She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Novell, okay. I’m sorry. When I came in here, I was really ready, you know? I don’t feel that way very often. But what happens, you want to talk. So I’m losing the edge. It’s fading on me. I think I got that ready on account of Nicky dying. Death does it to
The Green Ripper me in a funny way, I guess. When somebody you know is suddenly dead forever, then I want to get laid. I’ve heard lots of people are like that. Like in shelters when there’s bombing going on. Maybe it goes back to instinct. Like in animals. If people are dying, it’s time to make more people and keep the population up. But there was a couple of years there when I couldn’t have come no matter what.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Of you want talk instead of tail, 1~11 give you talk. I’m from an absolutely nowhere place. Opportunity, Montana.”
“Little west of Butte? South of Anaconda? Flint Creek Range and the South Fork?”
“Hey, you heard of it!” She turned and settled herself more comfortably, fitting the nape of her neck to my arm, one hand resting on my chest.
“Been through there. When did you leave?”
“A long time ago. I don’t know who’s left there, if anybody.”
“Run away?”
“Sort of. With a girl friend. We got in with some rough people in Miami. I got busted for possession, and when I got out, I couldn’t find her. A cop put me on the streets, hustling. Then one day he beat me up bad because he thought I was holding out, and I met some people from the Church of the Apocryphal”
“In Miami?”
“You’ll find the Church everywhere these days.
What I was thinking, I could use the Church. They’d take care of me and keep that freak cop away from me. I’d been beaten real bad. What I was then, I was a dumb, selfish, ignorant teenage hooker. What I needed most was some rest from cruising the streets and taking the marks back to that motel room. When I was rested up, I’d take off. But the people in the Church, they knew what I was thinking every minute. They never gave me a minute alone. They loved me. They believed I was precious and they made me think of myself as pre cious to them. I was a lazy little slut, and they cured me of that. My God, I never worked so hard and so long in my life. It made hooking seem like picnics. Dumb dreary food and not enough sleep ever. Fifteen hours at a stretch, seeing stuff to strangers, walking the streets carrying candy and thread and junk, begging money, making quotas. My weight went down to minus nothing. A lot of my hair fell out. I had a scaly rash all the time. I forgot about sex. I stopped menstruating. My tits and my ass like to shrunk away to nothing. And when I was about to believe the life was going to kill me, suddenly I realized I was doing God’s work, and that I wanted to drive myself even harder than they were driving me. And once I saw the Light and heard the Word, I started to get bet ter. I ate tons of that sorry food they served at the dorm, and it tasted delicious. And I began to seD more stuff. I made people buy it. I turned in big
The Green Ripper scores every night and slept like a baby. I smiled and sang all the time. The Church had put my head back on straight. For the first time in my life I was really part of something My life had meaning. I worked hard for the Church and for myself, and finally they picked me for a different kind of work.”
‘this kind? Guns and bombs?”
‘1t’s God’s work.”
“You said you joined the Weather Underground, didn’t you?”
‘I didn’t join them. It was sort of like cooperative, you know? They bought me a plane ticket out to Portland, and a fellow met me at the airport and drove me practically all day in an old car way down into empty country where they were. I thought I was in pretty good shape, you know? Talk about pooped! I used to get so tired I’d cry. But by three months, I could like run all day, you know? And I felt really alive. Then, when I could move right, they started all the other stuff. Weapons, marksmanship, cover and concealment, grenades, booby traps, reading a compass and maps, and all that. They taught me stuff I never heard of. You know, I could go into the average kitchen anywhere in the States, and in about twenty minutes I could build a bomb you wouldn’t believe, just using what’s already there.”