Giles Goat Boy

by John Barth

  “So I just don’t fret,” he said. “ ‘Like it or lump it,’ I say to myself: I’m okay, and what the heck anyhow, it don’t nothing matter. Ain’t that Stoker a dandy, though?”

  I smiled and shook my head; one could not stay annoyed with such insouciance. Greene chattered on about his night’s adventure: I was wrong to despise Bray, he declared, who when all was said and done was a darned smart cookie, insightwise. He’d held real person-to-person interviews—in depth, didn’t I know—with numerous of Stoker’s guests in the Living Room, and all agreed afterwards, when Bray left for WESCAC’s Belly, that there was a man who could read the passèd heart of every flunker in the room, and make you feel a little bit brighter than you did before. He, Greene, did not regret for a moment having gone with the crowd to Founder’s Hill instead of revisiting the Carnival midway as he’d planned; he felt a campus better for it. Even Dr. Kennard Sear, it seemed, had put by skepticism after his interview and declared that Bray’s analytical perceptiveness was extraordinary.

  “Then Dr. Sear’s isn’t,” I said. “I’m surprised he couldn’t see through him.”

  Greene chuckled. “Wait’ll you have your interview! I told Mr. Bray about you being a Grand Tutor and all, and He said He’d be right proud to have a chat with you. He’s one in a million, that fellow. Really opened my eyes.”

  I judged it futile to argue. Moreover, Greene’s admiration of my rival turned out to be at least partly a mere reflection of his real enthusiasm, which now he beamingly confided.

  “That Anastasia thinks a lot of you, too, George; I could tell by looking at her! Guess you two are sweet on one another, huh?”

  Without mentioning what had passed between us in George’s Gorge, Stoker’s sidecar, or the Powerhouse Living Room, I declared that I regarded Mrs. Stoker as an uncommonly beautiful human female lady person both physically and otherwise, and was sufficiently impressed by her generous nature to hope that she might be the first I could lead to Commencement Gate, once I’d found it myself. For this reason I naturally thought of her with a particular fondness, as might Max of a prize milch-nanny; as for love, however—which I took his expression to mean—I asserted firmly that a Grand Tutor could no more devote himself to certain Tutees and exclude others than could an algebra professor. My responsibility was for studentdom, as I conceived, not for any particular comely students …

  “Then I might as well say it right out,” Greene broke in; “I love that woman fit to bust! A sweeter, purer, prettier girl I never hope to see, and I’m bound and determined I’m going to marry her! Soon’s I can see my way clear!”

  He blushed happily at my astonishment, but his incredible resolve was proof to objection. The girl was already married to Maurice Stoker, I pointed out. Impossible, Greene replied: he could tell just by looking her square in the eyes that she was as virginal as the pines in his farthest timberlot; he doubted she’d even kissed a man yet.

  “Are you joking?” I cried. I hadn’t time or heart to rehearse for his edification Anastasia’s extraordinary sexual accomplishments; I merely pointed out to him that she wore a wedding-ring, called herself Mrs. Maurice Stoker, and had countered Max’s vow to free her from the Powerhouse by declaring that she stopped there of her own will, because her husband needed her.

  “Then he’s got her hypnotized, or doped,” Greene said firmly. “But she’s still a maiden girl, I can tell by her eyes; and if the marriage ain’t consummated it can be annulled.” His mind was made up, he declared: his own marriage he regarded now as having been incipiently kerflooey from the outset, and himself a perfectly okay man whose headaches and other difficulties were the effect of his wife’s excessive standards, or something, he did not care what. Though he had seen Anastasia but once, and been unable to speak a word to her, the vision of her stainless beauty as she knelt at the Founder’s Shaft encouraged him to wipe clean the troubled slate of his past and start anew—a resolve which Mr. Bray had personally seconded.

  “Directly this Registration business is done with,” he said, “I’m going straight to Miss Virginia R. Hector and ask for Anastasia’s hand in marriage. Now, then!”

  I was dumbfounded, the more when he capped this madness with a plea that I go with him to see Anastasia’s mother, who he understood was herself somewhat kerflooey, on the subject of Grand Tutors. If I would support his cause with her, he promised, he would use every resource at his command to clear Dr. Spielman of the charge against him.

  “It’s no more’n Miss Stacey’d want her own self,” he said, and added that it was in fact only to intercede with Bray on Max’s behalf that Anastasia had attended Stoker’s Randy-Thursday party in the first place, an affair not otherwise fit for her maiden presence. But she had moved through the bawdy crowd like a swan across a cesspool, he went on, and anon had knelt so sweetly before the Grand Tutor that he, Greene, had been smitten with love upon the instant. So much so that when he’d seen some fellow “go for her” as she knelt, he’d rushed to protect her from molestation, and a little fist-fight had ensued.

  “Young Nikolayan fellow, that I thought was going to lay his durn Founderless hands on her! Had a black patch over one eye to start with, and I blacked the other one for him!” But not, he admitted with a chuckle, before he’d nearly got a shiner himself. Stoker’s guards had separated them, lest a varsity incident be made of it; the Nikolayan visitor (whom I believed I remembered seeing through the metal curtain in the Control Room) had been quickly escorted back to his classmates on the other side of the Powerhouse. Anastasia then had retired with Hedwig Sear; Harold Bray went off to fulfill his pledge in WESCAC’s Belly; and Peter Greene, provided with aspirins and cold compresses by his host, stayed on to the party’s end—but so full of the image of Anastasia, he could scarcely attend the naughty entertainments that climaxed the night. And obliged as he felt to Maurice Stoker for the hospitality and the free ride back to Great Mall, he hoped with my assistance to have the unconsummated match annulled and make Anastasia his virgin bride.

  What was one to say? I shook my head sharply, as before a dream or hallucination, thanked him for his offer to assist Max, and agreed at least to accompany him soon to see Virginia R. Hector, the story of whose connection with Max I wished to discuss with her anyhow. This pleased him enough for the moment, and I was able at last to turn my attention—much disconcerted!—to the serious task at hand. Greene’s long-winded enthusiasm made me nervous at the passage of time: the boulevard ending at Main Gate ran from it due eastwards straight as a fence-line, but whether any distant elevation would delay the apparent sunrise, as happened in the rolling pastures at home, I couldn’t discern. Tower Clock had yet to strike six; it occurred to me that Eblis Eierkopf had mentioned some malfunction in its works. I’d have to rely on my watch to tell me when to try the Turnstile, trusting that the clock in Dr. Eierkopf’s Observatory had been correct.

  Stoker, evidently popular with the students, I saw now making his way slowly through them towards Main Gate, his siren purring. They cheered and called to him; a pretty girl in white sequins perched herself on his rear fender and donned his helmet; from somewhere he’d got a little loudspeaker, through which now he addressed them.

  “Everybody back to bed!” he said to some: “Registration’s been postponed till after the eclipse.” “Why bother matriculating?” he asked others. “You’ll never pass the Finals anyhow.” “Big party at the Powerhouse this morning!” he announced generally. “Everybody welcome! We’ll get you back in time to register.”

  These messages and invitations—to which he added warnings of the trials ahead and vague threats of revenge upon any who did well in school—were received by the students with hoots and high-spirited heckling. Greene explained—what I’d been told already—that it was part of the Spring Registration ritual for someone to take the role of Dean o’ Flunks and pretend to lure people away from all hope of Graduation; but I was surprised to observe that a considerable number seemed to take his words seriously. Many forsook th
e grandstand and either went off on cycles of their own or climbed into the sidecars of Stoker’s guards, whose vehicles were stationed all along the aisle. There food of some sort was provided them, and young men and women boldly made merry; whether they later registered or actually went with Stoker to the Powerhouse, I never learned.

  We reached the upper end of the track, half a hundred meters from Main Gate. The athletes in their shorts did push-ups and skipped rope; Greene spoke to them familiarly, being a fan and patron of varsity athletics. We were approached by their herder or tender, a balding plump official in a striped shirt with a whistle-lanyard round his neck and pens and pencils clipped to a clear plastic guard on his breast pocket. He would shoo us, but him too Greene knew, and was called sir by.

  “My pal here and me just want a good view,” Greene explained.

  “Yes, sir, that’s okay. Long’s we keep the track clear.”

  “I didn’t come just to watch,” I declared. “I’m going through Scrapegoat Grate.”

  The official laughed, and looking anxiously at his wristwatch, told the athletes to crouch in single file, alphabetically ordered; as soon as the sun’s rays struck the Turnstile he would blow his whistle at thirty-second intervals to start them.

  “By George, you really want to try it?” Greene asked me. When I assured him that I most certainly did, he took up the notion as a splendid lark and vowed he too in that case would “have another crack at the old Turnstile,” an event in which (in its rustic version) he’d distinguished himself as a young forestry-student.

  But the official (Murphy was his name) grew red-faced and loud of chuckle at the proposal. “I’m awful sorry, Mr. Greene, sir! I’m not authorized to let anybody try that hasn’t qualified!”

  Undismayed, Greene took a rolled parchment from his inside coat-pocket. “I reckon there’s more’n one way to be qualified.” He unrolled it triumphantly for the man to inspect. “This here’s from the Grand Tutor, and says I’m a Candidate for Graduation. If that don’t qualify a fellow, I’m durned if I know what does!”

  Much surprised, I examined the document along with Murphy. Be it by these presents known, it proclaimed, that Peter Greene is a bonafide Candidate for Graduation in New Tammany College. The statement was printed in an archaic type except for the name, which was penned, and a subscribed quotation from the Founder’s Scroll: “Except ye become as a kindergartener, ye shall not pass.” It was dated March 20, the previous day, and signed Harold Bray, G.T.

  “Got it last night at the Powerhouse,” Greene said proudly. “Give ’em to a bunch of us His own self, after He’d interviewed us.”

  The official toyed with his penclips, repeated that he didn’t like to say no, admitted that while the situation was unprecedented, the Certificate was undoubtedly authoritative, and at last granted permission for Greene to participate in the Trial-by-Turnstile—making clear, however, that he was not responsible for any trouble the irregularity might cause in Tower Hall.

  “How ’bout my pal here?” Greene persisted.

  The man regarded my beard and wrapper skeptically and supposed that I too had been Certified by the new Grand Tutor. Before I could articulate the denunciation inspired in me by the sight of my companion’s false paper—a problem, since I had no wish to quarrel with him or injure his pride, but felt it important that he be disabused of the illusion of his Candidacy—Greene cried, “He don’t need no Certification, Murph! He’s a Grand Tutor His own self!”

  “Aw, Mr. Greene,” the man pleaded. He spoke from one corner of his mouth, holding his whistle in the other. “You’ll get me fired. I can’t let everybody run, or we’d never—”

  “Hear this.” A great loudspeakered voice interrupted him; the crowd grew still, and all eyes turned to Main Gate, its top now gleaming in the sun’s first rays. “The next voice you hear will be your Grand Tutor’s.”

  “You don’t have to beg for me,” I whispered to Peter Greene. “I’m going through anyway.”

  The crowd’s applause made reply impossible; with a shock I realized the implication of the announcement: had Bray then come unEATen from the Belly? The official Murphy, relieved by the interruption, wandered off frowning at his watch and the diminishing shadow on Main Gate.

  “Dear Tutees,” a new voice said, and its familiar clicking roused me now to frankly jealous anger. “Trial-by-Turnstile will begin in one minute. Please have your ID-cards ready for scanning. Contestants will be admitted at the Left Gate as the Turnstile scans and releases them; all others may enter through either gate as soon as the last contestant is admitted. Proceed then directly to the Gate House Assembly Room for Chancellor Rexford’s welcoming address. Remember: Except ye believe in me, ye shall not pass; and no one may matriculate without an ID-card. So be it.”

  “I got one somewheres,” Greene said, slapping his pockets. There was a fishing for cards among the spectators; the crouching athletes held theirs between their teeth. I of course had none, and for the first time that morning began to be daunted by the prospect of Trial-by-Turnstile. How on campus had Bray managed such a fraud—upon WESCAC itself!

  “Got the pre-game jitters?” Greene asked cheerfully. “Use my slogan, if you want; it ain’t copyrighted.”

  Now drums rolled, and Maurice Stoker, with exaggerated gestures of menace, took up a position before the Turnstile, facing the athletes. The sequined beauty on his motorcycle, evidently the new Miss University, was escorted to a dais near the Left Gate. Stoker’s appearance this time was met with good-humored hisses and boos, as he represented the Dean o’ Flunks now in his aspect of Opponent rather than Tempter.

  “He’s in pretty good shape for a fellow his age,” Greene said. “But his reflexes won’t be too quick.” He himself now stripped off jacket, shirt, and undershirt—in order, he explained, both to run and climb the more freely and to offer Stoker as little as possible to grab hold of. For the latter reason the athletes also oiled their skin.

  “Best we can do’s work up a good sweat,” he said, and asking me to hold his ID-card, began doing push-ups on the pavement. Me he advised to do the same, but since I thought it inappropriate to remove my wrapper, I saw little point in perspiration. I did however accept from him a “pep pill,” as he called it, to counter the effect of two restless nights; had I known the black capsules came from the Powerhouse, I’d perhaps have declined. Just as I swallowed, the drums ceased with a crash; Stoker spread his arms and danced threateningly; the whistle blew; and the first athlete dashed with a bleat from the starting line. As he neared the “Dean o’ Flunks” he feinted left, then dashed around him to the right; just as Greene had anticipated, Stoker was unable to recover his balance quickly enough to catch him. The crowd applauded, and the athlete nimbly sprang up into the teeth of the Turnstile. In former terms he would then have merely strained with every muscle to turn it—in vain, of course—until the “Dean o’ Flunks” pulled him down, whereupon he’d be suitably laureled, kissed by Miss University, and admitted. Today, however, for the first time, the objective was to climb as high as possible up the stationary gate, like a great comb stood on end, through which the spindled teeth of the Turnstile proper passed. The apparatus was some seven meters tall: when the climber had half scaled it, unpursued, it clicked and turned, and he was caught like a twig in a hayrake. The spectators exclaimed—as did I, thinking all was up with him—but then applauded his effort when it became clear that he was unhurt. From a metal arm above him swung down the lensed device which Max had guessed to be a scanner; the pinned athlete turned his teeth to it, still clenching his ID-card, and at once he was released. Thereupon Bray’s voice proclaimed from the loudspeakers what traditionally it had been the role of some Founder’s-Hall dignitary to say:

  “Get thee hence, Dean o’ Flunks! Let this man be matriculated!”

  Stoker stamped the ground in mock chagrin, the Left Gate rang open, the whistle blew again, and as the first athlete, waving to the crowd, was rewarded by the sequined girl and ushered inside by
a gowned official, the second charged down the aisle to a similar fate, making what he took to be goatlike noises. I ticked my batteries nervously together and shifted the shophar-sling to my other shoulder, wondering how I’d be able to climb with a walking-stick in hand. Impossibly, my watch read only six; yet the sun’s edge now was plainly visible behind us and the whole gate fired with light. A third athlete set out. On a sudden dread suspicion I put the watch to my ear—it was silent. I shook it, horrified, and tried the stem: it turned freely. I had neglected to rewind it at the Observatory!

  “What time is it?” I cried to Peter Greene. But the third runner had been named Foltz and the next was to be Harvey, so my companion had knelt at the mark to take his turn.

  “Later’n you think, I reckon!” he called back, and whinnied away, his irregular costume provoking mirth among the onlookers.

  “It’s me’ll catch heck for this,” Murphy complained.

  I shouted, “Wait!” and set out after, having noted earlier that George—and for that matter, Goat-Boy—ought to start before Greene. Now there was merriment indeed in the grandstands; my wrapper flapped, the shophar pitched, my watch flew on its lanyard, and as I gimped the lenses clattered on my stick. Murphy blew his whistle again and again at us, mistaking which signal the rest of the athletes sprang forth and pounded behind me. Stoker had poised himself to intercept Greene, but seeing me he changed his mind and crouched to snatch with particular relish.

  “Not you, Goat-Boy!”

  But as once before in George’s Gorge, my stout stick served me. “I’m okay,” I said to myself, and with an angry ranuncular trumpet jabbed it at him. He sidestepped grinning and caught the stick’s end, but the dodge fetched him squarely in the way of the runner behind me. The pair went sprawling; the crowd roared to its feet and pressed into the aisle, blocking other contestants. I sprinted the last few meters to the Turnstile, in whose lower teeth Greene was already caught.