by John Barth
9 Anonymous, late-thirteenth/early-fourteenth century.
10 So named by Algonquin Indians because the male Virginia White-Tail deer’s fuzzy new antler-buds begin to emerge just about then—but also called by them the Thunder Moon, for the frequency of such storms in that season.
11 Pentagon acronym for the Improvised Explosive Devices deployed by Al Qaeda and other terrorists for deadly roadside bombings. Not to be confused with the IUDs (intrauterine devices) deployed contraceptively by women of Amanda Todd’s generation in their pre-menopausal years before the development and marketing of birth-control pills—unnecessary in the case of the Todd/Newetts, it will turn out to their mid-Summer disappointment. Read on.
12 “La cucaracha, la cucaracha / Ya no puede caminar. / Porque no tiene, porque le falta / Marijuana que fumar.” Rough gringo translation: “The cockroach, the cockroach / Can march no farther. / Because he has no, because he’s lacking / Marijuana to smoke.”
13 Unfortunately defeated in 1982 (Editor Todd reminds Narrator Newett) after a ten-year state-by-state hassle for its ratification.
14 Such “seasons” being merely official, however, Hurricane Paloma still waits in the wings to whack Haiti, the Cayman Islands, and Cuba in November, as Narrator foots this note.
15 I.e., June of C.E. 2009. With StratColl’s permission, boredom-fearing Professor Todd has scheduled her retirement for age sixty-seven rather than sixty-five.
16 The Todd/Newetts’ thus-far-only venture into Islam, of which his recent revisit to Scheherazade’s Nights has pungently reminded him: a memorable summer visit to Tangier back in the 1980s.
17 Another odd locution that, having heard himself think it, Narrator supposes must be euphemistic for “for Christ’s sake.” He’ll Google it in the morning, after breakfast and before getting back to his Old Fart Ficting—always assuming, dot dot dot . . .
Copyright 2011 by John Barth. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
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