not for them.'
`Who are they?'
`You, buddy, and every guy in a position to change the machine or bust it or quit working on it who doesn't.'
`I'm part of the machine?'
`Every moment you play along with this farce of therapy in this nurse-infested prison, you're driving your nail into the
old cross.'
`But I want to help you, to give you health and happiness.'
`Careful, you'll make me puke.'
'And if I stopped working for the machine?'
`Then there'd be some hope for you. Then I might listen; then you would count.'
But if I leave the system how will I ever see you again?'
`There are visiting hours. And I'm only going to be with you here for a little while.'
We sat in our respective chairs eyeing each other with alert curosity.
`You aren't surprised that I began our session with a prayer or that I am Jesus?'
`You play games. I don't know why, but you do. It makes me hate you less than the others but know I should never
frost you.'
`Do you think you're Christ?'
His eyes shifted away from mine to the sooty window.
`He who has ears to hear let him hear,' he said.
'I'm not sure you love enough,' I said. `I feel that love is the key to it all, and you seem to have hate.'
He returned his gaze to me slowly.
`You might fight, Rhinehart. No games. You must know your friend and love him and know your enemy and attack.'
'That's hard,' I said.
`Just open your eyes. He who has eyes to see, let him see.'
'I'm always seeing good guys and bad guys yo-yoing up and down in the same person. I never see a target. I always
want to forgive, to love.'
`The man behind the machine, Rhinehart, and the man who is part of the machine: they're not hard to see. The lying and cheating and manipulating and killing: you've seen them. Just walk along the street and open your eyes and you won't lack for targets.'
`But do you ask us to kill them?'
`I ask you to fight them. There's a worldwide war on and everybody's drafted and you're either for the machine or
you're against it, a part of it, or getting your balls raked by it every day. Life today is a war whether you want it to be
or not, and so far, Rhinehart, you've been doing your part for the other side.'
`But thou shall love thy enemies,' I said.
`Sure. And thou shall hate evil,' he answered.
`Judge not, that ye be not judged.'
`He who sits on a fence, gets it up his ass,' he replied without smile.
`I lack the fire: I like everybody,' I said sadly.
`You lack the fire.'
`What am I good for then? I wish to be a religious person.'
'A disciple, maybe,' he said.
`One of the twelve?'
`Most likely. You charge thirty bucks an hour?'
Sitting opposite Arturo Toscanini Jones a half hour later I felt depressed and tired and un-Jesusy and didn't say much.
Since as usual Jones was quiet too, we sat there pleasantly isolated in our private worlds until I rustled up enough
energy to try to carry out my role.
`Mr. Jones,' I finally said, looking at his tensed body and frowning fate, `although I agree that you're right not to trust
any white man, try to assume for a moment that I, because perhaps of some neurosis of my own, feel an overwhelming
warmth toward you and want deeply to help you in any way possible. What might I be able to do?'
'Get me out of here,' he said as if he'd been expecting the question.
I considered this. In the twenty or so sessions we'd talked I had found this to be his one all-consuming desire; like a