XVII.

Close-up of a shackled foot. It floats in mid-air; a chain sways beneath it. It belongs to a 4-foot-tall man in a robe and peaked cap, levitating in chains. For a prisoner, he seems content; eyes shut, heavy grin, and meditating happily. His name is Govin; Kentucky-born, he’s part-man part-angel, and Ophunji kidnapped him three years ago and
keeps him in this room.

The door to the room is thrown open. Ophunji stands silhouetted in the doorway.

“Hey!”

“Hey, Ophunji.”

“So, he’s here. You’ll hook us up?”

“Sure.”

“Exquisite. Thanks. Ahmmm...need anything?”

“Ah...no thanks, Ophunji. I’m all good.”

“Great. So. What do you think of New Rochelle?”

“Yeah. Haven’t been around it much, but what I saw, before you locked me up, looked nice.”

“Great.........OK, then.”

“OK, then.”

Ophunji slams the door and returns to the room where Scambot is strapped.

“All righty! Your moment is NOW! THIS one!” He pushes a button and a large wall panel slides down, revealing a recording studio. Through a floor-to-ceiling window Scambot sees The Quiet Children, chained to their instruments. “Damn,” he thinks. Ophunji speaks excitedly as he diddles with wires and switches. “Just relax, kid...boy, this is gonna... oh! Read this.”

Ophunji hands Scambot a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, bookmarked at page 79.

“That’ll inspire you...don’t consciously think about melodies or rhythms or any of that...just relax. Float. What do the kids say? Chill. Yes.”

“But...”

Ophunji wheels around and stabs Scambot in the neck with a syringe. “READ THAT. ABSORB IT. RELAX.”

The drug takes effect instantly. Scambot slumps a little, reads, absorbs, relaxes.

“Begin.”

Scambot thinks, for some reason, of a light blue blanket. The Quiet Children play a delicate twin-guitar motif with celesta accompaniment.
“Hmmm,” thinks Scambot. He reads a line from the book and thinks of five buckets of sand. The musical landscape intensifies. Themes develop and overlap in unusual ways. An unexpected chord progression seizes Scambot’s heart.

“Hmmm!” thinks Scambot.

In the next room, Govin is thinking of a song his father used to sing to him when he was a child. “There’s a round round hole in the old man’s back, and guess who stuck his finger in...ouch my finger! Ouch my finger!”

Yes. That’s how it goes.

The song calms Govin; he returns to a meditative state, tunes in to his third eye...and music emerges; Govin’s music, coming through the Quiet Children.

It’s Govin’s music that Scambot is hearing. All the wires attached to Scambot are fakes; Govin is transmitting to the Quiet Children via his internal, third eye. He’s gotten good at it, because Ophunji sits here for hours every weekend, listening to Govin’s music, as filtered through a procession of kidnapped musicians (last week he had April Wine; he’s scheduled to get The Black Eyed Peas in about a month). That’s why Ophunji kidnapped Govin, so he’d always have some good music on the weekend.

Govin’s third eye is also a receiver, which he uses to pick up messages from God(s), a committee of enlightened beings (the couple watching “Big Screen Boboli” before are two of them) living on the outskirts of the universe, amongst escaped kites and balloons that have floated there.
Govin’s asked God(s) for stories about Scambot. They’ve got a lot to say so the communication’s cluttered, God(s) all talking at once, misremembering some things from the past and the future (so not all of the following is reliable information):

“While in a hotel room, hiding from the mob, Scambot is bitten by a tiny red bug and falls into a coma. While comatose, he has a series of - um - important occurrences and eventually meets us, the committee of gods for whom the bug is an emissary. The coma is not a coma. None of this has happened yet. Yes it has! Everything which seems to be happening is! And it’s caused him to, ehm, black out a major expanse of his life from between eight years old and the present day. Yes it has!”

But then they sing to Govin, because God(s) LOVE Govin, because he is quality work. “Ahh ah ohh,” they sing. “Ahh ah ahhh aw ahh ah ohhh.” It’s nice. God(s) bat balloons to each other as they sing, and all of this input is helping Govin to customize his music to Scambot’s taste.

Scambot is enchanted, and utterly delighted with himself. Musical episodes pile up, one after the other. The Quiet Children furrow their brows, I think, as they bear down on the hard parts. Ophunji waltzes around the control room. “You GO, Scambot! Oooo, nice harmony right there. Attaboy!”

Scambot relaxes as the piece enters its ninth minute and glances down at the Bhagavad Gita again. Govin picks up on Scambot’s desire for calm and provides a slow, rhapsodic closing section. Scambot’s eyes moisten.
“I can’t BELIEVE I’m writing this,” he thinks.

The final chord stings him into stunned, spiritually satiated silence. Ophunji dances up to Scambot, who has never been more vulnerable.

“Hey! Good job! Ahmmm...Scambot. Listen. There’s this guy. Making things difficult. I’m your pal, right? This guy, he’s a nuisance. He should be silenced. Scambot...I need your help. Only you can help me, because only you understand. I need you to kill ‘Campland’ Staniel.”

Scambot’s eyes narrow and glint.