Demons Read Free Page B

window. I washed out some cups. “I see you’ve painted your toenails silver.” I thought of making a joke about how they might be little mirrors allowing me to see up her skirt but decided it would come off more puerile than cute. There were times when it was paradoxically almost sophisticated to be puerile, but this wasn’t one of them.
    “I mean, it must’ve occurred to you,” she was saying, looking through a cluttered drawer for a butter knife, “that this prevailingly negative view of the world could attract negative consequences.”
    “The butter knife is in that peanut butter jar on top of the refrigerator. My negative view of the world—I would only believe it would attract negative consequences if I were superstitious.” I painted on mystical themes, illustrated for magazines about the supernatural, meditated, and prayed—and I was a notorious skeptic. This irritated some believers; others found it refreshing. I was simply convinced that most of what was taken for the supernatural was the product of the imagination. Most but not all. Sufi masters sometimes say that one of the necessary skills for the seeker is the ability to discriminate between superstition working on the imagination and real spiritual contact. “There are plenty of pessimists who are quite successful in life—look at that old geezer who used to be a filmmaker . . . he was just in the news, saying that his application to be part of the rejuvenation experiments was turned down because of some old scandal . . . what’s-his-name. Horn-rim glasses.”
    “Woody Allen, I think. But still, overall, Ira—hand me the bread—overall, people can think themselves into miserable lives.”
    “I’m not so miserable. I’ve got work for a month or two ahead, and I’m playing house at this moment with someone who . . .” Suddenly I didn’t know how to finish. She glanced at me sidelong, and I saw her droop her head so that her hair would swing to hide her smile. I’m an idiot when I try to express anything but bile , I thought. “Anyway,” I went on hastily, “the world needs no help from my bad vibes or whatever you call it. The enormity of the suffering in it . . . Should we use this Red Rose tea or . . . you don’t have English Breakfast or something? Okay, fine, I like Red Rose, too . . . I mean, regarding the world’s own negative vibes, simply look at the news.”
    “Oh no, don’t do that .”
    “Seriously, Melissa—over the last decade or so this country has gotten so corrupt. There was a lot of it already but now we’re becoming like Mexico City. I mean, they discovered thata certain pesticide was causing all these birth defects in the Central Valley—there was a big move to get it banned. But if it was banned the agribusiness and chemicals people would lose money on the poison they kept in reserves. Cut their profit margin. So the ban was killed. And everyone forgot all about it, and the stuff is still choking the ecology out there and no one gives a damn. Then the corruption thing gets worse and worse—the feds just found out that all this federal aid that was supposed to go to vaccinating and blood-testing ghetto kids was stolen by all these people appointed to give it out. They just raked it off and put it in other accounts—they stole millions intended for these kids. . . . And a lot of the people doing the stealing were the same ethnicity as the poor they were supposed to be helping. It wasn’t racism—it was simple corruption. It was greed. It’s like life is a big trough and we’re all looking for a way to elbow in and get at the slops and nothing else matters.”
    “Ira, butter these for me.”
    “Sure. And did you see that thing on PBS about that country in Central America—the big shots running the country decided that the fast money would come from making it into a waste dump for all these other countries that ran out of room. The entire country is a waste dump! The whole thing, a landfill! The guys who