Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

  (as if I ain’t havin troubles enough old Ramescs stages him an insurrection the sonuvabitchl had it in for his old buddy Morris ever since I cropped his marbles and hell I didn’t wanna do it but the stock was multiplicatin past all reason and I had to halt it somewheres they was draggin me down to a near standstill: tried to explain it to the old tup but he wouldn’t listen had to get his daily diddle he did so what could I do? I roasted a coupla the younger lads and docked the old ram but no I shouldn’ta done it by damn! shouldn’ta done it! old RamesesI whatever got into me? if I just had time to sit down and think I i£ you’re gonna eunuch cm you gotta do it young by damn/so that did it he sets about to right the score and so this here afternoon we make the hard trek up into the big hills find us a green knob and settle us down for a breather we’re staggerin sick from runnin and dimbin just too much! had to leave a poor old ewe behind on accounta she was just too slow from carryin I left her with no one to care for her damn near made me cry/but now then the sun was lowerin peaceful down in the plain the flock grubbin the good mountain clover and me with a big slab of roast ram outa my pack my cup frothin with snowy white milk and first thing you know I’m noddin off dreamin of the old country the slender maids and soft halfforgotten lays me spread out with a fancy little phyllis of just fourteen and never yet mown and I’m just creepin in her kirtle with her pantin fast and tonguin my ear when I wakes of a sudden finds me in the midmost of the motherin flock one of the old girls nudgin me in the face with her wet nose and old Rameses’ bells clangin not far off/can’t see plain at first sun down and moon just a fingernail but yes! they’re buttin me towards the old ram! still got my fuddled mind on the old country and can’t arrange the landscape straight for a moment: but then it hits me! the precipice! them goddamn ewes is nosin me towards the precipice! oboy I try like hell to haul my feet under me but them bitches just knock me down again can’t hardly see nothing only just their white wool rollin spooklike in the moonlight their hooves and black faces blocked out by the nightdark and I keep hearin them bells like a tinny dirge gettin nearer and nearer jumpin juniper! a goner by god! and my heart’s poundin and I’m mebbe even screamin and then oh my god I catch a clear horrifical glim of the edge: pale vision of the plains way down below/old Rameses he’s slowly givin ground edgin aside to grant me space to slip of! and away and I furious grab out at the old gruff but all I get is his damn bells and the ewes ain’t pushin directly now the old bellwether is movin aside but they’re fumblin around clumsy and confused and I know I gotta go any minute—but suddenly quicklike I clap the bells on the nearest mother and send her flyin and janglin off to the right and over the cliff: half the flock follows her over before you can’t hear the bell no more me clutchin at last and hangin on to old Rameses’ hind hoof/and then finally it’s over and I stagger over by the rocks collapse grabbin for breath Rameses his troops cut to ribbons droops in retreat to the nearby copse can’t sleep all night myself but by mornin I can see the old ram and I have found our truce: what’s left to trouble us won’t be neither of us)

  Data streamed daily into Dr. Doris Peloris’ skyhigh headquarters. Only rarely did Morris escape our network of observers now, and then but briefly. His least event was recorded on notepad, punch-card, film, tape. Observers reported his noises, odors, motions, choices, acquisitions, excretions, emissions, irritations, dreams. His longest disappearance lasted only three days: at the end o£ that time, some dead sheep were discovered in a ravine, Morris located up in the mountains, so-called, less than an hour later. The report was rushed to Dr. Peloris, high above the City.

  “Little matter,” the doctor replied, smiling warmly, turning from her machines. “We have him now.”

  Instructions were given to wait for a few hours, then harass him down out of the mountains. Dr. Peloris moved Expedition Head quarters to a skillfully concealed bivouac area within the Third National Park. There, she prepared the reception for the old shepherd.

  “You see, Nan,” she explained to her aide that evening, “it is now certain that Morris will camp here in this valley, beside this canal and that grove, within five days. The order of his disorder, as exposed by Boris’ charts and the processed data, forces him to do so no matter what operations his mind might undertake in order to arrive at what he would tend to think of as a decision. Unless, of course, it included the foreknowledge that we await him here. And who knows? perhaps even this knowledge would not suffice to break the power of pattern over mere mind-activity. Were the situation not so critical, I might enjoy the experiment.” Nan smiled faintly, lit the doctor’s cigarette. “Certain precautions will make our job easier, Nan. Please request that the water in the canal be generated with slightly increased velocity, and if necessary, create small obstructions that break the surface. Until Morris is captured there are to be no overcast skies. If this order conflicts seriously with some other department, you are at liberty to alter it to pertain to nights only, but under no circumstances are there to be clouds from mid night until about one hour after dawn.”

  “Temperature, Doctor?” “About seventy-five degrees, humidity slightly higher than normal.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Is there any other—?”

  “Once the adversary has entered the target area, see to it that fragrances of pine, myrtle, and hyacinth are emitted faintly. Take extreme caution, of course, for this can easily be overdone and put our prey on his guard. The mechanical crickets should be turned on at sunset, but only one by one, reaching full strength about five a.m. Make a public announcement about the same time, in order to clog up the park exits a bit. At six, we close in.”

  Nan looked up, met the doctor’s gray-eyed gaze. They nodded, smiled knowingly at each other. Six.

  (so by damn whaddaya know? brought out a brandnew little lamb this evenin just as old phoeb was rollin in for the night him lendin a soft goldreddish glow to the occasion the little ewe just a youngun too: her first—how is it they mother so sweet the first time? it’s the pain and fright in it I guess—but damn! I knew that! known it for ages just forgot it I guess forgettin ever damn thing forgettin all the old songs too I am/mind wearying down with all this cussed pasturechoppin that’s it! we just ain’t made for it arc we Rameses? gcttin old you are Morris by damn if you ain’t I well of course I still got a little jism left in my jumpers I ain’t givin it up yet I can tell ye but I’m sure as hell on the peterin off side of the old lifearc yes yes time it wastes all things and ain’t it so!/sure is pretty here tonight must be a million stars up there! you know I set to countin them once well hell I was young and had silly ideas I thought they was always the same number of em up there can you imagine?-just didn’t know just didn’t know nothin/hcy! listen at them crickets! why I ain’t heard crickets like that since I was a boy! got the idea somewhercs they’d extincted the little buggers but I guess they don’t give up that easy I guess nothin does and leastly you and me eh Rameses?/well you know old wether we just shouldn’ta come back here I feel disaster in my bones I do but it seems like it don’t really matter somehow—no: when you figger they’da got us one place as another you might just as well go out grubbin the green herbs as gaggin on garbage in the alleys don’t you reckon?/and hey! just smell that spring old eunuch! just listen at them bawdy crickets I makes a body wanna pipe one of the old songs!)

  Her hairs was black as silver snails

  Her teeth was white as gold

  The copse were green as nightingales

  The runlet fresh as mold

  The runlet fresh as mold

  Her ears they twinkled merrily

  Her eyes hearked all I said

  How lovely life, sang I, would be

  If only we was dead

  If only we was dead

  She quite agreed and plunged her knife

  Into my bleeding breast

  Sweet maid, you’ve given me new life

  Pray, let me have the rest

  Pray, let me have the rest

  Once her I laid, twice her I laid

&nbs
p; I laid her three times o’er

  So though she died a virgin maid

  We buried her a whore

  We buried her a whore

  Now if my tune obscure should seem

  The meaning overlong

  Consider less than life a dream

  And more than death a song

  And more than death a song

  Dawn broke at 5:55. Beside the water, alongside a grove of poplar and beech, lay the shepherd with his flock, facing the eastern sky. At precisely 6:00 a.m., Dr. Doris Peloris and her staff emerged from their concealments, advanced from different directions upon the shepherd. He started up, then discovered the thickening crowds of eager-eyed tourists welling up behind the doctor and her team: he offered no resistance.

  “You have been herding sheep,” the doctor said.

  “That figures, lady. I’m a shepherd.”

  The doctor’s aide snorted: “Fruitless syllogism of eclogic!”

  Dr. Peloris smiled. “My black bag, Nan.”

  “Now, look here, ma’am, I don’t mean no—”

  “Any,” corrected Dr. Peloris. She drew a stethoscope and other equipment from her black bag. “Remove your clothes.”

  “My— ?”

  “Let’s not be impertinent! This is no less difficult for me than it is for you. I refer to those rank fulsome skins you’re wearing, how do you call them? gaskins, buskins—I don’t care, but get them off!”

  Morris glared edgily at his captors, at the pressing crowd. Dr. Peloris pulled a pair of scissors from her bag. Morris grumbled, removed his jerkin and breeches.

  There were low whistles and the doctor’s aide gasped audibly.

  “What is it, Nan?”

  “The... the legs, doctor! the fur— !”

  Dr. Peloris smiled, hooked the stethoscope in her ears. “I thought you knew,” she said.

  While the doctor conducted her examination, her staff methodically exterminated the sheep with hypodermic injections. The beasts died quickly and, it seemed, with a certain satisfaction. Morris, nude, had grown impassive. Only the death of his lead ram seemed to affect him. A single tear formed, slid down his tawny cheek. The doctor’s aide noted it in her examination record.

  The examination itself did not take long: eyes, ears, nose, throat, heart, lungs, arterial pressure, routine check for hernia and piles, palpation of the prostate, various vital measurements. X-rays, blood samples, and encephalograms were taken, analyzed on the spot. “Now, a sample of your semen, please,” said the doctor turning her back, replacing the stethoscope in her black bag.

  Morris, barbarian and cold-eyed, did not move. “Nan!” said the doctor, nodding back over her shoulder toward the captive.

  Her aide slipped a rubber glove on over her left hand, squeezed some oil into it. Morris made one last desperate lunge, but Boris and another grabbed him, held him rigid. The crowd of tourists bulged closer. Nan approached him, executed three or four expert movements. Morris’ bronzed and bearded face flushed yet darker, his eyes widened and lost focus, his mouth seemed to grow full of thick teeth. Nan handed the test tube to the doctor. Dr. Peloris made a hasty smear, peered into the field microscope. “2-A!” she exclaimed with a soft appreciative whistle. “Not bad for a man of his age!”

  Morris now lay limp in the arms of the two men. His checks sagged indifferently. Defiance was over. Victory was ours!

  Dr. Peloris turned toward Morris, smiled gently. “There is still a place for you in our world,” she said. “You are more than healthy enough to warrant an attempted rehabilitation. I am in a position to recommend you. Perhaps a job at one of our mutton factories to begin with. Would you be interested?”

  Morris stared numbly at the doctor. He closed his mouth. Slowly, deliberately, sullenly, he shook his head. “Put him in chains,” the doctor ordered. She closed up her black bag, strode away, to the cheers of the gathered throng.

  This, then, concludes our report. Dr. Doris Peloris has received highest State honors, yet it is of course recognized by all citizens that she cannot be rewarded enough. May history grant her that which is beyond our humble means! Though he remains in chains, Morris’ story may not be ended. He has been turned over to the urbanologists and a famous urbaniatrist has taken a personal interest in his case. They admit that Morris is a challenge serious beyond precedent to their young sciences, but reintegration does not seem entirely beyond possibility. We may well, in concert, wish that such might be the case!

  (Doris Peloris the chorus and Morris sonorous canorous Horace scores Boris—should be able to make somethin outa that by juniper then there’s bore us and whore us and up the old torus no not so good not so good losin the old touch I am by damn/ahh! Rameses! why’d they go and do that to ye for? it’s the motherin insane are free!)

  THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

  1

  A pine forest in the midafternoon. Two children follow an old man, dropping breadcrumbs, singing nursery tunes. Dense earthy greens seep into the darkening distance, flecked and streaked with filtered sunlight. Spots of red, violet, pale blue, gold, burnt orange. The girl carries a basket for gathering flowers. The boy is occupied with the crumbs. Their song tells of God’s care for little ones.

  2

  Poverty and resignation weigh on the old man. His cloth jacket is patched and threadbare, sunbleached white over the shoulders, worn through on the elbows. His feet do not lift, but shuffle through the dust. White hair. Parched skin. Secret forces o£ despair and guilt seem to pull him earthward.

  3

  The girl plucks a flower. The boy watches curiously. The old man stares impatiently into the forest’s depths, where night seems already to crouch. The girl’s apron is a bright orange, the gay color of freshly picked tangerines, and is stitched happily with blues and reds and greens; but her dress is simple and brown, tattered at the hem, and her feet arc bare. Birds accompany the children in their singing and butterflies decorate the forest spaces.

  4

  The boy’s gesture is furtive. His right hand trails behind him, letting a crumb fall. His face is half-turned toward his hand, but his eyes remain watchfully fixed on the old man’s feet ahead. The old man wears heavy mud-spattered shoes, high-topped and leatherthonged. Like the old man’s own skin, the shoes are dry and cracked and furrowed with wrinkles. The boy’s pants are a bluish-brown, ragged at the cuffs, his jacket a faded red. He, like the girl, is barefoot.

  5

  The children sing nursery songs about May baskets and gingerbread houses and a saint who ate his own fleas. Perhaps they sing to lighten their young hearts, for puce wisps of dusk now coil through the trunks and branches of the thickening forest. Or perhaps they sing to conceal the boy’s subterfuge. More likely, they sing for no reason at all, a thoughtless childish habit. To hear themselves. Or to admire their memories. Or to entertain the old man. To fill the silence. Conceal their thoughts. Their expectations.

  6

  The boy’s hand and wrist, thrusting from the outgrown jacket (the faded red cuff is not a cuff at all, but the torn limits merely, the ragged edge of the soft worn sleeve), are tanned, a little soiled, childish. The fingers are short and plump, the palm soft, the wrist small. Three fingers curl under, holding back crumbs, kneading them, coaxing them into position, while the index finger and thumb flick them sparingly, one by one, to the ground, playing with them a moment, balling them, pinching them as if for luck or pleasure, before letting them go.

  7

  The old man’s pale blue eyes float damply in deep dark pouches, half-shrouded by heavy upper lids and beetled over by shaggy white brows. Deep creases fan out from the moist corners, angle down past the nose, score the tanned cheeks and pinch the mouth. The old man’s gaze is straight ahead, but at what? Perhaps at nothing. Some invisible destination. Some irrecoverable point of departure. One thing can be said about the eyes: they are tired. Whether they have seen too much or too little, they betray no will to see yet more.

  8

  The witch is wr
apped in a tortured whirl of black rags. Her long face is drawn and livid, and her eyes glow like burning coals. Her angular body twists this way and that, flapping the black rags— flecks of blue and amethyst wink and flash in the black tangle. Her gnarled blue hands snatch greedily at space, shred her clothes, claw cruelly at her face and throat. She cackles silently, then suddenly screeches madly, seizes a passing dove, and tears its heart out.

  9

  The girl, younger than the boy, skips blithely down the forest path, her blonde curls flowing freely. Her brown dress is coarse and plain, but her apron is gay and white petticoats wink from beneath the tattered hem. Her skin is fresh and pink and soft, her knees and elbows dimpled, her cheeks rosy. Her young gaze flicks airily from flower to flower, bird to bird, tree to tree, from the boy to the old man, from the green grass to the encroaching darkness, and all of it seems to delight her. equally. Her basket is full to overflowing. Does she even know the boy is dropping crumbs? or where the old man is leading them? Of course, but it’s nothing! a game!

  10

  There is, in the forest, even now, a sunny place, with mintdrop trees and cotton candy bushes, an air as fresh and heady as lemonade. Rivulets of honey flow over gumdrop pebbles, and lollypops grow wild as daisies. This is the place of the gingerbread house. Children come here, but, they say, none leave.