Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

  “No matter,” interrupted the doctor with a kindly nod of his old head, “who he is. He is a man and that, I assure you, is enough for me.”

  “Doctor, that’s so good of you to say so!” wept the policeman.

  I’m in trouble, thought Paul. Oh boy, I’m really in trouble.

  “Well, now, let us just see,” said the doctor, crouching down over Paul. He lifted Paul’s eyelids with his thumb and peered intently at Paul’s eyes; Paul, anxious to assist, rolled them from side to side. “Just relax, son,” the doctor said. He opened his black bag, rummaged about in it, withdrew a flashlight Paul was not sure exactly what the doctor did after that, but he seemed to be looking in his ears. I can’t move my head, Paul told him, but the doctor only asked: “Why does he have a penny under his nose?” His manner was not such as to insist upon an answer, and he got none. Gently, expertly, he pried Paul’s teeth apart, pinned his tongue down with a wooden depresser, and scrutinized his throat Paul’s head was on fire with pain. “Ahh, yes,” he mumbled. “Hum, hum.”

  “How … how is he, Doctor?” stammered the policeman, his voice muted with dread and respect “Will... will he ... ?”

  The doctor glared scornfully at the officer, then withdrew a stethoscope from his bag. He hooked it in his ears, slipped the disc inside Paul’s shirt and listened intently, his old head inclined to one side like a bird listening for worms. Absolute silence now. Paul could hear the doctor breathing, the policeman whimpering softly. He had the vague impression that the doctor tapped his chest a time or two, but if so, he didn’t feel it His head felt better with his mouth dosed. “Hmmm,” said the doctor gravely, “yes ...”

  “Oh, please! What is it, Doctor?” the policeman cried.

  “What is it? What is it?” shouted the doctor in a sudden burst of rage. “I’ll tell you what is it!” He sprang to his feet, nimble for an old man. “I cannot examine this patient while you’re hovering over my shoulder and mewling like a goddamn schoolboy, that’s what is it!”

  “B-but I only—” stammered the officer, staggering backwards.

  “And how do you expect me to examine a man half buried under a damned truck ?” The doctor was in a terrible temper.

  “But I—”

  “Damn it! I’ll but-I you, you idiot, if you don’t remove this truck from the scene so that I can determine the true gravity of this man’s injuries! Have I made myself clear?”

  “Y-yes! But ... but wh-what am I to do?” wept the police officer, hands clenched before his mouth. I’m only a simple police man, Doctor, doing my duty before God and count—”

  “Simple, you said it!” barked the doctor. “I told you what to do, you God-and-cunt simpleton—now get moving!”

  God and cunt! Did it again, thought Paul. Now what?

  The policeman, chewing wretchedly on the corners of his note book, stared first at Paul, then at the truck, at the crowd, back at the truck. Paul felt fairly certain now that the letter following the “K” on the truck’s side was an “I.” “Shall I ... shall I pull him out from under—?” the officer began tentatively, thin chin aquiver.

  “Good God, no!” stormed the doctor, stamping his foot “This man may have a broken neck! Moving him would kill him, don’t you see that, you sniveling birdbrain? Now, goddamn it, wipe your wretched nose and go wake up your—your accomplice up there, and I mean right now! Tell him to back his truck off this poor devil!”

  “B-back it off—! But... but he’d have to run over him again! He—”

  “Don’t by God run-over-him-again me, you blackshirt hireling, or I’ll have your Badge!” screamed the doctor, brandishing his stethoscope.

  The policeman hesitated but a moment to glance down at Paul’s body, then turned and ran to the front of the truck. “Hey! Come on, you!” He whacked the driver on the head with his nightstick. Hollow thunk! “Up and at ‘em!”

  “—dam that boy what,” cried the truckdriver, rearing up wildly and fluttering his head as though lost, “HE DO BUT WALK RIGHT INTO ME AND MY POOR OLE TRICK! TRUCK, I MEAN!” The crowd laughed again, first time in a long time, but the doctor stamped his foot and they quieted right down.

  “Now, start up that engine, you, right now! I mean it!” ordered die policeman, stroking his moustache. He was getting a little of his old spit and polish back. He slapped the nightstick in his palm two or three times.

  Paul felt the pavement under his back quake as the truckdriver started the motor. The white letters above him joggled in their red fields like butterflies. Beyond, the sky’s blue had deepened, but white clouds now flowered in it The skyscrapers had grayed, as though withdrawing information.

  The truck’s noise smothered the voices, but Paul did overhear die doctor and the policeman occasionally, the doctor ranting, the policeman imploring, something about mass and weight and vectors and direction. It was finally decided to go forward, since there were two sets of wheels up front and only one to the rear (a decent kind of humanism maintaining, after all, thought Paul), but the truck-driver apparently misunderstood, because lie backed up anyway, and the middle set of wheels rolled up on top of Paul.

  “Stop! Stop!”.shrieked the police officer, and the truck motor coughed and died. “I ordered you to go forward, you pighead, not backward!”

  The driver popped his head out the window, bulged his ping-pong-ball eyes at the policeman, then waggled his tiny hands in his ears and brayed. The officer took a fast practiced swing at die driver’s big head (epaulettes, or no, he had a skill or two), but the driver deftly dodged it He dapped his runty hands and bobbed back inside the cab.

  “What oh what shall we ever do now?” wailed the officer. The doctor scowled at him with undisguised disgust. Paul felt like he was strangling, but he could locate no specific pain past his neck. “Dear lord above! There’s wheels on each side of him and wheels in the middle!”

  “Capital!” the doctor snorted. “Figure that out by yourself, or somebody help you ?”

  “You’re making fun,” whimpered the officer.

  “And you’re murdering this man!” bellowed the doctor.

  The police officer uttered a short anxious cry, then raced to the front of die truck again. Hostility welling in the crowd, Paul could hear it “Okay, okay!” cried the officer. “Back up or go forward, please, I don’t care, but hurry! Hurry!”

  The motor started up again, there was a jarring grind of gears abrading, then slowly slowly slowly the middle set of wheels backed down off Paul’s body. There was a brief tense interim before the next set climbed up on him, hesitated as a ferris wheel hesitates at the top of its ambit, then sank down off him.

  Some time passed.

  He opened his eyes.

  The truck had backed away, out of sight, out of Paul’s limited range of sight anyway. His eyelids weighed closed. He remembered the doctor being huddled over him, shreds of his clothing being peeled away.

  Much later, or perhaps not, he opened his eyes once more. The doctor and the policeman were standing over him, some other people too, people he didn’t recognize, though he felt somehow he ought to know them. Mrs. Grundy, she was there; in fact, it looked for all the world as though she had set up a ticket booth and was charging admission. Some of the people were holding little children up to see, warm faces, tender, compassionate; more or less. News men were taking his picture. “You’ll be famous,” one of them said.

  “His goddamn body is like a mulligan stew,” the doctor was telling a reporter. The policeman shook his head. He was a bit green. “Do you think—?”

  “Do I think what?” the doctor asked. Then he laughed, a thin raking old man’s laugh. “You mean, do I think he’s going to die?” He laughed again. “Good God, man, you can see for yourself! There’s nothing left of him, he’s a goddamn gallimaufry, and hardly an appetizing one at that!” He dipped his fingers into Paul, licked them, grimaced. “Foo!”

  “I think we should get a blanket for him,” the policeman said weakly.

  “Of course
you should!” snapped the doctor, wiping his stained hands on a small white towel he had brought out of his black bag. He peered down through his rimless spectacles at Paul, smiled. “Still there, eh?” He squatted beside him. ‘I’m sorry, son. There’s not a damn thing I can do. Well, yes, I suppose I can take this penny off your lip. You’ve little use for it, eh?” He laughed softly. “Now, let’s see, there’s no function for it, is there? No, no, there it is.” The doctor started to pitch it away, then pocketed it instead The eyes, don’t they use them for the eyes? “Well, that’s better, I’m sure. But let’s be honest: it doesn’t get to the real problem, does it?” Paul’s lip tickled where die penny had been. “No, I’m of all too little use to you there, boy. I can’t even prescribe a soporific platitude. Leave that to the goddamn priests, eh? Hee hee hee! Oops, sorry, son! Would you like a priest?”

  No thanks, said Paul.

  “Can’t get it out, eh?” The doctor probed Paul’s neck. “Hmmm. No, obviously not” He shrugged. “Just as well. What could you possibly have to say, eh?” He chuckled drily, then looked up at the policeman who still had not left to search out a blanket “Don’t just stand there, man! Get this lad a priest!” The police officer, clutching his mouth, hurried away, out of Paul’s eye-reach. “I know it’s not easy to accept death,” the doctor was saying. He finished wiping his hands, tossed the towel into his black bag, snapped the bag shut. “We all struggle against it, boy, it’s part and parcel of being alive, this brawl, this meaningless gutterfight with death. In fact, let me tell you, son, it’s all there is to life.” He wagged his finger in punctuation, and ended by pressing the tip of it to Paul’s nose. “That’s the secret, that’s my happy paregoric! Hee hee hee!”

  KI, thought Paul KI and 14. What could it have been? Never know now. One of those things.

  “But death begets life, there’s that, my boy, and don’t you ever forget it! Survival and murder are synonyms, son, first flaw of the universe! Hee hee h—oh! Sorry, son! No time for puns! Forget I said it!”

  It’s okay, said Paul. Listening to the doctor had at least made him forget the tickle on his lip and it was gone.

  “New life burgeons out of rot, new mouths consume old organisms, father dies at orgasm, mother dies at birth, only old Dame Mass with her twin dugs of Stuff and Tickle persists, suffering her long slow split into pure light and pure carbon! Hee hee hee! A tender thought! Don’t you agree, lad?” The doctor gazed off into space, happily contemplating the process.

  I tell you what, said Paul. Let’s forget it.

  Just then, the policeman returned with a big quilted comforter, and he and the doctor spread it gently over Paul’s body, leaving only his face exposed. The people pressed closer to watch.

  “Back! Back!” shouted the policeman. “Have you no respect for the dying? Back, I say!”

  “Oh, come now,” chided the doctor. “Let them watch if they want to. It hardly matters to this poor fellow, and even if it does, it can’t matter for much longer. And it will help keep the flies off him.”

  “Well, doctor, if you think ...” His voice faded away. Paul closed his eyes.

  As he lay there among die curious, several odd questions plagued Paul’s mind. He knew there was no point to them, but he couldn’t rid himself of them. The book, for example: did he have a book? And if he did, what book, and what had happened to it? And what about the stoplight, that lost increment of what men call history, why had no one brought up the matter of the stoplight? And pure carbon he could understand, but as for light: what could its purity consist of? KI. 14. That impression that it had happened before. Yes, these were mysteries, all right. His head ached from them.

  People approached Paul from time to time to look under the blanket Some only peeked, then turned away, while others stayed to poke around, dip their hands in the mutilations. There seemed to be more interest in them now that they were covered. There were some arguments and some occasional horseplay, but the doctor and police man kept things from getting out of hand. If someone arrogantly ventured a Latin phrase, the doctor always put him down with some toilet-wall barbarism; on die other hand, he reserved his purest, most mellifluous toponymy for small children and young girls. He made several medical appointments with the latter. The police officer, though queasy, stayed nearby. Once, when Paul happened to open his eyes after having had them closed some while, the policeman smiled warmly down on him and said: “Don’t worry, good fellow. I’m still here. Take it as easy as you can. I’ll be here to the very end. You can count on me.” Bullshit, thought Paul, though not ungratefully, and he thought he remembered hearing the doctor echo him as he fell off to sleep.

  When he awoke, the streets were empty. They had all wearied of it, as he had known they would. It had clouded over, the sky had darkened, it was probably night, and it had begun to rain lightly. He could now see the truck clearly, off to his left. Must have been people in the way before.

  MAGIC KISS LIPSTICK

  IN

  14

  DIFFERENT SHADES

  Never would have guessed. Only in true life could such things happen.

  When he glanced to his right, he was surprised to find an old man sitting near him. Priest, no doubt He had come after all... black hat, long grayish beard, sitting in the puddles now forming in the street, legs crossed. Go on, said Paul, don’t suffer on my account, don’t wait for me, but the old man remained, silent, drawn, rain glistening on his hat, face, beard, clothes: prosopopoeia of patience. The priest Yet, something about the clothes: well, they were in rags. Pieced together and hanging in tatters. The hat, too, now that he noticed. At short intervals, the old man’s head would nod, his eyes would cross, his body would tip, he would catch himself with a start, grunt, glance suspiciously about him, then back down at Paul, would finally relax again and recommence the cycle.

  Paul’s eyes wearied, especially with the rain splashing into them, so he let them fall closed once more. But he began suffering discomforting visions of the old priest, so he opened them again, squinted off to the left, toward the truck. A small dog, wiry and yellow, padded along in the puddles, hair drooping and bunching up with the rain. It sniffed at the tires of the truck, lifted its legs by one of them, sniffed again, padded on. It circled around Paul, apparently not noticing him, but poking its nose at every object, narrowing the distance between them with every circle. It passed close by the old man, snarled, completed another half-circle, and approached

  Paul from the left. It stopped near Paul’s head—the wet-dog odor was suffocating—and whimpered, licking Paul’s face. The old man did nothing, just sat, legs crossed, and passively watched. Of course ... not a priest at all: an old beggar. Waiting for the clothes when he died. If he still had any. Go ahead and take them now, Paul told him, I don’t care. But the beggar only sat and stared. Paul felt a tugging sensation from below, heard the dog growl. His whole body seemed to jerk upwards, sending another hot flash through his neck. The dog’s hind feet were planted alongside Paul’s head, and now and again the right paw would lose its footing, kick nervously at Paul’s face, a buffeting counterpoint to the waves of hot pain behind his throat and eyes. Finally, something gave way. The dog shook water out of its yellow coat, and padded away, a fresh piece of flesh between its jaws. The beggar’s eyes crossed, his head dipped to his chest, and he started to topple forward, but again he caught himself, took a deep breath, uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, but the opposite way, reached in his pocket and pulled out an old cigarette butt, molded it between his yellow fingers, put it in his mouth, but did not light it. For an instant, the earth upended again, and Paul found himself hung on the street, a target for the millions of raindarts somebody out in the night was throwing at him. There’s nobody out there, he reminded himself, and that set the earth right again. The beggar spat. Paul shielded his eyes from the rain with his lids. He thought he heard other dogs. How much longer must this go on? he wondered. How much longer?

  THE BABYSITTER

  She arri
ves at 7:40, ten minutes late, but the children, Jimmy and Bitsy, are still eating supper, and their parents are not ready to go yet From other rooms come the sounds of a baby screaming, water running, a television musical (no words: probably a dance number—patterns of gliding figures come to mind). Mrs. Tucker sweeps into die kitchen, fussing with her hair, and snatches a baby bottle full of milk out of a pan of warm water, rushes out again. “Harry!” she calls. “The babysitter’s here already!”

  ○ ○? ○

  That’s My Desire? I’ll Be Around? He smiles toothily, beckons faintly with his head, rubs his fast balding pate. Bewitched, maybe? Or, What’s the Reason? He pulls on his shorts, gives his hips a slap. The baby goes silent in mid-scream. Isn’t this the one who used their tub last time? Who’s Sorry Now, that’s it.

  ○ ○? ○

  Jack is wandering around town, not knowing what to do. His girlfriend is babysitting at the Tuckers’, and later, when she’s got the kids in bed, maybe he’ll drop over there. Sometimes he watches TV with her when she’s babysitting, it’s about the only chance he gets to make out a little since he doesn’t own wheels, but they have to be careful because most people don’t like their sitters to have boyfriends over. Just kissing her makes her nervous. She won’t close her eyes because she has to be watching the door all the time. Married people really have it good, he thinks.

  ○ ○ ○

  “Hi,” the babysitter says to the children, and puts her books on top of the refrigerator. “What’s for supper?” The little girl, Bitsy, only stares at her obliquely. She joins them at the end of the kitchen table. I don’t have to go to bed until nine,” the boy announces flatly, and stuffs his mouth full of potato chips. The babysitter catches a glimpse of Mr. Tucker hurrying out of the bathroom in his underwear.

  ○ ○ ○