“Okay so Reverend William Sprint walks onto stage. ‘So mister Reverend I understand that this is your first interview in this kind of public setting.’ And then he goes ‘I see,’ you know how he does, ‘is that what you understand. I take that to mean you consider this a public setting.’ And I say, ‘You wouldn’t?’ And this is where he does the thing with his nose. So he’s doing that thing with his nose and he doesn’t say anything else but I'm guessing I’m the host here so I go, ‘would you care to elaborate?’ and he goes ‘understand that we are never alone. Especially in the places we think are the most private.’ So I go, ‘by this you mean we’re together with God.’ ‘Yes and no. I mean in the sense that we bring people with us in that place where only the self is watching. I think of God when I’m alone and thus am not alone.’ ‘So what you’re saying is that every setting is a public setting, because you have an audience one way or another. So I take it to understand this is not your first interview in this kind of public setting.’ ‘Rather, it’s my first interview in any kind of setting.’ ‘Okay so just so I'm clear,’ ‘But like I was saying, it doesn’t have to be God. For some it’s family, or close friends, maybe even their pokémon. Maybe you’d bring your father, or your lover. You look like a beautiful young lady, I’m sure you have a lover.’ And so then I go — ”

Jericho Moon is slumped on the floor against the door of his locker, dizzying up at the black dots cobwebbing his vision. There’s always a kind of collective unwind after Brecht’s sessions.

“Yeah okay, that sucked. You’re not even close to getting the voice right. Plus, The General’s more sophisticated than that. You have to come off with the heavy intellectual stuff straight out the jump. Okay picture this. Listen. Lights dim. Reverend William Sprint, boardmaster, professional drill sergeant, perspiration enthusiast, outside clergyman, overall Mean Machine. He walks up to the stage as his name is introduced to the audience. Spotlights flash brightly on him. His is a different kind of old than Snowstorm’s. The spotlight operator has to move the thing very slowly as the light follows his very slow walk. He reaches the stage. Cameras flash. Lights undim.”

“So let’s hurry up with it Freddie Foreplay.”

“Floorsticks I swear to God I will hammer you to death. Shut up and let me finish. The lights undim. William Sprint takes his seat next to the interviewer who is me. I’m Unova’s beloved, Jodie Springfield, beautiful, attractive, kind: a woman if there ever was one.”

“I’m thinking if she is having any kind of effect on him, pheromone-wise,” K. says. It looked like he was still sweating.

“The answer is unclear. My pheromones appear to be phasing through him.”

“Like he’s a phaser.”

“You mean a phantasm.”

“No Floorsticks I mean a phaser. Like in Storm.” K.’s after-shower gleam looked a lot like sweat.

“Anyway, so I’m sitting there, a full, desirable woman in interview position half-adjacent to Sprint, half-facing him half-facing the t.v. camera, which is bright as a mother,”

“I feel like we could do a lot better than Sprint.”

“K. I swear to God. Where was I. Okay just listen. I’m there, my ravishing lushious stockinged legs are crossed, right thigh resting on left, jellying that kind of skin-to-skin mesh that just fires on all cylinders at the brain neurons, and I lean in but very slightly because subtlety is key here,”

“You don’t want to make it obvious.”

“ — finger the gap between my collar, and I say, “well mister,” — what, even. What do you want me to call him K.”

“I don’t know. Let me think.”

“W. B. Webber. You know, like W. C. Webber. He wrote ‘Strange Morphology.’”

“There is a very real possibility that I could clear the horizontal length of this bench right here, given enough running space. Like from end to end.”

“My left nutball.”

“You couldn’t jump over a dollar bill Tolan so what I’m trying to figure out right now is how much a left nutball procedure is going to cost you, financially.”

“Not to mention psychologically. The mental stress of losing an entire nutball, I mean. Plus the pain.”

“He’d be anesthetized.”

“Okay, then phantom pain. Like when you lose a hand.”

“Would he even be seminally capable anymore? Like could you still father a kid with one nutball is what I’m wondering.”

“Vicky Tolan, the end of his line. The Last Tolan.”

“And who knows how many less trout-shouldered offspring removed from the world’s potential gene pool.”

“Goodness gracious me oh my. It’s like I’m trying to show a circus of Mankeys some Da Vinci. Will you guys shut up.”

“Fred. Fredster. Freddie boy. My man. It’s crap. Let’s face it. You have no thespian talent. This right here’s all you got. Leave the theatre stuff to the belle-lettres lavender boys.”

“Lonely little Lysol factories and Oedipus rub . . . A Certain Kind Of Psychosis™.”

“Another crashed avant-garde screenplay by yours truly,”

“Yes director, the craft services table is ready. Up and loaded. Twenty-eight different kinds of cheese arranged in alphabetical order. The dairy is strictly Moomoo. The crackers are whole wheat just as you like.”

“Perfect K., and where are the eleven starry-eyed schoolgirls that I asked for. I said I wanted a shy little line right here.”

Jericho’s head is starting to feel that hot trickling feel that happens after The Thrill wears off. It feels like he’s slowly melting from the head down.

“Plus okay so let’s say you even manage to seduce him on live television. What happens next? You’ve got to actually get him to tell you where he keeps the jazz.”

“Yea I was getting to that part. Now where was I. Where am I. Okay so now I’m in his flat, you know,”

“You mean house. He’s out of his bling-socks rich. Maybe even a mansion.”

“No Floorsticks I mean flat. If I’m The General I don’t think I’m too keen on introducing the missus to tonight’s joytoy. This is all on the down-low.”

“You skipped the part where you talk him into letting you into his flat.”

“I skipped it because you idiots kept interrupting me. It’s not important. I’m in his flat now, and we’re unrobing in the master,”

“Mmm you can skip this part.”

“I’d argue it’s pretty important. I don’t think you can talk The General into letting you into his flat. That’s supposed to be the hardest part. He used to be a clergyman.”

“Not when I’m Jodie Springfield, Lain. I just turn the headlights on and it’s to the races with him. Once you get a feel for it guys like The General are soft ham. It’s the eyelashes and compassionized head-nods that cut like a knife. A knife through soft ham.”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“What’s in his apartment? Like what’s the layout looking like.” For some reason it always looked like K. was sweating. Like his skin had a permanent kind of sheen. No one really knew what his last name was or how to say it.

“Good question. Jennings, his apartment. Fire it up in the brain stove. Let’s get a domestic layout of the point of interest. Ingress points, hallways, bookshelves, paintings, possible hidden safe locations, plants, closets, what does the window overlook, does he have a treadmill, are there posters of Elesa on his walls, the whole magilla.”

“I don’t know. My head feels like mush.”

“Ingress points like the front door?”

“Floorsticks I swear to God.”

“He has a point. That was dumb.”

“Thanks for chiming in K. Are you ready to shut up now.”

“So you’re in the master,”

“So we’re in the master, and I’m working up a mean sweat, you know. A farmhand’s sweat. A real midsummer’s sweat. K. knows what I mean.”

“Skip skip skip.”

“And I’m there on the king-sized on all fours in a full sweat, bucking around like a rodeo clown in a barrel,” Fred’s put his headband over his eyes in a kind of imagine-if-you-will storytelling immersion.

“Is this before or after you’ve ascertained the location of the jazz.”

“He’s asking mid pants. Like intermittently.”

“Or he’s gotten the general idea but the mission won’t progress unless he surrenders this night of passion. He has to come back for a round two.”

“Another velvet-soaked rendezvous under the moonlight.”

“Undercover missions take time. This is true.”

“A week tops.”

“He has to do this for a whole week.”

“I’m thinking does he even have it in him?”

“The General or Fred as Jodie?”

“C’mon, Sprint’s a minuteman. Even less. He’s prehistoric. He’s a twenty-seconds man. A quarterman.”

Florence Stince snaps his fingers. “That’s it. Quarterman. It’s perfect. Wait, that or Dimes. William Dimes rolls off better. Willy Dimes. Two dimes for the quartermaster. The General. Quartermaster. I feel like I’m grabbing at something here.”

“I was talking about the Fredster.”

“Pretty sure I can outlast Reverend Pocketchange. I’m Jodie Springfield, remember.”

“Okay but Dimes is hitting the thunder pretty hard. Some mean thunder. And lace. And he’s roaring.”

“A hyper-beam’s worth of vigor ready to unload upon your supple, woman’s body.”

“Appreciate the visuals Tolan.”

“Someone keep an eye on Tolan.”

“Um, fuck you?”

“Indiana Tolan and The Raid on Cetaphil H.Q.” Lain’s been eyeing the length of the bench ever since he sized it up.

“To supply the lone, solitary practices he carries out in the night.”

“What a colorful imagination you have there K.”

“I bow to the master,”

Every time after one of Brecht’s sessions they sit here in the locker room and just vent. This was all just a collective venting session. Jericho’s vision was starting to get really dotted. His head felt like it had a double brain resting in its carriage. He couldn’t find it in him to move one conceivable muscle.

“So after a week’s gone by the Fredster’s achieved a real breakthrough.”

“The fate of the world rests upon this discovery.”

“I’m not liking this image of Jodie and Fred mixing around in my head.”

“The concept of Fred in general.”

“I’m letting you know right now if and when I find it I’m not clueing you guys in.”

“You’re leaving us in the dark just like that.”

“Yup.”

“It wouldn’t take a whole week for me to find out that he just keeps it all under his bed.”

“But not the apartment bed where the Fredster’s being stretched.”

“Yea it’s in the main house with the missus.”

“Does the Nickelback even have a missus?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Fredster?”

“Um I don’t know?”

“He didn’t talk about his wife when you were with him?”

“They didn’t do a lot of talking, you’ll remember.”

It wasn’t that they didn’t know they were all just venting, Jericho thought. When Brecht makes them run after battles it’s his way of making them all equal. After the battles it’s an equalizer. Everyone runs until they’re completely worked. Until they’re completely exhausted. They run until no one thinks about anything except being tired. They are united in their exhaustion. In the suffering. The prevention of post-battle ego. Run until you can’t think anymore. It’s hard to think of anything when you’re doubled-up under yourself grabbing at your sides like your life depends on it. They’re there in the locker room miserable together. He wonders if it’s an intentional method by the instructors of getting the students to like, bond. Bond over their hatred. That the phrase ‘common enemy’ has some sense to it.

Some of the guys don’t say anything. But they all just sit around, relishing in the kind of collective post-Brecht hate. Everyone hates the running. Everyone knows it’s venting but there’s a specific type of relief that it supplies.

“There’s no way you’re serious Lain.”

“Better make your peace Tolan.”

“You’re making me tired standing there like that, Lain. It feels like we’re on the track again.”

“If you’re gonna do it then do it already.”

“Why would he keep the jazz in his house with the missus? It’s all more likely to be somewhere in the flat.”

“Yo Freddie was it in the flat when you looked?”

Jericho’s head starts to feel that dripping, trickling feeling every time The Thrill begins to wear off. Like some essential part of him slides very slowly out of place. Like something inherent to his person gets lost somewhere in the cold shift between utter lucidity and the drowning feeling of disquietude.

“He didn’t have time to look around I don’t think.”

“Dude he was there for a week, he had plenty of time.”

“The answer is unclear. The place was pretty barren. I was pretty much zeroed-in on getting him to let me inside the main.”

“I guarantee it was hidden in the bookshelves. Like inside the books.”

“Fredster did you open any books?”

“Uhh,”

“He doesn’t mean like ever he meant while you were there.”

“Good one T.”

“You bet.”

Fred rubs slow circles against the headband over his temples. “We’ve established that it’s in the main.”

“I feel like we’re getting nowhere.”

“I’m starting to think we shouldn’t have sent the Fredster for something so important.”

Every time before the battles Jericho asks his Inkay if he would please put him in the zone. When he’s in the zone it feels like he’s a completely new person. A more capable version of himself. He calls that feeling The Thrill. Sometimes before classes begin he asks his Inkay if he could please get him in the mood. Sometimes when he really needs to focus and apply himself to his utmost capacity he asks his Inkay if he would please get him in the mood. To put him under The Thrill. When he’s under that hypnotic spell he feels infinitely more productive. The information just starts flowing. It starts flowing through him. It starts flowing out of him. Into him. Out of him. His body becomes a vessel through which information flows. His mind becomes the master. When Inkay puts him under The Thrill it feels like he’s coming up to the ocean’s surface after a long dive. That before he’s put under The Thrill his thoughts were a kind of slow, detached trudging through mud. When his Inkay puts him in the zone he’s a different person. He feels like he could process every minute detail his senses take in. His senses become sensitive to everything. He can see everything. His eyes feel kaleidoscopic. Windowed eyes lawning an impossible reality. A reality that only exists when The Thrill overtakes him. When it submerges him and at the same time fills his lungs with the air of life itself. There’s an almost clinical feeling to the shift. Like a switch’s been flipped. It feels like something inside his brain gets turned on. Sometimes when Inkay puts him in the zone the coming energy feels like a run of cold lightning. Cold lightning running through him all the way into his brain. It feels divine. It feels like he’s tapped into something divine. Tuned into something otherwise completely unknowable to him. The brain has such scorn for this wisdom. It rejects it. But there is something in him that is wise. And it is wisdom. The capacity to Know. To know the engineering of his own mind. To become intimate with it. New. He feels new. Like he’s the first man in the wilderness. Everything feels like he’s experiencing it for the first time. The way his eyes take in light to see, the way the sunlight honeys its warmth upon his skin, the way the wind combs its smooth fingers through his hair — it’s all its own kind of novelty to him.

Jericho felt like he was melting. He watched from a kind of delirious distance as the dark spots moved in rapid lines across the soft panorama of his vision. Many and many black dots. Until it was all he could see. Hundreds of tiny bubbles coalescing into hard blindness. He was tired and his brain felt like it was melting inside its white cradle.

All he remembers before blacking out on the floor against the door of his closed locker half-naked was the sound of Herman Lain letting out a primal kind of howl.