….Later that same day, Mr. Witzkowski announces over the P.A. system that a special assembly will be held in the high school’s Lincoln Theatre in lieu of the last two class periods. No one seems to know what the assembly is about as they settle into the theatre’s cushy beige fold-down seats. Gordon, Jimmy, Hideous, and D.H. take over a line of seats to the right of the aisle, two rows from the front, while Skip and Twinker sit down just behind them. “I wonder what Witz has got up his sleeve…” says D.H., who seems just as suspicious about everything as Gordon does these days.

“Maybe he’ll be giving us a demonstration on the manly art of self-love while he gnaws on the warm innards of a Cub Scout,” says Gordon, unable to shake the pederast-cannibal theme he’s been obsessing about lately.

“Sick!” says Jimmy approvingly.

“Okay, let’s all quiet down!” Mr. Witzkowski says from up on the stage. A single spotlight dazzlingly reflects off his oily white forehead as the rest of the theater descends into darkness. Mr. Witzkowski is holding a microphone, as usual. When he rubs it against the leg of his polyester slacks, a loud burst of static serves to focus everyone’s attention. “That’s better…” he says. “Good. Now, today we have a real treat in store for you boys and girls. We have a special surprise guest, flown all the way in from Reno, Nevada. And I know you’re gonna love him. So everyone, let’s give a big Viking round of applause to Doctor William Bryan Lemingeller, Master Hypnotist!”

A squat, bald-headed man in formal evening dress jogs onto the stage and takes the microphone from Mr. Witzkowski amid rapid-fire bursts of blue-and-white strobe lights. The theater’s loudspeakers thunder with the bombastic guitar riff from Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”. Dr. Lemingeller swings his doughy fists in the air like a prizefighter warming up and shouts: “Are we gonna have some fun or what?”

“Yeah!” the younger members of the audience shout back at him. Twinker can be heard just under their roar, commenting, “Master Bator is more like it. That guy looks like a penis in a tux.”

In Gordon’s eyes, he seems closer to a middle-aged Aleister Crowley during his head-shaving phase.

“Hey, thanks…. Thanks a lot,” Dr. Lemingeller says as the roar of approval dies down. He’s already wiping shiny drops of sweat from his brow. “Before I begin, I’d like to thank the Road Safety Program for bringing me to this great little town of yours, along with my local sponsor, Lloyd Marrsden, in partnership with Independent Insurers.”

“Your Uncle Lloyd paid for this?” Gordon hisses at Jimmy.

“Hey, it’s better than going to class, isn’t it?”

“Something’s screwed up here….”

“You always say that,” Jimmy hisses back. “Relax.”

“Today I’m going to be taking you on an incredible journey into the unconscious power of your own minds,” Dr. Lemingeller intones with hammy drama. It sounds like the microphone is stuck halfway inside the cavern of his big, toothy mouth. “You’ll be amazed and astounded—I guarantee it. The power of the mind is a truly wondrous thing to behold, but most of us aren’t even close to tapping its full potential. Today I’m going to show you how to get a little closer. So now—if you don’t mind—I’m going to put this entire audience into a light hypnotic trance. Don’t worry. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just close your eyes and let your whole body relax while I count backwards from ten. Ten…. Everybody relaxed? Eyes closed? Good. Nine….”

The strobe lights pulse slowly, monotonously. “Feel your eyelids getting heavier. You’re going deeper… deeper now to a place of total relaxation. Yes, that’s it…” Dr. Lemingeller sighs as if he’s just had a hit of morphine. “Eight…. Going even deeper. Feels good, doesn’t it? There’s a pleasant feeling of warmth and heaviness in your limbs and your mind is relaxed and alert. You’re going deep to a place of perfect contentment. You might see yourself walking down stairs. Relax and breathe deeply. Let your mind drift. Just listen to my voice as I say… Seven….” Whatever Dr. Lemingeller is doing, by the count of five, it seems to be working. Gordon finds himself feeling pleasantly stoned, high on his own brain chemistry—or whatever.

“I have to go pee…” D.H. whispers in a tiny Gumby doll voice. Skip laughs through his nostrils. Gordon feels himself rising toward normal consciousness, but then he hears Dr. Lemingeller’s soothing words: “Four…. Pay no attention to any voice but mine. You’re still going deeper… deeper… deeper into a trance. Very relaxed now, perhaps more relaxed than you’ve ever been in your entire life. Nothing can disturb your deep sense of peace and contentment. And you’re still… going… deeper.”

Gordon disappears right back down the rabbit hole of his own mind.

“Three…. As you travel deeper into a state of perfect relaxation, you’ll begin to feel your left arm going pleasantly numb. Feel the tingle? That numbness will go away whenever you want it to, but for now just relax and enjoy the sensation of your arm getting lighter… and lighter…. Two…. You’re still perfectly relaxed, but your left arm feels like a balloon filled with helium. It’s so light now that it might even be rising into the air. Don’t try to stop it. Let your arm do whatever it wants to do while the rest of your body stays in a deep, peaceful state of relaxation. You’re in a very deep trance now…. One…. In a few moments, you’ll open your eyes at my command and take a look around. Your mind will be alert and at ease. You’ll be able to see, hear, and remember everything that happens to you. Feel free to talk. But you’ll still be in a trance, under the power of my suggestion. Are you ready? Okay then, on the count of three: one, two, three…. Open your eyes.”

Gasps of amazement and uneasy laughter. About twenty percent of the students in the audience have their left arms drifting in the air above their heads. Some are able to put their arms down, but others can’t—in fact, when they push down on their raised arms, the arms shoot right back up as soon as they let go. Dr. Lemingeller allows everyone to talk for a while, then he shouts above the babble: “I’d like some volunteers to come up on the stage with me for the rest of the show. I’ll take all those in the audience who are already raising their left hands.”

Gordon, Jimmy, and Twinker all have their left arms raised high, so up on the stage they go. Hideous wishes them well. “Have gud time. Maybe next time someone not make pee-pee joke and I go, too.” Hideous glances at D.H. and arranges his pierced features into a scowl.

“They’ll be up there quacking like goddamn ducks, Hideous…” D.H. tells him. “You’re not missing much.”

“Put your arms down, you fuckin’ freaks,” Skip says, leaning back in his seat with a grin.

Once everyone is up onstage, Dr. Lemingeller introduces his lovely assistant, Vonda—who could be Vanna White’s slutty, bar-hopping older sister. She’s wearing a low-cut blue spangled dress and fishnet stockings. Her boobs are enormous and as round as fishbowls—obviously artificial. Meanwhile, in the background, stagehands bring out folding chairs for the volunteers—about thirty or forty, in all. After everyone has taken a seat, Dr. Lemingeller suggests to the volunteers that they’re all in an orchestra. He goes down the line, telling each of them what instrument they’ll be playing. Jimmy gets a cello, Twinker, a violin. Gordon, to his disappointment, has to play an oboe.

Gordon isn’t even sure he knows what an oboe looks like, precisely. He imagines something like a clarinet, only longer—about the length of an ostrich’s neck. That’ll have to do. Some fancy orchestral music starts playing over the loudspeakers. Gordon puckers up his lips and blows. He knows he’s just pretending to play an oboe, but he feels weirdly compelled to do it. The audience is already laughing, but he truly doesn’t care.

The music suddenly switches to Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” Dr. Lemingeller tells the volunteers that they all have guitars and drums. Heavy metal mayhem takes over. Jimmy gets to his feet and starts imitating Ozzy Osborne. He’s good at it. If a live bat were to suddenly fly up onstage at that moment, Jimmy would no doubt bite its head off. Noticing Twinker already playing drums like a madwoman, Gordon imagines an electric guitar in his hands. He stands up and starts channeling Ozzy’s former lead guitarist, Randy Rhodes, who died in a plane crash just over a year ago. Maybe that’s in bad taste (for multiple reasons…), but again, he doesn’t care.

The disembodied astral presence of Randy Rhodes doesn’t seem to mind, either. In fact, he’s into it.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Dr. Lemingeller shouts as the music fades away. “Wow, you guys rock!” Even hypnotized, Gordon knows Dr. Lemingeller is patronizing them. The spirit of Randy Rhodes is insulted. He bails.

“I see a few of you have come out of your trances,” says Dr. Lemingeller. “Don’t worry—it’s nothing to be ashamed of—but at this point I’m going to ask you to leave the stage.” He walks along the row of volunteers, tapping the shoulders of the ones he wants to go. When he gets to Gordon he waves a finger in front of his nose like the arm on a metronome. Gordon thinks this is his signal to leave, but then he hears Vonda’s honeyed voice saying behind him, “No, you stay….” Dr. Lemingeller pinches Gordon somewhere between the back of his neck and his shoulder blade, causing his whole body to instantly go limp. It’s the most amazing sensation…. Gordon slumps into Vonda’s waiting arms, feeling the back of his head nestle into her unnaturally firm cleavage. She lays him out on the floor of the stage, then leans over him to sweetly whisper in his ear: “You’re going deeper, hon. You’re a real good subject. You musta done this sorta thing before.”

Not that I can recall… thinks Gordon, but I love you, Vonda.

Jimmy and Twinker also get laid out on the floor in the same way, as do about ten other students. Everyone else leaves the stage. Gordon watches them go from his vantage point on the floor. He’s as limp as a dishrag. He wonders if he’s drooling—or shitting his pants. He has no way of telling.

Dr. Lemingeller turns to address the audience. “What you’re about to see won’t be funny. If any of you start feeling uncomfortable, please feel free to leave.”

He divides the remaining volunteers into two groups—or actually two clumps, since they’re all still sprawled out on the floor. He instructs the volunteers in the first group—Jimmy, Gordon and Twinker among them—to sit up as if they’re riding in a car. “You’ve been boozing it up all night at a high school graduation party, and now each of you is horribly drunk. None of you should be driving.”

Gordon isn’t sure about anyone else, but when he sits up he feels drunk as hell. His gag reflex is even acting up. He might have to roll down the imaginary window and barf.

Dr. Lemingeller moves Jimmy to the front row. “You’ll be the driver,” he tells him, almost cheerfully. “All the panic and guilt will be on your shoulders.”

“Nice…” says Jimmy under his breath.

Dr. Lemingeller moves over to Twinker. “You’re going to smash your pretty face through the windshield. You’ll need plastic surgery—”

—like Vonda! Gordon thinks.

“—but your face will never be the same. And you—” Gordon feels a tap on his shoulder—“you’ll be paralyzed from the nipples on down. Your new best friend is going to be a colostomy bag. How do you like them apples?”

What about my penis! And my future life with Vonda! “Can’t you just put me in a coma?” Gordon asks meekly.

“Okay, fine…. You go into a coma and you—” tapping the guy next to Gordon, Daniel Fleurbundt, better known as “Fleabutt”—“you get paralyzed for life. Tough break, hombre.”

“Thanks a lot, Gordon…” Fleabutt gripes.

“Nobody’s going to feel any actual, physical pain during this process,” Dr. Lemingeller says soothingly, “but you’ll feel all the emotions that go along with whatever happens to you.”

The second group of volunteers is organized into a second car. They’re a nice suburban family driving to a wedding. The father and two of the children are about to be slaughtered.

“Dad, you won’t be moving at all, because for the purposes of this demonstration you’ll be dead. Decapitated, actually.” Dr. Lemingeller grins. “Mom, it may take you a few minutes to realize you’ve just lost a husband and your two precious baby girls…. Bride, your intestines will be spilling out of your beautiful white wedding gown. You might try pushing them back in.”

A few squeamish girls in the audience head for the exits. Then the lights dim. Four strobe lights pulse rapidly, simulating headlights. The sound of tires slinging rain on wet pavement comes up through the loudspeakers. The diesel rumble of a truck passes from left to right. Then the sound of screeching tires rips through the theater. There’s a terrible crash, painful to the ears. After that comes a moment suspended in time, marked by the tinkling of shattered glass, and then all is quiet—until the moaning begins.

“Oh man! I can’t feel my legs!” Fleabutt cries. Gordon’s glad he missed out on that action. Being in a coma is actually quite peaceful. He dissociated from his body on impact and now his soul—or astral body, or whatever—has risen up to get a 360-degree view of all the action.

The strobe lights are flashing blue, as if police cars are already on the scene. A long, anguished wail goes up from the Car Number Two. Mom—the super-tall Kimmie Swenson—is cradling two limp girls in her arms—both of them blonde cheerleaders, oddly enough (Tracy and Stacy. Gordon lusts after them, even astrally). Kimmie cries out, “My babies! You killed my babies!”

“Oh man…” moans Jimmy, “what’ve I done?” He peers over an imaginary dashboard and starts to gag.

Hey, I was just about to do that! thinks Gordon. But his stomach feels just fine, now that he’s out-of-body. The only downside is that his body won’t be able to move if Jimmy starts puking on it.

But rather than puking, Jimmy staggers to his feet and runs through the imaginary wreckage toward stage left. That’s just like him, thinks Gordon, fleeing the scene of a crime.

Twinker has her hands up to her face. She’s trying to put it back together. Gordon is reminded, sickeningly, of his father’s face as he sat strapped in the pilot’s chair after crashing his Cessna into their living room. No lower jaw. Exposed tongue drooping like a flower stamen. His teeth in the back pocket of my jeans…. Suddenly this isn’t so much fun anymore. Gordon gets pushed or sucked right back into his body. Even though he’s supposed to be in a coma, he starts to weep.

Helpless, Gordon watches through tears as the bride tries to stuff her imaginary intestines back through the hole in her imaginary wedding gown. He flashes on Mike Shriver lying sliced open on the white silk couch, his large intestine swimming out of him like a giant worm. There was nothing imaginary about that. That could’ve been me, thinks Gordon. If I hadn’t gotten into that argument with my dad that day, I might have died with him, instead of Mike.

The human body is such a frail, easily damaged thing…. Lying there on his back, unable to move, Gordon weeps copious tears for his dear old dad—for the first time, ever. He even cries for poor, misguided Mike Shriver.

“Okay, let’s put a stop to this… I think we’ve all seen enough,” says Dr. Lemingeller as the blue strobe lights stop flashing. “It’s time for you volunteers to go back to that place of deep relaxation and contentment. This situation was just a figment of your imagination,” he says. “You’ll never experience anything like these emotions again. But you’ll be able to remember what you experienced and think about it in an objective way.”

Dr. Lemingeller turns and addresses the audience like the portentous narrator of a Government Public Service Announcement: “The kids on this stage will never drink and drive again. But for some, it’s already too late. Somebody is paralyzed.”

“I think I’ve got some feeling back in my toes,” Fleabutt volunteers.

“Others are dead. One person ended up in a coma.” Dr. Lemingeller crouches next to Gordon, who is rubbing salty tears from his eyes with a trembling fist. Dr. Lemingeller asks him: “How did it feel to be in a coma?”

“Up yours…” Gordon croaks.

Visibly taken aback by Gordon’s untowardness, Dr. Lemingeller bounces up to address the audience: “I apologize for that outburst,” he says. “Hypnotized subjects are usually quite polite. But I guess everyone here was pretty shaken up by what just happened. And that’s the whole point. I want you to talk to about this demonstration with your friends. Laugh about it, joke about it, cry about it—even curse about it. But the next time you’re out drinking, please think twice about getting in a car and driving. Okay? And now let’s get back to the fun part of our show. Volunteers, I want each of you to pretend you’re a happy little duck in a duck pond and someone is feeding you bread….”

• • •

“Anything I can get from my subjects under hypnosis, I can also get from them in a post-hypnotic suggestion…” Dr. Lemingeller is saying. Gordon finds himself sitting back in the audience again, not remembering how he got there. Jimmy sits beside him, while Twinker is still up on the stage. Dr. Lemingeller continues: “There’s even speculation that self-hypnosis, initiated by TV programs or movies, can get at least some of the same effects.” Dr. Lemingeller pauses to mop the sweat from his bald skull with a frilly black handkerchief. “What I’m saying, basically, is… those commercials for Lay’s Potato Chips? They really know what they’re doing. On an unconscious level, they’re giving you a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion when they say, ‘You can’t eat just one.’ It’s a false belief they’re implanting, but if you’ve been lulled into a self-hypnotized trance by watching some dumb TV show, then your unconscious mind goes right along with it. So you end up doing exactly what they tell you. No wonder we’re all getting so fat, huh? Except for Vonda, of course.”

The voluptuous Vonda blows Dr. Lemingeller a kiss.

Dr. Lemingeller hams it up, clamping his hands over his heart. He’s as fake as Vonda’s breasts. Recovering from his swoon, he says: “You guys have already seen me giving post-hypnotic suggestions to some of the volunteers now sitting in the audience. They’ll be acting on those suggestions later. But to really give you an idea of how powerful post-hypnotic suggestions can be, I’ve held back Isabelle here for one final demonstration.”

It’s odd to hear Twinker being referred to as Isabelle, but that is her real name, after all. Gordon had almost forgotten.

Turning to Twinker, Dr. Lemingeller says, “Isabelle, you’re still in a very deep trance, am I correct?”

“Yes,” says Twinker, looking a little zombie-like.

“Now, in a few moments I’m going to wake you up by clicking my fingers, and when I do, you won’t be able to see Vonda. No matter where you look, Vonda won’t be there. She’ll be invisible to you. And you won’t remember that I’ve told you this. Now, on the count of three: one, two, three….” Before he clicks his fingers, Dr. Lemingeller leads Vonda over to stand right in front of Twinker, so that Twinker’s eyes are level with Vonda’s silicone-enhanced chest.

Click.

Dr. Lemingeller asks Twinker if she can see Vonda anywhere in the room.

“Nope,” Twinker says. She’s looking everywhere. She leans forward and nearly pokes her eye out on one of Vonda’s erect nipples.

“You’re sure you don’t see Vonda?” Dr. Lemingeller asks her.

“No, I don’t see her anywhere. Did she leave?” The audience is laughing.
Dr. Lemingeller holds up three fingers behind Vonda’s back, where Twinker shouldn’t be able to see them. “How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks her.

“Three.”

“Now how many?” Lemingeller spreads his palm wide to show all five digits.

“Five.”

Weird…. The laughter dissipates.

Dr. Lemingeller calls out: “I need a volunteer from the audience. Anyone?”

“I’ll do it as long as you don’t make me quack like a duck,” Skip volunteers. It’s his girlfriend up there, after all.

“You won’t need to be hypnotized,” Dr. Lemingeller assures him. “What’s your name, son?”

“Skip,” says Skip, bounding up on the stage. “Okay. So what do I do?”

Dr. Lemingeller gets a plain white piece of cardboard from one of the stagehands and holds it up against Vonda’s back—again, where Twinker shouldn’t be able to see it. With a flourish, he produces a purple marker pen and says to Skip: “I want you to write a message to Isabelle on the back of this sign. It can be anything. Just don’t tell us what it is. When you’re done, turn it over so we can’t see it.”
Skip takes the pen and writes. When he’s done, he turns the sign over, holding it flat against Vonda’s back.

“Isabelle, can you read that sign?” asks Dr. Lemingeller.

Twinker nods her head with a bemused expression. “It says: ‘Blue monkeys are flying out from under Vonda’s skirt! Love, Skip’”

“Skip, did you write that?” Dr. Lemingeller asks.

Grinning, but obviously confused, Skip nods his head. He turns the sign over, so the whole audience can see:

Blue monkeys
are flying out from
under Vonda’s skirt!
Love, Skip

“How’d she do that?” Skip asks Dr. Lemingeller. “What is it, like telepathy?”

“It very well could be telepathy…” Dr. Lemingeller says, unknotting his black silk tie. “In many documented cases, a melding of minds has been observed to take place between hypnotists and their subjects. See, it’s my belief that our minds are not just in our heads; they also extend outward from our bodies. You can imagine it as a morphic field of thought radiating all around us, wherever we go. It also transcends space and time by extending into the past, as memories, and into the future, as intentions. If I’m right, then Isabelle could have tapped into my thought-field when I saw what you were writing. We can test that hypothesis right now if you’ll be so kind as to blindfold Isabelle with my necktie.”

Skip obligingly wraps the tie around Twinker’s head and props her up as Dr. Lemingeller does his neck-pinching maneuver again, sending her into a deep trance. He says, “Isabelle, you’ll be able to taste whatever I taste. We’re mentally connected.” Then, after pausing to make sure the blindfold is secure, Dr. Lemingeller walks to the far end of the stage. Someone behind the blue velvet curtain passes him a large banana, which he promptly peels and eats with simian glee. Through a mouthful of yellow mush, he calls out:

“Isabelle! Do you taste it? What are we eating?”

“A banana!” Twinker says, clapping her hands in recognition. The audience is collectively dumbfounded.

“What now?” Dr. Lemingeller asks. The hand from behind the curtain passes him a cluster of green Thompson Seedless grapes. He pops a few of them into his mouth and chomps.

“Grapes!” says Twinker with delight, covering her lips with her fingertips.

“Okay, Isabelle, you did great!” Dr. Lemingeller says. He walks back over to her and removes the blindfold. “On the count of three, I’m going to bring you up out of your trance again—only this time you’ll be able to see Vonda. Ready? And-a-one, and-a-two-ah, and-a-three!

At the click of Dr. Lemingeller’s fingers, Twinker starts like a scared rabbit and says to Vonda: “God! Were you standing in front of me the whole time?”

“I was,” says Vonda. “You just couldn’t see me.”

“Which brings us to our second hypothesis…” Dr. Lemingeller says. “What if Isabelle really could see through Vonda? What if she could read that sign right through Vonda’s tits?”

“I could!” swears Twinker. “I did!”

“Did he just say ‘tits’?” Skip stage-whispers.

“Did I?” asks Dr. Lemingeller. “I’m sorry… I meant to say ‘chest.’ Whoops! I guess I’m used to the older crowds in Reno and Vegas.” The audience is laughing again. Vonda wags a finger at her boss, as if to say, You naughty Master Hypnotist….

“Okay, so anyway… if Isabelle could see through Vonda well enough to read a sign held against her back, what does that mean?” Dr. Lemingeller asks the audience. “Well, I’ll tell you what I think. I think it means we create our own reality through our programmed unconscious beliefs. And I’m talking about the deep unconscious here, as deep as the processes that control our breathing and digestion. But that deep unconscious level can be reached, through hypnosis, and its beliefs can be changed.”

As he quickly—almost magically—reknots his necktie, Dr. Lemingeller says, “When I made Isabelle here believe that Vonda was invisible, Vonda was edited out of the reality that Isabelle’s mind constructs. And when Vonda was removed from Isabelle’s personal reality construct, then there was nothing to stop Isabelle from seeing straight through to what was behind Vonda’s back.”

“Trippy…” says Skip. The audience seems to agree.

“At the deepest level, everything is infinitely interconnected—all matter and all consciousness,” Dr. Lemingeller says, summing up. “Most of our troubles stem from the core belief that we live in the world, when really, the world lives inside us. Reality at large is a frequency domain. Our minds function like billions of supercomputers working in tandem to covert those frequencies into a holographic projection of the world we think we know from our five senses. Sticks and stones and broken bones—this whole flesh circus with all its props—it’s all just a holomovement, a four-dimensional interactive movie we can smell and taste and touch. It’s created from the vast storehouse of frequency-memories in the collective unconscious—which, in turn, is constantly being updated by our individual thoughts.”

Dr. Lemingeller pauses, then lets out a short bark of a laugh. “Whew! I can see that little speech just flew right over most of your heads. Well, if you want to learn more, you should study the work of Karl Pribram and David Bohm—a neurophysiologist and a physicist, both leaders in their fields, who independently came up with a theory called the Holographic Model of the Universe. I don’t know about you guys, but as a hypnotist who’s seen a lot of very strange things, it works for me.”

Hey, I was just reading David Bohm! Gordon thinks. Mere coincidence… or are Lloyd, Doctor Lemingeller, and the town librarian involved in some sort of mind-fucking conspiracy?

“I’m sure you’re all aware of what Albert Einstein had to say on the subject,” Dr. Lemingeller continues, in a somewhat snarky vein: “‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’”

Suddenly, chaos erupts in the audience. Tracy and Stacy—the two blonde cheerleaders who pretended to die onstage—both stand up and yell, “Popcorn! Peanuts!” like roving snack vendors at a baseball game. Before Gordon even realizes what he’s doing, he’s standing, too, yelling, “Shut up!” Even more unsettling, Jimmy has leapt up to plant his two feet on the armrests of the chair he was sitting in—and he has a gun in a two-handed policeman’s grip pointed at Dr. Lemingeller’s chest.

“Eat lead, you cruddy hypnotist!” Jimmy shouts. Then the gun goes off. Bam! Bam!bam!bam!bam!-bam! He empties the barrel. Fortunately, it’s only a starter’s pistol, firing blanks.

“Oh! You got me!” Dr. Lemingeller says from up on the stage. He clutches his chest and staggers like a wounded giraffe—hamming it up again.

Jimmy, however, acts as if the bullets were real. He looks around, panicked, then goes vaulting across the backs of the theater seats in an uncanny show of agility that gets him to the fire exit in less than two seconds flat. He slams through the exit door, setting off the alarm, and then he’s gone. No one in the audience has ever seen anyone move so fast.

Gordon is standing there stunned, wondering what just happened. D.H. explains to him that he’d been given a post-hypnotic suggestion to stand up and yell, “Shut up!” when he heard the triggering phrase: “…a very persistent one.”

On the same cue, Jimmy was supposed to fire the gun at Dr. Lemingeller, but apparently he hadn’t been told it was only loaded with blanks. So now Jimmy’s a mind-controlled assassin on the run—a fugitive from hypno-injustice.

Gordon says, “I guess now he knows exactly how Sirhan Sirhan must’ve felt.”

• • •