Maurice ignored the question. "Why do you want to die?" he said, instead.

"I don't," Fat said, who honestly believed that he didn't.

"If Sherri didn't have cancer would you want to shack up with her?" Maurice waited and got no answer, mainly because Fat had to admit to himself that, no, he wouldn't. "Why do you want to die?" Maurice repeated.

"Well," Fat said, at a loss.

"Are you a bad person?"

"No," Fat said.

"Is someone telling you to die? A voice? Someone flashing you 'die' messages?"

"No."

"Did your mother want you to die?"

"Well, ever since Gloria -- "

"Fuck Gloria. Who's Gloria? You never even slept with her. You didn't even know her. You were already preparing to die. Don't give me that shit." Maurice, as usual, had begun to yell. "If you want to help people, go up to L.A. and give them a hand at the Catholic Workers' Soup Kitchen, or turn as much of your money over to CARE as you possibly can. Let professionals help people. You're lying to yourself; you're lying that Gloria meant something to you, that what's-her-name -- Sherri -- isn't going to die -- of course she's going to die! That's why you're shacking up with her, so you can be there when she dies. She wants to pull you down with her and you want her to; it's a collusion between the two of you. Everybody who comes in this door wants to die. That's what mental illness is all about. You didn't know that? I'm telling you. I'd like to hold your head under water until you fought to live. If you didn't fight, then fuck it. I wish they'd let me do it. Your friend who has cancer -- she got it on purpose. Cancer represents a deliberate failure of the immune system of the body; the person turns it off. It's because of loss, the loss of a loved one. See how death spreads out? Everyone has cancer cells floating around in their bodies, but their immune system takes care of it."

"She did have a friend who died," Fat admitted. "He had a grand mal seizure. And her mother died of cancer."

"So Sherri felt guilty because her friend died and her mother died. You feel guilty because Gloria died. Take responsibility for your own life for a change. It's your job to protect yourself."

Fat said, "It's my job to help Sherri."

"Let's see your list. You better have that list."

Handing over his list of the ten things he most wanted to do, Fat asked himself silently if Maurice had all his marbles. Surely Sherri didn't want to die; she had put up a stubborn and brave fight; she had endured not only the cancer but the chemotherapy.

"You want to walk on the beach at Santa Barbara," Maurice said, examining the list. "That's number one."

"Anything wrong with that?" Fat said, defensively.

"No. Well? Why don't you do it?"

"Look at number two," Fat said. "I have to have a pretty girl with me."

Maurice said, "Take Sherri."

"She -- " He hesitated. He had, as a matter of fact, asked Sherri to go to the beach with him, up to Santa Barbara to spend a weekend at one of the luxurious beach hotels. She had answered that her church work kept her too busy.

"She won't go," Maurice funished for him. "She's too busy. Doing what?"

"Church."

They looked at each other.

"Her life won't differ much when her cancer returns," Maurice said finally. "Does she talk about her cancer?"

"Yes."

"To clerks in stores? Everyone she meets?"

"Yes."

"Okay, her life will differ; shell get more sympathy. She'll be better off."

With difficulty, Fat said, "One time she told me -- " He could barely say it. "That getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her. Because then -- "

"The Federal Government funded her."

"Yes." He nodded.

"So she'll never have to work again. I presume she's still drawing SSI even though she's in remission."

"Yeah," Fat said glumly.

"They're going to catch up with her. They'll check with her doctor. Then she'll have to get a job."

Fat said, with bitterness, "She'll never get a job."

"You hate this girl," Maurice said. "And worse, you don't respect her. She's a girl bum. She's a rip-off artist. She's ripping you off, emotionally and financially. You're supporting her, right? And she also gets the SSI. She's got a racket, the cancer racket. And you're the mark." Maurice regarded him sternly. "Do you believe in God?" he asked suddenly.

You can infer from this question that Fat had cooled his Godtalk during his therapeutic sessions with Maurice. He did not intend to wind up in North Ward again.

"In a sense," Fat said. But he couldn't let it lie there; he had to amplify. "I have my own concept of God," he said. "Based on my own -- " He hesitated, envisioning the trap built from his words; the trap bristled with barbed wire. "Thoughts," he finished.

"Is this a sensitive topic with you?" Maurice said.

Fat could not see what was coming, if anything. For example, he did not have access to his North Ward files and he did not know if Maurice had read them -- or what they contained.

"No," he said.

"Do you believe man is created in God's image?" Maurice said.

"Yes," Fat said.

Maurice, raising his voice, shouted, "Then isn't it an offense against God to ice yourself? Did you ever think of that?"

"I thought of that," Fat said. "I thought of that a lot."

"Well? And what did you decide? Let me tell you what it says in Genesis, in case you've forgotten. ' Then God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all --" '"

"Okay," Fat broke in, "but that's the creator deity, not the true God."

"What?" Maurice said.

Fat said, "That's Yaldabaoth. Sometimes called Samael, the blind god. He's deranged."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Maurice said.

"Yaldaboath is a monster spawned by Sophia who fell from the Pleroma," Fat said. "He imagines he's the only god but he's wrong. There's something the matter with him; he can't see. He creates our world but because he's blind he botches the job. The real God sees down from far above and in his pity sets to work to save us. Fragments of light from the Pleroma are -- "

Staring at him, Maurice said, "Who made up this stuff? You?"

"Basically," Fat said, "my doctrine is Valentinian, second century c.e."

"What's 'c.e.'?"

"Common Era. The designation replaces a.d. Valentinus's Gnosticism is the more subtle branch as opposed to the Iranian, which of course was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism dualism. Valentinus perceived the ontological salvific value of the gnosis, since it reversed the original primal condition of ignorance, which represents the state of the fall, the impairment of the Godhead which resulted in the botched creation of the phenomenal or material world. The true God, who is totally transcendent, did not create the world. However, seeing what Yaldaboath had done -- "

"Who's this 'Yaldaboath? Yahweh created the world! It says so in the Bible!"

Fat said, "The creator deity imagined that he was the only god; that's why he was jealous and said, 'You shall have no other gods before me,' to which -- "

Maurice shouted, "Haven't you read the Bible?"

After a pause, Fat tried another turn. He was dealing with a religious idiot. "Look," he said, as reasonably as possible. "A number of opinions exist as to the creation of the world. For instance, if you regard the world as artifact -- which it may not be; it may be an organism, which is how the ancient Greeks regarded it -- you still can't reason back to a creator; for instance, there may have been a number of creators at several times. The Buddhist idealists point this out. But even if -- "

"You've never read the Bible," Maurice said with incredulity. "You know what I want you to do? And I mean this. I want you to go home and study the Bible. I want you to read Genesis over twice; you hear me? Two times. Carefully. And I want you to write an outline of the main ideas and events in it, in descending order of importance. And when you show up here next week I want to see that list." He obviously was genuinely angry.