"That's bullshit," Sherri said.

Fat said, "You mean this Britannica is wrong or the Bible is wrong? The Britannica is just -- "

"The Bible doesn't say that," Sherri said, who read the Bible all the time, or at least had a copy of it always with her.

It took Fat hours to find the citation in Luke; finally he had it, to set before Sherri:

"His disciples asked him what this parable might mean, and he said, 'The mysteries of the kingdom of God are revealed to you; for the rest there are only parables, so that they might see but not perceive, listen but not understand.'" (Luke 8:9/10).

"I'll ask Larry if that's one of the corrupt parts of the Bible," Sherri said.

Pissed off, Fat said irritably, "Sherri, why don't you cut out all the sections of the Bible you agree with and paste them together? And not have to deal with the rest."

"Don't be snippy," Sherri said, who was hanging up clothes in her tiny closet.

Nonetheless, Fat imagined that basically he and Sherri shared a commond [sic] bond. They both agreed that God existed; Christ had died to save man; people who didn't believe this didn't know what was going on. He had confided to her that he had seen God, news which Sherri received placidly (at that moment she had been ironing).

"It's called a theophany," Fat said. "Or an epiphany."

"An epiphany," Sherri said, pacing her voice to the rate of her slow ironing, "is a feast celebrated on January sixth, marking the baptism of Christ. I always go. Why don't you go? It's a lovely service. You know, I heard this joke -- " She droned on. Hearing this, Fat was mystified. He decided to change the subject; now Sherri had switched to an account of an instance when Larry -- who was Father Minter to Fat -- had poured the sacramental wine down the front of a kneeling female communicant's low-cut dress.

"Do you think John the Baptist was an Essene?" he asked Sherri.

Never at any time did Sherri Solvig admit she didn't know the answer to a theological question; the closest she came surfaced in the form of responding, "I'll ask Larry." To Fat she now said calmly, "John the Baptist was Elijah who returns before Christ comes. They asked Christ about that and he said John the Baptist was Elijah who had been promised."

"But was he an Essene."

Pausing momentarily in her ironing, Sherri said, "Didn't the Essenes live in the Dead Sea?"

"Well, at the Qumran Wadi."

"Didn't your friend Bishop Pike die in the Dead Sea?" Fat had known Jim Pike, a fact he always proudly narrated to people given a pretext. "Yes," he said. "Jim and his wife had driven out onto the Dead Sea Desert in a Ford Cortina. They had two bottles of Coca-Cola with them; that's all."

"You told me," Sherri said, resuming her ironing.

"What I could never figure out," Fat said, "is why they didn't drink the water in the car radiator. That's what you do when your car breaks down in the desert and you're stranded." For years Fat had brooded about Jim Pike's death. He imagined that it was somehow tied in with the murders of the Kennedys and Dr. King, but he had no evidence whatsoever for it.

"Maybe they had anti-freeeze in their radiator," Sherri said.

"In the Dead Sea Desert?"

Sherri said, "My car has been giving me trouble. The man at the Exxon station on Seventeenth says that the motor mounts are loose. Is that serious?"

Not wanting to talk about Sherri's beat-up old car but wanting instead to rattle on about Jim Pike, Fat said, "I don't know." He tried to think how to get the topic back to his friend's perplexing death but could not.

"That damn car," Sherri said.

"You didn't pay anything for it; that guy gave it to you."

"'Didn't pay anything'? He made me feel like he owned me for giving me that damn car."

"Remind me never to give you a car," Fat said.

All the clues lay before him that day. If you did something for Sherri she felt she should feel gratitude -- which she did not -- and this she interpreted as a burden, a despised obligation. However, Fat had a ready rationalization for this, which he had already begun to employ. He did not do things for Sherri to get anything back; ergo, he did not expect gratitude. Ergo, if he did not get it that was okay.

What he failed to notice that not only was there no gratitude (which he could psychologically handle) but downright malice showed itself instead. Fat had noted this but had written it off as nothing more than irritability, a form of impatience. He could not believe that someone would return malice for assistance. Therefore he discounted the testimony of his senses.

Once, when I lectured at the University of California at Fullerton, a student asked me for a short, simple definition of reality. I thought it over and answered, "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."

Fat did not believe that Sherri returned malice for assistance given her. But that failure to believe changed nothing. Therefore her response lay within the framework of what we call "reality." Fat, whether he liked it or not, would in some way have to deal with it, or else stop seeing Sherri socially.

One of the reasons Beth left Fat stemmed from his visits to Sherri at her rundown room in Santa Ana. Fat had deluded himself into believing that he visited her out of charity. Actually he had become horny, due to the fact that Beth had lost interest in him sexually and he was not, as they say, getting any. In many ways Sherri struck him as pretty; in fact Sherri was pretty; we all agreed. During her chemotherapy she wore a wig. David had been fooled by the wig and often complimented her on her hair, which amused her. We regarded this as macabre, on both their parts.

In his study of the form that masochism takes in modern man, Theodor Reik puts forth an interesting view. Masochism is more widespread than we realize because it takes an attenuated form. The basic dynamism is as follows: a human being sees something bad which is coming as inevitable. There is no way he can halt the process; he is helpless. This sense of helplessness generates a need to gain some control over the impending pain -- any kind of control will do. This makes sense; the subjective feeling of helplessness is more painful than the impending misery. So the person seizes control over the situation in the only way open to him: he connives to bring on the impending misery; he hastens it. This activity on his part promotes the false impression that he enjoys pain. Not so. It is simply that he cannot any longer endure the helplessness or the supposed helplessness. But in the process of gaining control over the inevitable misery he becomes, automatically, anhedonic (which means being unable or unwilling to enjoy pleasure). Anhedonia sets in stealthily. Over the years it takes control of him. For example, he learns to defer gratification; this is a step in the dismal process of anhedonia. In learning to defer gratification he experiences a sense of self-mastery; he has become stoic, disciplined; he does not give way to impulse. He has control. Control over himself in terms of his impulses and control over the external situation. He is a controlled and controlling person. Pretty soon he has branched out and is controlling other people, as part of the situation. He becomes a manipulator. Of course, he is not consciously aware of this; all he intends to do is lessen his own sense of impotence. But in his task of lessening this sense, he insidiously overpowers the freedom of others. Yet, he derives no pleasure from this, no positive psychological gain; all his gains are essentially negative.

Sherri Solvig had had cancer, lymphatic cancer, but due to valiant efforts by her doctors she had gone into remission. However, encoded in the memory-tapes of her brain was the datum that patients with lymphoma who go into remission usually eventually lose their remission. They aren't cured; the ailment has somehow mysteriously passed from a palpable state into a sort of metaphysical state, a limbo. It is there but it is not there. So despite her current good health, Sherri (her mind told her) contained a ticking clock, and when the clock chimed she would die. Nothing could be done about it, except the frantic promotion of a second remission. But even if a second remission were obtained, that remission, too, by the same logic, the same inexorable process, would end.