“Man by man, or should I say gook by gook, they are very beautiful, truly. So brave they must be tripping, and a lot of them no older than little Nellie, right? As a bunch, I never could dig what they was all about, except that we was white or black as the case may be, and they was yellow, and had got there first, right? Otherwise I can’t say they made a great deal of sense, since the people they most liked to castrate and string up and bury in ditches alive and make that kind of scene with was yellow like them, right? So I would consider them one more facet of the confusion of false prophecy by which you may recognize My coming in this the fullness of time. However. However, I confess that politics being part of this boring power thing do not much turn me on. Things human turn me on, right? You too, right, Chuck? Here she is.”

Jill has drifted in. Her skin looks tight on her face.

Rabbit asks her, “Hungry? Make yourself a peanut-butter sandwich. That’s what we had to do.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Trying to be Skeeter, Rabbit goads her. “Christ, you should be. You’re skinny as a stick. What the hell kind of piece of ass are you, there’s nothing there anymore? Why you think we keep you here?”

She ignores him and speaks to Skeeter. “I’m in need,” she tells him.

“Shee-yut, girl, we’re all in need, right? The whole world’s in need, isn’t that what we done agreed on, Chuck? The whole benighted world is in need of Me. And Me, I’m in need of something else. Bring your cunt over here, white girl.”

Now she does look toward Rabbit. He cannot help her. She has always been out of his class. She sits down on the sofa beside Skeeter and asks him gently, “What? If I do it, will you do it?”

“Might. Tell you what, Jill honey. Let’s do it for the man.”

“What man?”

“The man. That man. Victor Charlie over there. He wants it. What you think he’s keepin’ us here for? To breed, that’s what for. Hey. Friend Harry?”

“I’m listening.”

“You like being a nigger, don’t ya?”

“I do.”

“You want to be a good nigger, right?”

“Right.” The sad rustling on the ceiling, of Nelson in his room, feels far distant. Don’t come down. Stay up there. The smoke mixes with his veins and his lungs are a branching tree.