Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

minutes ago. So I don’t want to be rude. I just thought he would want to know.

When Ted was gone Yoshi turned to Fermi with a worried look, and bowed his head to ask a question earnestly. —Henry. Someone says you are dead?

—Many thanks, said Webster politely to Loni over the campfire, when she handed him a sharp stick. —But I do not eat marshmallows. They contain gelatin, extracted from the hooves of dead cows.

—Hey man, I thought we left Albert back in the hotel room, said Clint, waving flying cinders away from his face.

—Adalbert, said Leslie.

—I’m sorry, said Webster. —I don’t mean to be a problem. I try to eat macrobiotic, is all.

—I completely understand, said Loni. —I used to avoid processed foods, but now I embrace them. I had this revelation. Everything is part of the world, you know?

—That means you gotta eat it? asked Clint. —What, next I gotta eat dogshit? Cause it’s part of the world?

In the dark their faces were orange, and behind the smoke Ann blinked away floating ash and watched Szilard ushering activists toward the Airstream. A few feet away Oppenheimer stood with a cigarette watching two young girls in front of him twirl glow-in-the-dark balls on ropes around their heads. The balls made blue and green streaks through the air like the tails of comets.

Nothing, she thought. Nothing to do but spin balls of color. It must be nice.

—Finally! Here they come, said Larry, and deposited his cup of beer on the sand as he rose.

Two mammoth recreational vehicles were pulling in from the highway.

Ben woke up in the middle of the night from a dream in which black bears had been playing soccer standing on their hind legs. All they did was run sideways, and finally their awkward sideways motion, like dancing on crutches, disturbed him. He woke up thinking Don’t move that way.

But it was them talking. They were talking to him.

They had all slept on the couches and floors of the so-called recreational vehicles, which Oppenheimer declined to refer to by that name and insisted they call simply the buses. —There is nothing recreational here, he said. —What a ridiculous moniker. It is a house on wheels.

She was standing outside one of the buses in the morning, drinking coffee and trying to shrug the kinks out of her neck, when she looked up to see a man getting out of a car on the side of the road. The car pulled away and he swung a duffel bag over his shoulder and began to walk toward them.

She couldn’t recall what made him so familiar till he was just a few paces away from her, from the shade of the gray tarp over the scarred particleboard table with the two propane stoves, the coin plate for contributions to the food bill and the crowd of plastic Thermos mugs. By coincidence Oppenheimer was descending from the bus behind her in his wrinkled dress shirt and pants, yawning and stretching out his arms, as the man approached them.

—No fucking way, said Ann under her breath.

—Ann! Language! rebuked Oppenheimer, shocked, and then followed her gaze as she reached to push him back toward the trailer.

It was the weeping man from the hotel lobby.

The desert and the far north were both popular sites for nuclear testing. Even after Project Chariot was abandoned, Alaska was not forgotten by the men running the American nuclear testing program. In the Aleutians, in 1965, 1969, and 1971, three massive nuclear tests were conducted on Amchitka Island. Cannikin, in 1971, was the largest underground test the U.S. ever conducted on domestic soil at five megatons.

Cannikin was detonated with such force that thousands of animals were killed and whole lakes on the island were drained. Seabirds standing on the beach when the ground rose beneath them had their legs driven upward into their bodies, and the eyes of sea otters and seals exploded out of their skulls.

—If you’ll just stay quiet, reasoned Larry, —you can hang out, OK? But don’t be messing around with my man Oppie. Else Big Glen will have to pick you up and throw you out. And believe me, you don’t want to deal with Big Glen.

The weeping man slowly nodded his assent. He was sitting at a picnic table with Glen standing behind him, arms folded, and the others in a semicircle around them. His head was bent and his eyes downcast, as though he was ashamed.

—And what was your name, if you don’t mind? asked Oppenheimer warily, standing a few feet away.

—David, Lord.

David lifted a squirt bottle to his lips—Ann noticed the word Speedracer was printed on it—and delivered a jet of water into his open mouth. His duffelbag, beside him on the table, was covered in buttons. On a Recon Mission from the Kingdom of Heaven, Soldiers of Christ: Armor Up! and The Bible: It’s a Spiritual .357 Magnum. Last Day Warriors. I Don’t Know About You, But Heaven’s MY Neighborhood. Also Viva! Reagan, Reagan-Bush Pioneers, Reagan-Bush: Cut Taxes, Not Defense, Bush/Cheney.

—And as far as you thinking he’s Jesus goes—

—The new messiah, said David quietly. —The deliverer of the righteous, the messenger of the Rapture. The reaper.

—Whatever, said Larry. Ann could tell he was relishing his role as mediator. —I don’t care what your fantasies are. What I’m saying is, try to keep a lid on it. We’ve got work to do here, you know? These guys have a mission.

—World peace, said Ann drily.

—Exactly, said Larry, and nodded.

—I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34. I am coming soon; hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Revelation 3:11. Jesus did not know he was the son of God. Dr. Oppenheimer, you do not know you are the herald of the end of time.

—No indeed, said Oppenheimer.

—You think your earthly work is peace, but your work has always been war. Your work is oblivion!

—Hey Lar, is there any soy sausage left? called Tamika,