David Wallace - Broom of the System

REVEREND SYKES: A need in us is a need in Jesus. And friends can’t we see together that a need in Jesus is a need automatically, by theological definition, fulfilled and satisfied?

THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: We need to know, why this is so… REVEREND SYKES: So that a need in a partner with God, a need that exists simultaneously in our Lord Jesus Christ, is a need instantly, completely, satisfied and met?

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: You fill me up. You satisfy me like no man did before. I can’t deny it. God.

THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Can’t deny, that you satisfy… REVEREND SYKES: Yes friends I stand before you on national prime-time television talking about the satisfaction of your every need. The fulfillment of your every wish. Friends hear me! What I tell you tonight is that if you are a partner with God you are automatically in Jesus, we know that now. You are inside out! Your needs are now Jesus’s needs, and thus you will not go wanting. You will not go wanting. Why is this so? THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Why…?

REVEREND SYKES: Why is this, I say why is this so?

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Because Jesus shall not want!

REVEREND SYKES: Oh say it again!

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Who’s got the special-wecial book? REVEREND SYKES: Oh say it again!

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Jesus shall not want.

THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Amen, Aman, Amen, Aman… REVEREND SYKES: Amen, and Aman. For here friends is tonight’s “Partners With God Club” food-for-thought spiritual message. It is that Jesus shall not want. Jesus shall not want! There it is.

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Has the little turd learned his lines yet?

REVEREND SYKES: Friends let us all pause here and listen together and reflect on the implications of such a revelation. That’s right… THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Hmmmmm…

REVEREND SYKES:… a revelation.

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: (Accompanied by the pleasing harmonies of the Partnership Singers)

Oh, when I’m feelin’ down, down as I can be;

When there’s a giant shadow, a-fallin’ over me;

My spirit’s still as strong as steel, my hope you cannot daunt;

For I stand firm in my belief… that Jesus shall not want!

/b/

“Do you want to hear what I think?” says Mindy Metalman Lang.

“I am one enormous ear,” says Rick Vigorous.

“I think you’re just tired, and tense, and understandably upset, and that’s why you’re not being fair, and making up these lies.”

“And who may I ask has the temerity to allege that I am making up lies,” says Rick Vigorous softly, looking up and away. His face is running with light.

What is going on is that tonight it is raining, between the moon and the window. It is raining awfully hard. Lines of rainwater run down the window, and the moon shines through the rain and the window and makes the rear wall of the dark bedroom run with reflections. Back against the wall leans Rick Vigorous as he sits up in bed, in his underpants. He looks like he’s running with moonlit rain. So does the bed. The whole room, running with clear white. The colored chalk sketch of Rick and Veronica Vigorous in their Scarsdale yard, the one that’s framed in dark wood and hanging above the bed, seems almost to glow. The television is on, over by the window, but its cold flicker is lost in the moon’s million white trickles.

“Rick,” Mindy says from the window.

“Don’t look out,” says Rick.

Mindy turns and waggles her finger. It runs down all the walls. “Rick.”

“Do you know why I don’t want you to look out?”

“Sweetie pumpkin,” says Mindy, “I’m trying ever so hard to still be pleasant about this whole thing, but it’s wrong of you not to tell. It’s not right, and you know it.”

“My God the window’s drooling,” Rick says. He points. His wrist hangs with light. “Doesn’t it look as though the window is drooling? Salivating at the prospect of absolutely everything there is to impart?”

Mindy starts to turn back.

“But don’t look out,” Rick says.

“So start imparting,” says Mindy.

“Haven’t I already?”

“I want to know where my husband is,” Mindy says softly, looking down into the television. “I don’t care about your ‘context,’ and I’m more than a little upset and worried that you’re sitting there with that thing on your wrist seriously trying to tell me that Lenore Beadsman died in your phone tunnel.”

“You saw the lobby floor.”

“But Andy and Lenore went to the airport tonight, I happen to know. I talked to Dr. Tissaw tonight. ”

“Context is essential,” Rick says.

“But I don’t care about context Rick,” says Mindy. “If you want to know the truth I don’t really care that much about Lenore. And I don’t care about some book, which I have no idea what you’re talking about, which first you say you wrote, then you say is the Bible, then you say is the dictionary, then you say is the Sears Catalogue, so what am I supposed to think? But anyway I don’t care about that.” Mindy crosses her arms over her bra. The moon is white jelly through the top of her hair. “Honestly,” she says.

“But it’s essential to the whole story,” says Rick. He is playing with his stomach, over the band of his underpants.

“Or about alphabets of old people, or children singing like birds, or fat men chewing on buildings, or phone crews fishing in black air, or people eating each other’s membranes — you can just stop whispering about all of it, because I don’t care about it right now.”

“What do you want,” says Rick.

Mindy taps a foot on the floor. “I either want to watch the bird’s show, here, which by the way don’t think I’ve forgotten you practically promised to call, last night…”

“I forbid you to look at it directly.”

“… Or then I want to know where my husband and ditzy little Lenore are, so I can begin to take steps. What branch are they supposed to be at?”

“Lenore Beadsman and W.D.L. are finished,” Rick says. He looks around him, his shadow on the flowing wall. “They’re over.”

“Rick sweetie I’m so trying to be nice but that’s just a lie,” says Mindy. She comes to stand at the bed. “Can’t you tell what’s a lie? I don’t know what happened to you today, and how could I since you won’t tell me, but you’re in bad shape if you sincerely think people are done who are obviously not done, I’ve got to tell you. I’ve got to think you’re either lying for fun, or you’re maybe just not a well man. Daddy always said you weren’t a hundred percent.”

Rick looks up at Mindy.

“Honestly,” Mindy says. She looks back at the television. “I can just watch the news, you know.” Rick keeps looking at her. “I can just watch the news at eleven, if you want to be a little dung beetle about it,” she says. “Why lie if I can just find out the truth in a couple hours?”

“I think you’re confused,” says Rick.

/c/

REVEREND SYKES: And so friends if we are to be in Jesus and so never want, never ever want, what must we do here tonight? UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Use me. Satisfy me like never before. REVEREND SYKES: Tonight we must attempt to see together that to be satisfied in a spiritual sense is to be used.

THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: Oh yes that’s right, to be satisfied is to be used…

REVEREND SYKES: For we’ve seen together that to be satisfied is to be in Jesus, and to be in Jesus is to be a partner. And what is a partner?

UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Who cares how many partners I’ve had, Clinty?