Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

  ○ ○? ○

  “Look, Karen, look! See what I found! Do you think we can take it? It doesn’t hurt, does it, I mean, what with everything else—? It’s just beautiful and I can scour off the rust and—?” Karen glances at the poker in the grass, shrugs, smiles in assent, turns to stride on down the rise toward the boat, a small white edge of which can be glimpsed through the trees, below, at the end of the path. “Karen—? Could you please—?” Karen turns around, gazes quizzically at her sister, head tilted to one side—then laughs, a low grunting sound, something like a half-gargle, walks back and picks up the poker, brushes off the insects with her hand. Her sister, delighted, reaches for it, but Karen grunts again, keeps it, carries it down to their boat. There, she washes it clean in the lake water, scrubbing it with sand. She dries it on her dress. “Don’t get your dress dirty, Karen! It’s rusty anyway. We’ll clean it when we get home.” Karen holds it between them a moment before tossing it into the boat, and they both smile to see it. Wet still, it glistens, sparkling with flecks of rainbow-colored light in the sunshine.

  ○ ○? ○

  The tall man stands poised before her, smoking his pipe, one hand in the pocket of his navy-blue jacket. Besides the jacket, he wears only a white turtleneck shirt. The girl in gold pants is kissing him. From the tip of his crown to the least of his toes. Nothing happens. Only a bitter wild goose taste in the mouth. Something is wrong. “Karen!” Karen laughs, a low gunting sound, then takes hold of the man and lifts her skirts. “No, Karen! Please!” he cries, laughing. “Stop!” poof! From her skirts, Karen withdraws a wrought-iron poker, long and slender with an intricately worked handle. “It’s beautiful, Karen I” her sister exclaims and reaches for it. Karen grunts again, holds it up between them a moment, and they both smile to see it. It glistens in the sunshine, a handsome souvenir of a beautiful day.

  Soon the bay is still again, the silver fish and the dragonflies are returned, and only the slightest murmur near the shore by the old waterlogged lumber betrays the recent disquiet. The boat is already far out on the lake, its stern confronting us in retreat. The family who prepared this island does not know the girls have been here, nor would it astonish them to hear of it. As a matter of fact, with that touch of the divinity common to the rich, they have probably forgotten why they built all the things on this island in the first place, or whatever possessed them seriously to concern themselves, to squander good hours, over the selection of this or that object to decorate the newly made spaces or to do the things that had usually to be done, over the selection of this or that iron poker, for example. The boat is almost out of sight, so distant in fact, it’s no longer possible to see its occupants or even to know how many there are—all just a blurred speck on the bright sheen laid on the lake by the lowering sun. The lake is calm. Here, a few shadows lengthen, a frog dies, a strange creature lies slain, a tanager sings.

  MORRIS IN CHAINS

  We have him, I make this report to the nation. Sleepless search, intransigent effort in the common behalf: our thanks to his captors! Morris has at last surrendered. Pursued night and day through the complexity of our parksystem (Morris, old head, protested: “But only the parks remain 1” Bumpkin! know, then, that is not your crime!), tracked by the undisguisable deposit of sheepshit, am bushed in the end by a massing of passive tourists. The interrogation was brief, the confession not quite so: alexandrian impudence! It will not repeat not be made public. Morris is in chains, his sheep shot. He has requested exile—they all do I—he shall not receive it.

  The hunt was long, nor was it painless: Morris trod old paths, forced a suffering of the inveterate green visions, a merciless hacking through the damp growths of our historic hebephrenia. It was perhaps an epic of its kind, our best minds were engaged, and yet this must be granted the captive: it was his own grit and cunning gave it grandeur. Much time was wasted, of course, undue risks taken. Our fundamental error here was probably in the chase itself. But once the remarkable Doris Peloris, MD., Ph.D., UD., assumed command, the end came quickly. She gathered the necessary data, reined in the hunters, set a trap of mechanical crickets, and waited for the inexorable conclusion. All praise to Dr. Peloris! Her wisdom is the State’s blessing!

  Encounters with Morris were never rare, but Morris never stayed to fight. Cowardice? who could say so? he had his sheep to care for. Loose shreds of shrill fluting would reach our ears, and, bucking the melodic rack, we would approach, encircle, converge, catch a glimpse of his beardtuft, sheepskin jerkin, leather breeches—and then: gone! how explain it? sheep and all. For a time: confusion, silence, group gloom. Then: a distant report of Morris’ piping and the chase was on again. It was almost as though Morris were challenging us. But simple song against our science! he lost, of course. As is well known, our parks are not connected. It is not yet clear how Morris forded the concrete stretches, but on the other hand, it is no secret that he has friends in the City. Categories of the unredeemed still to be catalogued.

  (slippin nightlike through their blinkerin unarkades and splashin here below through the tile sluices I tell ye if they figger to live so close atop each other they gotta excrete less it makes a grim swim of it poor old Rameses and the girls their wool all clotted with that gop and no suns to dry by and overhead the raspin scrape of steel heels needlin the concrete cobble that caterwaul of sirenshrieks the which sure ain’t nothin like the nightjars scares me silly sometimes/well a pox on em old furrylegs! it ain’t the choice is mine god knows I ain’t got no mission! just alfalf and lotus that’s all I’m seekin and these days it’s damn hard to come by I can tell ye/sure hard to it we swooned their old granddaddies but somethin’s clear the matter with this brood ain’t none of em’ll let an old hero rest his achin arse or play a lay clean through and the damn sedge swarmin with them buggers by damn! blessed flock run sick and meatless their hides mange-rotted and all burred and briared nothin but sour froth in the tired old teats and spite of all they’ll get us they’ll get us makes me plumb sick! them slickers they do mean business damn if they don’t! see them jaws? see them eyes? they ain’t kiddin and if you don’t get em first old furrylegs them steelyglass muckers’ll have an end to us so a pox on em you hear? a pox on em!)

  There were early crises, these have been admitted. No one doubted the eventual outcome, of course: it was merest Morris versus the infallibility of our computers, after all. Data properly gathered and applied must sooner or later worst the wily old cock. But, perhaps due to an underestimation of the adversary’s perverse vitality, those early expeditions were all too often subverted by disorder, what we can now see as undeniable disorder, were little more than a random series of spontaneous incursions of the sort that most suited Morris’ own patternless and irresponsible life. He just stayed downwind, fluted a few slim echoes off our City walls, and led his panicky pursuants into one blind valley after another. The times grew serious. It ceased being a mere parlorgame. New flocks were reported forming. New pipes were heard, plaintive essays, not to be compared with Morris’ mastery, to be sure, but the oldstyle harmonics was unmistakeable. Rebellion threatened. Dr. Doris Peloris was given command.

  On a worldwide appearance, Dr. Peloris reassured the citizens that there was nothing to fear. “All possible cause for panic will be eradicated,” she affirmed with a machined precision, her words destined for immortality. “We shall put an end to idylatry. The studied dissonance upon which our modern State is painstakingly structured will not so easily be corrupted.”

  Through the tense days that followed, Dr. Peloris and her handpicked staff of highly trained urbanologists, high above the City, pored over the dossiers of previous forays. Polly and the other systems analysts made octal and symbolic corrections to the operational program, broke down old software systems and reassembled the data under new descriptors, and came up with a new standard programming package for the project, now known as Project Sheep Shape. Boris the Chartchief prepared detailed flowcharts, built three-dimensional transverse Mercator’s projec
tions of the entire park-system, and mapped out Morris’ movements, but both he and the doctor agreed there was little to go on. “Even nonpattcrn eventually betrays a secret system,” Dr. Peloris explained confidently to all present, “but so far that of our subject, which seems largely instinctual, is simply not apparent.” Nan, her personal aide, working out of the newly reprocessed data, reduced Morris’ known personal habits, the natural objects that seemed to attract him, his own minimal needs and the needs of his beasts, manifest psychosexual behavior, and the like, to realtime-based mathematical formulizations, but even these computations proved inconclusive. “No, Nan,” said the doctor gravely, pencil gripped in her teeth, “clearly for the moment the hunt itself must go on.”

  She assembled the expeditionary force into emergency session, braced them for the difficult assignments that lay ahead, spoke frankly of old temptations. “You laugh. Yet, we are already, let us admit, to a degree corrupted. As much by our own shaky starts as by Morris. We can nearly admit notes of savagery in our parks, have not yet stifled the wild optimistic call. We might yet be thrilled by the glimmer of disembodied eyes burning hot in the dark forest, by the vision of bathing naiads’ bared mammaries or of nutbrown torsos with furry thighs, by the one-note calls of hemlock pipes. In short, we are not yet freed from the sin of the simple. But it is our children, to speak in the old way, whom we must consider. There must be no confusions for them between the old legends and conceivable realities. It is they who oblige us to grub up, once and for all, the contaminated seed of our unfortunate origins.” Enthusiastic applause. Boris recorded the intensity on his phonometer, wrote out the figure for Nan to report in her log. He nodded toward Polly, and both observed with troubled frowns her unmoved placidity, her subtle smile. “Our strategy is divided into two parts,” Dr. Pcloris continued, “the pursuit and the trap. The second of course depends on the first, which is essentially a fact-finding mission, but which at the same time may serve the complementary function of harassing and exhausting the adversary, forcing predictable pattern-reliance: the wearier, the unwarier.”

  Boris and Nan spoke to the doctor after the meeting about Polly. “Her mind wanders,” said Boris. “Her butt’s too plump,” observed Nan. Dr. Peloris nodded wistfully. It was well known that Polly was one of her favorites. “Does she dream of the sweet bird, the bright star?” sighed the doctor. “Well, our interest in her wanes.”

  (third national they calls it but spite of that it’s clear I’ve took a hankerin to it all right don’t plot my trackin but seems as how we come on it often enough: silver poplars and old old beeches blowin wistcd measures in the green breeze the mingled elms and hazels and westerlies shiftin the flickerin shadows and a clean brook for moonbathin and drownin the lice in and wanderin ivy-tendrils and foxglove and colocasia mingled with the laughin acanthus and a sweet bluegrass bed half-foot spongy: ain’t the happiest valley mebbe but it’s happy enough it’s happy enough/and old Rameses he savors it here too damn if he don’t he’s gettin old that boy why I have to damn near bullwhip him ever time to make him decamp this little old dell he sure don’t cater none to these long ramblins hasty grub-bins and don’t say as I blame him neither/besides this place it’s somethin nice well sure it’s true they’s some tourists here most of the time but I tell ye they ain’t bad they don’t really bother us none it ain’t them that’s buggin us and after all you know I ain’t the antisocial type in fact it pleasures me no little somewhat to pipe for the younguns tickle em into dancin a round or two and their old folks they like it too don’t let em kid ye otherhow/then top of all that why now and again on lucky days I even experiences an occasion to stick the old staff mongst the tender herbage as the poet says: a hurried little tourist-humpin in the copse when the cops ain’t heedin yes by damn! women! can’t say as old Morris ever passed a one up: why I’ve took on everthin short of newborns and old corses/well ceptin for one mebbe but that there’s another story a tender folklay outa the callow prepubes: it was a sunny midday in the hot bulge of spring drove the flock into a grove of massy old oaks dipped my taut untuftcd flesh in the cool runlet nearby reposed alongside afterward blouse wrapped round my breech lettin old phoebus lap me dry made my first squawky boggles on a set of reeds looked up and whaddaya know? seen this here little goosegirl just stretched out beside me! well I was just a youngun I jolted up and grabbed on my breeches showin forth my shiny white croup and that lifted a titter outa her/then snug in my leatherns I let her tug me down longside her and so we got to talkin I said it sure was a nice day wasn’t it? and she said yes it sure was a nice day at that and I said her geese was mighty pretty and white and she said my sheep they was pretty and white too and just then one of em dumb up on another one and damn if that didn’t set both of us to gigglin / swan! sure seems silly now to talk back on it/she said the sun was in her eye and pulled me down to shade her I efforted a parched kiss her sweet breath reekin of pogonias broad crescent smile starchy folds of springfrock listin over limbcurves and heftin in flushed breezes her toes to the sun old ganders circlin as if in sacred pieties lilywhite fingers fondlin my loose leatherns and grabbin hold like of a she-goat’s milkswoln udder her eyes glittery brown beckonin me and me composin mad poetries in the back of my agitated skull nervous unbuttoned the flowered bodice whitebright breasts slud out of shadows my tremblin lips bent to the nubbins—foul taste! reared back! goosebit by damn! scarred and bloodied one blue pap flappin free and crudded under with some mucusy gop like to made me retch right there in her poor silly face it did!/clutched my mouth and backed off her pulled on my togs and all the time the little goosegirl just lay rigid by the runlet bruised boobies to the breeze and grinnin that mad as mad widetoothed moonshaped grin jumpin juniper! I switched my surprised flock up outa that there grove fast as they would scat just left that goosegirl alyin there them geese paradin around her in that solemn circle and you know let me tell ye I could make out the unsubtle arc of her big mounded belly a mile away till the next by god mountain cut off my view! damn! well I ain’t never been back there I can certain ye that but I done some things since well who knows? mebbe even worse yeah mebbe —oh-oh! hey you know Rameses it looks like we just might have to move on damn if it don’t! just seen that there little plumpbodied scout of theirs up behind that knob there! they’ll be on us by—ah! don’t look at me like that old trouper! tain’t my fault! and look we still got all night ain’t we? the third national! well odd number’s god’s delight and ain’t it so ?)

  Dr. Peloris drew up a detailed set of assignments, instructed the team on basic methodology. But before the expedition could get under way, an unforeseen incident occurred: Polly disappeared. Nan cursed, Boris shook his old shaggy head. An entire day was lost in the search. We came across her at last alongside one of the park canals in the Third National, her plump white body splayed out in a bed of plastic nasturtiums, eyes glazed over, simpering smile on her flushed red lips.

  “Poll on the sward,” clucked Nan, and macrofilmed the scene.

  “Morris?” demanded Dr. Peloris of the girl.

  “Morris was not here.” Polly’s slow uneven voice reached us from a hollow echoing distance. “No. Not him.” Rugged announce ment I A man knelt, blessed himself in the blood of the wound.

  “Morris!” cried the doctor paling, but by then the man had disappeared.

  A gloomy uneasy silence settled over the group. This had been entirely unexpected by most. Dr. Peloris probed the girl, then dictated a field report to her aide, detailed the apparent causes and effects. “And, oh, Nan,” the doctor concluded in a clear voice that reached us all: “seal it with a cygnet ring.” Her everready humor broke the spell. We laughed heartily, stood eager and ready to be of service. Cheerfully, we received our equipment, motored to our posts. It was the beginning of the end for old Morris.

  Meanwhile, the bearded sheepherder popped up in one park after another. He eluded us less frequently now. Upon sighting him, we recorded his behavior for approximately four hours, then made an intent
ional appearance to set him trotting again. The sheep were slow, grazed all too leisurely, slept, drank, bred, shat across the green spaces of our public places, nubbing the last of the old hills. Could Morris have made it without them? The question is academic. Morris included them, they him, his speed was describable only by theirs.