The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security by Andrew Tisbert Page A

bit his lip.
    Wright turned to the doctor and said, “Calvin is our literary translator here at the station. I'll leave you to him, all right? If you need anything, just call me.” Then he touched the plug in his left ear and tilted his head. “What?” He spoke into his lapel. “What do you mean his eye fell out? Stick it back in and duct tape it for all I care. Just get him to the fucking scene.” Straightening, he grasped Roger's shoulder and moved his lips without speaking: Don't fuck this up, Calvin. Then he strode away.
    Thanks for the vote of confidence.
    Roger motioned to Dr. Bankley. “Come into my office."
    It was no more than a storage closet with a desk and two torn old chairs. Broken mechanical eye units and other dusty pieces of equipment were strewn on shelves and in corners of the windowless room. One of the ceiling lights fizzled and popped off as they entered. Roger watched Dr. Bankley look around with obvious amused distaste. He offered him a chair, then squeezed behind his desk and computer.
    Roger hated his job. As far as he was concerned, reading was easy to the point of boredom—there was no reason everyone shouldn't have the ability. But it hadn't been that way for a very long time. Literacy had become a highly specialized skill, and most people just didn't need it in a world of vision walls and talking computers, picture menus and automated controls. Still, some businesses had occasional call for someone who could translate a written text or instructions.
    Instead of making the literacy translator a prestigious, sought-after vocation, this bred attitudes of snobbery in the non-literate majority. The LT's position grew increasingly obsolete. Reading was for stupid people, people who had to read words to come up with something to say, people who didn't fit in a visual-oriented world. Reading was a crutch. Reading was old-fashioned. Readers weren't do-ers. Roger's work kept him at poverty level, and he burned at being treated like a third rate citizen. But he was a good little soldier and always kept his mouth shut. As sick as it made him inside, what was he to do? Showing a bit of pride could get him fired. And there was no way he was going to move back to a scrap town and fall below the fortunate poverty in which he now lived.
    Dr. Bankley cleared his throat. “I have here a transcript of a piece I once did on the history of policy phrasings on abortion. Don't even ask why it wasn't computer-translated.” He raised an arm and gestured dismissively over his head. Then he clicked open his briefcase and pulled out a writing pad full of hand-written text.
    Hand written!
    Roger took the pad handed to him and looked carefully at the doctor. Bankley, unblinking, just smiled back at him. “It's a long story,” he said. “What I want to do is go over it with you, and revise it here, off the cuff, so to speak, with you taking notes and reading back to me. Then when I go live on the air, you can read it and prompt me through my ear plug. Understand?"
    "Yes sir.” Roger brushed kinky black hair from his eyes.
    They worked for almost an hour before Roger noticed something strange about Bankley. When they had started, the doctor would close his eyes and listen intently to every word Roger read back to him. But now he had pulled his chair forward until he leaned over the front of Roger's desk. And when he paused to listen to Roger read a paragraph, it seemed as if he were stealing glimpses of the note pad. Is he one of those? Roger started purposefully stumbling on his words as he read to slow the process. He tilted the pad slightly toward the doctor. Bankley responded by looking at the notepad more frequently, and Roger caught the man's eyes tracking the written words. He was certain.
    I'll be liberated in a desert storm! This mother fucker can read! He can fucking read!
    Roger wanted to throw the pad down and put an end to the charade, but he swallowed his anger. He would only get himself fired by