When I tell you to wake up you are going to want cigarettes so badly tonight that you'll almost be crazy. You can feel that right now, can't you?"
"Yes." Again a pained expression.
"You'd be willing to smoke anything to get rid of the feeling - cigars, old butts, anything. And..."
He looked expressionless now.
"I'll be taking away some of your mental ability tonight, Aaron. You won't be able to study any more tonight because you won't remember anything you study. You won't be able to keep your mind on anything except wanting a cigarette."
"Wanting a cigarette."
"Oh yes. And you really wish you had Chris' Playboy because that is the best magazine in the world. Isn't it?
"Yes."
"If you had that you could concentrate on something, couldn't you?
"Yes."
"But even if you did have it, every advertisement for cigarettes would make you want to smoke more and more wouldn't it."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry I have to punish you, Aaron, but you must always do everything I say or I can't make you important. You must trust me, Aaron."
"I do."
"And when are you going to have money again?"
"Not till next Saturday."
"You're liable to be very slow in school by then, Aaron. You better see what you can do about it."
"I will. I'm sorry."
"I want you to count down from ten and when you get to one you will be wide awake. Chris will still be in the room reading but he doesn't know about me and you won't tell him, will you?"
"No."
"Start counting."
"Ten... nine... eight...
By the time he got to one I had the magazine open again and had pulled out the centrefold. Miss April. My, my.
"Is that the April issue?" He noticed my cigarette. "Hey, are you smoking one of my cigarettes? I've only got a few left."
"No", I lied. "This is mine."
The rest of the evening he was like a tiger in a cage. He threw his books against the wall. He came over and looked at the Playboy with me but he couldn't even keep his mind on that. He chain-smoked the four cigarettes he had left and then he couldn't seem to take it any longer.
"I'm going out for a walk," he said.
I'm not sure when he came back in because I fell asleep almost as soon as I hit my own pillow. I almost always did these nights. When I woke up my Playboy was gone, though. Over the next couple of months God didn't talk to Aaron very much. I sort of sat back and watched what was going on.