GRAVITY RAINBOW (11 page)

"Sometimes…" but what does she want to say? That he must always be lovable, in need of her and never, as now, the hovering statistical cherub who's never quite been to hell but speaks as if he's one of the most fallen…

"Cheap nihilism" is Captain Prentice's name for that. It was one day by the frozen pond near "The White Visitation," Roger off sucking icicles, lying flat and waving his arms to make angels in the snow, larking.

"Do you mean that he hasn't paid…," looking up, up, Pirate's wind-burned face seeming to end in the sky, her own hair finally in the way of his gray, reserved eyes. He was Roger's friend, he wasn't playing or undermining, didn't know the first thing, she guessed, about such dancing-shoe wars-and anyway didn't have to, because she was already, terrible flirt… well, nothing serious, but those eyes she could never quite see into were so swoony, so utterly terrif, really…

"The more V-2s over there waiting to be fired over here," Captain Prentice said, "obviously, the better his chances of catching one. Of course you can't say he's not paying a minimum dues. But aren't we all."

"Well," Roger nodding when she told him later, eyes out of focus, considering this, "it's the damned Calvinist insanity again. Payment.

Why must they always put it in terms of exchange? What's Prentice want, another kind of Beveridge Proposal or something? Assign everyone a Bitterness Quotient! lovely-up before the Evaluation Board, so many points earned for being Jewish, in a concentration camp, missing limbs or vital organs, losing a wife, a lover, a close friend-"

"I knew you'd be angry," she murmured.

"I'm not angry. No. He's right. It is cheap. All right, but what does he want then-" stalking now this stuffed, dim little parlor, hung about with rigid portraits of favorite gun dogs at point in fields that never existed save in certain fantasies about death, leas more golden as their linseed oil ages, even more autumnal, necropolitical, than prewar hopes-for an end to all change, for a long static afternoon and the grouse forever in blurred takeoff, the sights taking their lead aslant purple hills to pallid sky, the good dog alerted by the eternal scent, the explosion over his head always just about to come-these hopes so patently, defenselessly there that Roger even at his most cheaply nihilistic couldn't quite bring himself to take the pictures down, turn them to the wallpaper-"what do you all expect from me, working day in day out among raving lunatics," Jessica sighing
oh gosh,
curling her pretty legs up into the chair, "they believe in survival after death, communication mind-to-mind, prophesying, clairvoyance, teleportation- they
believe,
Jess! and-and-" something is blocking his speech. She forgets her annoyance, comes up out of the fat paisley chair to hold him, and
how does she know,
warm-skirted thighs and mons pushing close to heat and rouse his cock, losing the last of her lipstick across his shirt, muscles, touches, skins confused, high, blooded-know so exactly what Roger meant to say?

Mind-to-mind,
tonight up late at the window while he sleeps, lighting another precious cigarette from the coal of the last, filling with a need to cry because she can see so plainly her limits, knows she can never protect him as much as she must-from what may come out of the sky, from what he couldn't confess that day (creaking snow lanes, arcades of the ice-bearded and bowing trees… the wind shook down crystals of snow: purple and orange creatures blooming on her long lashes), and from Mr. Pointsman, and from Pointsman's… his… a bleakness whenever she meets him. Scientist-neutrality. Hands that- she shivers. There are chances now for enemy shapes out of the snow and stillness. She drops the blackout curtain. Hands that could as well torture people as dogs and never feel their pain…

A skulk of foxes, a cowardice of curs are tonight's traffic whispering

in the yards and lanes. A motorcycle out on the trunk road, snarling cocky as a fighter plane, bypasses the village, heading up to London. The great balloons drift in the sky, pearl-grown, and the air is so still that this morning's brief snow still clings to the steel cables, white goes twisting peppermint-stick down thousands of feet of night. And the people who might have been asleep in the empty houses here, people blown away, some already forever… are they dreaming of cities that shine all over with lamps at night, of Christmases seen again from the vantage of children and not of sheep huddled so vulnerable on their bare hillside, so bleached by the Star's awful radiance? or of songs so funny, so lovely or true, that they can't be remembered on waking… dreams of peacetime…

"What was it like? Before the war?" She knows she was alive then, a child, but it's not what she means. Wireless, staticky Frank Bridge Variations a hairbrush for the tangled brain over the BBC Home Service, bottle of Montrachet, a gift from Pirate, cooling at the kitchen window.

"Well, now," in his cracked old curmudgeon's voice, palsied hand reaching out to squeeze her breast in the nastiest way he knows, "girly, it depends
which
war you
mean"
and here it comes, ugh, ugh, drool welling at the corner of his lower lip and over and down in a silver string, he's so clever, he's practiced all these disgusting little-

"Don't be ridic, I'm serious, Roger. I don't remember." Watches dimples come up either side of his mouth as he considers this, smiling at her in an odd way.
It'll be like this when I'm thirty…
flash of several children, a garden, a window, voices
Mummy, what's…
cucumbers and brown onions on a chopping board, wild carrot blossoms sprinkling with brilliant yellow a reach of deep, very green lawn and his voice-

"All
I
remember is that it was silly. Just overwhelmingly silly. Nothing happened. Oh, Edward VIII abdicated. He fell in love with-"

"I know that, I can read magazines. But what was it
like?"

"Just… just damned silly, that's all. Worrying about things that don't-Jess, can't you really remember?"

Games, pinafores, girl friends, a black alley kitten with white little feet, holidays all the family by the sea, brine, frying fish, donkey rides, peach taffeta, a boy named Robin…

"Nothing that's really gone, that I can't ever find again."

"Oh. Whereas
my
memories-"

"Yes?" They both smile.

"One took lots of aspirin. One was drinking or drunk much of the time. One was concerned about getting one's lounge suits to fit properly. One despised the upper classes but tried desperately to behave like them…"

"And one cried wee, wee, wee, all the way-" Jessica breaking down in a giggle as he reaches for the spot along her sweatered flank he knows she can't bear to be tickled in. She hunches, squirming, out of the way as he rolls past, bouncing off the back of the sofa but making a nice recovery, and by now she's ticklish all over, he can grab an ankle, elbow-

But a rocket has suddenly struck. A terrific blast quite close beyond the village: the entire fabric of the air, the time, is changed-the casement window blown inward, rebounding with a wood squeak to slam again as all the house still shudders.

Their hearts pound. Eardrums brushed taut by the overpressure ring in pain. The invisible train rushes away close over the rooftop…

They sit still as the painted dogs now, silent, oddly unable to touch. Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says
try to tickle me.

(1)

TDY Abreaction Ward St. Veronica's Hospital Bonechapel Gate, El London, England Winter, 1944

The Kenosha Kid

General Delivery

Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Dear Sir:

Did I ever bother you,
ever,
for anything, in your life?

Yours truly,

Lt. Tyrone Slothrop

General Delivery Kenosha, Wise., U.S.A. few days later

Tyrone Slothrop, Esq. TDY Abreaction Ward St. Veronica's Hospital Bonechapel Gate, El London, England

Dear Mr. Slothrop: You never did.

The Kenosha Kid

(2) Smartass youth: Aw, I did all them old-fashioned dances, I did the

"Charleston," a-and the "Big Apple," too!

Old veteran hoofer: Bet you never did the "Kenosha," kid!

(2.1) S.Y.: Shucks, I did all them dances, I did the "Castle Walk," and I did the "Lindy," too!

O.VH.: Bet you never did the "Kenosha Kid."

(3) Minor employee: Well, he has been avoiding me, and I thought it

might be because of the Slothrop Affair. If he somehow held me re

sponsible-

Superior (haughtily): You! never did the Kenosha Kid think for one instant that
you…

(3.1) Superior (incredulously): You? Never! Did the Kenosha Kid think for one instant
that
you
…?

(4) And at the end of the mighty day in which he gave us in fiery

letters across the sky all the words we'd ever need, words we today

enjoy, and fill our dictionaries with, the meek voice of little Tyrone

Slothrop, celebrated ever after in tradition and song, ventured to

filter upward to the Kid's attention: "You never did
'the,
' Kenosha

Kid!"

These changes on the text "You never did the Kenosha Kid" are occupying Slothrop's awareness as the doctor leans in out of the white overhead to wake him and begin the session. The needle slips without pain into the vein just outboard of the hollow in the crook of his elbow: 10% Sodium Amytal, one cc at a time, as needed.

(5) Maybe you did fool the Philadelphia, rag the Rochester, josh the

Joliet. But you never did the Kenosha kid.

(6) (The day of the Ascent and sacrifice. A nation-wide observance.

Fats searing, blood dripping and burning to a salty brown…) You did

the Charlottesville shoat, check, the Forest Hills foal, check. (Fading

now…) The Laredo lamb. Check. Oh-oh. Wait. What's this,

Slothrop? You never did the Kenosha kid. Snap to, Slothrop.

Got a hardon in my fist,

Don't be pissed,

Re-enlist-

Snap-to, Slothrop!

Jackson, I don't give a fuck, Just give me my "ruptured duck!" Snap-to, Slothrop!

No one here can love or comprehend me,

They just look for someplace else to send… me…

Tap my head and mike my brain, Stick that needle in my vein, Slothrop, snap to!

PISCES: We want to talk some more about Boston today, Slothrop. You recall that we were talking last time about the Negroes, in Roxbury. Now we know it's not all that comfortable for you, but do try, won't you. Now-where are you, Slothrop? Can you see anything?

Slothrop: Well no, not
see
exactly…

Roaring in by elevated subway, only in Boston, steel and a carbon shroud over the ancient bricks-

Rhy-thm's got me,

Oh baby dat swing, swing, swing!

Yeah de rhythm got me

Just a-thinkin' that whole-wide-world-can-sing,

Well I never ever heard-it, sound-so-sweet,

Even down around the corner-on, Ba-sin Street,

As now dat de rhythm's got me, chillun let's

Swing, swing, swing,

Come on… chillun, let's… swing!

Black faces, white tablecloth, gleaming
very sharp knives
lined up by the saucers… tobacco and "gage" smoke richly blended, eye-reddening and tart as wine, yowzah gwine smoke a little ob dis hyah sheeit gib de wrinkles in mah
brain
a process! straighten 'em all raht out, sho nuf!

PISCES: That was "sho nuf," Slothrop?

Slothrop: Come on you guys… don't make it too…

White college boys, hollering requests to the "combo" up on the stand. Eastern prep-school voices, pronouncing
asshole
with a certain sphinctering of the lips so it comes out
ehisshehwle…
they reel, they roister. Aspidistras, giant philodendrons, green broad leaves and
jungle
palms go hanging into the dimness… two bartenders, a very fair West Indian, slight, with a mustache, and his running-mate black as a hand in an evening glove, are moving endlessly in front of the deep, the oceanic mirror that swallows most of the room into metal shadows… the hundred bottles hold their light only briefly before it flows away into the mirror… even when someone bends to light a cigarette, the flame reflects back in there only as dark, sunset orange. Slothrop can't even see his own white face. A woman turns to look at him from a table. Her eyes tell him, in the instant, what he is. The mouth harp in his pocket reverts to brass inertia. A weight. A jive accessory. But he packs it everywhere he goes.

Upstairs in the men's room at the Roseland Ballroom he swoons kneeling over a toilet bowl, vomiting beer, hamburgers, homefries, chef's salad with French dressing, half a bottle of Moxie, after-dinner mints, a Clark bar, a pound of salted peanuts, and the cherry from some RadclifFe girl's old-fashioned. With no warning, as tears stream out his eyes, PLOP goes the harp into the,
aagghh,
the loathsome
toi
let!
Immediate little bubbles slide up its bright flanks, up brown wood surfaces, some varnished some lip-worn, these fine silver seeds stripping loose along the harp's descent toward stone-white cervix and into lower night… Someday the U.S. Army will provide him with shirts whose pockets he can button. But in these prewar days he can rely only on the starch in his snow-white Arrow to hold the pocket stuck together enough to keep objects from… But no, no, fool, the harp
has
fallen, remember? the low reeds singing an instant on striking porcelain (it's raining against a window somewhere, and outside on top of a sheet-metal vent on the roof: cold Boston rain) then quenched in the water streaked with the last bile-brown coils of his vomit. There's no calling it back. Either he lets the harp go, his silver chances of song, or he has to follow.