“Yo brain’s so fat, the last time you got a brain fart, it caused a tsunami in China,” she says, guffawing loudly at her own joke.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Well your brain’s so fat, it . . . it probably eats extra servings of chicken nuggets.”
She squints at me. “You didn’t do that right.”
The buzz of an unlocking cell door rings out loudly in the sleeping jail. I look up just as Dr. Wilson walks through the opening door of our cell.
“What the hell?” Angel asks.
“Evening, Angel,” Dr. Wilson says.
“How do you know my name?” she asks. “Never mind. I bet this one’s told you everything about me,” she nods her head toward me, “right down to my pissing schedule.”
He smiles. “Angel, I’d appreciate it if you could go with this kind guard here. I need to speak with Minnow.”
“I’m just sitting here, minding my own business, and a strange man comes in and kicks me out? Of my own home?” she shouts. “That’s violating my rights. I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Get your ass up, Angel,” Benny says from outside the cell, “and I’ll give you a doughnut from the staff lounge.”
Angel considers this. “Fine,” she says. “But I’m still consulting my lawyer.”
When Angel and Benny depart, Dr. Wilson sets down his stool. I swing my legs off the side of my bunk, waiting for him to reveal what was so urgent.
He presses his lips together. “What motivates someone to kill?” he asks.
“You’ve asked me this already.”
“Consider it review.”
“This is why you came here in the middle of the night?”
“We’ll get there. Answer the question.”
“Insanity.”
“And?”
“Anger.”
“And?”
“Revenge.”
He raises his chin. “Elaborate.”
I pause. “Thinking it’s the right thing to do. Believing the person deserves it.”
He nods. “Many would say the Prophet deserved what he got.”
“I’d agree with them,” I say.
“Who else would agree with you?”
“No idea. They all seemed pretty in love with him.”
“What about your father?”
I hitch up my shoulders. “What about him?”
“We have a new theory. That he may have been involved in the Prophet’s death. He may have had motive.”
“What motive?” I ask, incredulous.
“Read this for me, will you?”
He passes over a piece of paper lying flat inside an evidence bag. I immediately recognize the slanted handwriting. It’s my father’s. The paper is stained and creased, each crease a dark line, as though it’s been rubbed repeatedly between dirty fingers.
The True and Faithful Narrative of Samuel Ezekiel Hiram Bly
I look up. “My father’s prophecy.”
“You know of it?” he asks.
“Of course.”
He nods. “I need you to confirm its authenticity.”
I read it.
And lo, upon the factory floor came the strange and woeful noise of the slamming of machines. The quietest things in that place were the souls, clad in blue jumpsuits and yellowing plastic goggles. Suddenly the place, the noise, began to slow, and stopped completely. Everything froze. Never had I heard the factory in such a state of quietude. A sound like pure light filled the room. The archangel descended from the uncovered ceiling where the clotted mustard-colored insulation clung, the angel being righteous and holy and made of a million pinpricks of light, with a face beautiful like a baby’s. The archangel sung me his instructions in a language no human had ever spoken. “You are to follow the Prophet into the woods and never return.”
“It’s his handwriting,” I say. “And it’s the same story he told us. This was sort of what ultimately made everyone decide to come to the Community.”
“Very good. That’s all I needed.” He puts the paper back in his bag and rises from the stool.
“Wait!” I say. “How is this motive?”
He sits down again. “It’s evidence that your father thought himself a prophet, too.”
“You think my father wanted to kill the Prophet to . . . to become the new Prophet?”
“Perhaps.”
“But that’s ridiculous! My father was loyal. Look at everything he did.” I close my eyes, suddenly breathless, picturing the hatchet in my father’s loose hand, the Prophet screaming, “DO IT! DO IT NOW!”
“It’s a possibility I have to entertain,” the doctor says.
“No one would’ve followed my father. No one.”
“Imagine for me that there were some in the Community who were starting to see through the Prophet. Let’s say his lies were starting to show. Let’s say people were becoming less and less satisfied with his answers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The women who escaped are now raising their own children. Some of them still live as sisters beside their husbands’ wives, but they claim their birth children. That’s a direct violation of the Prophet’s orders, is it not?”