Thomas regarded his orange tights, his orange boots, his new silver belt buckle.
Yes! he said.
7
Let him make his speech, Julie said.
Yesterday you said no.
I was in a fouler mood yesterday. Today I am in a fairer mood.
That’s interesting, Thomas said. How do you do that?
I ignore sense data, she said, let him make his speech.
Thomas turned to the Dead Father.
Would you like to make your speech now?
I have prepared some remarks, said the Dead Father. Remarks which are perhaps not without pertinency.
Thomas gathered together the men and Emma.
The men stood in a ragged half circle. The nineteen. Edmund with his hand on his back pocket, where the flask was. Emma at one tip of the crescent, Julie at the other.
The Dead Father stepped forward and assumed his speaking position, a kind of forwardly lean.
All the men lighted cigarettes. Julie lighted a cigarette as did Emma.
The Dead Father placed the tips of the fingers of his two hands together.
In considering, he said, inconsidering inconsidering inconsidering the additionally arriving human beings annually additionally arriving human beings each producing upon its head one hundred thousand individual hairs some retained and some discarded—
All the men sat down and began talking to each other.
In contemplating I say these additionally arrived human beings not provided for by anticipatory design hocus or pocus and thus problematical, we must reliably extend a set of ever-advancing speeding poised lingering or dwelling pattern behaviors sufficient unto the day or adequate until the next time. Given the existence of the next time, anticipatory design neurosis designs for integration of the until-then-threatening non-self-requested experience of life and sweet, sweet variable stresses and flows to carry inward and inwardize if rain floods fires earthquakes tornadoes do not occur as predicted but look out of the window and see how dark the sky, how bold the wind, how whipped the trees, how gravitational the red falling skinripping rooftiles not provided for by anticipatory design fury preallotted to the discontinuance of consciousness known as sleep, let us pray. Tensionally cohered universe here today and gone tomorrow finity inward and finity outward and ever-advancing speeding poised lingering or dwelling particles in waveful duality and progressive conceptioning and Father’s Day interface with holistic behaviors unpredicted by parts such as you, me, them, and we, and I, and he, and she, and it. These, assigned by a static or “at rest” analysis to super series of unpredictable mathematical frequencies composed of complementary and reciprocal numbers found in cyclic bundling of experience not necessarily compromised by variable geographic bundle limitations, but sometimes, as in the song at twilight when the lights are low and the flickering shadows softly come and go, to multidynamically blossom or burst forth in beauty or pain and pre- and postnatal … disappointments … next appropriate trial balance struck … as to what might be … in the best case … however. However. Given the already-secreted true experience of the regenerativelyevolving comprehensive world-design effort against fire flood pestilence violent atmospheric disturbance and providing seventeen cubic feet of air per minute per person free of toxic or disagreeable odors or dust, or malice, we feel that metals broadly speaking and synthetics narrowly speaking will interlink into continuously improving world-around extra-corporeal networks, networks within which only individual man presents himself as an inherent island of physical discontinuity sad to say, sad to say, physical discontinuity and torpor, total velocities of which known practices have proved inadequate to solve. Given however all-over compensatory design despair such as is known to you and known to me, and freakiness, and bearing in mind push-pull as prior to and above all, and disregarding those whose larger pattern security is challenged or threatened by these systematically pulsing alternations, we project your existence here as possibly tolerable within tolerances of .01, .02, and .03, given uptooling of social engineering extra-genetic razzle postpartum reprepositioning and I spy. Thank you.
The Dead Father waited for the applause.
A storm of applause from the men!
Thank you, the Dead Father said, thank you.
Prolonged and fervent applause. Whistles. Stamping of feet. Waving of handkerchiefs (the women).
Thank you. Thank you.
A wonderful speech, said Thomas.
A marvelous speech, said Julie, would you autograph my program.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, of course.
Quite extraordinary, said Emma, what did it mean?
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it meant I made a speech.
Beautifully done, said Thomas, are you free for lunch?
Thank you, said the Dead Father, I think so.
Julie was wiping the Dead Father’s brow, with her handkerchief.
A long time since I’ve heard anything like it, she said, a very long time, not since my student days in fact.
Thank you, said the Dead Father.
The men loved it, said Thomas.
Yes, said the Dead Father.
Positively on the edge of my chair, said Emma, figuratively speaking.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it was a pisser all right.
Enough! said Julie.
Why is it, asked the Dead Father, that alone among the members of this party I am not allowed to be filthy-mouthed?
Because you are an old fart, she said, and old farts must be notably clean of mouth in order to mitigate the disgustingness of being old farts.
The Dead Father lunged against his cable.
Look how the red is rising to his top, Emma observed.
The Dead Father burst off down the road, his cable trailing.
He is going to do it again, said Thomas.
They followed at a rapid pace.
They found the Dead Father standing in a wood, slaying. First he slew a snowshoe rabbit cleaving it in twain with a single blow and then he slew a spiny anteater and then he slew two rusty numbats and then whirling the great blade round and round his head he slew a wallaby and a lemur and a trio of ouakaris and a spider monkey and a common squid. Then moving up and down the green path in his rage he dispatched a macaque and a gibbon and fourscore innocent chinchillas who had been standing idly by watching the great slaughter. Then he rested standing with the point of his sword stuck in the earth and his two hands folded upon the hilt. Then he again as if taken by a fit set about the bloody work slaying a prairie dog and a beaver and a gopher and a dingo and a honey badger and an otter and a house cat and a tapir and a piglet. Then his anger grew and he called for a brand of even greater weight and length which was brought him by a metaphorically present gillie and seizing it with his two fine-formed and noble hands he raised it above his head, and every living thing within his reach trembled and every dead thing within his reach remembered how it got that way, and the very trees of the wood did seem to shrink and step away. Then the Dead Father slew a warthog and a spotted fawn and a trusting sheep and a young goat and a marmoset and two greyhounds and a draghound. Then, kicking viciously with his noble and shapely foot at the piles of the slain, raw and sticky corpses drenching the earth in blood on every side, he cleared a path to a group of staring pelicans slicing the soft white thin necks of them from the bodies in the wink of an eye. Then he slew a cassowary and a flamingo and a grebe and a heron and a bittern and a pair of ducks and a shouting peacock and a dancing crane and a bustard and a lily-trotter and, wiping the sacred sweat from his brow with one ermine-trimmed sleeve, slew a wood pigeon and a cockatoo and a tawny owl and a snowy owl and a magpie and three jackdaws and a crow and a jay and a dove. Then he called for wine. A silver flagon was brought him and he downed the whole of it in one draught looking the while out of the corner of his ruby eye at a small iguana melted in terror against the limb of a tree. Then he tossed the silver flagon into the arms of a supposititious cupbearer sousin
g the cupbearer’s hypothetical white tunic with the red of the (possible) wine and split the iguana into two halves with the point of his sword as easily as one skilled in the mystery fillets a fish. Then the Dead Father resumed his sword work in earnest slaying divers small animals of every kind, so that the heaps mounted steaming to the right and to the left of him with each passionate step. A toad escaped.
Heavy work, the Dead Father said, looking pleased. See how many!
Thomas was collecting the carcasses of the edible.
See how many! the Dead Father said again.
Truly formidable, Julie said, to please him. Sword play of this quality has not been seen since the days of Frithjof, Lancelot, Paracelsus, Rogero, Artegal, Otuel, Ogier the Dane, Rinaldo, Oliver, Koll the Thrall, Haco I, and the Chevalier Bayard.
Rather good I think, said the Dead Father, for an old man.
His smoking whinyard wiped upon the green grass.
Emma’s gaze (admiring).
See how long it is, the Dead Father said, and how limber.
He cut a few figures in the air with it: quinte, sixte, septime.
And now, lunch, Julie said.
She produced from the knapsack a new tablecloth and a new seating plan.
I have been elevated, in the arrangements! the Dead Father exclaimed.
Temporary happiness of the Dead Father.
And I, relegated, Thomas said. He gave Julie a straight look.
Julie returned the straight look.
The Dead Father reached for Julie’s bare toe.
Please release my toe.
The Dead Father continued to grasp the toe.
Toe, he said, now there’s an interesting word. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. A veiny toe. Red lines on toe. Succulent toe. Succulent, succulent toe. Succulent succulent succulent—
The Dead Father placed the toe in his mouth.
Thomas rapped the Dead Father sharply in the forehead, across the cloth.
Toe fell from the mouth. The Dead Father clutched his forehead.
You have rapped the Father, he said between moans. Again. You should not rap the Father. You must not rap the Father. You cannot rap the Father. Striking the sacred and holy Father is an offense of the gravest nature. Striking the noble, wise, all-giving Dead Father is—
More grebe? Julie asked.
Is there mustard? Thomas asked.
In the pot.
Have the troops fed themselves? Julie asked.
Thomas peered up the road. Cooking fires were visible.
They are eating hearty, he said, because they know what is ahead.
What is ahead? asked the Dead Father.
The Wends, Thomas said.
The Wends? What are they?
They are what is ahead.
What is peculiar about them? the Dead Father asked.
They don’t like us.
He lifted his hand and rotated it languidly, representing negligence and of-no-consequence.
Don’t like us? Why is that?
First, because we are armed and alien walkers through their domains. Second, because you are, in one of your aspects, a gigantic and strange and awe-inspiring object.
I do inspire awe, said the Dead Father. Better than anybody. A lifetime of it. Did I not once rule the Wends?
You did, you did, said Thomas, with an iron hand.
How is it I rule them no longer?
It is because you are slipping into the starry starry night, Julie said, together with all your works and pomps. Rule of the Wends was taken away from you in 1936.
It will be a hot thing, probably, Thomas said. Touch and go.
How many of them are there?
Near to a million, at the last census.
How many of us are there?
Twenty-three, Thomas said. Counting Edmund.
Groan from Julie.
Thomas, said the Dead Father, let us change the subject. We can talk about something interesting, giraffes for example. Or you can explain yourself. It is always interesting to hear someone explaining himself.
Let us talk about giraffes, said Thomas, when I explain myself I tend to stutter. Of course I don’t know a great deal about giraffes. They are said to be very intelligent. They have beautiful eyes. They have beautiful eyelashes. Tongues extend to twenty inches. Not much of a mane. Terrific base of the neck. Low fluttering voice. Faster than a horse and can travel longer distances at speed. Can beat lion in fight using hooves unless lion gets lucky. Herds running from twenty to thirty are not uncommon each containing several males but many more females.
Thomas paused.
Only old males are excluded and live in isolation, he said.
I am offended, said the Dead Father. Again.
Then we won’t talk about giraffes any more, Thomas said, I will instead explain myself. I will give you the short form, Thomas said, the basic datatata. I was bbbbbbborn twice-twenty-less-one years ago in a great city the very city in fact from which we have subtracted you. As a new creature on the earth I was of course sent to school where I did reasonably well except where I did reasonably badly. As a child I had the necessary sicknesses seriatim a pox here a measle there broke a bone now and then just to keep in step with the others blacked an eye and had an eye blacked now and then just to keep in step with the others. I then proceeded to higher education as it is called and was educated upon by a team of masked gowned and scrubbed specialists, top performers every one. It had been decided that I would be educated up to the height of two meters and this was done over a ppppppperiod of. Next, my convalescence which was spent as was right and proper and natural and good in military service chiefly in far parts and strange climes, learning there how to salute and stamp my foot at the same time in the English wwwwwway, a skill that has been endlessly useful to me ever since. Also a certain amount of truckling, a skill that has been endlessly useful to me ever since. Also how to make friends with the mess sergeant, a skill that et cetera et cetera. Also how to dig a latrine wherein one may spend many happy and productive hours as have we all reading the great Robert Burton. Next, I returned to the educational arena and studied one of the sort-of sciences, sociology to be precise, but quickly learned that I had no talent for it. Nnnnnnext, wishing with all my heart and all my soul to be true to the aspirations and prefabrications of my generation the boys of ’34 to be precise, I married. Oh, did I marry. I married and married and married moving from comedy to farce to burlesque with lightsome heart. Oh joy oh bliss oh joy oh bliss. When the bliss had blistered and the smoke had cleared I found that I had fathered, but only once, nota bene nota bene. Then a period of what I can only describe as vacancy. During this period I spent much of my time watching single-engine aircraft practicing stalls and hoping that an engine would fail so that I could see the crash. None ever did. After this I prepared to reenter the main-scream of commercial life. Superbly equipped as I was for nothing-in-particular, I fitted myself into the slot “Navaho lawgiver” but this was a flop because first I am not a Navaho and second there are as you know no Navahos in our country. Pity. I was rather good at chanting. Then I did a bit of poaching. Poached trout from government hatcheries, mostly, sorry disestimable work which dddddid nothing to raise the low esteem in which the organism held itself. I was back where I had started, in low esteem. I then spent some several years in a monastery, but was ejected for consuming too much of the product, a very fine cognac. Then I began to read philosophy.
And what did philosophy teach you? asked the Dead Father.
It taught me that I had no talent for philosophy, said Thomas, bbbbbbut—
But what?
But I think everyone should have a little philosophy, Thomas said. It helps, a little. It helps. It is good. It is about half as good as music.
8
A meeting. The men discontent. Crowded around Thomas. His orange tights, orange boots, silver belt buckle with rubies, white Sabatini shirt. His clear and true gold-rimmed spectacles. Complaints of the men: (1) Quality of the pemmican
(2) That the leadership better fed, in general, than the rank and file (3) That the cable was cutting into shoulders and where were promised heavy canvas gloves? (4) Edmund (5) The rum ration could be doubled without damaging the high regard in which the rank and file held the leadership (6) What plan for dealing with possibly hostile Wends? (7) Attention of the women monopolized by the leadership (8) Edmund (9) Couldn’t the women just come and talk to them sometimes? (10) That the Dead Father sometimes dead weight, sometimes live weight, variations made feasance more difficult than strictly necessary, see contract provisions D, E, and F (11) Truncation of the pornographic film and what had happened next? (12) What of wholly arbitrary and ill-considered ban on fraternization with locals in territories hayfooted/strawfooted through? (13) Nonexistence of chaplain (14) Happy birthday. It is my birthday? Thomas exclaims, astonished. Yes, men reply, today’s the day, where is the party? Thomas counting on his fingers. The men watch. Yes it is my birthday, he says at length, God damn it, you are right as rain. General heehaw, battering of Thomas’s back, Edmund whisks flask from hip, tilts. The Dead Father sitting in the road looking off into the far distance where fields of garlic grow. Thomas removes flask from Edmund’s mouth. Julie practicing harmonica, tune “Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam.” Emma gazing at immense shoulder of Dead Father, speculatively. Thomas begins to answer complaints point by point. Pemmican good for you, he says. Etc. Julie puts away mouth organ, moves to side of Emma.
Give you a shirtful of sore tit.
Give you a fret in the gizzard.
I tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen.
Think I’m getting nosebleed.
Ways of dealing with them when they don’t want you.
Friendship is difficult at best.
People are frightened.
They disagree with me regularly but are not disloyal to me.
Said there were various ways of handling it but I thought I could keep the lid on.
Wake up one dark night with a thumb in your eye.
Strung out like that along the hedges.
Colder weather coming and then warmer.