38

Bob had been waiting at City Hall for a half an hour when he reached the front of the line.

"Hi," he said," I'd like to register a new religion."

"Are you claiming a special tax status this year?"

"Nope."

"In that case, you don't have to register."

Bob, blinked, confused. "Is that uhh, federal law? I-"

"Sloan law."

This was like no set of tax rules Bobby had ever heard, but then Sloan City was like no other town he'd ever been to. He had decided, since his strange experience with the magic box, that being able to lift a piano over your head was too good of a skill to waste on a life of small-time pop hits.

There had been much gnashing of teeth when he had told Spector.

"But Bobby! You're a blue jean!"

"I will always be a blue jean," he said, choking up. "But how many blue jeans do you know who can lift 75,000,000 pounds over their heads?"

"Not a lot, I'll admit," said Spector with a respectful whistle. "So what are you gonna do, join the circus?"

"No," Bobby paused. "I was thinking of ... I don't know ... spreading the word."

"What word?"

"Well, I have opinions! Opinions about life. And I was thinking, 'hey, Bobby, you can lift 75,000,000 pounds over your head. You're no ordinary guy! And your opinions are no ordinary opinions.' I 'm starting to feel that I have some kind of true calling.

"And when that box started to hum and I picked up that piano, I could just somehow see myself, I don't know, shaking hands with the Pope or something!"

"The Pope, huh?"

"Yeah, the Pope! The Dalai Lama! It's time I took my place in the ... Mount Rushmore of spiritual bigshots."

"Well hey, it's your life, big guy. But I think you're making a big mistake. Remember 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah'? Remember what a blast that was? 'The Bells'? We can do it all again We - OWWW"

Spector rubbed his bandaged head.

"Careful, Phil, you got a whack when you fainted."

Spector nodded. He lit a cigarette, then immediately stubbed it out.

"Bobby, I just don't see it. That Mt. Rushmore, you know, people like Buddha. Or, um, Allah. Or Jesus. It's heavy company, y'know. And they usually have a book. Do you have a book?"

"I just haven't written it yet."

He slapped his pockets to feel their contents. "Aha-" he said, pulling out a sheath of frayed papers. "I got my first draft right here."

He began to read, and Spector listened for a while, then sat at the piano and improvised music to Bobby's manifesto. It talked primarily about the importance of meditation, with a secondary thread about the importance of treating others as you would wish them to treat you. When Bobby had finished reading, Spector stood up from the piano and closed the lid.

"It's very nice," Spector said, "But I have to tell you, Bobby, it isn't terribly original. I didn't really hear anything I hadn't already heard some place else."

"It's not so much what you say ... it's how you say it."

Spector was bothered by something he couldn't place. He put his fingers on his temples and rubbed them. He recognized the part in the speech about nonviolence, but there was something.

Something else.

"Bobby, about your book ..."

"What about it?"

"Did you write the whole thing yourself? Did you have help? Somebody else wrote parts or-"

"No, Phil, no, don't worry, I wrote it all myself, the box wrote part of it. There's absolutely nothing to worry about, Phil, I wrote the whole book all by myself so you just go back to sleep."

Phil nodded. He felt the cradling bandages, how they folded against each other. He felt tired.