I watched her above the newspaper, fascinated by the regularity with which her jaws ground the bits of cake. Her eyes looked past me into some invisible world of pastry.
Then, having finished the report on Cave’s telecast, I put the newspaper down and ate with deliberate finesse my own biscuit. The rustling of the newspaper as it was folded and placed on the table disturbed my companion and, beneath the fat, her will slowly sent out instructions to the extremities. She cleared her throat. Her head lowered. Her chewing stopped; a bit of cake was temporarily lodged in one cheek, held firmly in place by a gaudy plate. Her eyes squinted at the newspaper. She spoke: “Something about that preacher fellow last night?”
“Yes. Would you like to see it?” I pushed the paper toward her.
She looked at the picture, carefully spelling out the words of the headlines with heavy lips and deep irregular breaths. “Did you see him last night?” she asked when her eye finally got to the small print where it stopped, as though halted by a dense jungle.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”
“He sure gave it to them bastards, didn’t he?” Her face lit up joyously; I thought of ça ira.
“You mean the clergy?”
“That’s just what I mean. They had it too good, too long. People afraid to say anything. Takes somebody like him to tell us what we know and tell them where to head-in.”
“Do you like what he said about dying?”
“About there being nothing? Why, hell, mister, I knew it all along.”