Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

Never mind. The Ambassador from Mars, unexpectedly popular, assumes the Thin Man’s functions, and the Man himself is exiled to the rival circus in exchange for a Family of Webfooted Midgets.

  And so here we go! The Thin Man, all atremble and with tears springing to his eyes, here he comes, rushing pell-mell into the Fat Lady’s tent! All the circus people, the visiting crowds, the animals run behind, snorting, whooping, laughing giddily. Whoopee! into her arms! and she clasps him eagerly and forgivingly to her heaving bosom. Spectators weep for joy! The image is made whole!

  “Beautiful! In spite of all history!”

  “See how their joyful tears flow!”

  “Oh! I’m all weepy and excited myself!”

  “He buries his head in her lap!”

  “Hold me!”

  Later, when the world’s love is momentarily spent and the crowds have slipped weakly away, she makes a space for him in her little van. It is rundown, like this whole decrepit circus, yet there is a corner in it still for happiness. This Ringmaster is, as all have rightly averred, a corrupt and mordant bastard, greedy beyond belief. But, by staying very fat and very thin, respectively, they satisfy his daytime proddings, and by night he is too absorbed in his ledgers to pay them notice.

  Thus, though the sacrifices have been considerable, if indeed not prohibitive, we have obeyed the innocent bite in our forks and held fast to our precious metaphor.

  Yet, somehow, strangely, it has lost some of its old charm. We go to the circus to see the Fat Lady and the Thin Man, and though warmed by them, perhaps even amused and incited by them still, we nevertheless return home somehow dissatisfied. Fat, yes, the Fattest, and Thin—but what is it? Maybe only that, as always, they are ludicrous, and that now, having gone to such lengths to reunite diem, we are irritated to discover their limits, to find that the Ludicrous is not also Beautiful.

  “Like, well, like they oughta do more for us somehow—”

  “After all we’ve done for them!”

  “Thin Man, Fat Lady, all right, it’s cute, it’s funny maybe, but...”

  Well, let us admit it, perhaps it is ourselves who are corrupted. Perhaps we have seen or been too many Ringmasters, watched too many parades, safely witnessed too many thrills, counted through too many books. Maybe it’s just that we’ve lost a taste for the simple in a world perplexingly simple. For, see, there? There a child laughs gaily at the Thin Man’s tense smile, and there a young couple giggle in front of the unctuous Fat Lady.

  So, what the hell, some circus music, please! Some raging lions and white horses and the clean cracking of black whips! Crackerjacks! Peanuts! And a monkey to wrap his tail around the flagpole! For remember: these two, magic metaphor or no, are not the whole circus. Nor—to borrow from the hoariest spiel of them all—in this matter of circuses, is life one. There are three rings—

  “Lazygentamun, absolutely unique, this way, patrons of the arts, desolate wastes, deepest Injah, suckled by werewolves, nekkid and hairy—”

  “Raithiswhay, folks! She’s half-human, half-reptile! Yawone believe yer eyes!”

  “Absolutely wild gotta stand back limited time only, getcha tickets here, before goin inta the Big Top, see him now may never get another chance lives entirely on human flesh, ya heard me right, son! and we don’t know how long we can keep him alive—!”

  —And then there are more. Who can grasp it all? And who, grasping, can hold it! No, we have lost many things, go on losing, and must yet lose more. Even the Thin Man will grow old and bent, the Fat Lady will shrivel and die. We can hang on to nothing. Least of all the simple.

  “This way, boyzungirls, inna the Big Show startin in jusfiminnit! still plennya seats but goodwonzur goin fast! yessir mistuh and how many—?”

  “Hey cottoncandy popcawn sodypop!”

  “Getcha soovuhnih booklet while they last! Fittysens two quawtuhs of a dollah! Byootiful faw-color alla stars take a thrills home with ya!”

  “There they come! It’s the parade!”

  “Lass chance now folks tellyawhawgawnuhdo! limted time only fore the Big Show gets unnerway! pay tenshun madam while supply lasts one quawtuh hurry! alla thrillsnchills Big Top in faw colors one quawtuh fifferadollah add extra bonus feachuh bagga nuts! you there—!”

  But listen! the losses! these too are ludicrous, aren’t they? these too are part of the comedy, right? a ring around the rings! So, damn it, let us hoot and holler and thrill and eat peanuts and cheer and swill the pop and laugh and bawl! Come on! All us Thin Men! All you Fat Ladies!

  “Annow lazygentamun anawyoo youngsters! (crack!) whatcha all been waiting for (crack!) inna the first ring feachuh act the Tumblin Twosome from Tuskyloosa (crack!) givum a hand folks! (crack!) inna second first time this side a the Atlantic comin to us from (crack!) and riding on a unicycle (crack!) whatsat rocket you carrying there George watchout! (crack!) and high above without a net those flirters with death (crack!) defying the lawza gravity (drumrolls and whipcracks!) you say it’s a new secret weapon yer workin on for the guvmint George? well howzit work? (crack!) nothin but her teeth folks between her and the other world! (fanfare!) and his trained thoroughbred Arabian hawsesi (crack!) now don’t tell me you’re gonna light that big thing in here George! (crack!) and rode by the Thin Man and the Fat Lady haw haw givum a big hand folks (crack!) look out!”

  QUENBY AND OLA, SWEDE AND CARL

  Night on the lake. A low cloud cover. The boat bobs silently, its motor for some reason dead. There’s enough light in the far sky to see the obscure humps of islands a mile or two distant, but up close: nothing. There are islands in the intermediate distance, but their uncertain contours are more felt than seen. The same might be said, in fact, for the boat itself. From either end, the opposite end seems to melt into the blackness of the lake. It feels like it might rain.

  ○ ○ ○

  Imagine Quenby and Ola at the barbecue pit Their faces pale in the gathering dusk. The silence after the sudden report broken only by the whine of mosquitoes in the damp grass, a distant whistle. Quenby has apparently tried to turn Ola away, back toward the house, but Ola is staring back over her shoulder. What is she looking at, Swede or the cat? Can she even see either?

  ○ ○ ○

  In the bow sat Carl. Carl was from the city. He came north to the lake every summer for a week or two of fishing. Sometimes he came along with other guys, this year he came alone.

  He always told himself he liked it up on the lake, liked to get away, that’s what he told the fellows he worked with, too: get out of the old harness, he’d say. But he wasn’t sure. Maybe he didn’t like it. Just now, on a pitchblack lake with a stalled motor, miles from nowhere, cold and hungry and no fish to show for the long day, he was pretty sure he didn’t like it .

  ○ ○ ○

  You know the islands are out there, not more than a couple hundred yards probably, because you’ve seen them in the daylight All you can make out now is here and there the pale stroke of what is probably a birch trunk, but you know there are spruce and jack pines as well, and balsam firs and white cedars and Norway pines and even maples and tamaracks. Forests have collapsed upon forests on these islands.

  ○ ○ ○

  The old springs crush and grate like crashing limbs, exhausted trees, rocks tumbling into the bay, like the lake wind rattling through dry branches and pine needles. She is hot, wet, rich, softly spread. Needful. “Oh yes!” she whispers.

  ○ ○ ○

  Walking on the islands, you’ve noticed saxifrage and bellwort, clintonia, shinleaf, and stemless lady’s slippers. Sioux country once upon a time, you’ve heard tell, and Algonquin, mostly Cree and Ojibwa. Such things you know. Or the names of the birds up here: like spruce grouse and whiskey jack and American three-toed woodpecker. Blue-headed vireo. Scarlet tanager. Useless information. Just now, anyway. You don’t even know what makes that strange whistle that pierces the stillness now.

  ○ ○ ○

  “Say, what’s that whistling sound, Swede? Sounds like a goddam
n traffic whistle!” That was pretty funny, but Swede didn’t laugh. Didn’t say anything. “Some bird, I guess. Eh, Swede? Some god damn bird.”

  “Squirrels,” Swede said finally.

  “Squirrels!” Carl was glad Swede had said something. At least he knew he was still back there. My Jesus, it was dark! He waited hopefully for another response from Swede, but it didn’t come. “Learn something new every day.”

  ○ ○ ○

  Ola, telling the story, laughed brightly. The others laughed with her. What had she seen that night? It didn’t matter, it was long ago. There were more lemon pies and there were more cats. She enjoyed being at the center of attention and she told the story well, imitating her father’s laconic ways delightfully. She strode longleggedly across the livingroom floor at the main house, gripping an imaginary cat, her face puckered in a comic scowl. Only her flowering breasts under the orange shirt, her young hips packed snugly in last year’s bright white shorts, her soft girlish thighs, slender calves: these were not Swede’s.

  ○ ○ ○

  She is an obscure teasing shape, now shattering the sheen of moonlight on the bay, now blending with it. Is she moving toward the shore, toward the house? No, she is in by the boats near the end of die docks, dipping in among shadows. You follow.

  ○ ○ ○

  By day, there is a heavy greenness, mostly the deep dense greens of pines and shadowed undergrowth, and glazed blues and the whiteness of rocks and driftwood. At night, there is only darkness. Branches scrape gently on the roof of the guests’ lodge; sometimes squirrels scamper across it. There are bird calls, the burping of frogs, the rustle of porcupines and muskrats, and now and then what sounds like the crushing footfalls of deer. At times, there is the sound of wind or rain, waves snapping in the bay. But essentially a deep stillness prevails, a stillness and darkness unknown to the city. And often, from far out on the lake, miles out perhaps, yet clearly ringing as though just outside the door: the conversation of men in fishing boats.

  ○ ○ ○

  “Well, I guess you know your way around this lake pretty well. Eh, Swede?”

  “Oh yah.”

  “Like the back of your hand, I guess.” Carl felt somehow encouraged that Swede had answered him. That “oh yah” was Swede’s trademark. He almost never talked, and when he did, it was usually just “oh yah.” Up on the “oh,” down on the “yah.” Swede was bent down over the motor, but what was he looking at? Was he looking at the motor or was he looking back this way? It was hard to tell. It all looks the same to me, just a lot of trees and water and sky, and now you can’t even see that much. Those goddamn squirrels sure make a lot of noise, don’t they?” Actually, they were probably miles away.

  Carl sighed and cracked his knuckles. “Can you hunt ducks up here?” Maybe it was better up here in the fall or winter. Maybe he could get a group interested. Probably cold, though. It was cold enough right now. “Well, I suppose you can. Sure, hell, why not?”

  ○ ○ ○

  Quenby at the barbecue pit, grilling steaks. Thick T-bones, because he’s back after two long weeks away. He has poured a glass of whiskey for himself, splashed a little water in it, mixed a more diluted one for Quenby. He hands her her drink and spreads himself into a lawnchair. Flames lick and snap at the steaks, and smoke from the burning fat billows up from the pit. Quenby wears pants, those relaxed Bided bluejeans probably, and a soft leather jacket The late evening sun gives a gentle rich glow to the leather. There is something solid and good about Quenby. Most women complain about hunting.trips. Quenby bakes lemon pies to celebrate returns. Her full buttocks flex in the soft blue denim as, with tongs, she flips the steaks over. Imagine.

  Her hips jammed against the gunwales, your wet bodies sliding together, shivering, astonished, your lips meeting—you wonder at your madness, what an island can do to a man, what an island girl can do. Later, having crossed the bay again, returning to the rocks, you find your underwear is gone. Yes, here’s the path, here’s the very tree—but gone. A childish prank? But she was with you all the time. Down by the kennels, the dogs begin to yelp.

  ○ ○ ○

  Swede was a native of sorts. He and his wife Quenby lived year-round on an island up here on the lake. They operated a kind of small rustic lodge for men from the city who came up to fish and hunt. Swede took them out to the best places, Quenby cooked and kept the cabin up. They could take care of as many as eight at a time. They moved here years ago, shortly after marrying. Real natives, folks born and bred on the lake, are pretty rare; their 14-yearold daughter Ola is one of the few.

  How far was it to Swede’s island? This is a better question maybe than “Who is Swede?” but you are even less sure of the answer. You’ve been fishing all day and you haven’t been paying much attention. No lights to be seen anywhere, and Swede always keeps a dock light burning, but you may be on the back side of his island, cut off from the light by the thick pines, only yards away from home, so to speak. Or maybe miles away. Most likely miles.

  ○ ○ ○

  Yes, goddamn it, it was going to rain. Carl sucked on a beer in the bow. Swede tinkered quietly with the motor in the stern.

  What made a guy move up into these parts? Carl wondered. It was okay for maybe a week or two, but he couldn’t see living up here all the time. Well, of course, if a man really loved to fish. Fish and hunt. If he didn’t like the retrace in the city, and so on. Must be a bitch for Swede’s wife and kid, though. Carl knew his own wife would never stand still for the idea. And Swede was probably pretty hard on old Quenby. With Swede there were never two ways about it That’s the idea Carl got.

  Carl tipped the can of beer back, drained it. Stale and warm. It disgusted him. He heaved the empty tin out into the darkness, heard it plunk somewhere on the black water. He couldn’t see if it sank or not. It probably didn’t sink. He’d have to piss again soon. Probably he should do it before they got moving again. He didn’t mind pissing from the boat, in a way he even enjoyed it, he felt like part of things up here when he was pissing from a boat, but right now it seemed too quiet or something.

  Then he got to worrying that maybe he shouldn’t have thrown it out there on the water, that beercan, probably there was some law about it, and anyway you could get things like that caught in boat motors, couldn’t you? Hell, maybe that was what was wrong with the goddamn motor now. He’d just shown his ignorance again probably. That was what he hated most about coming up here, showing his ignorance. In groups it wasn’t so bad, they were all green and could joke about it, but Carl was all alone this trip. Never again.

  ○ ○ ○

  The Coleman lantern is lit Her flesh glows in its eerie light and the starched white linens are ominously alive with their thrashing shadows. She has brought clean towels; or perhaps some coffee, a book. Wouldn’t look right to put out the lantern while she’s down here, but its fierce gleam is disquieting. Pine boughs scratch the roof. The springs clatter and something scurries under the cabin. “Hurry!” she whispers.

  ○ ○ ○

  “Listen, Swede, you need some help?” Swede didn’t reply, so Carl stood up in a kind of crouch and made a motion as though he were going to step back and give a hand. He could barely make Swede out back there. He stayed carefully in the middle of the boat He wasn’t completely stupid.

  Swede grunted. Carl took it to mean he didn’t want any help, so he sat down again. There was one more can of beer under his seat, but he didn’t much care to drink it His pants, he had noticed on rising and sitting, were damp, and he felt stiff and sore. It was late. The truth was, he didn’t know the first goddamn thing about out board motors anyway.

  ○ ○ ○

  There’s this story about Swede. Ola liked to tell it and she told it well. About three years ago, when Ola was eleven, Swede had come back from a two-week hunting trip up north. For ducks. Ola, telling the story, would make a big thing about the beard he came back with and the jokes her mother made about it

  Quenby had welcomed
Swede home with a big steak supper: thick T-bones, potatoes wrapped in roil and baked in the coals, a heaped green salad. And lemon pie. Nothing in die world like Quenby’s homemade lemon pie, and she’d baked it just for Swede. It was a great supper. Ola skipped most of the details, but one could imagine them. After supper, Swede said he’d bring in the pie and coffee

  In the kitchen, he discovered that Ola’s cat had tracked through the pie. Right through the middle of it. It was riddled with cat tracks, and there was lemon pie all over the bench and floor. Daddy had been looking forward to that lemon pie for two weeks, Ola would say, and now it was full of cat tracks.

  He picked up his gun from beside the back door, pulled some shells out of his jacket pocket, and loaded it. He found the cat in the laundryroom with lemon pie still stuck to its paws and whiskers. He picked it up by the nape and carried it outside. It was getting dark, but you could still see plainly enough. At least against the sky.

  He walked out past die barbecue pit. It was dark enough that the coals seemed to glow now. Just past the pit, he stopped. He swung his arm in a lazy arc and pitched the cat high in the air. Its four paws scrambled in space. He lifted the gun to his shoulder and blew the cat’s head off. Her daddy was a good shot.

  ○ ○ ○

  Her mock pout, as she strides across the room, clutching the imaginary cat, makes you laugh. She needs a new pair of shorts. Last year they were loose on her, wrinkled where bunched at the waist, gaping around her small thighs. But she’s grown, filled out a tot, as young girls her age do. When her shirt rides up over her waist, you notice that the zipper gapes in an open V above her hip bone. The white cloth is taut and glossy over her firm bottom; the only wrinkle is the almost painful crease between her legs.