by John Barth
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: That’s he.
TALIPED: Now
cut that out! [TO SHEPHERD] Look here, old man,
you’d better speak the truth, the entire truth, et cetera.
SHEPHERD: I wish I was dead.
TALIPED: You may be, soon. Now answer this: were you Labdakides’s man, sir?
SHEPHERD: Yep. I shepped his sheep for quite a spell.
TALIPED: Where’d you mainly shep ’em, pops?
SHEPHERD: Oh well,
let’s see: I shepped ’em here and shepped ’em
there …
TALIPED: In Dean’s Ravine?
SHEPHERD: I shepped ’em everywhere. Stinking hungry sheep—they’re always eating.
TALIPED: In Dean’s Ravine, do you remember meeting this chap here? This Handsome Mailman type?
SHEPHERD: Nope.
MAILMAN: Come on! It’s me you used to gripe about your boss to, every time the two of us would split a jug of Mountain Dew.
SHEPHERD: Okay, so we’re old pals. Congratulations. So what?
MAILMAN: Remember our negotiations about a kid one day? You guaranteed it was in perfect shape and wouldn’t need repairs before I sold it, flunk your eyes!
SHEPHERD: So sue me. I don’t take back merchandise after thirty years.
MAILMAN: That’s not the point. That kid was Taliped, who runs this joint.
SHEPHERD: What are you—some kind of nut?
TALIPED: I warn you, Shep: this is the Deanery, not the barn. There’s more than one way to squeeze out facts from shankers like yourself. We break their backs and screw their thumbs and stretch ’em on the wheel and do things to their privates till they squeal. It’s lots of fun, and gets results, too. Break one finger for him, boys.
SHEPHERD: For Founder’s sake, I’m old and—ouch! That smarts! Okay, okay, I’ll talk! Ask me something!
TALIPED: Did he pay you for a child once, this man here? And did you take the cash and hand him one male kid?
SHEPHERD: Yep. I made a killing. Not the kind
I was sent out to make, though.
TALIPED: Never mind.
Where’d you get that kid from, anyhow?
SHEPHERD: Must I tell you?
TALIPED: [TO GUARDS]
Break his finger.
SHEPHERD: Owl
Two pinkies in two minutes: the heck with that! The Deanery here is where I got the brat.
TALIPED: The cleaning-lady’s kid? Who was the father?
SHEPHERD: I can’t say …
TALIPED: [TO GUARDS]
Break his finger.
SHEPHERD: No! Don’t bother! They said the bastard was Labdakides’s.
TALIPED: The Dean’s himself’s!
SHEPHERD: I hope that answer pleases you. It was his kid.
TALIPED: By Agenora?
SHEPHERD: I didn’t ask.
TALIPED: She gave it to you?
SHEPHERD: For a price I said I’d feed him to the squirrels.
“Squirrels don’t eat meat,” Peter Greene remarked.
TALIPED: Unnatural mother!
“Indeed she was!” I said, shocked to tears.
SHEPHERD: Well, girls will be girls. She wasn’t too enthusiastic, sir.
TALIPED: Then why’d she do it?
SHEPHERD: Better go ask her. She gave me some malarkey how she was sure the kid would kill his dad—some such manure.
TALIPED: Ai yi!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Me too.
TALIPED: Your answers scare me stiff!
MAILMAN: They don’t much bother me.
TALIPED: [TO SHEPHERD]
But, flunk you, if she gave those orders, then you disobeyed!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: So fire him. [TO MAILMAN] Oy, these deans!
SHEPHERD: I was afraid they’d pin the rap on me if things got hot, so I decided, Why not make a pot and also save my neck? This moron swore he’d carry you a long way off before he retailed you.
MAILMAN: I did, you crook!
SHEPHERD: [TO TALIPED]
But you came back and made the prophecy come true. So help me Founder, Dean! I’d rather lose eight more fingers than be in your shoes!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [TO SHEPHERD]
We call them buskins.
SHEPHERD: Oh.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, Taliped?
TALIPED: The truth! The truth at last! In my own head I figured out the Answer to this messi
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You had a little bit of help, I guess …
TALIPED: The blinding light! At last I see the light! And what it shows me is: Gynander’s right! I’m flunked on my ID-card, flunked in bed, and flunked at Three-Tined Fork—I, Taliped, the smartest dean that ever deaned, will never see the light again! I’m flunked forever!
With this final cry he rushed into the Deanery, and while my spine thrilled with the horror of his Answers, the committee reconvened to sing its final plaintive report, the members holding hands and swaying gently from side to side:
Here today and gone tomorrow. [STROPHE 1
What the dickens. What the heck.
Men are whiffenpoofs that pass and get forgot.
Our committee will adjourn now,
But before we say bye-bye
Let us recapitulate this tragic plot:
In the protasis, or prologue, [ANTISTROPHE 1
The protagonist exposed
To the deuteragonist and choragos
Hamartia caused by hubris,
While the background was disclosed;
Then the chorus danced and sang the párodos.
After that the anabasic [STROPHE 2
Epeisodions commenced,
With the dithyrambic stasima between;
And ironic stichomyths led
To the anagnorisis:
A peripetal misfortune for the Dean.
Now the climax is upon us. [ANTISTROPHE 2
In the éxodos to come,
The catharsis will catharse us till we’re spent;
Till catastrophe has pooped us
And the epilogue is done;
In the meantime here’s the kommos, or lament:
Now their voices rose most sweetly in the touchingest words and music I’d ever heard—which, however, did not constitute a true kommos, according to Dr. Sear.
Taliped had a mind like an iron trap. [STROPHE 3
Boo hoo hoo.
Caught the monster, caught the deanship, caught the
Dean’s wife in his lap.
Boo hoo hoo.
Gentleman, scholar, and keen dean!
But [ANTISTROPHE 3
Caught himself in his trap, like a nut.
Bet he wishes he’d kept it shut.
Boo hoo hoo.
Why did you murder your daddy, my friend?
Why did you roger your mommy? And
Why must we sing this refrain again?
Boo hoo hoo.
At this point, while my eyes swam still, the hush in which the committee’s last notes died was broken by a static rustle and a terse voice from loudspeakers around the margin of the Amphitheater.
“Ladies and gentlemen: we interrupt this catharsis to bring you two special news bulletins …”
There was a general stir; Dr. Sear muttered something impatient about the adverse psychological effects of catharsis interruptus, but after a moment’s pause the amplified announcement continued:
“The body of Herman Hermann, former dean of the Bonifacist extermination campuses, has been found in the New Tammany College Forests near Founder’s Hill. Hermann, sought since the end of Campus Riot Two for crimes against studentdom, is reported to have been shot. His body was discovered this afternoon by a detachment of Powerhouse guards. Main Detention has begun an investigation of the case at Chancellor Rexford’s request …”
The announcement was received with an outburst of cheering from everyone in the Amphitheater except Dr. Sear, who shrugged his shoulders, Max, who shuddered, and myself, too surprised by the novelty of loudspe
akers to assimilate the news at once. Even Croaker woke up, grunted, and clapped his hands with the others. I heard people nearby remark that the beast had had it coming; that shooting was too good for the man who had administered the Bonifacist extermination campuses.
“No,” Max said. “It was wrong.”
“Here is the second bulletin,” the loudspeakers went on. “Late this afternoon WESCAC read out the following tidings of great joy: A true Grand Tutor is about to appear in New Tammany College, to show right-thinking students and staff-members the way to Commencement Gate. I repeat: WESCAC has officially read out that a true Grand Tutor is about to appear …”
One heard no more of the restatement, owing to the great stir in the crowd. People murmured and shouted, hooted and whispered. Some wiped their eyes on their sleeves; some shrilly laughed. A few left the theater; many others seemed to want to, but could not bring themselves quite to it.
“How ’bout that!” Peter Greene exclaimed; he slapped my knee and shook his head admiringly, as though I had played a great amusing trick on him. Dr. Sear regarded me with a look of sharply interested doubt, and Max embraced me—almost fearfully, I thought—and then excused himself, mumbling that his bladder was full. I could not decide whether to rise and proclaim myself or hold my peace yet a while; moreover, for all my surge of feeling at the announcement, I had foresight yet to wonder what one did after the proclamation: having said, “I am that same Grand Tutor,” did one then sit down again, or commence Tutoring straightway? And what did one say? Where anyhow was Commencement Gate? Better, I decided, to bide a bit more time; the players were assembling again in the orchestra; the lights dimmed that had come on for the announcement; I looked around for Max, but he had gone through the exit behind us; the crowd still hummed and shifted as the committee and its chairman gathered before the Deanery door through which now the Handsome Mailman came and waved his arms for silence.
MAILMAN: You ain’t heard nothing yet.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: We’ve heard a lot …
MAILMAN: This college is a loser.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: If you’ve got more bad news, don’t beat about the bush; lay it on us.
MAILMAN: Okay. Then I’ll push along for home, since neither snow nor rain, et cetera.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN; We know.
MAILMAN: I can’t complain about the weather here in Cadmus; it’s your women burn me up. “If the shoe fits, wear it,” so they say, and Mrs. Dean fit me like a—you know what I mean. I went upstairs to check the old girl out on first-class mail reception—you no doubt recall her parting words?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: She meant to go and hang her dress up, I remember.
MAILMAN: Oh
boy, and did she ever! I near flipped when I walked in and found the Deaness stripped mother-naked …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Isn’t she a dear?
MAILMAN: … and also swinging from the chandelier.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: At her age! Pass her heart, she’s full of juice, that girl!
MAILMAN: No more, my friend: she’d made a noose out of her gown and hanged herself, and there she swang: pop-eyed, purple-faced, and bare.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: A pity! Now our plump and placid wives will be the only women in our lives.
MAILMAN: Too bad for you; you’re in the wrong profession. Anyhow, I’d gone up for a session of playing Post Office, not to see a naked female corpse. It seems to me the woman could have waited till tonight, when I was gone.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: It sure was impolite of her.
MAILMAN: You said it. But, that’s how it goes. In any case, I forgot to close the bedroom door, and as I stood there swearing and ogling her, young Taliped comes tearing in. He yelled and hollered; I said, “Hi there, Taliped,” but he never did reply.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Another rude one. Cadmus seems to be a little short on hospitality.
MAILMAN: That’s right. Anyhow, he grabbed a knife from somewhere and cut down his black-faced wife—I mean his black-faced mother …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Let it go; we get the general picture.
MAILMAN: And you know what he did then?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I hope he wasn’t rude to you.
MAILMAN: Judge for yourself. There lay his nude old lady, with the gown around her chin; he tore off his diamond-studded fraternity pin and also his old man’s—she wore them both, you know—then he let go an awful oath …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: He’s good at that.
MAILMAN: He said, “A flunking curse upon that pair of breasts I used to nurse and later played with in a different wise; the breasts that wore these pins! Flunk the eyes, your sun-blind husband’s eyes, these too-bright
wretches,
that blindly saw them!” He undid the catches then, and poked his eyes out.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: “Too-bright sun”! He should have stabbed himself for such a pun.
MAILMAN: I just report the news; I’m not a critic. The Dean’s blind.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Like our hermaphroditic Seer Emeritus, who foresaw this mess! What’s Taliped up to now?
MAILMAN: You’ll never guess: he wants to make a general exhibition, to staff and students, of his low condition before he flunks himself.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: We can’t have that. What would the Trustees say? But he can chat with us awhile, I guess, before he goes. It helps to talk things over. I suppose this is the poor chap coming now. Ugh!
[Enter TALIPED
TALIPED: Yes, it’s me, friends.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I.
TALIPED: It’s I, and I confess I’m right bad off.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You are that, Dean. It makes me somewhat ill to see you.
TALIPED: My heart breaks for you. I was so handsome in Act One, and now look.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Ech.
TALIPED: It’s bad, huh?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: If you’re done, sir, we’ll be seeing you.
TALIPED: I’m not done yet.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I thought perhaps you were.
TALIPED: I wish you’d let me speak my piece; it’s my catastrophe. Gee whiz, it hurts to know as much as me!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: As much as—
TALIPED: Never mind! I’d like to choke that shepherd-type who saved my life.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: The bloke did no one any good, that’s a fact. If I were you, I wouldn’t end this act a blind old beggar: death would be much nicer, I believe.
TALIPED: I don’t need your advice, sir. Suicide has never been my cup of tea, and it would mess the symbols up. Excuse me now; I have some things to curse.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, all right; go ahead.
TALIPED: I’ll take a verse or two to flunk that ditch called Dean’s Ravine because I didn’t die there; then I mean to flunk old Isthmus College and the chap who raised me as his son. I’ll take a slap at Three-Tined Fork, and when I’ve flunked it I’ll curse marriage and love-making for a while, since they’re what made me what I am today. Ten minutes ought to do the whole curse.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Say,
I guess we’ll have to take a rain-check on it; here comes your brother-in-law.
TALIPED: That clown!
Doggone it,
he’s got no right to steal my biggest scene!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Be careful what you say; he’s Acting Dean these days, you know.
TALIPED: Oh boy.
[Enter BROTHER-IN-LAW
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [TO BROTHER-IN-LAW]
Good evening, sir!
Nice to see you!
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Sure it is. You were always glad to see me, I recall. But never mind. Come on and help me haul this eyeless bastard out of here before he tells some news-reporter the whole story. He never can leave well enough alone; he’s always showing off.
TALIPED: Gee whiz!
BROTHER-IN-LAW: [TO TALIPED]
Don’t groan for pity now, you sonofabitch. You had it coming.
TALIPED: Lay off
, Uncle; I’m in sad enough condition. Look, why not expel me from the place?
BROTHER-IN-LAW: I’ll let the Proph-prof tell me what to do, not you. I wish I’d thrown you out nine years ago.
TALIPED: Me too. Alone, I’ll wander up to Dean’s Ravine and die where Mom and Dad first ditched me. Or I’ll try, at least …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Do try.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Try hard.
TALIPED: I will; and yet I know somehow that my end won’t be met in any ordinary way. Some queer fate lies ahead for me; if not this year, then next—some strange, spectacular surprise.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Nonsense. Must you always dramatize everything you do?
TALIPED: Grant one request,
Uncle dear …
BROTHER-IN-LAW: What now?
TALIPED: I have the best-looking daughters and the brightest sons on campus, right?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You have the corniest puns; I’ll vouch for that.
TALIPED: The boys can get along without me, but I think it would be wrong to leave the girls behind.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Another play on words, and naughty, too.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: The girls will stay with me. No use to complicate things further. You are their dad and brother; if you were their lover too, we’d never get things straight.
[Enter KIDS
Make your goodbyes short; it’s getting late.
TALIPED: [TO KIDS]
Poor kids! You’ve got a rugged row to hoe. You won’t have any boyfriends, ’cause they’ll know your daddy was your brother. Boyfriends hate to hear such things as that about a date.
KIDS: Some big brother you turned out to be. You’re pretty sexy, though.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: I think that we should stop right where we are.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Me too.
TALIPED: [TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]
Are you
still here?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Where else?
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Well, girls, say toodle-oo to Taliped. It’s time for him to go.
KIDS: Toodle-oo, Pops.
TALIPED: No!
BROTHER-IN-LAW: Yes.
TALIPED: No!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
TALIPED: No!
Leaving my pretty girls behind is quite the hardest thing on campus!
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I was right: He can’t resist a dirty joke.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: [TO KIDS]
Get lost
