle line:90% It's all right. 00:05:42.245 --> 00:05:42.800 align:middle line:90% Listen to me. 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:43.550 align:middle line:90% Are you listening? 00:05:43.550 --> 00:05:48.250 align:middle line:84% It's 4:54 PM Tuesday June, 2007 7,804. 00:05:48.250 --> 00:05:49.300 align:middle line:90% Say what? 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:50.410 align:middle line:90% That's the time. 00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:52.510 align:middle line:84% Quiz told me the time when he was translated 00:05:52.510 --> 00:05:54.550 align:middle line:90% and I've been keeping track. 00:05:54.550 --> 00:05:55.510 align:middle line:90% Time? 00:05:55.510 --> 00:05:56.710 align:middle line:90% For 4:54. 00:05:56.710 --> 00:05:58.690 align:middle line:84% Yes, it's too big a job for one man. 00:05:58.690 --> 00:05:59.420 align:middle line:90% Tell the others. 00:05:59.420 --> 00:06:00.890 align:middle line:90% We've got to keep track. 00:06:00.890 --> 00:06:01.390 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:06:01.390 --> 00:06:02.150 align:middle line:90% Hurry. 00:06:02.150 --> 00:06:06.867 align:middle line:90% 1200, 1300, 1400, please, 1600. 00:06:06.867 --> 00:06:08.200 align:middle line:90% Why do we have to know the time? 00:06:08.200 --> 00:06:09.908 align:middle line:84% Don't argue because the meaning of death. 00:06:09.908 --> 00:06:11.350 align:middle line:90% 2,100 and beginning again. 00:06:11.350 --> 00:06:12.450 align:middle line:90% 100, 2,100. 00:06:12.450 --> 00:06:14.200 align:middle line:84% The meaning of death is how long it takes! 00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:17.020 align:middle line:90% 00:06:17.020 --> 00:06:22.370 align:middle line:84% Quiz was a queer funny man, Flanoy thought. 00:06:22.370 --> 00:06:26.500 align:middle line:84% So we might be all right or we wouldn't be here, would he? 00:06:26.500 --> 00:06:30.310 align:middle line:84% He'd been down in hell with the bad men. 00:06:30.310 --> 00:06:34.010 align:middle line:84% Was it a sin not to like an angel? 00:06:34.010 --> 00:06:36.430 align:middle line:90% He'd ask mother Mary. 00:06:36.430 --> 00:06:40.720 align:middle line:84% Maybe he'd tell her some of the wicked things Quiz had done. 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:43.780 align:middle line:84% Still he thought he'd better not say anything that 00:06:43.780 --> 00:06:46.870 align:middle line:90% could get Mr. Quiz in trouble. 00:06:46.870 --> 00:06:51.220 align:middle line:84% He was the only one who had known Flanoy. 00:06:51.220 --> 00:06:53.740 align:middle line:90% He knew me when I lived. 00:06:53.740 --> 00:06:55.970 align:middle line:90% He heard me laugh. 00:06:55.970 --> 00:06:56.695 align:middle line:90% He saw me throw. 00:06:56.695 --> 00:06:59.230 align:middle line:90% 00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:02.230 align:middle line:84% In hell they were chanting the time. 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:04.090 align:middle line:84% The Buckcherry nomads were chanting, 00:07:04.090 --> 00:07:06.550 align:middle line:84% the Finns were chanting, Frenchmen chanted in French, 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:09.460 align:middle line:84% Dutchman in Dutch, all over hell the billions 00:07:09.460 --> 00:07:11.500 align:middle line:84% who had died each in his own demonic way, 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:13.420 align:middle line:84% sometimes to himself, often aloud, 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:15.280 align:middle line:84% uttered the special syllables he'd learned 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:17.560 align:middle line:90% would fill up a second. 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:19.960 align:middle line:84% Michigan hydrangeas, Cleveland for its tea, 00:07:19.960 --> 00:07:21.910 align:middle line:84% a woman from the Australian outback 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:24.040 align:middle line:84% said while her companion, a performing 00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:28.990 align:middle line:84% dwarf for Spanish mercenaries kept the silent running tab. 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.870 align:middle line:84% Lesefario who had given a downbeat which was already 00:07:31.870 --> 00:07:35.320 align:middle line:84% obsolete by the time it reached a party of Greek skiers killed 00:07:35.320 --> 00:07:38.830 align:middle line:84% in avalanche had actual days behind hand when it got 00:07:38.830 --> 00:07:43.090 align:middle line:84% to a Soviet film star died of a fever on a trip to Japan 00:07:43.090 --> 00:07:47.140 align:middle line:84% declared he was in contact with Quiz. 00:07:47.140 --> 00:07:49.150 align:middle line:84% Though their techniques were primitive, 00:07:49.150 --> 00:07:52.930 align:middle line:84% he received periodic corrections from Quiz himself 00:07:52.930 --> 00:07:55.450 align:middle line:84% in communication with the sacred authorities pleading 00:07:55.450 --> 00:07:56.650 align:middle line:90% their case. 00:07:56.650 --> 00:07:59.140 align:middle line:84% An eyewitness he told them to their Devil's Island 00:07:59.140 --> 00:08:00.250 align:middle line:90% circumstance. 00:08:00.250 --> 00:08:02.620 align:middle line:90% An eyewitness, a brother. 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:06.160 align:middle line:84% They must keep counting, Lesefario said. 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:13.400 align:middle line:84% 2:00 AM, Sunday, July 10, 7,804, or 1005, 1006, 100-- 00:08:13.400 --> 00:08:16.108 align:middle line:84% Count, count, its Houston control here, count. 00:08:16.108 --> 00:08:17.650 align:middle line:84% The state of the art isn't so hot yet 00:08:17.650 --> 00:08:18.692 align:middle line:90% but that isn't important. 00:08:18.692 --> 00:08:20.067 align:middle line:84% So long as we keep counting we'll 00:08:20.067 --> 00:08:21.220 align:middle line:90% get corrections from Quiz. 00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:24.460 align:middle line:84% Count, any second may be the last. 00:08:24.460 --> 00:08:27.310 align:middle line:90% "What's that astrology?" 00:08:27.310 --> 00:08:31.420 align:middle line:84% said this ancient denizen in hell. 00:08:31.420 --> 00:08:35.289 align:middle line:84% No, no, Lesefario said feelingly. 00:08:35.289 --> 00:08:37.820 align:middle line:90% It's important. 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:40.659 align:middle line:84% I've seen it all and it's just another fad, 00:08:40.659 --> 00:08:43.360 align:middle line:90% the tortured man said. 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:46.540 align:middle line:84% It's some self-help do it yourself scam. 00:08:46.540 --> 00:08:48.640 align:middle line:90% You don't mean shit. 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:51.820 align:middle line:84% One guy had us praying, knees bowed and brimstone. 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:53.260 align:middle line:90% Praying? 00:08:53.260 --> 00:08:55.330 align:middle line:84% Turned hell into bloody Sunday school. 00:08:55.330 --> 00:08:59.710 align:middle line:84% Sacred authorities by third degree burns. 00:08:59.710 --> 00:09:05.320 align:middle line:90% 1800, 1900. 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:07.990 align:middle line:84% But not even his own heart in it. 00:09:07.990 --> 00:09:11.860 align:middle line:84% His flash in the pan, hopes and heroics extinguished. 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:16.390 align:middle line:84% But we would probably keep counting a while they had time. 00:09:16.390 --> 00:09:19.120 align:middle line:84% Someone trying to keep rally alive, 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:22.420 align:middle line:84% a plant and an audience milking ovation, a guy at a party going 00:09:22.420 --> 00:09:25.410 align:middle line:84% sour suggesting the song which would bring them 00:09:25.410 --> 00:09:26.100 align:middle line:90% together again. 00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:29.090 align:middle line:90% 00:09:29.090 --> 00:09:31.490 align:middle line:90% Mother Mary. 00:09:31.490 --> 00:09:34.220 align:middle line:90% Yes, Flanoy. 00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:37.220 align:middle line:90% Was Jesus lonely? 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:39.170 align:middle line:90% Lonely? 00:09:39.170 --> 00:09:44.480 align:middle line:84% Because he didn't have brothers because he didn't have sisters. 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:47.630 align:middle line:90% I don't think he was lonely. 00:09:47.630 --> 00:09:50.330 align:middle line:90% Were their kids to play with? 00:09:50.330 --> 00:09:54.530 align:middle line:84% It was so long ago I hardly remember. 00:09:54.530 --> 00:09:56.990 align:middle line:84% He could do lots of stuff in the desert. 00:09:56.990 --> 00:09:59.330 align:middle line:90% It'd be just like the beach. 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:00.500 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:02.720 align:middle line:90% You could go barefoot. 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.030 align:middle line:84% You could bury kids in the sand with a pail of water 00:10:05.030 --> 00:10:05.780 align:middle line:90% from the Oasis. 00:10:05.780 --> 00:10:07.850 align:middle line:90% You could make things. 00:10:07.850 --> 00:10:10.610 align:middle line:90% Did Jesus do that stuff? 00:10:10.610 --> 00:10:13.072 align:middle line:90% I hardly remember. 00:10:13.072 --> 00:10:14.780 align:middle line:84% Maybe he didn't have anyone to play with. 00:10:14.780 --> 00:10:17.320 align:middle line:84% Maybe that's why you don't remember. 00:10:17.320 --> 00:10:19.370 align:middle line:90% He worked with his father. 00:10:19.370 --> 00:10:21.650 align:middle line:90% He helped his father. 00:10:21.650 --> 00:10:23.960 align:middle line:90% His father? 00:10:23.960 --> 00:10:28.400 align:middle line:84% He helped my husband, Mary said, blushing. 00:10:28.400 --> 00:10:30.920 align:middle line:90% Flanoy nodded. 00:10:30.920 --> 00:10:35.750 align:middle line:84% Back home, back home there was always plenty to do. 00:10:35.750 --> 00:10:38.660 align:middle line:90% Do you miss being home? 00:10:38.660 --> 00:10:41.780 align:middle line:90% I miss my mother, Flanoy said. 00:10:41.780 --> 00:10:47.540 align:middle line:84% Oh, Flanoy, Marry said and held out her arms. 00:10:47.540 --> 00:10:51.560 align:middle line:84% The Virgin comforted the sobbing child. 00:10:51.560 --> 00:10:53.360 align:middle line:84% She cupped the back of the noise head 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:57.830 align:middle line:84% in her large soft hand, his legs between her knees 00:10:57.830 --> 00:11:01.070 align:middle line:84% his small slim body pressed against her bosom 00:11:01.070 --> 00:11:04.310 align:middle line:84% made a discreet comfortable weight. 00:11:04.310 --> 00:11:08.420 align:middle line:84% Mary touched by the child's sweet ultimate homesickness 00:11:08.420 --> 00:11:11.330 align:middle line:84% reached around him and took all his weight now, 00:11:11.330 --> 00:11:13.850 align:middle line:84% gathering the little boy onto her lap, 00:11:13.850 --> 00:11:17.660 align:middle line:84% both their bodies shedding angle temperature and impediment 00:11:17.660 --> 00:11:20.120 align:middle line:84% resolved into the soft semiotics of need 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:25.010 align:middle line:84% and competence, the tongue and groove aptitudes of love. 00:11:25.010 --> 00:11:28.820 align:middle line:84% This is heresy, she thought, indifferent to the idea 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:31.130 align:middle line:90% and hugged him closer. 00:11:31.130 --> 00:11:35.240 align:middle line:84% All her supple maternals alive returned from helplessness 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:39.320 align:middle line:90% fetched back intact 2000 years. 00:11:39.320 --> 00:11:42.140 align:middle line:84% Soon his body will begin to bite, 00:11:42.140 --> 00:11:45.050 align:middle line:84% she thought, his tears, the shape. 00:11:45.050 --> 00:11:48.830 align:middle line:84% Yet she made no adjustments, no move to kiss him off 00:11:48.830 --> 00:11:51.350 align:middle line:90% with a final squeeze. 00:11:51.350 --> 00:11:56.240 align:middle line:84% It was not even a pieta, no long lame lap fall. 00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:00.110 align:middle line:84% Literally, she cradled him in her arms. 00:12:00.110 --> 00:12:04.670 align:middle line:84% His knees near his chest as one might carry a child high up 00:12:04.670 --> 00:12:07.160 align:middle line:90% in water. 00:12:07.160 --> 00:12:09.830 align:middle line:90% "Better?," she asked. 00:12:09.830 --> 00:12:12.050 align:middle line:90% Yes, maam. 00:12:12.050 --> 00:12:13.820 align:middle line:84% He climbed down from her lap and seated 00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:18.410 align:middle line:84% himself cross-legged beside her as a child in short pants. 00:12:18.410 --> 00:12:19.550 align:middle line:90% She stroked his head. 00:12:19.550 --> 00:12:21.980 align:middle line:84% Her fingers trailing her forgetful comfortable doodle 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:24.410 align:middle line:90% in his fine hair. 00:12:24.410 --> 00:12:26.750 align:middle line:90% She dozed. 00:12:26.750 --> 00:12:33.200 align:middle line:84% Christ was there, Joseph was, Flanoy was gone. 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:36.020 align:middle line:90% "Where's the child?," she asked. 00:12:36.020 --> 00:12:41.390 align:middle line:90% Flanoy, go on off, her son said. 00:12:41.390 --> 00:12:43.640 align:middle line:90% He's a good boy. 00:12:43.640 --> 00:12:46.350 align:middle line:90% You're good to him, Madonna. 00:12:46.350 --> 00:12:49.970 align:middle line:90% I was in time for the Tableau. 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:53.150 align:middle line:84% He wanted to know if you had playmates. 00:12:53.150 --> 00:12:56.540 align:middle line:84% He wanted to know if you were lonely. 00:12:56.540 --> 00:12:58.130 align:middle line:90% "Who is this kid, Mary?" 00:12:58.130 --> 00:13:00.200 align:middle line:90% her husband asked. 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:01.640 align:middle line:84% What do we know about him anyway? 00:13:01.640 --> 00:13:04.450 align:middle line:90% 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:08.110 align:middle line:84% His name's Flanoy, she told him weerily. 00:13:08.110 --> 00:13:09.010 align:middle line:90% He's from Minnesota. 00:13:09.010 --> 00:13:11.200 align:middle line:90% He's dead. 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:14.500 align:middle line:90% Big deal, who ain't dead? 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:16.750 align:middle line:84% Mother is comfortable with the dead. 00:13:16.750 --> 00:13:19.900 align:middle line:84% With you maybe not so comfortable, Joseph said. 00:13:19.900 --> 00:13:23.080 align:middle line:84% Bamboozler, do you know how tired the woman gets? 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:24.190 align:middle line:90% What a strain? 00:13:24.190 --> 00:13:25.360 align:middle line:90% Come clean, why don't you? 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:26.980 align:middle line:90% Admit you ain't him. 00:13:26.980 --> 00:13:28.765 align:middle line:90% Please Joseph, I have a mouth. 00:13:28.765 --> 00:13:29.890 align:middle line:90% You've got a mouth, use it. 00:13:29.890 --> 00:13:30.608 align:middle line:90% Tell him go on. 00:13:30.608 --> 00:13:32.650 align:middle line:84% What, you're so crazy about these people it makes 00:13:32.650 --> 00:13:34.990 align:middle line:90% a difference he ain't Messiah? 00:13:34.990 --> 00:13:36.730 align:middle line:90% Oh please, Christ said. 00:13:36.730 --> 00:13:39.040 align:middle line:90% Both of you, Mary said. 00:13:39.040 --> 00:13:40.840 align:middle line:84% You're tired, Joseph said, he woke you 00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:45.760 align:middle line:84% this one, your son, the magic cripple who bumps into things. 00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:48.250 align:middle line:90% Both of you, please, Mary said. 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:51.070 align:middle line:90% We're going, Joseph said. 00:13:51.070 --> 00:13:54.790 align:middle line:90% We're going, get some rest. 00:13:54.790 --> 00:13:58.450 align:middle line:84% Flanoy, she called softly when they had gone. 00:13:58.450 --> 00:14:04.900 align:middle line:84% Flanoy, who no longer brought his violin she noticed, 00:14:04.900 --> 00:14:08.320 align:middle line:84% who came now whenever she felt need of him, 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:12.370 align:middle line:84% who seemed to feel her need even before she did, 00:14:12.370 --> 00:14:15.310 align:middle line:84% who anticipated it and suddenly appeared and climbed 00:14:15.310 --> 00:14:19.700 align:middle line:84% into her lap and asked about them, questions about Jesus, 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:25.930 align:middle line:84% about Joseph, myself, things not in the Bible, 00:14:25.930 --> 00:14:29.710 align:middle line:84% how she felt when she found out who her son was, if they'd 00:14:29.710 --> 00:14:34.000 align:middle line:84% taken vacations together as his family had, 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:38.020 align:middle line:84% if it was always religious, if she'd heard from Jesus when 00:14:38.020 --> 00:14:41.320 align:middle line:84% he was in the wilderness all that time, whether she'd 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:44.650 align:middle line:84% believe she'd ever see him again after they killed him, 00:14:44.650 --> 00:14:47.140 align:middle line:84% and trading his history for hers, 00:14:47.140 --> 00:14:50.050 align:middle line:84% filling her in on the world if only his limited experience 00:14:50.050 --> 00:14:53.500 align:middle line:84% of it but knowing more real history from his brief decade 00:14:53.500 --> 00:14:57.340 align:middle line:84% on Earth than she knew for all her millennia in the sky. 00:14:57.340 --> 00:14:58.750 align:middle line:90% "And what could she know?" 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:00.190 align:middle line:90% Flanoy asked. 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:02.560 align:middle line:90% Did history say its prayers? 00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:04.510 align:middle line:84% Did she know that the slaves had been freed 00:15:04.510 --> 00:15:07.030 align:middle line:90% or the names of state capitals? 00:15:07.030 --> 00:15:10.060 align:middle line:84% Did she know there was TV now, movies? 00:15:10.060 --> 00:15:13.000 align:middle line:84% He told her movies he'd seen, breaking her heart 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:17.140 align:middle line:84% as you recounted sad stories about children, their animals, 00:15:17.140 --> 00:15:20.650 align:middle line:84% faithful dogs and Noble horses, how the children had 00:15:20.650 --> 00:15:23.600 align:middle line:84% to put them away themselves when they were injured, 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.020 align:middle line:90% the lessons they'd learned. 00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:30.040 align:middle line:84% And making her laugh when he told her the comedy's saying, 00:15:30.040 --> 00:15:34.660 align:middle line:84% though she knew all about this, how loved she was, how honored, 00:15:34.660 --> 00:15:37.900 align:middle line:84% winning her over as she did him with confidences, 00:15:37.900 --> 00:15:41.410 align:middle line:84% telling his secrets, climbing on her lap as he grew tired, 00:15:41.410 --> 00:15:44.720 align:middle line:84% his soft comfortable body almost meant to be there. 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:48.070 align:middle line:84% And now maybe Jesus had a right to be jealous. 00:15:48.070 --> 00:15:50.330 align:middle line:84% And all manner of things spoken of which 00:15:50.330 --> 00:15:56.530 align:middle line:84% she had never spoken of and one day bringing his violin. 00:15:56.530 --> 00:15:59.320 align:middle line:84% I've been practicing, he said, and played 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:01.750 align:middle line:84% to perfection grand compositions he had never 00:16:01.750 --> 00:16:03.610 align:middle line:90% heard even in heaven. 00:16:03.610 --> 00:16:06.210 align:middle line:90% 00:16:06.210 --> 00:16:08.550 align:middle line:90% Well, you're so good, she said. 00:16:08.550 --> 00:16:12.690 align:middle line:84% Yes, he said, I think I'm inspired, and played 00:16:12.690 --> 00:16:15.630 align:middle line:84% a melody that left both of them in tears. 00:16:15.630 --> 00:16:17.760 align:middle line:84% The child so wracked by the beauty 00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:20.040 align:middle line:90% that he could not finish. 00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:23.400 align:middle line:90% Come, she said, sit-in my lap. 00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:26.520 align:middle line:84% And Flanoy climbed up and Mary held him. 00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:29.970 align:middle line:84% The lovely melody still echoing somewhere in memory, the 00:16:29.970 --> 00:16:31.845 align:middle line:90% both of them still listening. 00:16:31.845 --> 00:16:32.990 align:middle line:90% Ah, she said. 00:16:32.990 --> 00:16:34.380 align:middle line:90% Ah, said Flanoy. 00:16:34.380 --> 00:16:38.100 align:middle line:84% And afterwards in the stillness as if they both heard together 00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:41.190 align:middle line:84% not only the melody but when it had stopped, 00:16:41.190 --> 00:16:44.910 align:middle line:90% Flanoy asked his question. 00:16:44.910 --> 00:16:47.460 align:middle line:90% Was it like that? 00:16:47.460 --> 00:16:49.800 align:middle line:90% What? 00:16:49.800 --> 00:16:54.040 align:middle line:90% When God-- you know. 00:16:54.040 --> 00:16:56.200 align:middle line:90% When God? 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:58.690 align:middle line:84% He toyed with the color of her gown, 00:16:58.690 --> 00:17:02.050 align:middle line:84% his gentle fingers lightly tracing the line of her throat 00:17:02.050 --> 00:17:04.660 align:middle line:84% and it was as if she blossomed itch, 00:17:04.660 --> 00:17:10.569 align:middle line:84% itch just as he assuaged it, need just as he answered it. 00:17:10.569 --> 00:17:13.510 align:middle line:90% When God put Jesus in you. 00:17:13.510 --> 00:17:15.579 align:middle line:90% When God? 00:17:15.579 --> 00:17:16.869 align:middle line:90% When God. 00:17:16.869 --> 00:17:18.430 align:middle line:90% Do you know how he did it? 00:17:18.430 --> 00:17:19.640 align:middle line:90% Did you know it was him? 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:20.770 align:middle line:90% I mean you were a virgin. 00:17:20.770 --> 00:17:22.750 align:middle line:90% Did you never suspect-- 00:17:22.750 --> 00:17:23.349 align:middle line:90% "You!" 00:17:23.349 --> 00:17:26.690 align:middle line:84% she screamed and flung him from her lap. 00:17:26.690 --> 00:17:28.270 align:middle line:90% But what did I do? 00:17:28.270 --> 00:17:29.350 align:middle line:90% You're at me again. 00:17:29.350 --> 00:17:31.150 align:middle line:90% "Wasn't one time enough?" 00:17:31.150 --> 00:17:34.480 align:middle line:84% she pointed at the child on the floor and shouted. 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:35.280 align:middle line:90% "What did I do?" 00:17:35.280 --> 00:17:36.850 align:middle line:90% Flanoy asked, crying. 00:17:36.850 --> 00:17:38.060 align:middle line:90% I didn't do anything. 00:17:38.060 --> 00:17:38.740 align:middle line:90% What did I do? 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:41.800 align:middle line:90% He sobbed and ran from the room. 00:17:41.800 --> 00:17:44.890 align:middle line:84% I'm carrying his child, shrieked the Virgin Mary. 00:17:44.890 --> 00:17:47.830 align:middle line:90% 00:17:47.830 --> 00:17:52.030 align:middle line:84% God gave a gala, levee at the Lord's. 00:17:52.030 --> 00:17:57.190 align:middle line:84% Give me, he said, that old time religion. 00:17:57.190 --> 00:17:59.470 align:middle line:90% His audience beamed. 00:17:59.470 --> 00:18:00.430 align:middle line:90% They cheered. 00:18:00.430 --> 00:18:02.080 align:middle line:90% They ate it up. 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:05.230 align:middle line:84% They nudged each other in Paradise. 00:18:05.230 --> 00:18:09.370 align:middle line:84% "What did I tell you?" he said, over their enthusiasm. 00:18:09.370 --> 00:18:11.380 align:middle line:90% It's terrific, isn't it? 00:18:11.380 --> 00:18:13.720 align:middle line:90% I told you it would be terrific. 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.540 align:middle line:84% All you ever had to do was play nice. 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:18.400 align:middle line:90% Are you disappointed? 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:20.350 align:middle line:90% Is this Heaven? 00:18:20.350 --> 00:18:22.600 align:middle line:90% Is this God's country? 00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:25.780 align:middle line:84% In your wildest dreams, let me hear it. 00:18:25.780 --> 00:18:26.950 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:18:26.950 --> 00:18:30.130 align:middle line:84% In your wildest dreams, did you dream such a Treasury, 00:18:30.130 --> 00:18:32.440 align:middle line:90% this museum Paradise? 00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:35.260 align:middle line:84% Did you dream my thrones and dominions, my angels 00:18:35.260 --> 00:18:38.050 align:middle line:84% And fly-over, my seraphim disporting 00:18:38.050 --> 00:18:40.150 align:middle line:84% like dolphins, tumbling God's sky 00:18:40.150 --> 00:18:42.280 align:middle line:90% in high Heaven's high acrobacy? 00:18:42.280 --> 00:18:45.400 align:middle line:84% Did you imagine the miracles casual card tricks or ever 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:48.460 align:middle line:84% suspected free lunch could taste so good? 00:18:48.460 --> 00:18:50.230 align:middle line:90% They should see you now, huh? 00:18:50.230 --> 00:18:52.510 align:middle line:84% They should see you now, trembling in rapture 00:18:52.510 --> 00:18:54.580 align:middle line:90% like neurological rut. 00:18:54.580 --> 00:18:55.900 align:middle line:90% Delicious, correct? 00:18:55.900 --> 00:18:57.160 align:middle line:90% Piety a la mode. 00:18:57.160 --> 00:18:57.730 align:middle line:90% That's it. 00:18:57.730 --> 00:18:58.390 align:middle line:90% That's right. 00:18:58.390 --> 00:18:59.890 align:middle line:90% Sing hallelujah. 00:18:59.890 --> 00:19:03.100 align:middle line:84% Sing Hozzoner's hosannas, Jehovah's gee whiz. 00:19:03.100 --> 00:19:05.200 align:middle line:90% Well, God said, that's enough. 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:07.960 align:middle line:90% That will do. 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:09.460 align:middle line:84% He looked toward the Holy Family, 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:12.550 align:middle line:90% studying them for a moment. 00:19:12.550 --> 00:19:14.500 align:middle line:90% "Not like the creche, eh?" 00:19:14.500 --> 00:19:16.210 align:middle line:90% he said. 00:19:16.210 --> 00:19:18.130 align:middle line:90% Well, is it? 00:19:18.130 --> 00:19:21.400 align:middle line:90% "Is it?" he demanded of Jesus. 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:23.410 align:middle line:90% No, Christ said softly. 00:19:23.410 --> 00:19:27.820 align:middle line:84% No, God said, not like the creche. 00:19:27.820 --> 00:19:30.460 align:middle line:90% Just look at this place-- 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:34.510 align:middle line:84% the dancing waters and indirect lighting. 00:19:34.510 --> 00:19:40.270 align:middle line:84% I could put gambling in here, off-track betting. 00:19:40.270 --> 00:19:45.190 align:middle line:84% Oh, oh, my costume jewelry ways, my game show vision. 00:19:45.190 --> 00:19:46.450 align:middle line:90% Well, it's the public. 00:19:46.450 --> 00:19:48.040 align:middle line:84% You've got to give it what it wants. 00:19:48.040 --> 00:19:50.530 align:middle line:90% Yes, Jesus? 00:19:50.530 --> 00:19:54.400 align:middle line:84% Yes, Jesus said it just doesn't look lived in 00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:57.500 align:middle line:90% is that what you think? 00:19:57.500 --> 00:20:00.400 align:middle line:84% Call on someone else, Christ said. 00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:01.810 align:middle line:90% Sure, God said. 00:20:01.810 --> 00:20:02.920 align:middle line:90% I'm Hero of Heaven. 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.040 align:middle line:90% I call on myself. 00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:10.270 align:middle line:84% That was when he began his explanations. 00:20:10.270 --> 00:20:15.670 align:middle line:84% He revealed the secrets of books of pictures and music, 00:20:15.670 --> 00:20:18.610 align:middle line:84% telling them all manner of things-- 00:20:18.610 --> 00:20:22.480 align:middle line:84% why marches were less rousing than waltzes, 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:26.620 align:middle line:84% lieder more stirring than scat, why landscapes 00:20:26.620 --> 00:20:30.790 align:middle line:84% were to be preferred over statues, how portraits of women 00:20:30.790 --> 00:20:33.460 align:middle line:84% were superior to portraits of men but less impressive 00:20:33.460 --> 00:20:36.250 align:middle line:90% than engravings on postage. 00:20:36.250 --> 00:20:39.190 align:middle line:84% He explained why oceanography was 00:20:39.190 --> 00:20:41.810 align:middle line:84% a purer science than mathematics, 00:20:41.810 --> 00:20:45.220 align:middle line:84% biography a higher form than dance. 00:20:45.220 --> 00:20:47.560 align:middle line:84% He told them how to choose wines and why 00:20:47.560 --> 00:20:49.810 align:middle line:84% the tenor voice was more acceptable to him 00:20:49.810 --> 00:20:51.610 align:middle line:90% than the baritone. 00:20:51.610 --> 00:20:55.900 align:middle line:84% He told them the secret causes of inflation-- 00:20:55.900 --> 00:20:58.870 align:middle line:90% it's the markup, he said-- 00:20:58.870 --> 00:21:02.170 align:middle line:84% and which was the best color and how many angels could 00:21:02.170 --> 00:21:04.720 align:middle line:90% dance on the head of a pin. 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:07.750 align:middle line:84% He explained why English was the first language at the Miss 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:10.600 align:middle line:84% Universe pageant and recited highlights 00:21:10.600 --> 00:21:13.630 align:middle line:90% from the 18-minute gap. 00:21:13.630 --> 00:21:17.210 align:middle line:84% Mary, wondering if she showed yet, 00:21:17.210 --> 00:21:20.020 align:middle line:84% was glad that Joseph was next to her. 00:21:20.020 --> 00:21:22.630 align:middle line:84% Determined to look proud, she deliberately 00:21:22.630 --> 00:21:24.820 align:middle line:90% took her husband's hand. 00:21:24.820 --> 00:21:27.340 align:middle line:90% So rough, she thought. 00:21:27.340 --> 00:21:30.700 align:middle line:90% Such stubby fingers. 00:21:30.700 --> 00:21:33.940 align:middle line:84% He explained why children suffered and showed them how 00:21:33.940 --> 00:21:36.760 align:middle line:90% to do the latest disco steps. 00:21:36.760 --> 00:21:40.090 align:middle line:84% He showed them how to square the circle, cautioning afterwards 00:21:40.090 --> 00:21:42.250 align:middle line:90% that it would be wrong. 00:21:42.250 --> 00:21:44.440 align:middle line:84% He revealed the name of Kennedy's assassin 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:48.730 align:middle line:84% and told them how to shop for a used car. 00:21:48.730 --> 00:21:51.850 align:middle line:84% Why, he's talking to me, Quiz thought. 00:21:51.850 --> 00:21:54.500 align:middle line:84% These other folks couldn't ever have had any use for this crap. 00:21:54.500 --> 00:21:57.620 align:middle line:90% He's talking to me. 00:21:57.620 --> 00:21:59.060 align:middle line:90% Quiz was right. 00:21:59.060 --> 00:22:01.700 align:middle line:84% But he had something for everyone. 00:22:01.700 --> 00:22:06.290 align:middle line:84% He was unloading, giving off wisdom like radioactivity, 00:22:06.290 --> 00:22:08.570 align:middle line:90% plumbing the mysteries. 00:22:08.570 --> 00:22:11.300 align:middle line:84% And now his voice was reasonable, 00:22:11.300 --> 00:22:16.070 align:middle line:84% not the voice of a grandfather but of a king, a chief, 00:22:16.070 --> 00:22:19.730 align:middle line:84% someone unelectable, there always, 00:22:19.730 --> 00:22:22.130 align:middle line:84% whose very robes and signals of office 00:22:22.130 --> 00:22:24.740 align:middle line:84% were not expensive or even rare so much 00:22:24.740 --> 00:22:28.910 align:middle line:84% as his, as if he wore electricity or mountain range 00:22:28.910 --> 00:22:31.370 align:middle line:90% or clothed himself in waterfall. 00:22:31.370 --> 00:22:35.570 align:middle line:84% He explained-- I am the Manitou, too-- 00:22:35.570 --> 00:22:37.950 align:middle line:90% how the rain dance worked. 00:22:37.950 --> 00:22:39.410 align:middle line:90% They were charmed. 00:22:39.410 --> 00:22:41.570 align:middle line:84% He described how he had divided the light 00:22:41.570 --> 00:22:44.450 align:middle line:84% from the darkness on the morning of the first day. 00:22:44.450 --> 00:22:46.130 align:middle line:90% They were impressed. 00:22:46.130 --> 00:22:48.800 align:middle line:84% He demonstrated how he had done Hell. 00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:51.290 align:middle line:90% They were awed. 00:22:51.290 --> 00:22:56.774 align:middle line:84% You have wondered, he said, why things are as they are. 00:22:56.774 --> 00:22:59.180 align:middle line:90% You have wondered. 00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:01.670 align:middle line:90% You have speculated. 00:23:01.670 --> 00:23:04.070 align:middle line:90% You have questioned my motives. 00:23:04.070 --> 00:23:07.280 align:middle line:84% Groans of denial went up from the saints. 00:23:07.280 --> 00:23:09.530 align:middle line:90% He ignored them. 00:23:09.530 --> 00:23:14.930 align:middle line:84% Why, the philosophers asked, so piecemeal? 00:23:14.930 --> 00:23:17.180 align:middle line:84% Why his fits-and-starts theology, 00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:19.820 align:middle line:90% his stop-and-go arrangements? 00:23:19.820 --> 00:23:22.100 align:middle line:90% Can't he make up his mind? 00:23:22.100 --> 00:23:22.880 align:middle line:90% Why the carrot? 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:23.630 align:middle line:90% Why the stick? 00:23:23.630 --> 00:23:27.170 align:middle line:84% Why the evenings and mornings of those consecutive days? 00:23:27.170 --> 00:23:29.150 align:middle line:84% Why only after first fashioning them 00:23:29.150 --> 00:23:31.190 align:middle line:84% could he see that they were good? 00:23:31.190 --> 00:23:33.710 align:middle line:84% Why, having landscaped an even Eden, 00:23:33.710 --> 00:23:36.830 align:middle line:84% having leached and prepared the pious, precious soils, having 00:23:36.830 --> 00:23:40.100 align:middle line:84% his fell swoop harvest and sweet successful bumper crops, 00:23:40.100 --> 00:23:43.910 align:middle line:84% did he need the farmer and plant the man, set him upright, 00:23:43.910 --> 00:23:46.730 align:middle line:84% a scarecrow essence in the holy field? 00:23:46.730 --> 00:23:48.410 align:middle line:84% Why first an Adam and then an Eve, 00:23:48.410 --> 00:23:50.570 align:middle line:84% or Eve at all, or if and Eve, why 00:23:50.570 --> 00:23:52.460 align:middle line:84% torn from that depleted man who, image 00:23:52.460 --> 00:23:54.410 align:middle line:84% of his maker at once removed removes again 00:23:54.410 --> 00:23:57.110 align:middle line:84% to blur the reciprocities in that deserving girl? 00:23:57.110 --> 00:23:58.010 align:middle line:90% Why a serpent? 00:23:58.010 --> 00:23:59.390 align:middle line:90% Why a tree? 00:23:59.390 --> 00:24:02.420 align:middle line:84% Why fine print at all so near the start of things? 00:24:02.420 --> 00:24:08.450 align:middle line:84% Why codicils and conditions, all that lawyerly qualm? 00:24:08.450 --> 00:24:11.120 align:middle line:90% Why strings? 00:24:11.120 --> 00:24:14.900 align:middle line:84% Why that Miranda decision hocus mumbo jumbo pocus, 00:24:14.900 --> 00:24:17.360 align:middle line:84% reading rights to a man and a woman who not only do not 00:24:17.360 --> 00:24:18.920 align:middle line:84% know that they are already in trouble 00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:22.220 align:middle line:84% but do not even know what trouble is? 00:24:22.220 --> 00:24:24.680 align:middle line:84% And ain't exile cruel and unusual punishment 00:24:24.680 --> 00:24:27.530 align:middle line:90% when there's no place to go? 00:24:27.530 --> 00:24:30.830 align:middle line:90% Of course they fell. 00:24:30.830 --> 00:24:33.950 align:middle line:84% Who wouldn't fall in such a place? 00:24:33.950 --> 00:24:35.660 align:middle line:84% Who wouldn't fall where the gravity was 00:24:35.660 --> 00:24:37.610 align:middle line:90% 1,002 in just the shade? 00:24:37.610 --> 00:24:39.980 align:middle line:84% Who wouldn't fall when the thickest crop in that garden 00:24:39.980 --> 00:24:40.865 align:middle line:90% was just gravity? 00:24:40.865 --> 00:24:43.490 align:middle line:90% 00:24:43.490 --> 00:24:46.340 align:middle line:90% Flanoy had come out of his sulk. 00:24:46.340 --> 00:24:50.480 align:middle line:84% He smiled, but Mother Mary would not look at him. 00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:56.240 align:middle line:84% Adam and Eve on the rock pile now, the chain gang, 00:24:56.240 --> 00:24:57.830 align:middle line:84% working off their offense and raising 00:24:57.830 --> 00:25:00.830 align:middle line:84% kids, extra hands, till it was all cultivated now, 00:25:00.830 --> 00:25:04.310 align:middle line:84% if not a peaceable kingdom then at least the trained one, 00:25:04.310 --> 00:25:06.380 align:middle line:84% the old indebtedness paid up like mortgage. 00:25:06.380 --> 00:25:08.340 align:middle line:90% And then a flood. 00:25:08.340 --> 00:25:10.490 align:middle line:90% A flood. 00:25:10.490 --> 00:25:13.850 align:middle line:90% The whole Earth disaster area. 00:25:13.850 --> 00:25:15.470 align:middle line:84% The spoiled corn and wetted wheat, 00:25:15.470 --> 00:25:17.630 align:middle line:84% the fruit and flooded fields all mashed and only 00:25:17.630 --> 00:25:20.000 align:middle line:84% Father Noah's Ark afloat and all that liquorish 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.110 align:middle line:84% sea, sailing the farms, cruising the ruined hectares, vests 00:25:24.110 --> 00:25:24.950 align:middle line:90% and acreage. 00:25:24.950 --> 00:25:26.930 align:middle line:84% And Noah unclear, everyone unclear, 00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:29.390 align:middle line:84% about the nature of the charges this time. 00:25:29.390 --> 00:25:31.970 align:middle line:84% The actual straw that broke the actual camel's 00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:34.280 align:middle line:90% back unspecified. 00:25:34.280 --> 00:25:39.830 align:middle line:84% Yes, Flanoy thought, with me, too, and moved closer to Quiz. 00:25:39.830 --> 00:25:42.980 align:middle line:84% And then the covenant again, the old instrument 00:25:42.980 --> 00:25:44.690 align:middle line:84% which, by this time, even man knew 00:25:44.690 --> 00:25:47.390 align:middle line:84% was the only way God ever did business, 00:25:47.390 --> 00:25:49.130 align:middle line:84% never just by handshake let alone 00:25:49.130 --> 00:25:52.430 align:middle line:84% by the binding, even honored, nod or raised finger or tickled 00:25:52.430 --> 00:25:54.670 align:middle line:84% ear, which perhaps only the auctioneer ever sees 00:25:54.670 --> 00:25:57.170 align:middle line:84% and which, nevertheless, always seems to be good enough even 00:25:57.170 --> 00:26:01.190 align:middle line:84% for him, but a contract, a compact, 00:26:01.190 --> 00:26:03.830 align:middle line:84% something a little more official than trust and less flimsy 00:26:03.830 --> 00:26:07.140 align:middle line:84% than faith, yet not an actual agreement at all. 00:26:07.140 --> 00:26:10.190 align:middle line:84% And even the single, simple seeming layman's conditions 00:26:10.190 --> 00:26:14.030 align:middle line:84% behave, play nice, be good, and down-home language 00:26:14.030 --> 00:26:17.240 align:middle line:90% a pitch beyond understanding. 00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:19.850 align:middle line:90% Reprieved from oceans. 00:26:19.850 --> 00:26:20.600 align:middle line:90% Starting over. 00:26:20.600 --> 00:26:22.460 align:middle line:90% Breaking clean. 00:26:22.460 --> 00:26:23.810 align:middle line:90% Almost sophisticated now. 00:26:23.810 --> 00:26:25.550 align:middle line:84% Almost used to it, a kind of emigre, 00:26:25.550 --> 00:26:27.740 align:middle line:84% Ellis Islanded, the culture not so shocking, 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:29.030 align:middle line:90% for all were greenhorns. 00:26:29.030 --> 00:26:31.430 align:middle line:90% Greenhorns everywhere. 00:26:31.430 --> 00:26:33.470 align:middle line:84% And you'd think that maybe the ironic point 00:26:33.470 --> 00:26:36.260 align:middle line:84% of all this vagabondage was just to keep folks busy, 00:26:36.260 --> 00:26:39.110 align:middle line:90% hold them still. 00:26:39.110 --> 00:26:45.380 align:middle line:84% Shima Yisroel Adonoi Elohenu, Adonoi Echod, Joseph prayed. 00:26:45.380 --> 00:26:48.440 align:middle line:84% He pounded his breast with the hand that had just been resting 00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:51.020 align:middle line:90% in Mary's. 00:26:51.020 --> 00:26:54.870 align:middle line:84% He looks like someone driving nails, Christ thought. 00:26:54.870 --> 00:26:58.500 align:middle line:84% A tinker God, you'd think, someone editorial, 00:26:58.500 --> 00:27:00.390 align:middle line:84% nuts for amendment, or even God all. 00:27:00.390 --> 00:27:02.620 align:middle line:84% Do you suppose, with his second and third chances, 00:27:02.620 --> 00:27:06.750 align:middle line:84% his governor's fond delight in commutation, reprieve? 00:27:06.750 --> 00:27:11.130 align:middle line:84% A father indeed, a daddy, a pop, who counts to three perhaps 00:27:11.130 --> 00:27:13.290 align:middle line:84% and gets passed two and goes to fractions-- 00:27:13.290 --> 00:27:18.330 align:middle line:90% 2 and 1/2, 2 and 3/4, 4/5. 00:27:18.330 --> 00:27:22.380 align:middle line:84% Fond of mountains, a thing for heights. 00:27:22.380 --> 00:27:24.400 align:middle line:90% Ararat, Sinai. 00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:26.040 align:middle line:84% Who ever delighted in the nature he 00:27:26.040 --> 00:27:29.100 align:middle line:84% had made, crouching perhaps, making frames of his hands, 00:27:29.100 --> 00:27:31.620 align:middle line:84% scouting location like a director, his shingle hung 00:27:31.620 --> 00:27:34.830 align:middle line:84% in garden, ocean, wilderness, and the higher elevations, 00:27:34.830 --> 00:27:37.500 align:middle line:84% a sort of majestic Fop posed in postcard 00:27:37.500 --> 00:27:41.010 align:middle line:84% and practicing his law only where there was a view, never 00:27:41.010 --> 00:27:44.610 align:middle line:90% on just ordinary earth. 00:27:44.610 --> 00:27:48.540 align:middle line:84% Another covenant, this time in writing. 00:27:48.540 --> 00:27:49.860 align:middle line:90% Elegant, he may have thought. 00:27:49.860 --> 00:27:52.110 align:middle line:90% Elegant, I may have thought. 00:27:52.110 --> 00:27:54.570 align:middle line:90% Powerful but elegant. 00:27:54.570 --> 00:27:59.220 align:middle line:84% And showed my man something in a stone tablet, 00:27:59.220 --> 00:28:02.130 align:middle line:84% who worked always in his chosen medium-- earth, water, fire. 00:28:02.130 --> 00:28:04.170 align:middle line:84% Moses on the mountain would be air. 00:28:04.170 --> 00:28:06.867 align:middle line:84% The terms terminal, 1 through 10, was God again. 00:28:06.867 --> 00:28:08.700 align:middle line:84% Now he could get past three, dealing always, 00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:11.130 align:middle line:84% note, with leaders, as he had dealt 00:28:11.130 --> 00:28:14.310 align:middle line:84% with points of interest, oblique angle, off-center prospect, 00:28:14.310 --> 00:28:17.010 align:middle line:84% steep vision like a goat's purchase. 00:28:17.010 --> 00:28:19.020 align:middle line:84% His summit conferees, the elect of Earth, 00:28:19.020 --> 00:28:23.280 align:middle line:84% its leading men, God's chosen persons, ho ho ho. 00:28:23.280 --> 00:28:25.560 align:middle line:84% And Moses not two minutes at sea level, 00:28:25.560 --> 00:28:28.080 align:middle line:84% but the people he had never deigned to deal with directly 00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:32.310 align:middle line:84% were at it again, doing the golden calf like a new dance. 00:28:32.310 --> 00:28:35.430 align:middle line:84% And Moses outraged as God at their loose talk 00:28:35.430 --> 00:28:37.740 align:middle line:84% and their sweet tooth for leeks and garlic, 00:28:37.740 --> 00:28:41.550 align:middle line:90% Egypt's spectacular shade. 00:28:41.550 --> 00:28:44.940 align:middle line:90% But what did he do? 00:28:44.940 --> 00:28:47.380 align:middle line:90% Nothing. 00:28:47.380 --> 00:28:50.230 align:middle line:90% As always. 00:28:50.230 --> 00:28:52.570 align:middle line:90% Nothing. 00:28:52.570 --> 00:28:55.750 align:middle line:84% Who made the world in six days and flooded it in 40 00:28:55.750 --> 00:28:58.760 align:middle line:90% but couldn't count to three. 00:28:58.760 --> 00:28:59.260 align:middle line:90% Wait. 00:28:59.260 --> 00:29:01.240 align:middle line:90% Wait. 00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:03.260 align:middle line:90% Nothing. 00:29:03.260 --> 00:29:03.760 align:middle line:90% Nothing. 00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:07.030 align:middle line:90% 00:29:07.030 --> 00:29:08.250 align:middle line:90% Unless you count a covenant. 00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:10.950 align:middle line:90% 00:29:10.950 --> 00:29:14.640 align:middle line:84% I'll give you Christ, as if to say. 00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:17.940 align:middle line:90% Just pledge belief. 00:29:17.940 --> 00:29:18.870 align:middle line:90% Being good was hard. 00:29:18.870 --> 00:29:21.390 align:middle line:90% Forget it. 00:29:21.390 --> 00:29:23.290 align:middle line:90% Just pledge belief. 00:29:23.290 --> 00:29:26.290 align:middle line:90% Believe. 00:29:26.290 --> 00:29:29.560 align:middle line:90% Most of them were praying now. 00:29:29.560 --> 00:29:34.240 align:middle line:84% Even Mary had lowered her head, as Joseph had, 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:37.690 align:middle line:84% though he had ceased to sway, whose strident 00:29:37.690 --> 00:29:41.470 align:middle line:84% orthodoxy had bleached to something almost Episcopal, 00:29:41.470 --> 00:29:43.660 align:middle line:84% who stood bare headed, his yarlmulke 00:29:43.660 --> 00:29:48.550 align:middle line:84% fallen, and in phylacteries undone as laces. 00:29:48.550 --> 00:29:54.395 align:middle line:84% So, God said, what do you make of me, eh? 00:29:54.395 --> 00:29:56.770 align:middle line:84% What do you make of me now you understand that finally it 00:29:56.770 --> 00:30:00.872 align:middle line:84% takes two to break a contract as well as to make one? 00:30:00.872 --> 00:30:02.830 align:middle line:84% What do you make of me who could have gotten it 00:30:02.830 --> 00:30:05.230 align:middle line:84% all right the first time, saved everyone trouble 00:30:05.230 --> 00:30:08.920 align:middle line:90% and left Hell unstocked? 00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:12.250 align:middle line:90% Do you love me? 00:30:12.250 --> 00:30:18.070 align:middle line:84% Do you forgive and forget as easily as I do? 00:30:18.070 --> 00:30:20.590 align:middle line:90% Do you? 00:30:20.590 --> 00:30:23.260 align:middle line:84% Mother Mary peeked at the fluted piping 00:30:23.260 --> 00:30:27.610 align:middle line:84% of his Nimbus, the sacred, secret rim, 00:30:27.610 --> 00:30:30.760 align:middle line:84% like icing on pastry, where the helix tucked 00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:33.160 align:middle line:90% into his golden head. 00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:35.440 align:middle line:84% She held her belly in her hands and hoped 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:39.280 align:middle line:90% that this one would be a girl. 00:30:39.280 --> 00:30:41.680 align:middle line:90% Do you? 00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:43.660 align:middle line:90% Yes, they cried. 00:30:43.660 --> 00:30:46.180 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:30:46.180 --> 00:30:49.205 align:middle line:90% Why do I do it then? 00:30:49.205 --> 00:30:49.705 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:30:49.705 --> 00:30:52.580 align:middle line:90% 00:30:52.580 --> 00:30:56.610 align:middle line:84% So we might choose, said one of the saved. 00:30:56.610 --> 00:30:57.110 align:middle line:90% What? 00:30:57.110 --> 00:30:57.860 align:middle line:90% Speak up. 00:30:57.860 --> 00:31:00.420 align:middle line:90% 00:31:00.420 --> 00:31:01.970 align:middle line:90% So we might choose. 00:31:01.970 --> 00:31:05.510 align:middle line:90% Never, God thundered. 00:31:05.510 --> 00:31:07.205 align:middle line:90% What do I care if you choose? 00:31:07.205 --> 00:31:10.420 align:middle line:90% 00:31:10.420 --> 00:31:12.220 align:middle line:90% Goodness, a saint shouted. 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:15.130 align:middle line:90% You get off on goodness. 00:31:15.130 --> 00:31:17.050 align:middle line:90% On goodness? 00:31:17.050 --> 00:31:18.670 align:middle line:90% Me? 00:31:18.670 --> 00:31:20.020 align:middle line:90% God laughed. 00:31:20.020 --> 00:31:21.640 align:middle line:90% On goodness? 00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:23.690 align:middle line:90% Is that what you think? 00:31:23.690 --> 00:31:24.730 align:middle line:90% Is that what you think? 00:31:24.730 --> 00:31:26.688 align:middle line:90% Were you born yesterday? 00:31:26.688 --> 00:31:27.730 align:middle line:90% You've been in the world. 00:31:27.730 --> 00:31:30.370 align:middle line:84% Is that how you explain trial and error, history 00:31:30.370 --> 00:31:34.270 align:middle line:84% by increment, God's long Slap and Tickle, his Indian-gift 00:31:34.270 --> 00:31:35.860 align:middle line:90% wrath? 00:31:35.860 --> 00:31:37.930 align:middle line:90% Goodness? 00:31:37.930 --> 00:31:40.290 align:middle line:90% No. 00:31:40.290 --> 00:31:42.900 align:middle line:90% It was art. 00:31:42.900 --> 00:31:46.290 align:middle line:90% It was always art. 00:31:46.290 --> 00:31:48.870 align:middle line:84% I work by the contrasts and metrics, 00:31:48.870 --> 00:31:51.720 align:middle line:90% by beats and the silences. 00:31:51.720 --> 00:32:00.240 align:middle line:84% It was all art because it makes a better story is why. 00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.420 align:middle line:84% Christ held up his damaged hands. 00:32:03.420 --> 00:32:05.850 align:middle line:90% It makes a better story? 00:32:05.850 --> 00:32:07.230 align:middle line:90% He was furious. 00:32:07.230 --> 00:32:09.360 align:middle line:90% Because it makes a better story? 00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:10.720 align:middle line:90% Is this true? 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:11.670 align:middle line:90% Is it? 00:32:11.670 --> 00:32:14.550 align:middle line:90% Sure it's true, God said. 00:32:14.550 --> 00:32:19.110 align:middle line:84% Then, pausing, he saw Quiz hold back a yawn. 00:32:19.110 --> 00:32:25.135 align:middle line:84% Teen hundredths, he said, 19/100, 20/100. 00:32:25.135 --> 00:32:26.010 align:middle line:90% All right, that's it. 00:32:26.010 --> 00:32:26.670 align:middle line:90% Kairos. 00:32:26.670 --> 00:32:29.340 align:middle line:90% Doomsday. 00:32:29.340 --> 00:32:32.490 align:middle line:84% Lesefario, in Hell, did not know at first 00:32:32.490 --> 00:32:34.590 align:middle line:90% that he had stopped burning. 00:32:34.590 --> 00:32:37.710 align:middle line:84% He thought pain's absence some new pain, 00:32:37.710 --> 00:32:40.140 align:middle line:84% something eye of the hurricane or the heavy peace 00:32:40.140 --> 00:32:42.750 align:middle line:84% before the firing squad takes aim. 00:32:42.750 --> 00:32:44.310 align:middle line:90% He shook himself. 00:32:44.310 --> 00:32:47.580 align:middle line:84% He seemed like the scabbed and crusted others, 00:32:47.580 --> 00:32:52.650 align:middle line:84% like an animal, a bear perhaps after winter's long somnolence. 00:32:52.650 --> 00:32:55.740 align:middle line:84% Instinct, memory did not work that fast. 00:32:55.740 --> 00:32:58.230 align:middle line:84% It needed its bearings and landmarks. 00:32:58.230 --> 00:33:00.180 align:middle line:84% It required its surveyors' grapples, 00:33:00.180 --> 00:33:02.970 align:middle line:90% some alphabet of location. 00:33:02.970 --> 00:33:04.302 align:middle line:90% How long? 00:33:04.302 --> 00:33:06.510 align:middle line:84% How long did it take, asked the fellow who'd told him 00:33:06.510 --> 00:33:09.820 align:middle line:90% his counting was a fad. 00:33:09.820 --> 00:33:11.900 align:middle line:90% What how long? 00:33:11.900 --> 00:33:12.400 align:middle line:90% Death. 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:15.250 align:middle line:90% How long did it take? 00:33:15.250 --> 00:33:17.890 align:middle line:90% I stopped counting, he said. 00:33:17.890 --> 00:33:20.470 align:middle line:90% Shame, the man said. 00:33:20.470 --> 00:33:25.970 align:middle line:84% Yeah, said Lesefario, his heart breaking. 00:33:25.970 --> 00:33:31.490 align:middle line:84% Bodies rose the surface of the seas and began swimming. 00:33:31.490 --> 00:33:33.650 align:middle line:84% They were released from faded, colorless 00:33:33.650 --> 00:33:37.580 align:middle line:84% flags, stove ships, hidden pilings where 00:33:37.580 --> 00:33:40.880 align:middle line:90% they had snagged for years. 00:33:40.880 --> 00:33:44.540 align:middle line:84% They came up out of shoals and split sandbars. 00:33:44.540 --> 00:33:46.370 align:middle line:84% The drowned and murdered floated up 00:33:46.370 --> 00:33:49.280 align:middle line:84% from the bottom of lakes, their faces 00:33:49.280 --> 00:33:51.080 align:middle line:84% and bodies in the same dishabille 00:33:51.080 --> 00:33:53.390 align:middle line:90% in which they had died. 00:33:53.390 --> 00:33:55.070 align:middle line:90% They seeped out of riverbanks. 00:33:55.070 --> 00:33:57.470 align:middle line:90% They surfaced in wells. 00:33:57.470 --> 00:34:01.010 align:middle line:90% A rising tide of the dead. 00:34:01.010 --> 00:34:03.980 align:middle line:84% In woods and rainforests, they quickened. 00:34:03.980 --> 00:34:07.130 align:middle line:90% Corpses lost years. 00:34:07.130 --> 00:34:08.449 align:middle line:90% They came to in deserts. 00:34:08.449 --> 00:34:13.400 align:middle line:84% They waked up on mountains, a treasury of jigsaw death. 00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:16.730 align:middle line:84% One could not have suspected their numbers, 00:34:16.730 --> 00:34:20.179 align:middle line:90% that so many random had fallen. 00:34:20.179 --> 00:34:25.760 align:middle line:84% These were merely the discards, the old boot dead, stochastic 00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:30.199 align:middle line:90% as beer can, deposit bottle. 00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:33.320 align:middle line:90% They woke up in battlefields. 00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:37.219 align:middle line:84% They gathered themselves where they had exploded. 00:34:37.219 --> 00:34:41.570 align:middle line:84% They got up in hospitals, their deaths not yet discovered. 00:34:41.570 --> 00:34:44.179 align:middle line:84% They still wore identification bracelets. 00:34:44.179 --> 00:34:48.830 align:middle line:84% IVs dangled from their wrists like slack banderillas. 00:34:48.830 --> 00:34:53.130 align:middle line:84% They woke up in archeology, cities done in by earthquake, 00:34:53.130 --> 00:34:55.489 align:middle line:90% fire, and time. 00:34:55.489 --> 00:34:59.630 align:middle line:84% They climbed out of caves, out of canyons, geology. 00:34:59.630 --> 00:35:04.790 align:middle line:84% Up out of mine shafts they came, comrades in cave-ins. 00:35:04.790 --> 00:35:06.470 align:middle line:84% They worked their way through holes 00:35:06.470 --> 00:35:09.350 align:middle line:90% they had melted in glaciers. 00:35:09.350 --> 00:35:12.770 align:middle line:90% All Earth gave up its dead. 00:35:12.770 --> 00:35:15.650 align:middle line:84% They strained against coffin lids, against vaults, 00:35:15.650 --> 00:35:17.510 align:middle line:90% against sealers. 00:35:17.510 --> 00:35:21.260 align:middle line:84% Stymied as escape artists, they banged encumbrance. 00:35:21.260 --> 00:35:22.880 align:middle line:90% They swarmed. 00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:25.730 align:middle line:84% They popped through, the hatched, frantic chicks 00:35:25.730 --> 00:35:27.530 align:middle line:90% of death. 00:35:27.530 --> 00:35:31.130 align:middle line:84% A man named Ladlehaus climbed out of his grave like someone 00:35:31.130 --> 00:35:33.650 align:middle line:90% backing out of a window. 00:35:33.650 --> 00:35:36.990 align:middle line:84% Like elopers, they left their burials. 00:35:36.990 --> 00:35:38.780 align:middle line:84% They touched their tombs and niches 00:35:38.780 --> 00:35:42.260 align:middle line:84% as if they were the old rooms of childhood, brushing them 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:44.720 align:middle line:90% lightly as if they were dusting. 00:35:44.720 --> 00:35:47.390 align:middle line:84% They scrutinized their plots and read their markers 00:35:47.390 --> 00:35:49.670 align:middle line:90% like people hunting addresses. 00:35:49.670 --> 00:35:51.590 align:middle line:84% They loitered in their graveyards 00:35:51.590 --> 00:35:53.930 align:middle line:84% as if they were keeping appointments. 00:35:53.930 --> 00:35:57.410 align:middle line:84% Already they missed their deaths. 00:35:57.410 --> 00:35:59.240 align:middle line:90% There were complaints. 00:35:59.240 --> 00:36:03.560 align:middle line:84% They were cold in just sunlight after the heat of Hell. 00:36:03.560 --> 00:36:08.520 align:middle line:84% Those who had donated organs had lost them forever. 00:36:08.520 --> 00:36:11.930 align:middle line:84% They could feel the cavities and hollows, the terrible gouged 00:36:11.930 --> 00:36:14.720 align:middle line:90% and amputate absentness. 00:36:14.720 --> 00:36:18.410 align:middle line:84% The woman who had given her eyes away stirred her fingers 00:36:18.410 --> 00:36:20.060 align:middle line:90% in the holes. 00:36:20.060 --> 00:36:22.460 align:middle line:90% So grotesque, she moaned. 00:36:22.460 --> 00:36:24.230 align:middle line:90% So grotesque. 00:36:24.230 --> 00:36:26.210 align:middle line:90% Death grotesque is life. 00:36:26.210 --> 00:36:29.540 align:middle line:90% All, all grotesque. 00:36:29.540 --> 00:36:31.940 align:middle line:84% They came down from churchyards on hillsides 00:36:31.940 --> 00:36:35.300 align:middle line:84% and in from cemeteries on the outskirts of town. 00:36:35.300 --> 00:36:38.480 align:middle line:84% They bestirred themselves in the celebrated tombs and sepulchers 00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:40.580 align:middle line:90% of the big-shot dead. 00:36:40.580 --> 00:36:43.940 align:middle line:84% Their bodies shone with gore like wet paint. 00:36:43.940 --> 00:36:46.940 align:middle line:84% They sooted the world as if it were carpet. 00:36:46.940 --> 00:36:48.770 align:middle line:84% The living and dead were thrown together. 00:36:48.770 --> 00:36:51.410 align:middle line:90% And the dead looked away first. 00:36:51.410 --> 00:36:53.750 align:middle line:90% Tribes covered the Earth now. 00:36:53.750 --> 00:36:56.540 align:middle line:90% Families did-- clans, races. 00:36:56.540 --> 00:36:59.420 align:middle line:84% Mary, squeamish in the press of population, 00:36:59.420 --> 00:37:02.090 align:middle line:84% could not bear the stench and thought. 00:37:02.090 --> 00:37:04.760 align:middle line:90% It's morning sickness. 00:37:04.760 --> 00:37:07.950 align:middle line:84% Joseph couldn't get over how much things had changed. 00:37:07.950 --> 00:37:11.800 align:middle line:84% And Christ flinched whenever he saw soldiers. 00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:17.750 align:middle line:84% Quiz, looking for sanctuary, pulled Flanoy into a YMCA. 00:37:17.750 --> 00:37:19.670 align:middle line:84% Into the Valley of Jehoshaphat they 00:37:19.670 --> 00:37:23.120 align:middle line:84% came and along all the coasts of Palestine. 00:37:23.120 --> 00:37:25.730 align:middle line:84% They covered the ranges of Samaria and Judea, 00:37:25.730 --> 00:37:29.330 align:middle line:84% of Abilene and Gilead, and stood in the Plains of Jezreel 00:37:29.330 --> 00:37:31.760 align:middle line:84% and Sharon and spread out by Kinnereth's Sea 00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:35.900 align:middle line:84% and the salted waters between Idumea and Moab-- 00:37:35.900 --> 00:37:38.780 align:middle line:84% and were a million deep all about the tough shores 00:37:38.780 --> 00:37:42.410 align:middle line:84% of the ruined Mediterranean circle. 00:37:42.410 --> 00:37:46.700 align:middle line:84% They seemed a kind of vegetation, their burnt skin 00:37:46.700 --> 00:37:49.310 align:middle line:90% a smear of sullen growth. 00:37:49.310 --> 00:37:54.740 align:middle line:84% Pressed together, Coney Islanded, Woodstocked, 00:37:54.740 --> 00:37:57.920 align:middle line:90% Tivoli Gardened, Jonestowned. 00:37:57.920 --> 00:38:01.490 align:middle line:84% They seemed spectators at some gameless stadium, vast 00:38:01.490 --> 00:38:03.350 align:middle line:90% as the world. 00:38:03.350 --> 00:38:05.240 align:middle line:90% They waited. 00:38:05.240 --> 00:38:08.780 align:middle line:84% They did not know what was going to happen. 00:38:08.780 --> 00:38:10.700 align:middle line:84% They consulted the religious among them. 00:38:10.700 --> 00:38:13.640 align:middle line:90% But they didn't know either. 00:38:13.640 --> 00:38:15.740 align:middle line:90% Then God was there. 00:38:15.740 --> 00:38:19.100 align:middle line:84% And strangely, all could see him. 00:38:19.100 --> 00:38:22.550 align:middle line:84% There was not a bad seat in the house. 00:38:22.550 --> 00:38:24.245 align:middle line:90% It was short and sweet. 00:38:24.245 --> 00:38:26.870 align:middle line:90% 00:38:26.870 --> 00:38:32.090 align:middle line:84% Because I never found my audience, God said. 00:38:32.090 --> 00:38:35.930 align:middle line:84% Because I never found my audience. 00:38:35.930 --> 00:38:39.650 align:middle line:84% He looked at the assembled dead, at the living billions 00:38:39.650 --> 00:38:42.170 align:middle line:90% anxious at ground zero. 00:38:42.170 --> 00:38:45.990 align:middle line:84% You gave me, some of you, your oohs and ahs, 00:38:45.990 --> 00:38:49.550 align:middle line:84% the Jew's hooray and Catholic's Latin deference-- 00:38:49.550 --> 00:38:53.390 align:middle line:90% all theology's pious wow. 00:38:53.390 --> 00:38:56.540 align:middle line:90% But I never found my audience. 00:38:56.540 --> 00:38:58.040 align:middle line:84% He looked at Mary, who had feared 00:38:58.040 --> 00:39:02.120 align:middle line:84% him, victim to his blue ribbon force, distrustful still, 00:39:02.120 --> 00:39:06.920 align:middle line:84% savoring the ordinary who had been taken out of all that. 00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:10.250 align:middle line:90% I never found my audience. 00:39:10.250 --> 00:39:14.570 align:middle line:84% What had you, he asked his audience, to complain of? 00:39:14.570 --> 00:39:17.300 align:middle line:90% You had the respect of peers. 00:39:17.300 --> 00:39:20.270 align:middle line:90% You had peers. 00:39:20.270 --> 00:39:22.640 align:middle line:90% He looked at Jesus. 00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:25.340 align:middle line:90% You were no audience. 00:39:25.340 --> 00:39:31.250 align:middle line:84% You had all the advantages and were only God's clone. 00:39:31.250 --> 00:39:36.200 align:middle line:84% And at Joseph, you were a carpenter, he said. 00:39:36.200 --> 00:39:38.930 align:middle line:90% You did things with your hands. 00:39:38.930 --> 00:39:42.170 align:middle line:90% Why didn't you admire me more? 00:39:42.170 --> 00:39:47.165 align:middle line:84% And at the damned, I gave you pain. 00:39:47.165 --> 00:39:49.820 align:middle line:90% 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:53.870 align:middle line:90% Do you appreciate the miracle-- 00:39:53.870 --> 00:40:00.080 align:middle line:84% to make it up out of thin air, deep, freefall 00:40:00.080 --> 00:40:07.130 align:middle line:84% space, the gifted, driven atoms of remonstrance? 00:40:07.130 --> 00:40:10.340 align:middle line:84% Trickier than orange juice or the taste of Brie. 00:40:10.340 --> 00:40:13.130 align:middle line:90% 00:40:13.130 --> 00:40:15.300 align:middle line:84% Because I never found my audience, 00:40:15.300 --> 00:40:19.610 align:middle line:84% said God and annihilated, as Mother Mary and Christ 00:40:19.610 --> 00:40:25.790 align:middle line:84% and Lesefario and Joseph and Flanoy and Quiz 00:40:25.790 --> 00:40:29.060 align:middle line:84% and their YMCA sea-front room in Piraeus 00:40:29.060 --> 00:40:35.120 align:middle line:84% and all Hell's troubled sighed, everything. 00:40:35.120 --> 00:40:36.020 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:40:36.020 --> 00:40:39.370 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:40:39.370 --> 00:41:01.284 align:middle line:90%