Lamp of Testimony

Agent Calf adjusted his tie in the one-way mirror. Agent Clobber sat heavy in the corner, a lump of clay, scowling at nothing in particular. The interrogation room blinked, dim and musty, lit by a single swinging lamp.

At the table, DerLeone. Jaw angular, cow-like as he masticated his own saliva, lips tight and dry. He hadn’t shaved in a week, buried in a damp precinct cell to “loosen up,” as Clobber had told him, boot heel to ass. He had loosened up enough. Now it was time to apply the final twist.

“Make it easy on all of us,” Calf said, still adjusting his tie. Neither he nor DerLeone caught eyes in the reflection. “You tell us what you know, and we cut a nice deal when we reach the truth.”

DerLeone sniffed, arms folded across his chest.

“Hell, tell us enough, maybe you walk away clean, go home to that family of yours.”

Silence. Calf turned, looked at Clobber—an absent lump—then fixed his dark eyes on DerLeone. “What’s wrong, DerLeone? A week in the cell and you forget how to move your tongue?”

“Want me to move it for him, Calf?”

“That won’t be necessary, Clobber.” Calf sat at the powder-yellow table, opposite DerLeone. “At least not yet. I think our friend here is just finding his words.”

“I ain’t know nothin’,” DerLeone grumbled.

“He talks! See! You can forget about getting your power tools, Clobber. It looks like the problem fixed itself.”

“Only problem I got is the current company.”

“Oh!” Calf put his hand to his chest, the air of an offended aristocrat. “Dear me, we’re not your preferred company? We can take you back to the cell, just say the word. You can drink herbal tea with your fellow rats and slugs. But I gotta warn you, we’re out of tea.”

“You got a smart mouth.”

“It comes with the smart brain. Now, how about we stop this dance and you tell me a little more about that world you go mucking about in day to day.”

“What’s to tell?” DerLeone shifted his gaze between Calf and Clobber. “You know just as much about it as me. You two in the same situation.”

Calf leaned back. “And what situation is that?”

“Locked down.”

“Heh, okay,” Calf said. “Looks to me like you’re the only one in bars. Locked down where?”

“The Material.”

“The Material, eh?”

“Don’t go actin’ all stupid on my account, pig boy.”

Clobber lurched forward. Calf held him back with an open palm. “It’s all right, we’re all friends here, pig or otherwise. Enlighten me, DerLeone. Pretend I’m stupid. You claim we’re all locked in some sort of... ‘Material’ world?”

“You. Me. The table. That lamp. Your fat friend in the corner,”—Clobber grunted—“all of us, wooden dolls. Things and stuff. Some of you fools like it that way.”

“And you don’t?”

“Course I don’t!” DerLeone threw up his arms. “You think it’s all fun and games bein’ stuck in the Material like this? The fuggin’ dust used to make my beatin’ heart bein’ the same shit as a chunk of rock or a-a... or a cock-a-roach!?”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Shit...” DerLeone lowered his gaze. “This what you have me in here ‘bout? You pigs may as well just drag me back to the tank.”

“You keep saying ‘Material world’...”

“So?”

“That implies there’s some other world, something not Material.”

“No shit.” DerLeone nodded at Clobber. “Your partner always pretend to be this dull, big guy?”

Clobber didn’t react.

“Humor me,” Calf said.

“Course there’s another world.”

“What’s it called?”

“Why you need a name for everything? You gonna tuck it into yer cabinets? Organize it alphabetically? It don’t need no name.”

“Just for the sake of this conversation, let’s call it something.”

“Pshht.”

“What do your gang buddies call it?”

“What’s it matter to you?”

“The Immaterial? The Fantastical? The Make-believe?”

DerLeone rolled his eyes. “The Spiritual. I ain’t expect a bacon-brain like you to know nothin’ ‘bout it, all wrapped up in petty mundanities like that’s all there is.”

“And this Spiritual world, as you call it... it’s separate from the Material world?”

“Course it is. The Spiritual is the non-material essence of existence, dawg.”

“So they’re separate?”

“Sure.”

Calf crossed his arms and smirked. “Hmph, if the Spiritual world is completely separate, what’s the difference between it not existing at all?”

“What? The hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“If there’s a casino that has no employees, no gamblers, no infrastructure, no one can find it... how is that different from there being no casino? What good is it to anyone to say it exists?”

“Pssshh... you pigs always tryin’-a corner people with yer semantic bullshit.” DerLeone scraped his dirty fingernails along his gravelly chin. Flakes of dandruff sprinkled his shirt. “Sure, look. Course there’s a connection between the Material and the Spiritual. I mean, we talkin’, ain’t we?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Without a spirit, I ain’t nothing but a load of carbon and hydrogen, y’understand? It’s my spirit, see, that gives me the animating force, the freedom of will.”

“You said earlier you were made of the same stuff as rocks.”

“I am, I am. And so are you. But we got somethin’ a rock don’t have—at least no rock I ever met. We got a spirit.”

“You said this was the Material world. How can we have a spirit?”

DerLeone let out a laugh. “Ha! You must be fuggin’ with me now.” He leaned back in his chair, shoulders wide, hands hanging loose at his sides. “The Material world and the Spiritual world ain’t places, pig-for-brains. You can’t walk over to the Spiritual world like it’s Chicago. The Material and the Spiritual is planes of being. My spirit—my Immaterial Self—is walking me ‘round like a meat suit. Fools like you forget that, think this is all there is, think you is the suit, the meat. Maybe a couple of you feel yer spirit sometimes, but there’s more to it. A whole lot more.”

“Still sounds to me like the Material and the Spiritual are the same, DerLeone.”

“Nah, course not. One day you’ll see. You’ll get blasted in a shoot-out, stabbed in an alley—no, don’t look at me like that, I ain’t wishin’ anythin’ on ya—but one day it’ll happen. And when it does, yer matter and spirit will get all dis-attached like, and BAM! You’ll get it. You’ll be in the Spiritual, and you’ll be lookin’ at the Material like it was a jail cell.”

“You talking straight, DerLeone?”

DerLeone raised his hands. “I swear it. Straight as an arrow.”

“You’ve been in and out of the precinct at least a dozen times over the last two years. How can we know you’re reliable?”

“I wouldn’t lie ‘bout this,” DerLeone said. “I swear it on my mother.”

“What do you think, Clobber?”

Clobber readjusted in his chair, fat eyes squinted, looking DerLeone up and down. He rested his hands on his knees. “I dunno, Calf... something just don’t add up.”

“Right? Something’s fishy.”

DerLeone chuckled. “Something’s piggy, more like.”

Calf ignored him. Instead, he brought a briefcase from the floor to the table and laid out several thin stacks of papers.

“What’s all this?” DerLeone asked.

“I call it... evidence.”

DerLeone glanced nervously from paper to paper, then around the room. Beads of sweat oiled his forehead. “Evidence of what?”

“You’re looking a little shaken up, DerLeone. Something you want to tell me before I start reading these files?”

“I-I ain’t got nothin’ to hide. Everything I told you guys, it’s the... the truth.”

“Well, then, how do you explain... this!”

Calf slid a large, glossy photograph across the table. The photo had been taken from a distance, aimed at a hotel window with wispy egg-white curtains. A man and a woman sat cross-legged, eyes closed, heads bent at a soft angle. Between them was a potted plant.

“W-what am I lookin’ at here?”

“Oh,” Calf said,” you don’t recognize them?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“I would hope so. It wouldn’t be like you, DerLeone, to forget the face of your own brother!”

DerLeone snatched up the image, holding it close to his face. “F-franky?”

“That’s him all right. And you see who's with him?”

“That’s Celine. His wife. I saw ‘em both last month. We was at gramma’s eatin’ dinner with the fam. What they doin’ with that plant?”

“They’re thanking it.”

Calf waited. DerLeone rested the image on the table, rubbing his greasy forehead with his palm. “I don’t get it. Plants is Material. They ain’t got no spirit.”

“That’s not what your brother says. Nor his wife. They told us this plant has a spirit of its own, like you or me.”

DerLeone looked up, shock in his eyes. “That can’t be. Why would he say that?”

“I dunno,” Calf shrugged. “Maybe your family isn’t as tight as you think.”

“I just don’t understand it.”

“When we brought him in for questioning, he spilled open like a broken dam. Told us all sorts of interesting things. He says that all things have spirits. Animals, trees, clouds, rain. Even rocks.”

“You’re bluffing,” DerLeone said. “You gotta be. Ain’t no way my brother said all that.”

“I swear it..” Calf raised two fingers in the air, the boy scout salute. “Scout’s honor. We have the evidence all right here. Reports. Pictures. See for yourself. This one’s from just three days ago. Franky and Celine are about to have dinner,” he tapped another photograph, “and they’re thanking their window garden for the herbs it provided to the meal.”

DerLeone’s mouth hung slack. It took him a full minute to find his words. “I can’t believe it, my own flesh and blood, worshipin’ a basil.”

“Looks like you two should have gotten your story straight before we called you in.”

“This still don’t mean nothin’,” DerLeone said, regaining his composure. “Sure, maybe we got ourselves a few more spirits than we anticipated. It ain’t change the facts of the Material and Spiritual world.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Course not.”

“So you’re sticking to that story?”

“Ain’t no other story to stick to, s’far as I’m concerned.”

Calf stood carefully, hand in chin, pacing thoughtfully along the width of the room. “You see, this is what bugs me. You tell me that there are two ‘worlds,’ the Material and the Spiritual—”

“Don’t get too hung up on the nomenclatures, homey. It don’t need to be called one thing or another.”

“Sure, sure. But that’s beside the point. You claim there is the Material and the Spiritual—however you want to say it—and that they are different, but connected. There are Material things, like my shoe. There are Spiritual things, like... well, let’s not get into that just yet. But then there are things like you and me, Material things with Spiritual presence.”

“What you gettin’ at?”

“It seems to me that, if your brother and sister-in-law are telling me the truth, every Material has a Spiritual presence.”

“And?”

“Which means there is no Material without the Spiritual. In which case, the Material and the Spiritual are the same, and there isn’t a meaningful distinction!”

DerLeone stood up and slammed his hands on the table. “You’d better watch what yer gettin’ at, pig boy! Just ‘cause my brother’s a little off in the head don’t mean I ain’t tellin’ you the cold hard truth!”

“That so?” Calf turned to Clobber. “What are the chances there’s only one liar in a family, Agent Clobber?”

“Zero chance, Agent Calf.”

“You accuse me of lyin’ one more time and see if I don’t smack that—”

Clobber rushed over to DerLeone, pinning his arms behind his back. DerLeone struggled fruitlessly, like a salmon caught between a bear’s paws. Eventually he settled back into place. Clobber returned to his corner but stayed standing, arms folded.

“I ain’t lyin’...” DerLeone whispered, his chin to his chest. 

“That’s what they all say, DerLeone. But you know what I think?”

“What’s that?”

“I think there’s nothing to this Spiritual world of yours. I think it’s all an elaborate fabrication.”

“Just ‘cause you ain’t able to perceive it, don’t mean it ain’t there.”

“Sure, sure. That’s true. But what about this? You tell me this is the Material world, full of non-spiritual things. You tell me that there is a Spiritual world, full of non-material things. That’s two worlds. Who’s to say there isn’t some third world, one that is both non-material and non-spiritual?”

“Now yer just talkin’ nonsense.”

“Am I? How is it any more unbelievable than the tale you’re weaving? Just because you can’t see this third world, a non-material, non-spiritual world... ‘don’t mean it ain’t there,’ as you said.”

“I don’t care ‘bout no pretend ‘third world’ or whatever. So what if there is? It has no effect on me, it may as well not even...”

“It may as well not even exist?”

“Pshhht, yer bullshit traps. I ain’t fallin’ for it. The Material is real, and the Spiritual is real, and that’s all that matters.”

“Have you witnessed this Spiritual world?”

“Nah, it ain’t like that. You still caught up in Material logic. The Spiritual has different properties, man.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, its immaterial-ness is a key property. If it ain’t Material, it’s Spiritual, y’understand me? Somethin’ that exists without bein’ made of bacteria and bugs a molecules and all that shit.”

“Are dreams made of material?”

“This another trick question?”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Dreams are immaterial, I s’pose.”

“So then, dreams are spiritual?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“And what about concepts? Archetypes? Ideas?”

“Maybe.”

“Information? Data?” Calf leaned forward. “What about... imagination?”

“What you gettin’ at?”

“Is it possible the world of the Spiritual and the world of the Imaginary are the same?”

“There is no ‘Imaginary’ world, only the Material and the Spiritual.”

“So where does imagination fit in?”

“Fine, Captain Smart-ass, I take it back. Dreams are Material. They’re created by the firin’ of synapses in the brain, which makes imagination a result of the physical properties of the Material. Maybe dreams and imagination are guided by the Spiritual, but the result is homogeneous to the Material. You happy?”

“I’m not.” Calf ruffled the photographs into one pile, preparing to put them back into his briefcase. “Here I am, trying to strike a good deal with you, and your story keeps changing.”

“My story’s the same as it’s always been, man. I’m just... a little fuzzy on the details, is all.”

“Maybe you need another week in the cell until your memory clears up.”

“C’mon, man!” DerLeone clasped his hands together. “Don’t do it to me like this. I’m givin’ you guys all the information there is. I got a family, you know? What’ll my kids think, comin’ home day after day, daddy in jail?”

“You should have thought about that before you got mixed up in all this.”

“It ain’t my fault! My family’s been dealin’ this way since I was suckin’ milk!”

“I’ve heard it all before.”

“It’s the real deal.”

“And you don’t know any other way, right?”

“That ain’t no crime, is it?”

Calf let out a long, wet sigh. “No, no it’s not.” He set his badge on the table. It flickered meekly in the yellow light of the ceiling lamp. “You know why I became an investigator, DerLeone?”

“‘Cause yer parents were pig farmers?”

“Funny. But no. It’s because I set out to learn the truth. I got scum like you going in and out all day, every day, each singing their own song, dishing me their own so-called ‘facts.’ Sure, some of them corroborate with your version of things, I’ll admit that. But some don’t. Most don’t. There’s always some new story, some new little contradiction that brings this whole investigation screeching to a halt.”

“Maybe yer bad at yer job.”

“Maybe... maybe. But it’s my job nonetheless. I don’t expect jokers like you to understand it.”

Calf locked eyes with DerLeone. They sat in silence, Calf tapping his fingers on the table in a jazzy syncopation. Thirty seconds passed, then forty, then a minute.

“You know, maybe that cell ain’t soundin’ so bad no more.”

“All right, fine,” Calf said. “Take him back to his cell.”

The interrogation room door opened. Two men in suits cuffed DerLeone’s hands behind his back and escorted him out.

Agent Calf sank backward in his aluminum chair. Clobber lit a cigarette, then offered one to Calf.

“Whadda we think?” Clobber asked.

“False lead. He doesn’t know anything.”

“We going to loosen him up another week?”

“Naaaah,”Calf said, leaning forward, taking a long drag. “Let him go home to his family. They need him more than we do. We’ll get the truth eventually, one way or another.”

“What next?”

“We keep asking until we get the answers.” Calf finished packing his briefcase, set it on the floor, then walked to the one-way mirror to adjust his tie. “Bring in the next informant.”

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Sources:

• Image: WIX