that people are ready to hear things never heard before so long as
they are not frightened for their physical safety or worried that
listening may cost them money. This is an untestable hypothesis, and
I don't know that I want to test it now that I have formed the
hypothesis so neatly. But I believe I gave it a fair test for a few
days, and proved it sufficiently well for a failed scientist. People
are hungry for new utterance. Does the reaction series of life
include new utterance in its function?
Can Mary be said to have shown me this by assuming
roles and living them? Was Bonaparte receiving and sending
wavelengths so novel no one in his right mind could pick up on them?
I n
the cafeteria of the bus station I saw my driver again, dressed for
the road, looking invisible and harmless, in his blue regulation
suit. He poured a saucerful of coffee back into his cup, the saucer
shaking at a frequency so high and an amplitude so low that anyone
unconscious of wave theory would not have seen it shake. His whole
attitude suggested a man holding his breath. I joined him.
" Back to Florida?" I asked him.
" Shoot. A run north. Little-town run. From
Decatur over to Jackson."
" From where?"
" Decatur."
" I know someone there."
I got up to get us more coffee and to check behind
the counter for Rod Serling: crackerjack nuke-whiz Tom lived in
Decatur, Alabama. The plottable slope of fate defining my errant life
was running straight to Tom.
" I know someone there I'd like to see."
" Well, come on. I'll take you there." He
said this as if he meant in his own car, at his own expense, and he
sort of did. He told me to meet him in seventeen minutes three blocks
down the street and he'd pick me up.
" Sync up," he said, exposing his wristwatch
in a flourish of his uniformed arm. We matched our watches like
spies. All of this was to save me a six-dollar ticket.
"I fucked some turkeys there when I was a kid,"
he said.
" You what?"
" Fucked turkeys."
" Fucked turkeys ?"
" Yeah. I was staying with my cousin and he asked
if I wanted to fuck something, so I said sure, and he showed me these
turkeys he said his father didn't want, and we fucked them."
"What do you mean, didn't
want ?"
" Well, it kills 'em, you know."
" Kills 'em."
" Kills hell out of 'em, actually." He
grinned a not altogether ashamed grin.
" Only my uncle did want them. Beat the hell out of us."
In our remaining time he gave me a short course in
bestiality. Cows one does barefoot, holding the Achilles tendon with
the big toe. Sheep with their hind legs in your Wellies.
" Dogs?"
"Never fucked a dog."
This seemed an oversight to me.
" Did fuck some bass once."
I looked at him. Was he on to the theory of new
utterance himself? Was he just doing some Sweetlips pygmy on me? I
thought maybe he was not. He was too somber at some level to be
kidding.
" Bass," I said. "How in hell do you
fuck bass?"
" In the-he pointed down his throat--"the
little muscle thing there." He meant the fluted, sphincter-like
throat, and it had an aptness so thorough I did not doubt him. I was
talking to a sad, alcoholic bus driver who had fucked bass as a kid.
I was talking to a natural in the world of folk who can celebrate
their liabilities, carry their failures.
" I've got a friend up in Decatur who hunts
armadillos for radiation exposure," I said. "Maybe you
can--"
" Radiation's a sore point with me, bud."
On the way to Decatur he told me of his wife's
travail, a not atypical one, I presume. Her life had been prolonged
by radiation, he supposed, but watching her suffer, he did not see
the point of it. She was hairless, incontinent, and, as he put it,
hot. At night he held her hand. He did not mind being on the road
now. He applied, in fact, for long, errant tours of duty taking him
anywhere but home.
He drove me to Tom's very door, where I debarked in a
great hydraulic hiss onto a neatly trimmed yard in a new suburb. Tom
came out grinning like an idiot, appreciating the
they are not frightened for their physical safety or worried that
listening may cost them money. This is an untestable hypothesis, and
I don't know that I want to test it now that I have formed the
hypothesis so neatly. But I believe I gave it a fair test for a few
days, and proved it sufficiently well for a failed scientist. People
are hungry for new utterance. Does the reaction series of life
include new utterance in its function?
Can Mary be said to have shown me this by assuming
roles and living them? Was Bonaparte receiving and sending
wavelengths so novel no one in his right mind could pick up on them?
I n
the cafeteria of the bus station I saw my driver again, dressed for
the road, looking invisible and harmless, in his blue regulation
suit. He poured a saucerful of coffee back into his cup, the saucer
shaking at a frequency so high and an amplitude so low that anyone
unconscious of wave theory would not have seen it shake. His whole
attitude suggested a man holding his breath. I joined him.
" Back to Florida?" I asked him.
" Shoot. A run north. Little-town run. From
Decatur over to Jackson."
" From where?"
" Decatur."
" I know someone there."
I got up to get us more coffee and to check behind
the counter for Rod Serling: crackerjack nuke-whiz Tom lived in
Decatur, Alabama. The plottable slope of fate defining my errant life
was running straight to Tom.
" I know someone there I'd like to see."
" Well, come on. I'll take you there." He
said this as if he meant in his own car, at his own expense, and he
sort of did. He told me to meet him in seventeen minutes three blocks
down the street and he'd pick me up.
" Sync up," he said, exposing his wristwatch
in a flourish of his uniformed arm. We matched our watches like
spies. All of this was to save me a six-dollar ticket.
"I fucked some turkeys there when I was a kid,"
he said.
" You what?"
" Fucked turkeys."
" Fucked turkeys ?"
" Yeah. I was staying with my cousin and he asked
if I wanted to fuck something, so I said sure, and he showed me these
turkeys he said his father didn't want, and we fucked them."
"What do you mean, didn't
want ?"
" Well, it kills 'em, you know."
" Kills 'em."
" Kills hell out of 'em, actually." He
grinned a not altogether ashamed grin.
" Only my uncle did want them. Beat the hell out of us."
In our remaining time he gave me a short course in
bestiality. Cows one does barefoot, holding the Achilles tendon with
the big toe. Sheep with their hind legs in your Wellies.
" Dogs?"
"Never fucked a dog."
This seemed an oversight to me.
" Did fuck some bass once."
I looked at him. Was he on to the theory of new
utterance himself? Was he just doing some Sweetlips pygmy on me? I
thought maybe he was not. He was too somber at some level to be
kidding.
" Bass," I said. "How in hell do you
fuck bass?"
" In the-he pointed down his throat--"the
little muscle thing there." He meant the fluted, sphincter-like
throat, and it had an aptness so thorough I did not doubt him. I was
talking to a sad, alcoholic bus driver who had fucked bass as a kid.
I was talking to a natural in the world of folk who can celebrate
their liabilities, carry their failures.
" I've got a friend up in Decatur who hunts
armadillos for radiation exposure," I said. "Maybe you
can--"
" Radiation's a sore point with me, bud."
On the way to Decatur he told me of his wife's
travail, a not atypical one, I presume. Her life had been prolonged
by radiation, he supposed, but watching her suffer, he did not see
the point of it. She was hairless, incontinent, and, as he put it,
hot. At night he held her hand. He did not mind being on the road
now. He applied, in fact, for long, errant tours of duty taking him
anywhere but home.
He drove me to Tom's very door, where I debarked in a
great hydraulic hiss onto a neatly trimmed yard in a new suburb. Tom
came out grinning like an idiot, appreciating the
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