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I was talking faster and faster I bit back my next sentence,ADD
I said, "That psychologist back in school, she gave me the PCL-R, that’s a test where they rate you from zero to forty based on personality traits of sociopaths Glibness, inflated ego, violence, juvenile delinquency, all that serial killer shit Anything above a score of thirty gets you a diagnosis of sociopathy I got a twenty-nine And the irony is that I had to steal the file from the cabinet to find out that score Do you think that’s worth the extra point?"
He shook his head slowly "I’ you"
"Which would prove I’ht? Or walking away froht to save the people I love?"
Arnie didn’t want to get sucked into a debate on that subject and instead said, "Just hear o public with it, with your story My story, too"
"Why, Arnie? What good is that gonna do?"
"You get other people to cooin’ on Strength in nuels and UFOs and every other thing They’ll listen The bad guys can’t ot to have liain threw out his hands, like an NBA player acting baffled by a referee’s call
"This is all I got, Wong I have no faith to speak of and no skill but what you see The truth, the power of knowledge in the hands of the people, all that journalis and dance, that’s what I believe in It’s all I believe in I got nothin’ else I got nothin’ else to fight with But I know this, too You took my calls for a reason So that makes me think you had the sa you"
Arnie asked, "She’s still in Utah?"
"Who?"
"A Yeah, she’s still there with the lesbians There’s been souy came after me and I killed hi in ht a monster made of meat They take their shots I didn’t want A better for her I tried to sort of cut her off, get her to start a new life Her own life But she calls me All the time Ever since she left, she calls and calls I wound up with a four-hundred-dollar phone bill one month I told her about you wantin’ to "
"See? She knows She knows, and you know, that we got to shine light on these cockroaches The shadows hate the light, let’s shineto their world"
I said, "Just telling our stories, that won’t do shit Testiet us lu a ridiculous case, supported by e-mails from equally crazy and lonely people"
"Then what do you want to--"
"We show them this"
I pulled the silver canister from my pocket
"This is real, Arnie A physical piece of evidence That’s what Aet this in the hands of sootta be ot two canisters Or maybe it’ll come back in this bottle, the way it did before Maybe the bottle ot to know people, at a university, somebody with an electron microscope Because I’m thinkin’ that whoever takes the first close look at the soy sauce is gonna have a brown stain down the bottoht for a moment and said, "Just make sure they keep it cold"
Arnie nodded "Yeah Yeah Make that the story Hell, let ’em see the effects thein, see the thing start levitating and speaking French"
And just like that, I felt an intoxicating rush of hope I tried to crush it, to push it down, to expose it to reality and kill it off But I couldn’t It was a sunrise, a kid’s sight of snowfall on a schoolHope That all this can turn out okay, that so and black can be turned back Hope like a wildfire, thoughts of presents under a Christ frohts you up inside That beautiful border between night when you realize that all of thebehind only the warht of a Saturday dawn
Amy Sullivan Her name is Amy Sullivan Her plane landed in Salt Lake City and she called o and we talked for four hours and she had bought a new albu over the phone Amy Sullivan She’s still there A? Your life, your family? I onna be over because froet that there may be people, real people, who don’t want this out The people who ransacked my apartment, the people from the factory or the CIA or NSA or Men in Black, whoever it was--they don’t want this stuff known Are you ready for all that, Arnie?"
"Shit I been around, Wong My first year out of journalisation protest That was 1964 I wake up with my camera busted on the paveuy steps over er’ I think back then I knehat I was doin’ this job for But in the years since--"
Arnie saw the look on
"What?"