by John Barth
“Yi hoo!” I cried, and in an access of mad spirit hurled the liquor-flask at the glass face of the gauge. Since our objective, clearly, was to stop the pointer before it reached the red, why did we not lay hold of it, I wondered, swing from it if need be, and check it where it was? Alack, the flask rebounded to the catwalk, barely having cracked what I meant to shatter, and was scrabbled for at once by the deserter—luckily for me, who had not seen him raging towards me with a ball-peen hammer! And thus was worked the rescue of us all: the teammates he’d abandoned, seeing bad faith slaked while good went thirsting, broke muddled ranks to have at him, just when Stoker with boot-tip and tongue had got the lesser gang aligned and bade them heave. Heave they did, all unopposed, and tumbled arselong when the bar came about. Even as they rolled and cursed, the whistling petered; the pointer trembled at disaster’s very threshold, lingered a moment still, then subsided with the rumbling underneath. Mine however was the only shout of joy: fights and tickling-matches had broken out among the workers, all of whom strove for the flask, and Stoker had set out merrily down the catwalk after a chocky lass who’d goosed him with her oilcan-spout at the moment of crisis. When I overtook them he’d already had his revenge, having cornered her against a switchboard, wrested the can from her, and under cover of a stolen kiss, squirted a jet down the open bosom of her shirt. It was a lubricant black as oil but evidently less bland, for it set the girl into a hopping frenzy. She bounded from him in my direction, jerking and squealing as if a coal were between her breasts; indeed the stuff burned her at least as much as the prank amused; she tore open her work-shirt, looked round her wildly, and spying my fine new wrapper, flung herself at my knees, where with violent motions, laughing and shrieking, she soiled my fleece with her blackened bubs. Not content, Stoker stole up behind her as she writhed, drew back the waist-band of her breeches, and fired a second squirt into the seat—which so got to her she let go her teats and raced down the catwalk, now flinging her arms wide, now clawing at her breeches, now leaping and spinning, now rubbing her buttocks madly against the rail. Her fellow workers and myself shouted with laughter at her plight, which soon caught everyone’s eye; all work was abandoned; mirth thundered off the walls. Then Stoker tilted back his head and simply bellowed. I did likewise—it was the perfect thing to do!—and one by one the rest joined in, as if together we might burst the mountain. Never such spirit as now roared in me! I had need of the railing to steady myself; it was as though we floated on the very roar, which once begun appeared to go on of itself—until another pipe or valve exploded aisles away. Stoker sprang to the switchboard and pulled a pair of levers; altogether in the spirit I pulled a few myself, and was rewarded by the spectacle of winches spinning, crane-buckets dropping, signal-lights flashing, and work-gangs leaping like creosoted fleas.
“This is Graduation!” Stoker shouted happily. “Never mind the question: the Answer’s power!”
Its fine explosive sound made him repeat the word, and me join in. “Power! Power!” I pulled another lever, and the entire catwalk slowly descended towards the next lower balcony; yet another, and the nearest furnace door yawned to afford me my first clear glimpse of the fire inside—a boundless, flickerless, terrifying white-orange glow, like one compressed and solid flame, the heat of which even at fifty meters had like to have singed my fleece.
“Wrong lever!” Stoker laughed, and having pushed it back and pulled two others he rushed me off the catwalk and onto the lower balcony. Moments later a crane-bucket swinging furnacewards (at my command, it seems) crashed through the catwalk rail and spilled its molten contents directly on the switchboard. Sparks flew, bells rang, men with masks and hoses swarmed to the catwalk, which soon disappeared in a pall of steam.
“Come on, before the whole flunkèd place blows!” Stoker opened a nearby door marked AID STATION, and grinning at the high-voiced cries and oaths that issued forth, beckoned me in. Standing in the middle of the room (a small one, better lit than the Furnace Room and much quieter once the door closed) was the victim of his recent prank; shirt off and trousers down, she had been being ministered to by three other women, brawny workers all, who had smeared white ointment on her soot-grimed bosoms and husky posteriors. One of the women who had come wrathfully forward now smiled and said, “Oh flunk, it’s the Chief! You sure fixed Madge.”
“She had it coming,” Stoker said cheerily.
Upon our entry Madge had spun from us and snatched up her breeches; seeing who we were now she let them fall and grumbled, “Sonofabitch, all I done was goose you. Look what you done!” She thrust towards us her injured hams. “Like to took the skin off!”
“No! Let’s have a look, Madgie.” He pretended to examine her closely, turning her around by the hips and frowning at the blisters. “Striking effect, George, isn’t it?”
“Quite striking,” I agreed. And in truth, for all her sweat and dishevelment, the naked laborer was not without a hefty beauty: her short black hair was bound by a grease-stained rag, under which her wide, coarse-featured face beamed mischievously; her arms and waist were thick, her hips ample, her thighs well-muscled, her legs unshaved. Aware she was being made game of, she nonetheless exhibited herself with pride and petulance, hands on hips; and while she was in no way comparable to Anastasia, astonishing indeed were the white-salved bosoms against the brown skin, their nipples puckered stoutly under our gaze. Just as fetching was her spirit: having turned full circle she seized her examiner’s hair and rubbed his face into the salve, seeing to it he got a beardful despite his merry oaths. The other women chuckled and vowed good-naturedly he had got no more than his desert; by way of compensation for his prank Stoker granted Madge relief from the balance of her shift—on condition she accompany us, just as she was, to a costume party which he said was in progress in the Living Room.
“I wondered why your pal had that get-up on!” she said. The prospect of appearing naked and bedaubed before strangers nowise dismayed her; she agreed to go with us, stipulating only that she be permitted to improvise a mask for the sake of her modesty and wear her high-top safety shoes for the sake of her toes, which were afflicted with corns. Stoker consented and fetched a new flask from the first-aid locker while the woman shucked off her denims. Her two companions, loudly envious of her good fortune, pitched in to repaint her, improving their earlier effort with bright-colored tinctures from the locker: her nipples and deep-punched navel they ringed concentrically with red against a white-salve background; bright yellow ointment banded all her limbs and set off cleft and dimples of her strong brown rump. Her hair they left bound in the kerchief, and by way of a mask wound her head in gauze bandage, outlining eye-, nose-, and mouth-holes with red antiseptic. Though they laughed and teased as they worked, wagering their chief would appear next morning with a multicolored beard, they were much impressed when they stood back to view the finished product, which I applauded vigorously.
“Aw, you’re beautiful, Madgie,” one of them said. “You’ll knock their eyes out.”
“Pretty as a picture,” said the other. “Ain’t she, Chief? I just wish I could see their faces when you walk in. Have loads of fun, honey.”
“Don’t dare breathe a word to Harry!” Madge pleaded happily. “He’d have a conniption!” She looked down at her body. “Wish to Pete we had a mirror in here. Flunk it all, Mr. Stoker, we need a mirror!”
Stoker slipped his arm around her waist and offered her the flask. “Here’s all you need, Madgikins.” He dismissed her attendants, bidding them notify his own that we were gone to his Spring-Carnival party in the Living Room, and promising that Madge would have much to report on the morrow. The woman stood erect, shod and painted, in the middle of the room, and tipped the flask up—the action thrust out her bull’s-eyed belly (hard as G. Herrold’s, by the look of it) and flexed the muscles of her ribs and shoulders.
“By George!” I exclaimed.
She saw how I gazed at her, and winked as she drank. “You ain’t bad-looking yourself, kid.” Fe
et apart and arms akimbo now, she ignored Stoker’s playful strokings from behind. “So where’s the party?”
I rushed at her with a joyous cry, seized her by the hips, and would turn her about for a proper mounting. She laughed, game enough, but did not at once understand just what I wished, and Stoker took advantage of the little confusion to intervene.
“Plenty of time later, old fellow.”
“Later nothing! Bend over, ma’am! I’m George the Goat-Boy.”
But he inserted himself between us with a grin and would not be pushed away. “You forget you’re already spoken for.”
“You think I can’t do the pair of them?” I demanded.
“Attaboy!” Madge cheered.
“I’ll show you who’s potent,” I vowed.
But Stoker, though he beamed approval of my attitude, insisted we move on to the party, and clasping each of us firmly about the shoulders, let us through the rear of the Aid Station into a long dim corridor, just wide enough for three to walk abreast. Light-headedly I complained, “Supposed to be so potent. I think you’re jealous.”
Stoker only hooted, and Madge laughed too. We paused to pass the flask around, and I found myself leaning against the wall for support as I drank.
“Jealous he ain’t, lamb,” Madge said. “Not a jealous bone in him! He caught me and Harry going to it in the Aid Station once and didn’t say a word, did you, Mr. Stoker? Just stood there and watched.” Her voice turned mischievous. “I figured that was why he’d brought you along—so he could watch us.”
“Tales out of school!” Stoker scolded, and pinched her near buttock. She sprang forward with a squeal, then around behind me to escape him. I growled and snatched at her gaudy breasts, which by virtue of their paint slipped from my grasp, and the three of us then raucoused down the corridor. At the end was a double door labeled LIVING ROOM: Madge reached it first, found it locked, and turned breathless and laughing to face us. Stoker came up next, but instead of having at her he drew a ring of keys from his trouser-pocket and commenced to search through them. She turned then to me, held back by my limp; and seeing I was still all hot resolve, shrank laughing to the door and held out her arms to fend me off.
“Now, pet!” she warned merrily. “Mind what the Chief said! Not till later, when you’re done with Miss Stacey!”
“He’s not my chief,” I declared, and hoisting my wrapper, laid hold and approached at the ready.
Stoker found the key he wanted and thrust it into the lock. “Tell her who you are, George: she ought to be proud.”
“She’ll know soon enough,” I replied. “Turn around, ma’am!”
She looked to Stoker.
“Better do what George says,” he advised, and turned the key in the lock; “believe it or not, he’s the next Grand Tutor.”
What her expression was, I could not tell. She still pressed against the door, but lowered her arms uncertainly and then put her hands behind her. Eagerly I laid hold of her; dutifully she turned. But the moment I crouched for the service Stoker pushed on his door, and the two flew open as one. Madge pitched forward, and I swayed dumbstruck—my stick in one hand, myself in the other—before a sumptuous, thronging hall.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Stoker shouted. “The Grand Tutor of the Western Campus!”
7.
The Living Room, if less cavernous and dark, was in its way as riotous a spectacle as the Furnace Room, and almost as noisy. A hundred men and women, at least, roistered and roiled there in every degree and quality of dress, from sequined gowns to sooty coveralls. None, after all, wore masks, nor were any save Madge quite naked, as far as I could see, and though the faces of the women were painted, what they displayed of their backs, limbs, and bosoms led one to doubt that any bull’s-eyes or yellow-daubed dimples hid under their clothes. So grand was the general carouse, only the nearest dozen faces turned when Madge tumbled gorgeously in. A few folk whistled or applauded; three or four raised her to her feet with much horseplay, and then a brawny chap dived roaring at her legs, hoisted her up on his shoulders, and bore her off laughing and waving into the throng. Several others saluted their host with upraised glasses, two or three stared curiously at me; the rest went on with their merrymaking. It was the first party I had witnessed. The guests sang, they danced and scuffled. Here one vomited; there one wept. This one balanced bottles on his nose; that one beat his head against a wall. Two gentlemen tickled a flailing lady until with a whoop she pissed; three matrons sat upon an old man’s back while a fourth befoamed him with a fire extinguisher. Here a bloody fist-fight was in progress; there a game of leap-frog. A brass band bleated like two-score shophars in a storm of thunder—my first experience of music. Long tables at the wall were laden with bowls of black liquor and great platters of meat: the guests, I realized with horror, were gnawing upon legs of fowl and knuckles of deceasèd pigs. I saw a very pregnant lady brought to one such table and laid supine among the spare-ribs, where, drawing up her knees and clutching at her belly, she shouted, “Here it comes!” I saw a shy young couple holding hands in the corner, and two pretty maids kissing, and two fellows waltzing nimbly together, and a solitary chap with his hand in his trouserfly. Just before my eyes a man was struck down with an empty bottle and robbed of his watch by his drinking-companions, one of whom failed to make good his escape because he paused to defend a young girl being forcibly undressed by three uniformed men: the thief was apprehended by one and the watch returned by another to its owner (who however could not rejoice in his good fortune, being either insensible or dead); the third, meanwhile, was obliged to give way before the fury of the girl their victim, whose placket had been torn: he begged her pardon and the honor of a dance; she hesitated, laughed, stripped off the torn skirt, and spun merrily away with him in fetching cotton drawers.
All this I saw, and yet scarcely saw anything, so enormous was the sight. I gaped in the doorway, cod in hand.
“A little Carnival party,” Stoker said. “We have one every night this week. You should see the place on New Year’s Eve!” So peristently rumored was the approach of a new Grand Tutor, he explained, it had become popular practice among conscientious students to don caps and gowns and celebrate his arrival, and their own Commencement, in advance; in less reverent circles, like Stoker’s, the same thing was done in burlesque: one of their number would be chosen “Tutor of the Revels” and given absolute direction of the party, bestowing honors on the gamest and flunking from the premises any who declined to join the fun. What was more, there had been in recent years a rash of pretenders to actual Grand-Tutorhood, who, however bizarre or insubstantial their claim, never failed to find at least a few believers, and indeed were sometimes quite popular and influential. These were much sought after by earnest students and smart party-givers, and while it was within Stoker’s jurisdiction, as director of Main Detention, to arrest any truly dangerous impostors, he often invited the more colorful ones to entertain his guests.
“Wish you could have seen the chap we had here a month ago: claimed the basic energy in the University was a kind of sound-wave given off by the sex-organs, that only he and his Graduates could hear. We all put little microphones between our legs and made Organic Harmony. That’s what he said the Answer was—Music of the Spheres! He particularly liked Stacey’s timbre when he tuned her in, and she swore she could hear something, too, like singing. All I could hear from anybody was farts and static … Have a bite to eat?”
A waiter had paused before us with a tray of burnt and dismembered chicken-bodies. Stoker helped himself to two handfuls; I turned away to keep from retching at the sight.
“Sorry, old man; forgot.” He sent the waiter off with orders to find a plate of hay, offering me in the meantime a handful of paper napkins by way of hors d’oeuvre, which I declined, having quite lost my appetite.
“Another chap we had claimed the Answer was a science he’d invented called Psychophysics. Something to do with the Third Law of Emotion, and the mind as a Reaction Engine …
I forget exactly. Anyhow he said we’d never reach Commencement Gate because we’d lost our compression and had no spark; we were too choked up; the modern transmission of our power-drives had made us shiftless; we were neutral idlers who slipped in the clutches for want of a new converter; our blocks were cracked; we needed our heads examined and our old shock-absorbers replaced. So he picked Stacey to be the first to get a Psychomotor Tune-up and be equipped with new Overhead Values—they always pick Stacey. But by the time she got up on the platform with him—see that platform in the middle of the floor, where Croaker’s dancing with your friend? It’s right over the furnace we use for cremations. Well, he had all his gadgets set up there, but once he got under Stacey’s hood …”
I heard no more, but with an angry cry charged into the crowd. There indeed was mighty Croaker on a dais in the center of the room, hub of the carouse. Upon a sort of couch there, low enough to have escaped my notice, he had been laid out in black gown and mortarboard, the corpse of G. Herrold beside him; now apparently just reviving from his anesthesia, he had staggered to his feet as Stoker talked, and a cheer had gone up from the crowd; he’d looked about him in a daze, then for some reason raised my dead friend’s body from the couch. The dim room-lights at once grew dimmer, a spotlight fell on the dais, and the band set up a pounding rhythm—whereupon, even as Stoker so placidly remarked, the black giant had commenced a horrid shuffling dance. Rage flushed my dizziness away; I thrust and shoved people aside, spilling their drinks, even knocking them down.
“Gangway for the Goat-Boy!” Stoker called behind me.
Before I could get near the dais the sport changed character: some bold fellow leaped up to join the dance and was knocked sprawling by a sweep of Croaker’s arm; another took his place, a lean dark-haired chap, who instead of dancing held out a lady’s wrap and called, “Huh, toro, huh!” Croaker dropped G. Herrold’s body to the couch and rushed at the newcomer, who however sidestepped, spun the garment gracefully behind his hips, and sent Croaker flying head-first off the platform, into the crowd. Those nearest screamed and scrambled; others shouted “Olé!” The dark-haired fellow bowed and hopped lightly down to do the trick again. Now the spotlight followed the action about the room; coats and kerchiefs flapped from all sides, and Croaker, his mortarboard gone, heaved and laid about him indiscriminately. Some managed to dodge him in the manner of the dark-haired fellow; others he caught hold of and flung, howling, through the air, men and women alike—and every rush brought a chorus of olés.
