Beside me Biff had arched her back and was showing her teeth toward the dogs and I realized that it was probably not me but Biff beside me that they were staring at.
The people were older than I, as well as larger. Their stares were well past the limits of Privacy, but more curious than hostile. But their knives were long and frightening.
My mouth was still half full of the beans. I chewed a moment and then said, “I’m eating. I was hungry.”
“What you’re eating,” the man said, “belongs to me.”
The woman spoke up. “To us,” she said. “To the family.”
Family. I had never heard anyone use that word, except in a film.
The man ignored her. “Which town are you from, mister?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m from Ohio.”
“He could be from Eubank,” the woman said. “He looks like he might be a Dempsey. They’re all kind of thin.”
I managed to swallow the last of the beans in my mouth.
“Or a Swisher,” the man said. “Out of Ocean City.”
Suddenly Biff turned from the dogs and leapt across the counter she was standing on and ran—faster than I had ever seen her rundown the counter tops away from us. The dogs had turned to follow with their eyes, straining at their leashes. The man and woman ignored her.
“Which of the seven towns do you come from?” the man said. “And why are you breaking the law by eating our food?”
“And,” the woman said, “violating our sanctuary in here?”
“I’ve never heard of the seven towns,” I said. “I’m a stranger, passing through. I was hungry and when I found this place I came in. I didn’t know it was a… a sanctuary.”
The woman stared at me. “You don’t know a church of the living God when you see one?”
I looked around me, at the aisles covered with plastic-sealed merchandise, at the racks of colored clothing and electronic equipment and rifles and golf clubs and jackets.. “But this is no church,” I said. “This is a store.”
They said nothing for quite a long while. One of the dogs, apparently tired of staring after the direction Biff had left in, settled itself down on the floor and yawned. The other began sniffing at the man’s feet.
Then the man said, “That’s blasphemy. You’ve already blasphemed by eating holy food without permission.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea…”
Abruptly he stepped forward and took me by the arm in what was an extremely strong grip and he held the point of his knife to my stomach. While he was doing this the woman, moving very quickly for her size, stepped over to the counter and took the hatchet I had been using. She had, I suppose, expected me to try defending myself with it.
I was terrified and said nothing. The man put his knife in his belt, stepped behind me, brought my arms together behind my back, and told the woman to get him some rope. She went over to a counter several rows away where there was a large roll of Synlon cord and cut off a piece with her knife, leaving the hatchet there. She brought it to him and he tied my hands together. The dogs watched all this languidly. I was beginning to pass beyond fear into some sort of calmness. I had seen things of this sort on television, and I was beginning to feel that the situation was one that I was merely watching, as though there were no real danger to me. But my heart was pounding wildly and I could feel myself trembling. Yet somehow my mind had moved above this and I felt a calmness. I wondered what had become of But—and what would become of her.
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“I am going to fulfill the scripture,” he said. “He who blasphemes my holy place shall be cast into the lake of fire that burneth forever.”
“Jesus Christ!” I said. I don’t know why I said that. Possibly it was the Bible language that the man had used.
“What did you say?” the woman said.
“I said, ‘Jesus Christ.’”
“Who told you that name?”
“I learned it from the Bible,” I said. I did not mention Mary Lou, nor did I mention the man who, burning in immolation, had shouted the name of Jesus.
“What Bible?” she said.
“He’s lying,” the man said. And then to me, “Show me that Bible.”
“I don’t have it anymore,” I said. “I had to leave it…”
The man just stared at me.
Then they took me out into the grand hallway of the Mall where the fountain was, past stores and restaurants and meditation parlors and a place with a sign that said:
As we passed a large shop with a sign that read: DISPENSARY, the man slowed down and said, “The way you’re shaking, mister, I guess you could use some help.” He pushed open the door of the shop and we came into a place with rows and rows of large sealed jars filled with pills of all sizes and shapes. He walked up to one that said “SOPORS: Non-addictive. Fertility-inhibiting” on it, reached into his pants pocket and took out a handful of old and faded credit cards, selected a blue card from the pack, and slipped it into the mechanical slot at the bottom of the jar on the counter.
The glass jars were some kind of primitive dispenser—certainly not as sleek and quick as the store machinery I was accustomed to —such as in the place on Fifth Avenue where I had bought Mary Lou that yellow dress. It took it at least a minute of clicking over the card before returning it, and then a half minute before the metal door in the base opened and dispensed a handful of blue pills.
The man scooped them up and said, “How many sopors you want, mister?”
I shook my head. “I don’t use them,” I said.
“You don’t use them? What in hell do you use?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Not for a long time.”
The woman spoke up. “Mister, in about ten minutes you’re going into the lake of fire that burneth forever. I’d take ever damn one of them pills.”
I said nothing.
The man shrugged. He took one of the pills himself, handed one to the woman, and put the rest in his pocket.
We walked out of the shop, leaving its rows of hundreds of bottles and jars of pills, and as we left, the automatic lighting in the shop went off behind us.
We turned a corner and a new fountain came on, with lights and with new, softer music. It was, if anything, larger than the first.
On either side of us now were stainless-steel walls, with occasional doorways. Over each doorway was a sign that read:
or
“Who sleeps in those places?” I said.
“Nobody,” the woman said. “They was for the ancients. Those of old.”
“How ancient?” I said. “How old?”
The woman shook her head. “The ancient of days. When they was giants in the earth and they feared the wrath of the Lord.”
“They feared the rain of fire from Heaven,” the man said. “And they didn’t trust Jesus. The rain of fire never come, and the ancients died.”
We passed by more and more sleeping quarters, and by at least a half mile of stainless-steel walls merely marked STORAGE, and then, finally, we came to the dead end of the corridor, where there was a massive door with a sign in red: POWER SOURCE: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
The man had taken a small metal plate from his pocket. He held it against a matching rectangle in the center of the door and said, “The key to the Kingdom.”