Bloomsday's gait is different now that each step is tinged with a short, sharp shock of pain, the product of a weekend home improvement injury. How could he have known that, with kitchen cupboards removed for the installation of new hinges, his opening of a waist high drawer would unleash an avalanche of pots and pans, beneath? His big toe, victimized. Such dubious cause and effect, this jostling of things beneath. There are hazards to nesting, too, I suppose, muses Bloomsday as he limps to work in odd syncopation. If there is a lesson it is this: Don't do chores in your bare feet, asshole.
Bloomsday feels the watery vibration of his cell phone against his crucifixion. He pulls the phone out of his breast pocket to see that he is already engaged in a call with his newly-sober friend, Higbee Gaines. "Hey, oops, I must have nipple dialed you..." Bloomsday apologizes.
"No, I called you, but I heard you call someone an asshole just now."
"Oh, yeah, me. I was talking to myself."
"Again? At any rate, I wanted to talk to you about that renegade priest you asked me to talk to. Do you know why he's a renegade?" asks Higbee.
"I'm on a need to know basis. No. I never thought to ask Sister Bernice or Beatrice."
"Well, you definitely need to know this: he blew up The Thinker."
This jostling of things beneath, indeed, Bloomsday muses. "I have know idea what you're talking about, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't be talking about it on my cell phone, sir. Meet me at the Rock Hall. Behind it., where the skate park was."
Bloomsday hates talking on the cell phone about anything important. He is inclined to face to face interactions. Much can be gained from face to face interactions. Much can be lost in a telephone call.
"Listen. It's not like that. They know where he is. They just haven't bothered arresting him. They want him underground. If they arrest him, he'll just be a martyr. So they leave him alone. But they won't let him preside over mass. That's his punishment. Handed down by the Cleveland Police and the Catholic church."
"You're suggesting he's on the Holy Lamb?"
"Yeah, since March 24, 1970."
