| OCR Text |
Show Acting Alone Page 420 Chapter Twenty-Two He insisted on calling her Sister Polycarpana even at this late date: it had taken him this long to learn her name, and he wasn't about to relinquish his grasp on it so easily. "I know you care about other people," she said, apropos of nothing. "So why don't you just be your natural self and devote some of your energy to working for social justice? It's really the most important, the only important part of life, the only salvation. It could make you a much happier person." When Sister Polycarpana's curiosity about what in God's name was going on here got too much for her to bear, she always slipped into her strident social activist voice and asked such questions, liberally interspersing them with references to his "energies" and his "talents." She'd be trying to ply his vanity, to bring him out of his sullen torpor that he might say something indiscreet about his strange presence in the Holly Sugar Building. Here he was living the life of a pampered baby in a womb with a full-city view, his meals and his George Dickel sourmash, his reference books, speed and antibiotics delivered up to him on a velveteen laptray, with no responsibilities but to call forth the "remarkable energies" that old Dr. Abraham had told Sam's agent about so long ago in the English department - back when English departments had seemed like possible places for Sam to take refuge from the world in. And Sister Polycarpana, who'd always had to get |
