by John Barth
You know, doll? here said May: That is not a half-bad proposal you just proposed there. C. B Silver gave her younger daughter and her weekend’s date one lengthy look-over. Poker-faced Quicksoat shrugged, but reminded all hands that he really was going to weigh anchor within the week, auroraborealisward, as soon as he located his fellow migrants.
To her parents and the Basses, to whom communiqués of this casuistry were from time to time relayed, Katherine Sherritt remarked Bit of an education for you folks, no? Come come, said Doctor Jack Bass: We obstetricians weren’t born yesterday. Added Joan Your mom and I were just debating whether to swap husbands or run off to Key West together, just she and I. All in all, said Irma, I find the soaps more interesting. And Hank, disappointedly, We just got word from Willy that their chopper’s down for service and he can’t get here till five, five-thirty. Shall we cancel the granary show or just postpone it?
No reason to cancel, they decided. With no breeze for sailing and no place to get to in a hurry, they’d as well stay put: read, swim, and play bridge till cocktail and granary-presentation time; then move up to Georgetown for dinner ashore in the cool of the evening—after which et cetera, as we Sagamores had agreed.
Says Peter Mm hm, and, all this exposition assimilated, crosses K IV to bid buen viaje to a curious character indeed.
BUEN VIAJE,
he bids, hunkering amidships on his in-laws’ portside gunwale and stretching out a hand to the skipper of Rocinante IV. Her old diesel’s puttering, her lines are singled up, her new crew stands fetchingly at the tiller in crotch-cleaving shorts and a fresh T-shirt whose legend—OVAL RIGHTS!—Pete’s not even going to ask her about. Her lank-leather captain steps aft from coiling a bow line to take our man’s hand, squint smiling up, and say Good voyage to you too, pal, and to yours.
You have a new crew. P waves his left-hand fingers at Marian, who wanly smiles and adjusts a silvered spike of her hair. His right is retained by Donald Quicksoat, who acknowledges I do. Durn near as nifty as her ma.
You can’t hang around for the obstetrical punch line?
Still squeezing Peter’s hand, C.D.Q. shakes his head. As I understand it, that line could still be two weeks off delivery. I hope to be in Nantucket by then, with Queequeg and my other buddies.
Thinks P We’re never going to know for sure about this hombre. And it occurs to him we’d sort of forgotten that by golly those EDCs are ± two weeks—even though, in K’s case, more likely minus than plus. Two more weeks!
His hand is still gripped. It’s a four-, five-hour motor ride from here to Middle River, Capn Don is remarking, and your usual tronadas Chesapeakas are on the evening menu. So off we go. How old did you say you are, boy?
Startled Peter Sagamore answers Thirty-nine years and nine months. Plus or minus two weeks.
Donald Quicksoat nods and squints. And how long is it old Menos Es Más has had you by the scrotum?
Oh, a dozen years. Thirteen. Seven. But I have an idea that particular dwarf is losing his grip.
Captain Donald does not loosen his. Listen, lad, he says, almost confidentially: Break his hold on you, but keep your hold on him, is my advice. You worry maybe you’re terminado at forty? Maybe you are. Or it could be you’re just astray in the funhouse and taking the long way home.
He is not done. Me and Alonso Quijano, he declares, didn’t know who the fuck we were till fifty-plus, and our author didn’t find out who he was till he found out who we were. Cincuenta y ocho, my friend, when he published Part One! Think about that. And ten years older yet when he published Part Two! Up till then it had all been diddling around.
He is not done, though Peter nods acknowledgment. Paciencia, the old man says, in perfect Castilian: Very possibly the world’ll go bang; prob’ly it won’t. Prob’ly you won’t ever do anything really world-class, but very possibly you will. Not many blokes can say that.
He actually said blokes, awed Peter will report to Katherine Sherritt presently. Y paciencia, paciencia. Eat yer spinach, he told me. Lose not thy nerve. And keep your hold—but relax your grip, once you’ve broken Its. Yer prob’ly choking up Miz Kate’s delivery!
He said that? will wonder Kath. Verfuckingbatim, will swear Peter, more or less. All those mixed-up “yers” and “thys”—the Delphic oracle as Popeye the Sailor. Plus Hasta la vista, pal: Here’s to lead in yer keel and yer pencil, but not in yer ass and yer gas tank. You’re welcome to raft up with Huck and me and Capn O. D. Seus anywhere you find us, from Belize to Halifax. As for that landlubber Scheherazade, he says, wherever she may be: She’ll lay her mitzvahs and baruchas on you in personal private, I daresay, ere this tale is told. So cast off my breastline, bub, he says, there’s a good hombre, and off I chug—get this—all Mimsied, to Fells incensed Point. Mighty apposite, hey? Back to Montesinos, via, you know, una otra cuevita de Carlita.
SEX ED
¡Una otra cuevita! growls C. B Silver in Reprise’s cockpit when this mighty buen viaje is retold: Watch if I don’t cold-cock that horny old buzzard.
To Fells incensèd Point, mighty apposite? Lee Talbott giggles, and that is no easy line to giggle.
All Mimsied? marvels Frank, thinking also of J. A. Paisley’s Brillig.
Wonders Katherine, in her turn, Mitzvahs and baruchas from Scheherazade? And your grip is choking up my delivery?
For that matter, puts in Peter—crossing his heart that he has reasonably approximated that long handclasped farewell—Oval Rights?
Oh, those, says Lee. Mims was going to have it say “Ovarian,” but it’s the eggs she’s lobbying for, not the organs. I asked her Aren’t the sperm entitled? and she said Write your own T-shirt.
The sisters had kissed each other good-bye and exchanged some private sororal sentences. I know you’re going to ball him, Lee had said to Marian; won’t you feel creepy, when he’s just been balling Ma? I can handle that, Mim declared: It’s not much more than a ride home, and Ma and May together’ll be terrific for Sy. Together? They’re not together, Mims! They will be, Marian had calmly predicted, and then suddenly embraced her sister. I’m finished, Lee; I’m just too tired of it. As Rocinante IV pulled away from the raft, she waved faintly at her son in the water, who waved faintly back; she blew a kiss to Lee and to headshaking Carla; even to May Jump, who by now seems more bemused than hurt at the weekend’s sorting out.
Astonishing, how Sy’s hostility has dissolved in this new solution! He and May Jump and Chip Sherritt are now porpoising all about the rafted boats. Henry Sherritt and Jack Bass are experimenting with the Windsurfer. Carla B Silver guesses she’ll go talk dreams and do Tarot cards with Irma Sherritt and Joan Bass, as she sometime promised, after which another joint lunch project will be mounted. Rocinante IV turns Ordinary Point and heads Bayward, Marian Silver at the tiller with Captain Donald Quicksoat standing close by to instruct.
Well.
Frank Talbott says to Peter Sagamore Would you kindly unscrew Act Three now, boss? We’re on tenterhooks.
Okay. Peter unhats the canister, hands Franklin Key Talbott his boina back (Frank accepts it, but does not yet put it on), and tells Carla B Silver that she and May Jump are welcome to audit the contents, though they haven’t read Acts One and Two of Frank Talbott’s abortive seminal television script.
Says Carla I’ll pass, and kisses each of the four of us atop his/her head before climbing over Story to Katydid IV. I know how it ends.
May Jump, though, accepts our invitation, leaves Simon and Chip to their play (they’re aboard Story now, taking turns diving off our bowsprit), climbs aboard Reprise, wraps her sturdy tanksuited body in a striped beach towel, and waives synopsis of the drama thus far. No reflection on you, she assures Frank Talbott: If you did your job and Pete’s done his, any black belt worth her sash can fill in the blanks.
Remarks Katherine Sherritt, against whose side her solid old friend and coach has damply snugged, I’ve hardly said a word in this chapter, and yet I bet I’m the only one here who
knows what literal tenterhooks are.
She is, too.
Reads Peter
ACT III: THE COVE,
OR,
SEX EDUCATION.
Here’s the opening stage-direction, in italics:
(We are yet farther downstream, a short while later. The waters here are open, devoid of “boulders,” islands, “ and the like, as well as of waves. In the near distance, the MAIN BODY OF SWIMMERS can be heard still passing. JUNE and her SWIMMER friend swim into view, doing a sort of sidestroke: JUNE’s legs are locked about the swimmer’s chest; her envelope provides their main flotation, and she steers them both with movements of her arms and upper body. The SWIMMER propels them with his arms, legs, and tail. The remains of MAY’s paisley envelope, knotted around his waist, provide some additional small flotation.)
Lee Talbott explains to May Jump that this May is a Floater from the Left Ovarium who died in Act Two.
She didn’t necessarily die, Frank reminds her. She got gang-fused, is all. It was a diversionary tactic, to protect her friend June.
Was I asking? asks May Jump. Black belts don’t ask; they infer.
Sorry.
I forgot to mention, Peter says offhandedly: I can’t do plays, so I wrote this as a dialogue without a real narrator. The Swimmer guy adjusts his eyeglasses with one hand and says in a loud whisper Sideways! A touch more to starboard, if you can.
June says Like this?
Swimmer says Perfect.
June says That’s two twenty magnetic. You said two ten.
Remarks May Jump The current, dummy. Says Peter, glancing over at her with professional respect, the Swimmer says We have to allow for the current. . . . You should see a low breakwater, too, with a flashing light.
I see it! says June: Dead ahead. Thank goodness!
We can thank May’s goodness, says the Swimmer.
My pleasure, Kiss, says May Jump, giving Katherine a small hug. K sighs I’ll never be black belt. Presses Peter June says Poor May!
They reach the breakwater, indistinguishable from a “real” one. Swimmer says We go over it. June says We can’t get over that!
Sure they can, declares Frank Talbott, taking his wife’s hand. Peter nods approval; Lee Talbott too.
Together we can, says the Swimmer: Here we go, now: one, two . . . up! June catches her breath as the Swimmer, with a mighty thrust, propels them both up onto the narrow wall, where they rest, disconnected. Both are spent. Several Random Swimmers from the margins of the Main Body pass by, too intent upon swimming upstream to notice them. In a loud whisper, June says Can we go on?
The Swimmer adjusts his glasses wearily. Sure. We have one nasty little whirlpool to get around. . . . See it, over there?
Dear God.
Leave it very close to port, the Swimmer tells her: Its current will give us a boost toward the cove. He points farther right. If we go too far to starboard of it, we get swept back by the countercurrent. He smiles at June. Scylla-and-Charybdis sort of thing, you know?
June nods. Katherine can’t help explaining to May Jump This is all taking place in somebody’s uterus. They say things they don’t know how they know. May places a vertical finger upon her friend’s lips. K groans Sorry.
June says I sure can see your whirlpool, but I don’t see any cove.
The Swimmer points: Just beyond it; two ten on the button. Look here now, he says in a businesslike tone: If you feel us going into that whirlpool, you’re to kick free and make for the cove by yourself. You can swim that far alone, and you’ll be absolutely safe there. Here we go.
June does not acknowledge this final directive. They link up as before, slide off the far side of the breakwater, and stroke toward the maelstrom.
Farther to port! the Swimmer urges her. June says We’ll go under! The Swimmer says But we need the push. . . .
The whirlpool current threatens to draw them under. June cries out. The Swimmer says Kick loose!
She does not let go.
Attagirl, Lee Talbott cheers.
Gripping him firmly with her legs, June rolls over into the crawl-stroke position she invented in Act Two and flails ahead furiously. Push, damn it; push! she hollers at the Swimmer. Harder! You can do it!
Katherine squeezes Peter’s forearm.
Face down in the water, the Swimmer manages a few final, grunting thrusts of his legs and tail, and they are out of the whirlpool. He then hangs on, exhausted, as June, aided now by the favorable current, both propels and steers them. After a while she says I can see our cove!
The Swimmer very weakly says Swim on along, then. I’ll follow after a bit. He slips her legs free of him; June collars him in a lifesaving hold with her left arm. Come on, now! Onward and sideways!
One last tail-thrust from the Swimmer, though his eyes are closed and his arms limp; one last sidestroke from June; and they haul up onto a deserted strand, fall exhausted upon it side by side, and lie half in the water and half out.
Ordinary Point, predicts K.
Carlita’s otra cuevita, predicts Lee.
Sherritt’s Cove, predicts May Jump, smiling at Katherine’s lap.
Somewhile later, June’s eyes open. She stirs, disengages herself demurely from the Swimmer, and sits up. He wakes and does likewise, clearly reluctant to let go of her. She looks about; the Swimmer looks at her.
June picks up a stick of driftwood nearby and says huskily Well. She stands, wrings out her hair and envelope. I’ll scrounge up some more of this for a campfire, and we’ll look for something to eat.
Little Goody Two-Tits down to the wire, May Jump teases. Protests Kate This is Franklin Key Talbott’s play, not ours. June was like that when Frank hardly knew us. Smiles Peter If the T-shirt fits, et cet, and reads on:
The Swimmer reluctantly rises, brushing sand and water from himself: Later, okay? June looks at him sharply.
So does Katherine Sherritt, says Kath.
He smiles and says It might be unwise to build a fire until the rest of the Main Body swims past. One or two Swimmers are bound to stray in here as it is.
What do we do when that happens?
The Swimmer shrugs at that unpleasant prospect. We . . . deal with them, he says, before they can deal with us. Let’s climb this bank and see whether any of those trees are whatyoucallums . . . fruit trees.
Fruit trees, June says after him. The meaning dawns on her; she touches his shoulder. Oranges! Apples!
Pomegranates, says May Jump.
The Swimmer laughs, nods: Breadfruit! Coconuts! We’ll be regular Robinson Crusoes!
June laughs with him. Bananas! I’m dying for a banana!
Let’s find you a banana, says the Swimmer.
Frank Talbott puts the boina firmly upon his head and says I’m going to cut that line, Pete. Lee Talbott kisses that boina. Peter Sagamore looks up at him, grins, reads on:
As they scramble up the low sandy bank toward the grove of trees, the sound of the Main Body of Swimmers increases. June and the Swimmer pause and look soberly out over the water they’ve just emerged from.
June says I can’t believe we covered all that distance!
The Swimmer’s still admiring her. We’re a long way from where we started, he says.
June shades her eyes. It’s so bright now!
Swimmer says There’s to be a full moon, isn’t there? That’s your department.
June nods. Shivers. It was warmer out there than here.
Use this. The Swimmer takes May’s paisley envelope from his waist and drapes it about June’s shoulders.
May Jump ceremoniously acts out this direction. Kath lifts a corner of the beach towel to her lips.
June touches a corner of it to her lips, reads Peter, then to her eyes, and shivers again as the sound of the Main Body increases. Poor May! June says: Brave May!
May shmay, says May Jump: On with the story.
The Swimmer shakes his head: That can’t be the way it’s s
upposed to be. Then his eyes narrow as he observes and hears his own kind dying en masse in the distance. But who knows how anything is supposed to be? Look at those poor devils going under.
Appalled, they forget their errand and themselves. As before, there are multitudinous confused male shouts, whistles, drinking songs, martial commands, cries for help. So many! June says.
At a far-off male scream, her eyes widen. The Swimmer briefly covers his own eyes and touches her arm as if for moral support. June flinches, then takes his hand. They watch and listen.
June says Why do they do that to one another?
The Swimmer shakes his head. God knows why, when they’ll soon drown anyhow. What they’re doing is what they’ve always done.
June turns away and says I’ve lost my appetite. Swimmer says Me too, and then Uh-oh. He has glanced back down toward the sandspit where they beached, just below them.
Nick of time, observes May Jump. Frank Talbott nods agreement. Bets Katherine Interloper, right? May pats her knee. Reads Peter A stray Random Swimmer, the First Interloper, is wearily hauling himself ashore. Over his wet-suit he wears a club necktie and two-thirds of a three-piece business suit: the jacket and vest. He carries a slim leather attache case.
Lee Talbott claps her hands. Okay!
Leaving June where she stands, the Swimmer springs upon the newcomer, who is too spent to struggle, and unhesitatingly drowns him in the shallow water. The job is easily done, but it leaves the Swimmer retching. June joins him where he kneels in the shallows beside the drowned one. She touches her friend’s shoulder; thumps him lightly on the back to help him recover.
I’m all right now, the Swimmer says.
Do you have to drown them? K protests. P looks at her levelly and says It says right here that June says Do we have to drown them? Can’t we just hide till they leave?
The Swimmer shakes his head and coughs. Once they got their breath, they’d get wind of you and whistle for the whole crowd. There won’t be many, and it won’t be hard to deal with them, as you saw. You can do it, easily.
