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Show Acting Alone Page 337 yelled back over his rounded shoulder at Mother Superior, "This is the real thing! Get the sisters underground!" The entire luncheon-event was spontaneously dismantled. The nuns got up and bused their dishes before evacuating the refectory, most of them being strangely silent, efficient, emotionless and robotic. Along the way some of them threw protective clothing over the several statues of rosy-cheeked saints that occupied niches everywhere. Simone was the only person left sitting. She was looking all around her with deep delight: from Spikey's puzzled blood-hungry eyes, to Sam's cowering shoulders, to the Four Friars in F Major scrambling around up front, to her sisters crossing themselves and hiking up their black skirts. But Simone Stylite herself was not moving. She seemed to have been paralyzed with delight at the chaos. "I have no circulation," she wheezed. "I can't move. And I'm going to boil. It's a kitchen fire, I'm sure. Could you reach me that glass of water, Professor, that I may take my lithium and deep-fry in peace?" She began to cry and laugh at the same time. Spikey, hokey to the core, came immediately to her assistance. He slid his hands under her armpits and snarled at Sam to "grabba holta" the balloon crotches of her soft knees. Sam complied, mostly for the experience. As he strained against her refrigerator-like mass, Sam was surprised that an old Protestant boy like the sarge would care to quell his bloodlust long enough to save a nun. At first the cynical author assumed that it wasn't gallantry, but fear: the traditional fear that all Real Americans feel of Catholics who wear black |