Lenore stared at Sykes. “Not my father.”
“Exactly, young Miss. The Father of us all!” Sykes looked around him. “I am the recipient of the mandate which all true humble servants of the Lord pray for, all their miserable lives. Thank you. Thank you.” Sykes made motions toward trying to kiss Lenore’s hand.
“It’s Tissaw,” Candy said wearily. Sykes gave her the fish-eye.
“Andrew Sealander Lang, here, padre,” Lang said to Sykes, taking the Reverend’s pudgy hand from Lenore’s and shaking it. “One of Ms. Beadsman’s closest friends and a deep admirer of her bird, and of your show, sir.”
The Reverend shook Lang’s hand without looking at him. He stared into Lenore’s eyes. Lenore could smell his breath. “Miss Beadsman, you are in a position to aid us in delivering to the American people and to the world the Lord’s true contemporary message, through His chosen feathered vehicle.”
“Look, I’m afraid I just don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Lenore. “There’s a pretty troubling explanation for Vlad’s talking, I’m afraid, that shouldn‘t—”
“The only even remotely problematic problem is that the Lord is moving in such very mysterious ways through your pet that the miraculous little thing isn’t saying quite what requires to be said, quite as quickly as he might, given the extreme expense involved in delivering the message of the Lord these days,”said the Reverend. “The bird in its secular aspect seems to be so understandably caught up in the ecstasy of the Lord’s verbal presence within him that he goes far beyond what actually needs and is proper to be said, given the import of the mission.”
“Little fucker sounds pretty healthy to me,” said Vlad the Impaler, crunching a sunflower seed.
“A case in point,” the Reverend said solemnly to Lenore. “What you find yourself in a position to do is to help the bird deliver the message intended and required. His next line in the relevant initial message is, ‘All contributing subscriptions are tax-deductible.’ ” The Reverend’s smile reached almost to his ears. “If you could simply use your privileged position to reemphasize to the bird the vital importance of his mission, and prompt him to deliver the lines he’s directed by our Father through me to deliver, and also perhaps get him to stop biting the makeup-man…” Sykes gestured toward a pale man with a bandaged hand.
“I still don’t get it,” said Lenore.
“May I, Reverend?” Candy said, trying to ignore something Lang was whispering into her ear.
“By all means.” Sykes folded his arms and tapped a pointed boot on the floor. The director looked at his watch.
“What apparently happened was that Mrs. Tissaw was in here dusting,” Candy said, “two days ago, the day you went right from the switchboard to Clarice’s and then I guess to Rick‘s, ’cause you sure weren’t around, and I was out too, because Nick Allied and I finally…”
“Ahem,” said the Reverend.
“Anyway,” Candy said, “Mrs. Tissaw was in here, and she heard the little… the bird, and he I guess was saying religious stuff…”
“Of the profoundest importance,” Sykes added.
“… and she just had a complete spasm, from excitement, and she called ‘Real People,’ to try to get them to come have a look at him, because he’d supposedly been squawking something about ‘Real People’…”
“Well Candy you know how come he was saying that,” Lenore said.
“We all know tonight,” said Sykes, nodding solemnly. Affirmation-noise swelled from the cigarette smoke above the technicians’ heads.
Candy rolled her eyes. “And I guess ‘Real People’ figured he wasn’t their cup of tea, weird-mixture-of-Biblical-and-obscene-stuff-wise, but the guy in charge told the guy on the phone to tell her to call CBN…”
“Which is of course me,” Sykes said.
“And she did, and they flew somebody out here from the Reverend’s office,” Candy said. “And this was yesterday, when you were obviously totally out of town, and your Dad’s office said your brother didn’t have a phone, and that you were unreachable.”
“LaVache and his stupid lymph node,” muttered Lenore.
“But anyway the guy came and had a look, and I guess Vlad was just in incredible form, that day.”
“As was of course meant from the beginning to be,” said the Reverend.
“And but anyway the guy from ‘Partners With God Club’ saw him, and I guess just did a spiritual back-flip, and spasmed his way over to the phone, with Mrs. Tissaw like wringing her hands for joy beside him…”
“No need to embellish, Cindy,” said Sykes, looking with annoyance over at Wang-Dang Lang, who was at the cage, poking at Vlad the Impaler through the bars with a section of Styrofoam cup, while Vlad eyed him beadily.
“And first the guy tried to call me, at work, to get me to try to call you, at Mrs. Tissaw’s surprisingly considerate suggestion, but I guess they never could get through, because the phone-situation at F and V is still really biting the big wazoo…”
“Ahem,” said Sykes.
“But obviously if you were phoneless I wouldn’t have been able to reach you anyway, but anyway they tried, and then the guy of course called ‘Partners With God Club’ headquarters, and more or less told Father Sykes the story, and I guess they all decided old Vlad was much hotter stuff than just for ’Real Religious People’ or whatever, and the Reverend hightailed it up here from Atlanta… ”
“And the rest you can of course glean from what you see and feel here tonight,” said Sykes. “So then, if you’ll simply indicate to the bird its appointed lines, we can—”
“So it looks like Mrs. Tissaw is who I ought to talk to,” Lenore said. “Because if she thinks she can just put a drugged bird on television, without even—”
“Drugged with the intoxicating overdue message of the very Lord Himself!” Sykes cried. Lang suddenly yelled as Vlad latched onto his finger. The sound-man rushed over to get him loose.
“So where is Mrs. Tissaw, is the big question,” said Lenore. “Maybe I could grab a quick shower, and then she and I could just sit down, and—”
“Mrs. Tissaw is out shopping,” Sykes beamed.
“Father Sykes’s agent gave her a really disturbing amount of money, as like an advance,” said Candy.
“We sow to reap, here in America,” Sykes said, drawing the loudest affirmation yet from the technicians.
“She’s out buying clothes, and girdles, and getting her hair tinted,” Candy said. “She’s getting ready to take Vlad the Impaler down to Atlanta with the Father.”
“She’s going to what?”
“The bird will be the first cohost in the history of the ‘Partners With God Club’!” Sykes cried, pointing a finger at the ceiling. Lang, who was back by Candy with a Kleenex around his finger, looked up to see what Sykes was pointing at.
“Sow to reap!” shrieked Vlad the Impaler.
“Mrs. Tissaw says she gets the bird temporarily in return for the chewed wall, and damage from Vlad pooping on the floor, which she says is more damage than you can pay for,” said Candy. “So she says she’ll temporarily just take Vlad instead. Her husband’s backing her up, just to get her out of town for a while, I think.”
“The bird belongs to the ages, now,” the Reverend said quietly.
“Not legally, though, if you guys want to have things get unpleasant,” Candy said, putting her arm around Lenore, who continued to edge toward the door.
“Of course, Mrs. Simpson needn’t come at all, if you wish as would be only natural to accompany the chosen vehicle yourself into the new epoch it’s made possible,” Sykes said to Lenore.
“Does this mean I don’t get the apartment?” said Lang.