“My real name is John Window, but I think I’m Christ,” the man said, smiling. “You might as well know right off.”

“Aw, you’re putting me on?” Gregory said, blushing despite himself. “I mean He’s dead, for one thing. And you don’t look dead to me.”

“That’s a fact,” the man answered.

“You don’t look like you’re nearly two thousand years old, either,” Gregory said, with a jerky laugh. But he was fascinated. “Hey, I heard about you a few days ago,” he said. “Why do you think you’re Christ? What do the psychologists say? How come they let you around like this? I mean, you could just walk out of this place.”

“Where would I go to?” the man, Christ asked. “I have an advantage on myself. I know Christ’s history. They’ll crucify me if I leave here, and the doctors know I won’t go any place. Besides, I have jobs to do here.”

Gregory’s eyes had never been wider. “Yeah, like what?” he asked. The sun hit his eyes again, and he had to turn his head.

“Oh, I go about my father’s business,” the man answered. There was a sly hint to his voice, or so Gregory thought, so he turned back to look closer at the man’s face.

The sunlight hit it almost directly as the man also turned; and for a moment the custodian’s face looked hazy, unformed, glimmering. Gregory sprang up without a word and snapped down each shade to the bottom of each window, then went back to his chair. “Couldn’t see,” he muttered.

“Blessed are the blind, for they shall see God,” the man said sweetly.

“Now, see here, that’s enough of that,” cried Gregory, feeling a trifle uneasy by now. “Do you know where I can get aspirin? My gums are killing me. They got some disease, the dentist here says.”

“He took out a tooth of mine,” the custodian said sympathetically, and Gregory started laughing, no longer frightened. “Well, that proves you aren’t Christ,” he said. “Christ could fix his own teeth, couldn’t he? So you can go out in the world now and not worry about being crucified.” Suddenly, though, Gregory’s tone changed. “They won’t hang you to any damned cross anyhow. But they’ll get anybody they can. You don’t have to be Christ, you know, to be crucified in this world.”

“That’s a fact too, I guess,” the custodian answered, and for a moment Gregory felt that he and this odd stranger were united in some way, or at least understood the world in the same terms, or something. The momentary rapport between them made him uneasy too, so he said in a brusquer voice, “My gums … I guess my damned teeth are going to fall out.”