scrambled. As for believing that you could hear other people's
thoughts ... that was just crazy.
'Becka looked down at her legs and saw blood gushing from her
left knee. She shrieked again and ran back into the house to call the
doctor, MEDIX, somebody. She was in the living room again,
pawing at the dial with the phone to her ear, when Jesus said:
'That's raspberry filling from your coffeecake, 'Becka. Why
don't you just relax, before you have a heart attack?'
She looked at the TV, the telephone receiver falling to the table
with a clunk. Jesus was still sitting on the rock outcropping. It looked
as though He had crossed His legs. It was really surprising how much
He looked like her own father ... only He didn't seem forbidding,
ready to be hitting angry at a moment's notice. He was looking at her
with a kind of exasperated patience.
'Try it and see if I'm not right,' Jesus said.
She touched her knee gently, wincing, expecting pain. There
was none. She saw the seeds in the red stuff and relaxed. She licked
the raspberry filling off her fingers.
'Also,' Jesus said, 'you have got to get these ideas about
hearing voices and going crazy out of your head. It's just Me. And I
can talk to anyone I want to, any way I want to.'
'Because you're the Savior,' 'Becka whispered.
'That's right,' Jesus said, and looked down. Below Him, a
couple of animated salad bowls were dancing in appreciation of the
hidden Valley Ranch Dressing which they were about to receive.
'And I'd like you to please turn that crap off, if you don't mind. We
don't need that thing running. Also, it makes My feet tingle.'
'Becka approached the TV and turned it off.
'My Lord,' she whispered.
Now it was Sunday, July 10th. Joe was lying fast asleep out in
the backyard hammock with Ozzie lying limply across him ample
stomach like a black and white fur stole. She stood in the living
room, holding the curtain back with her left hand and looking out at
Joe. Sleeping in the hammock, dreaming of The Hussy, no doubt
dreaming of throwing her down in a great big pile of catalogs from
Carroll Reed and fourth-class junk mail and then how would Joe
and his piggy poker-buddies out it? 'putting the boots to her.'
She was holding the curtain with her left hand because she had
a handful of square nine-volt batteries in her right. She had
bought them yesterday down at the town hardware store. Now she let
the curtain drop and took the batteries into the kitchen, where she was
assembling a little something on the counter. Jesus had told her how
to make it. She told Jesus she couldn't build things. Jesus told her not
to be a cussed fool. If she could follow a recipe, she could build this
little gadget. She was delighted to find that Jesus was absolutely
right. It was not only easy, it was fun. A lot more fun than cooking,
certainly; she had never really had the knack for that. Her cakes
almost always fell and her breads almost never rose. She had begun
this little thing yesterday, working with the toaster, the motor from
