Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  “This Life,” runs the moral he is able by now to draw for Dixon, “is like the eleven days,— a finite Period at whose end, she and I, having separated for a while, will be together again. Meanwhile must I travel alone, in a world as unreal as those empty September dates were to me then. . . .”

  “ ‘Bite,’ Mason?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Likely a Dog.”

  “How likely?”

  “What else? If the People of Stroud, pursuing ordinary Lives eleven days ahead of me, could ’morphose to such sinister Beings, why not their Dogs?”

  “Show me.”

  “Well that was the rum thing, Dixon, for about ten minutes later,— ”

  “Eeh! I am the Sniffer sniff d, as Parker said when he put his Head in the Bear’s Den . . . ?”

  57

  Early in 1766,— New Style,— reversing the Directions taken the year before, Mason sets off southward “to see the Country,” whilst Dixon,— mention’d in the Field-Book only upon Mason’s return, as having left Philadelphia, upon the eighteenth of March, to meet with the Commissioners at Chester Town,— in fact heads north for the lighted Streets of New-York.

  At a Theater with no name, no fix’d address,— this night happ’ning to be upon Broad-Way,— printing no Handbills, known only by word of mouth, Dixon upon the advice of a Ferry-Companion attends a Stage performance of the musical drama The Black Hole of Calcutta, or, The Peevish Wazir. Before a backdrop of Fort William (executed with such an obsessively fine respect for detail, that during the Work’s Longueurs, with the aid of a Glass, one may observe, pictur’d upon the Tableau, sub-ordinate Dramas as if in progress,— meetings of the Management, hands clutching throats or leveling Pistols, farewells by the landing, the steaming pale forever-unreachable Hooghly and the Ships waiting to go away, leaving behind the Unspeakable), a Corps of two dozen Ladies appear, strolling about in quasi-Indian Dress and singing, to the (as some would say) inappropriately lively Accompaniment of a small Orchestra,

  In the Black Hole of Calcut-ta,

  One scarcely knows quite what t’

  Make of Things they groan and mut-ter,

  Why, ’tis cheerier in the Gut-ter.—

  Being dark and ooh so stuf-fy,

  Little Su-gar for one’s Cof-fee,

  And the Na-tives, rah-ther huf-fy,—

  And the Pil-lows far from fluf-fy,—

  Ask of an-y, Bengal-i,

  How’s the Black Hole, to-night,—

  Don’t expect him, to be jol-ly,

  For there’s something, not-quite right! as

  The Lamps begin to sput-ter,

  All will not be Scones and But-ter,

  When the door’s at last been shut to

  That Black Hole of Cal-cut-ta!

  La,— la,— la-la, la-la, la-la . . .

  The Story, as near as Dixon can make out, is about a British officer whose Rivalry with a comically villainous Frenchman for the Affection of a Nabob’s Daughter, brings on the war in Bengal. There are some catchy Tunes, and an Elephant, promis’d in the first Act, which incredibly, at the very end of the Show, is deliver’d. The audience sit stunn’d in the vacuous Purity of not having been cheated. The Elephant, within its elaborate trappings of red, blue, and gold, watches ev’rything carefully,— someone’s Elephant, perhaps, but no one’s Fool. Girls emerge from the Howdah in impossible numbers, wearing Costumes as variously hued as the Rainbow, and as diaphanous. They place their stocking’d Toes precisely upon Elephant pressure points, long known to Chinese Healers, strung along his Ear Meridians,— the Elephant rolls his eyes appreciatively. ’Tis this part of the Show that the Girls, as well, enjoy the most, or so they tell Dixon afterward, when he wanders back-stage to see what might be up, in all Innocence following the Scents of Womanly Exertion, to the Dressing-Room.

  “Here he is!”

  “Took him long enough, for a Kiddy got up so flash.”

  “Oh ye’ll bore him, Fiona! Come over here m’ Darling, you can sleep later.”

  “Ooh! Cow.”

  “Anyone in here for a Turtle Feast? My foolish Lad has a Coach waiting?” Dixon is swept in a rush of Polonaises, Sacques, and Petticoats into the Vehicle, and with great cheering away they clatter, out the Greenwich Road to Brannan’s and an unsequenc’d two days of Revelry, ever punctuated by someone rising to cry, “I haven’t felt this excited,—” turning to the Others, who roar back, “— since Eyre Coote won the Battle of Wandiwash!”— being a famous Moment from the Comedy,— Party ending up back in the Town, at Montagne’s Tavern, upon Broad-Way, near Murray Street, which proves to be Head-quarters of the local Sons of Liberty, as well as thick with Intrigue, regardless of the Hour.

  He is soon aware of Captain Volcanoe, who in the Year since Mason saw him has been well in the Crucible of the Troubles attending the Stamp Act. Some of the old gang have fled,— others have decided to gamble ev’rything, unto their Lives, to see the British gone,— tho’ beyond this, there is little agreement. “Even if this Act is repeal’d or in practice never enforc’d, any ministry of this King, even one that somehow includes Mr. Pitt, will be certain to tax us. ’Tis our Duty to resist, tho’ it take up all our Days, and Nights as well. The Communications are now well establish’d, despite British Interceptions. We do well. More and more are resolv’d,— our Numbers ever growing. For the first time, we had a trans-Provincial Congress here in October,— yet, the Expense, reckon’d so far, must be borne most heavily by the warmer Sentiments, for we are become a colder lot. Tell your co-adjutor he was lucky we caught him last Winter, and not this, or Blackie might have had his way.”

  “From what he’ll be pleas’d to hope a safe distance, then, Mr. Mason sends his Compliments to your Niece.”

  “She ran off with an Italian Waggon-smith,” the Captain shaking his head, “and they went to live in Massapequa, upon Long-Island. His mother is teaching her to cook.”

  “Mason will be perplex’d.”

  “How do you think we feel? A sort of Club, at whose Gatherings she might meet a possible Husband,— that’s all the use we ever were to her. Politics? Poh. She may never care about any of this. The road’s not for ev’ryone,’s all’s it is.”

  “Hallo, Cap’n. This un’s a likely one,— hey?” A muscular, untended dark cloud of an Indiv. has appear’d upon Dixon’s starboard Quarter.

  “No, Blackie, he’s another Astronomer,— you recollect the one last year? Well, this is his Partner.”

  “Mois oui, mais oui,” Dixon sweeping off his Hat and making his Notion of a Bow. “You hate Engleesh bastaird? Want to keel them, eh? Haw, haw! Me too!”

  “Much rather kill you,” sighs Blackie. “But, as I mayn’t, you shall have to stand me a pint instead.”

  “Seems fair.” Tho’ by now broad daylight outside, in here ’tis forever Midnight,— Resolutions proper to the hour being made and kept all ’round them, Windows shutter’d, lamps few. Good thing I’m a jolly straight-ahead Lad, Dixon reminds himself,— or I’d start to imagine all kinds of things. . . .

  “To the ’Sixty-six!” Pewter clanking, ale spilling and commingling, much of it upon the Clothing of the Company.

  “What d’ye think, then?” Blackie asks abruptly of Dixon.

  “Eeh,— not Philadelphia, is it?”

  “Nor Boston neither!” Blackie assures him, with a clap upon the shoulder. “Tho’ it little matters.”

  “Aye,— ev’ry Province is agreed in this Business. All speak as One.”

  “What a terrible thing, that British Governments should mis-read us so, when we wish to believe in their Wisdom, their better grasp of History, as of Secular Likelihood,— yet they will keep finding ways to nourish our Doubts.”

  “Will their Stupidity prove beyond the reach even of Mr. Franklin, our American Prometheus?”

&n
bsp; “Why bother to educate ’em? The stupider the better.”

  “Yet too stupid, and the only Choice left is Battle.”

  “There’s the Ticket!” cries Blackie.

  “At the Peak of the Riots, Blackie was running about a Thousand Sailors,” remarks Capt. Volcanoe.

  “And they’re still in Town,” Blackie with an eager Nod, “thanks to Cap’n Kennedy.” Who, in Command of H.M.S. Coventry, is regulating Traffick in the Harbor, allowing ships to enter, but detaining as many as he may who attempt to leave with their Clearance Papers unstamp’d. “Here comes one of my Lads now, in fact.”

  Who does it prove to be but Foretopman Bodine, once of the Seahorse, who, as he now relates, having jump’d that ship in Madras, watching from shore as she sail’d away to the Capture of Manila, had then hir’d on to a China ship, which was set upon in mid-Ocean by Pirates, who took him to South America, whence he escap’d, making his way North, among Typhoons and Hurricanoes, Jungle and Swamp, Alligators and Boas, Indians and Spaniards, till fetching up in Perth Amboy in the company of a certain Roaring Dot, Belle of the Harbor.

  “Woman of my dreams,” Fender-belly vilely chuckling.

  “Nought but a Snotter waiting for a Sprit,” his Lady controverts him. “Happen’d to be this ’un, ’s all.”

  “Sav’d his arse from a musket ball before Fort George in November.”

  “Aye!” Blackie all a-grin, “What a Night! Thousands of us! A fierce Wind, coming in off the Harbor at our backs . . . Sparks from the Torches flying ev’rywhere!”

  “Blackie kept imagining his Hat was a-fire,” recalls the Captain. “All shouting up at them, ‘Liberty!’ Daring them to shoot. Buggers. Tho’ Major James could have ta’en easily a thousand Souls at the first Volley, he held his fire, and our War with Britain did not begin. But good Fender could have provok’d it, if anyone could.” Whilst he was exposing his Hind-Parts to the Gaze of those in the Fort, prudent Dot, recognizing signs of Trouble ahead, remov’d a Sap from her Stocking, and bestow’d the Pygephanous Tar a Memento, from which he did not awaken until the next day, by which time he’d been convey’d to her Barge at the Amboys.

  “Well met, Friend,” says a quiet Voice at Dixon’s Elbow. “I’ll not tell if you won’t.” Peering thro’ the Smoak, he recognizes Philip Dimdown, now as un-Macaronickal as possible, a serious young man upon a Mission whose end may not be predicted. They make their way to a Corner with a Clavier, from whose top Dixon must remove a Madeira bottle, two cold Chops, and a severely tatter’d Periwig in order even to lounge against it. “So, tha’re not a Fop after all? I may pass Fop Remarks, make Fop-Joaks, without giving offense?”

  “ ’Twas the best way to get by them,” Dimdown causing his Tankard to nod, amiably. “Rattling quite discomposes these Brits, some of whom may go for weeks without saying any more than they have to. Yet as no true Macaroni would, in non-Macaronick Company, behave too Maca-ronickally, in that was the impersonation you saw, defective. That is, I might have been more subdued about it.”

  “Fool’d me, for fair.”

  “I was probably indulging Fop Sentiments long kept under, unknown even to myself. Yet, even a Son of Liberty needs to have a little Diversion, given that scarcely a day passes when one doesn’t have to step lively if one wishes to remain attach’d to one’s Arse, and for me, say,— being a Fop’s just the ticket. Right now I’m obsess’d with Wigs. I find I have to change them once a week at least in order to remain unidentified. What think ye of this one? Just snatch’d it up and threw it on,— in Town but for the night,— been trav’ling about in a French Bomb-Ketch, taken in the late War, La Fougueuse, two Mortars in the Cock-Pit, spot of Bother with the Trim in any kind of a Chop, dates back to ’forty-two, but she gets us where we want to go, she gets us ’round the Communications,” seeming by this to denote, the total Ensemble of Routes by which Messages might in those days pass among Americans,— by which Selves entirely word-made were announc’d and shar’d, now and then merging in a plasma, like the Over-soul of the Hindoo, surging to and fro along the lanes, from hillside to bluff, by way of Lanthorn-Flashes, transnoctial hoofbeats, Sharpies and Snows, cryptograms curl’d among Macaronick Wigs, Songs, Sermons, Bells in the Towers, Hat-Brims, letters to the Papers, Broadsheets at the Corners, Criers at Town Limits facing out into the Unknown in the dead of Winter, in the middle of the Night, and shouting, never without the confidence that someone is listening, somewhere, and passing the Message along,— upon Water as upon Land, La Fougueuse in Company with Ferries coming and going ’round the Clock, linking coastal Connecticut, New-York, the Jerseys, all up and down Chesapeake, a single great branch’d Creature, impulses trav’ling Creeks and Coves at the speed of Thought,— Virginia, the Carolinas, well into and beyond the Mountains, into the water-Prairie of Ohio, and thence . . .

  “ ’Tis vast,” Blackie assures Dixon. “Ain’t never been nothing like it. Been living in Brooklyn all my life, seen some ‘shit’ some English Gents wouldn’t even know if they stepp’d in it, . . . and by t’en, ’twould be too late. But what’s going on wit’ t’ese Lawyers,” pollicating the Captain, “hey,— yese don’t want to know. It’s vast, all right? Know what I’m saying,— vast.”

  Dixon shrugging, shakes his head to indicate ignorance upon the Topick. “Christ’s Return . . . ?” he guesses.

  “That’s next, after us.”

  “Yese are paving the way?”

  “Very likely put, Sir,—” cries an ecclesiastickal-looking Personage, “I should add, ‘inspiringly’ but for the prepond’rance of Deists among us, whom Christ makes uncomfortable. They will have their day. And later, a generation, or two, from now, when the People are at last grown disenchanted enough, ’twill be time for Christ to return to the Hearts of His own.”

  “Why Asaph, poh to ye and your ‘they’! ye’re a d——’d Voltaire Reader yourself, what kind of Thorns-and-Angels Stuff is this?”

  “Mr. Dixon, being a Quaker, can hold little love for any King, Blackie, do calm down a bit,— tho’ his love for Christ may be another matter, and ’twas that I was deferring to, that’s if you don’t mind?”

  “ ’Course not,” Blackie replies with the smugness of one who believes he has scor’d a Point.

  “Tho’ rear’d a Friend,” Dixon feels he must clarify, “I was expos’d at a receptive Age to a Rush of Deistick thoughts, aye very Deistick indeed . . . ?— all in a great tumble, by way of Mr. Emerson of Hurworth,— so I’ve a Sentimental Foot in each, as tha’d say . . . ?”

  “As a Quaker, you’d surely rather see us independent of Britain?” inquires Mr. Dimdown.

  “ ’Tis not how British treat Americans,” Dixon amiably rubescent, “ ’tis how both of You treat the African Slaves, and the Indians Native here, that engages the Friends more closely,— an old and melancholy History. . . . My allegiance, as a Quaker born, would lie, above all Tribes, with Christ,— withal, as a Geordie, for reasons unarguably Tribal, I can have no sympathy for any British King,— not even one who’s paid my Wages, bless ’im. Call me an ungrateful Cur, go ahead, I’ve been call’d worse.— Eeh, lo, thy Jack’s empty . . . ? Can’t have thah’, allow me, all who’re dry, no problem, Mr. McClean shall enter each into his Ledger, and in the fullness of Time will all be repaid,— aye then, here they come! how canny, with those greeaht Foahm Tops on ’em, what do tha call thah’?”

  “That is a ‘Head,’” Blackie quizzickal. “They don’t have that, back wherever you’re from? What kind o’ Ale-drinker are you then, Sir?”

  “Shall we quarrel, after all?”

  “Innocent question,” Blackie looking about for support.

  “Very well, as tha did ask,— I’m a faithful and traditional Ale-Drinker, Sir, who does thee a courtesy in even swallowing this pale, hopp’d-up, water’d-down imitation of Small Beer.”

  “Far preferable,” replies Blackie, “— even if s
landerously and vilely untrue,— to that black, sluggish, treacly substitute for Naval Tar, Sir, no offense meant, that they swill down over in England?” with a look that would have been meaningful, could it get much beyond a common Glower.

  Dixon sighs. Ale Loyalty is important to him, as part of a pact with the Youth he wish’d to remain connected to. He lifts and drinks, as calmly as possible, the entire Pint of American Ale, without pausing for any Breath. Having then taken one at last, “O Error!” he cries, “How could I’ve so misjudg’d this?”

  Blackie is as short of Time as anyone here. This thing that is now taking shape has an Inertia that may yet bear all before it . . . he can no longer indulge himself in what once, not long ago, would have prov’d a lively Contest,— nowadays, all energy, all attention, is claim’d by Futurity, unwritten as unscryable, the Door wide open.

  Thus, “I once took Joy, ’s a matter of fact, in many a British Pint,” recalls Blackie, “and go ever in the Faith that so I shall again, some day. Meanwhile, as with our Tea, we brew American.”

  “Believe I’ll have another of those . . . ?” replies Dixon. “Would tha join me?”

  58

  Upon the Roads of Mason’s journey South, the scene is alarming. In Maryland, in September, the Mob had pull’d down the house of Zachariah Hood, who, refusing to resign as the Province’s Stamp Distributor, fled to New-York, and was granted refuge in Fort George, in time to witness Foretopman Bodine’s Bi-Lunar Exhibition. Tho’ ’twas now possible to clear Vessels out of Chesapeake Ports unstamp’d, pleading a lack of Stamps, Maryland was somehow among the last of the American Provinces to do so. As if, having paus’d self-amaz’d at their bold deed, the Mobility were now considering their next step. As Autumn rusted toward Winter, Youths went careering along the high roads firing long Rifles from Horse-back at any target that might suggest a connexion with stamp’d Paper, Puffs of Breath and Smoke decorating the way. Groups of farm Girls stood at crossroads and sang to them, “Americans All.” Their Fathers, not always with better things to do, offer’d Jugs and Pipes, and their Mothers Tea. Traveling Sons of Liberty never had to pay a farthing for Drink,— and were ever the objects of Suggestions that, for even the liveliest of them, would have taken more time away from their Itineraries than Duty would allow. Massachusetts Bay accents were heard for the first time, out in the Allegheny, up in the Coves, or “Cöves,” as Folk there were pronouncing it, purs’d as the Yankees were broad. New-Yorkers in Georgia, Pennsylvanians in the Carolinas, Virginians ev’rywhere, upon Horses perhaps better looking than suited to the Work,— all took time to appreciate the musick of Voices from far away, yet already, unmistakably, American.