Too Clever by a Mile Ch. 08

Traces of brown make-up, black mascara and dark brown eyes gave her a faintly exotic look. Steve let her wear clear contacts this evening. Nothing distracted from her appearance. On this evening the plain Jane of most days was a ravishingly beautiful woman. Cathy was the epitome of elegance and beauty. More than a few men in the audience looked at their dates with downcast eyes, for all of them fantasized, wishing they could get the mysterious beauty in bed, unfasten her tight little gown, pull it down and kiss those impish little pear shaped delights.

At last a third participant was selected, and the hypnotist was ready to begin his show.

He sat all three ladies in chairs facing the audience, "Now hypnosis only works if the subject is willing. Are you ladies willing?"

All three shook their heads. Cathy thought it could be kind of fun.

The hypnotist held up a white plastic board. On top of the board there was a black spiraling circle. From behind the board he slowly turned a small crank, "I want you to watch the board. Look at the screen. Pay attention to the board." He kept slowly turning the crank, "Concentrate on what you see. Listen to my voice. Don't think of anything. Allow your mind to go blank. Just watch the slowly moving board and let your mind go."

Steve and everyone else in the audience watched as the women seemed to be mesmerized by the spinning wheel on the flat screen.

The hypnotist kept talking. He used a low keyed slow relaxed monotone, "You feel so relaxed. You could just go to sleep. Now close your eyes, and just relax. You're not asleep, but you wish you were." He stopped turning the crank. He looked at the women, "You're all totally relaxed."

He turned back to the audience. The women behind him were sitting in relaxed positions with their eyes closed, "They may or may not be in a state of hypnosis. I'll have to ask them some question to find out."

He turned back around and asked each one a series of simple questions; mostly things like, what was the last movie they saw, or who their favorite male and female movie stars were, and other simple stuff like favorite Christmas, or favorite color. Then he turned up the gauge just a little. He started asking them things they might not readily remember, like what they had to eat four weeks ago on a Saturday night, and what they had on when they went to their first job interview.

Satisfied they were really under he turned back to the audience, "They're under. Now we can have some fun, but I want you to realize they won't do anything they wouldn't normally do. You can't tell someone under hypnosis to break the law unless they're ready anyway. They'll just wake up. So knowing that let's have some fun."

Over the next five minutes he put them through their paces. He had them bark like a dog, quack like a duck, dance, do simple exercises like raising their arms over their heads. Things that were funny, but still proved they were under.

Then he turned around, "Want to try something a little trickier?"

The audience was all for it.

He turned back around to the women, "You're all three here with someone?"

They all nodded their heads.

"If it's someone you love I want you to go and sit on their laps. If they're just someone you like stand beside them. Are you ready?"

The women all nodded their heads.

"OK, go."

The third young woman went and stood beside the man who'd brought her. Glynnis went and sat on her husband's lap. Cathy sat on Steve's lap.

The hypnotist asked, "Is this just about right?"

The man with the third woman chuckled, "This is only our second date."

Allen said, "She's my wife."

Steve held Cathy, "We're not married, but it's true we do love each other."

The hypnotist looked at Steve, "That's a beautiful woman you've got there. I wouldn't wait too long. You never know. Someone might snatch her up."

Steve smiled at his hypnotized girlfriend, "No I don't think so."

The hypnotist said, "Want to make a little wager I can't get her to choose someone else?"

Steve nodded, "I'm not a betting man."

The hypnotist laughed, "There I thought so. You're not so sure after all."

Steve bristled, "I just said I wouldn't bet. Go ahead do your worst."

The hypnotist looked at the audience, "Well what do you think. Should we put their love to the test?"

Everyone applauded.

The hypnotist said, "OK, all three back up in stage. He got the other two up on stage and awakened them, leaving only Cathy still on stage in a trance.

He looked at Cathy and pointed out to the audience and at Steve, "Is he your boyfriend?"

Cathy nodded.

"You love him very much don't you?"

She nodded again.

He got in her face, "OK Cathy go back to sleep."

Her head dropped to her side.

He looked out at the audience, "I'm' going to give Cathy an order. I'm going to tell her to go out and find someone in the audience she thinks would be better than Steve and bring that person up on stage. Let's see if she brings someone up, and if she does, let's see who it is. If she really loves the guy who brought her she won't know what to do. She'll just walk around till we wake her up."

He turned around to Cathy, "I want you to pretend you don't love your boyfriend anymore, you don't even like him. I want you to go out and find a replacement. Can you do that?"

Cathy didn't move.

He said, "OK, go get a replacement."

Cathy got up and walked back out in the audience. She walked up to a big tall strapping fellow with bright yellow hair; she stood in front of him for several seconds. She walked away. Then she walked over to another guy, another big strong looking fellow. She got real close. She looked him in the eye. She walked away from him too. Finally she walked over to Theresa. She stood right in front of the other woman. She smiled at her. Then she walked away. She stood out in the middle of the audience all alone.

The hypnotist called, "Cathy you have to find someone."

Cathy nodded. She started back through the audience. She looked this way and that. She didn't pick anybody. Finally she walked back over to Steve. She sat back down on his lap.

The hypnotist looked at Steve, "I don't know what you've got, but whatever it is I want some of it." He called Cathy back up on stage and reawakened her, "Cathy do you know what we just did?"

She looked at him and shook her head in the negative.

"I told you that you didn't love your boyfriend anymore and you should go out in the audience and pick someone else."

Cathy looked at him in fright. My God she thought I wonder what I did.

The hypnotist asked her, "Do you want know who you picked?"

Cathy nodded her head in the negative. She was too sacred to say anything.

He asked her, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to find out who you picked to replace your boyfriend?"

She shook her head no again.

He looked at the audience. "She doesn't want to know who she picked. Do you think we should show her anyway?"

Cathy was on the edge of her seat.

The audience clapped and laughed loudly. Everyone started shouting, "Yes show her."

The hypnotist put his hand on her shoulder, "Just sit right here."

He looked out at the audience and asked, "Will the man the young lady picked to replace her current boyfriend please come up and claim his prize?"

On cue all the men made as if to get up. Cathy was terrified. Finally all of them sat down, all but one. Steve got up and slowly walked to the stage. He climbed the steps and helped her off her chair, "You picked me."

She started to laugh, then cry, then she giggled, she wrapped her arms around him, leaned up as far as she could but four extra inches and all still could only reach his cheek, so that was where she kissed him.

The hypnotist looked out at the audience, "I think the girl and her boyfriend need a big round of applause don't you?"

Everyone stood up and clapped and cheered. The hypnotist walked over to Cathy and Steve. He put his arm around Cathy and took Steve's hand, "No one, I mean no one's ever done that before.

You're one hell of a lucky guy."

Steve took Cathy in his arms and kissed her right there in front of the whole audience, "Don't think for a minute I don't know it."

The hypnotist looked at everyone, "Well that wraps up our show for tonight. Make sure you use your designated driver. Tell your friends we're here every night. Have a safe trip."

Steve and Cathy walked off the stage to rejoin their friends. They were more in love now than even before, if that was possible.

Theresa looked at the happy couple. She smiled and teased. Inwardly she vowed, somehow she was going to make this end.

++++++++++++

Life for Steve and Cathy got even better after the hypnotist's performance. If Steve ever wanted proof of Cathy's sincerity nothing could have done it better that evening at the night club.

Cathy, having been hypnotized had no recollection of what happened, but Steve, Glynnis and Carol didn't hesitate to fill her in.

In hindsight the night club for Cathy was the Godsend she'd needed. She and Carol had become friends even beforehand, but afterward it was Glynnis who called.

Cathy still kept up a lively discourse with Theresa, usually about their past relationships, their childhoods, and prior professional and social lives. Theresa had experienced a lively past. Her college days and the discovery of her lesbianism were fascinating. Cathy found it was easy to open up and share with Theresa almost everything about her own past, her marriages, her childhood, and the fun she'd had in college.

Yes, talking to Theresa was like a trip down memory lane; it was fun and fun in that way one had when talking about things that no longer mattered, things that had no more relevance, but was still exhilarating. She imagined it might have been kind of like the middle aged man whose athletic exploits grew more daring with each passing year. Their stories, hers and Theresa's probably were liberally spliced with exaggeration, Cathy knew hers had been.

It was Glynnis and Carol who gradually took over most of her non-Steve and non-hospice time. The three of them found repeated opportunities to share lunch, join in on electronic conference contacts, interactive e-mails, and just a milieu of incidental communications. One thing led to another and pretty soon Carol and Glynnis were opening up about the hospice. She was glad they did, because she had lots of ideas.

One of Cathy's most robust harebrained ideas had germinated as a result of her conversations with the Methodist minister. He'd suggested she consider some kind of nondenominational coalescence around the hospice. He explained all the better churches had missionary programs. What was to keep them from diverting some of their resources to a home grown service organization like the hospice?

Backed by the new confidence Glynnis and Carol had in her Cathy broached the subject to her new friends one day at lunch. She suggested they start to visit the local churches and see what the effort might bring. Glynnis had warned her that Steve, though once an avid church goer might stand in the way. Carol also warned that Theresa's lesbianism could be a problem. But it was Steve's story that was the most disturbing for that was when Cathy gleaned some tragic and most unwelcome discoveries about Leah and Steve.

Glynnis filled her in completely about Steve's philandering, and about Leah's retaliatory exploits. As Cathy listened it sounded like something right out of some soft core pornographic romance.

That wasn't the worst though. Cathy had never been much of a church goer, and reading the Bible, Old and New Testaments never had much appeal. Sure she knew about Moses, Noah, and such, and she had a passing acquaintance with Peter and Paul, but a real examination of the Bible was as foreign to her as the landscape of the Moon.

Glynnis revealed one piece of scripture that turned out to be especially unpleasant. It seemed when Jesus was being investigated by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, some Jewish spectators made a stupid comment about how they, the Jews, would take full responsibility for Jesus's death. Glynnis explained the whole passage was just like two incomplete sentences, and it was only found in one place in the whole Bible. But she explained Christians, not all Christians but quite few, had been using it for centuries to beat up on the Jews.

Cathy didn't get it at first. She remembered asking Glynnis, "So a few Jewish people were blamed for one man's death two thousand years ago, so what?"

Glynnis explained it in more detail, she'd said, "Look Cathy all the laws and all the stuff that happened in Europe and in other places can be traced to one line in the Bible. Think about what happened in the 1930's and 1940's. Preachers all over Europe used one line, one single line, to justify the worst atrocity in modern times."

Cathy had been sympathetic, "OK, I'm sorry, but I didn't do it, and what does that have to do with anything here and now anyway?"

That's when Glynnis opened her eyes, "Cathy, Leah was a Jewish girl. While she was dying Steve, went to his church for help and support. The pastor there, not the same one who's there now, told Steve a lot of terrible things."

"Like what," Cathy remembered asking.

Carol had heard this story first so she told it, "The minister told Steve Leah's leukemia was God's punishment of Steve for marrying a Jewess."

Cathy remembered her own incredulity, "No!"

Worse explained Carol, "After Leah died the same minister performed the funeral. At the grave he specifically referred to Leah as one of the 'Christ Killers', and her death should be a warning to all real Christians."

Cathy had been dumbstruck. She remembered replying, "No Carol that can't be true; no one would ever say that."

Glynnis changed the subject a little and had asked Cathy something else. She pointed to the locket she had on, "has anyone ever said anything to you about that?'

Cathy had asked, "About what?"

"The Chai around your neck."

"The what," she asked?

That locket Steve gave you. Haven't you ever noticed the etching? It's a Chai, an old symbol worn by Jewish women, it means life or something."

Cathy recalled reaching for the locket. It was then she remembered the symbol, who it was associated with, and what it meant. She remembered saying, "No I...but I can't believe a minister, or anybody would say the thing you said."

Carol looked Cathy squarely in the eye and answered, "No dear, that's a true story."

Glynnis nodded her head, "We all heard it."

For Cathy that explained a lot. When she'd first heard it she'd thought Leah was an odd name, but then she remembered Leah had been somebody's sister or something in the Old Testament. Then there was the locket. The funny shaped talisman. Why not a heart or a cross, a chi roe even? No it was that other funny thing, for Jews she remembered. It was a Jewish amulet, and that was why Theresa immediately recognized it. Steve hated God. He hated church people. He especially hated preachers. It made sense. She remembered thinking she'd hate anyone who'd said something like that about someone she loved, and then have that someone have the misfortune to die of anything as horrid as leukemia. Oh poor Steve. Oh poor Leah! Had the preacher said the same thing to her? What a vicious travesty!

Cathy remembered her decision. "We have to go to all the Christian churches. We have to invite them to join us in support of our hospice, but we must have some kind of test, a litmus test. Any church that wants to help us can, but they have to renounce the part in the Bible about the Jews and Jesus."

Carol asked, "What if they don't"

Glynnis answered that, "Then they won't be Christians anyway, and we won't want their money."

Cathy had asked, "What about the synagogues?"

Carol answered, "Are you kidding? First, Jews give to charities like there's no tomorrow anyway. If we made it known we'd put that kind of condition on church giving the synagogues will be knocking each other down to help."

Cathy remembered smiling and leaning back, "Then we can go to the houses of worship, all the houses of worship. We can tell them our dream and our concern. After that we'll leave it In God's hands."

Glynnis asked, "Christian churches and Jewish synagogues?"

Cathy asked, "Is there a difference? It's the same God isn't it?"

Glynnis commented, "Who knows God? I only know she sure works in mysterious ways."

All three laughed out loud.

Cathy remembered saying, "Yeah, She sure is something."

They all laughed some more.