Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

  You teach us, Maestro, by example, that great narratives remain meaningful through time as a language-medium between generations, as a weapon against the fringe-areas of our consciousness, and as a mythic reinforcement of our tenuous grip on reality. The novelist uses familiar mythic or historical forms to combat the content of those forms and to conduct the reader (lector amantísimo!) to the real, away from mystification to clarification, away from magic to maturity, away from mystery to revelation. And it is above all to the need for new modes of perception and fictional forms able to encompass them that I, barber’s basin on my head, address these stories. If they seem slight for such a burden as this prolix foreword, please consider them, in turn, don Miguel, as a mere preface to all that here flowers about this little book-within-a-book, to the other works that have already preceded them in print, and to all that is yet to come. “Mucho prometo con fuerzas tan pocas como las mias; pero ¿quien pondrá rienda a los deseos?” I only beg you to remark: que pues yo he tenido osadía de dirigir estas ficciones al gran Cervantes, algún misterio tienen escondido, que las levanta. Vale.

  ○ ○? ○

  1

  Panel Game

  Situation: television panel game, live audience. Stage strobelit and cameras insecting about. Moderator, bag shape corseted and black suited, behind desk/rostrum, blinking mockmodestly at lens and lamps, practiced pucker on his soft mouth and brows arched in mild goodguy astonishment. Opposite him, the panel: Aged Clown, Lovely Lady, and Mr. America, fat as the continent and bald as an eagle. There is an empty chair between Lady and Mr. A, which is now filled, to the delighted squeals of all, by a spectator dragged protesting from the Audience, nondescript introduced as Unwilling Participant, or more simply, Bad Sport. Audience: same as ever, docile, responsive, good-natured, terrifying. And the Bad Sport, you ask, who is he? fool! thou art!

  “Wclcome!” greets the merry Moderator, arms flung wide, and the Audience, cued to Thunderous Response, responds thunderingly: “to the big question!”

  You squirm, viced by Lady (who excites you) and America (who does not, but bless him all the same), but your squirms are misread: Lovely Lady lifts lashes, crosses eyes, and draws breath excitedly through puckered mouth as though sucking milkshakes through a straw, and, seemingly at the other end of the straw, the Moderator ingests: “Tsk, tsk!” and, gently reproving, waggles his dewlaps. Audience howls happily the while and who can blame them? You, Sport, resign yourself to pass the test in peace and salute them with a timid smile, squirm no more.

  A moment then of calm, but Aged Clown spoils it, quips in an old croak: “Very bad comma Sport!”

  Audience roars again. Cameras swing, bend, spring forward, recoil. Lights boil up, dim, pivot, strike.

  “Reminds me of the old story of the three-spined stickleback!” Clown cackles.

  Howls and chants. Moderator reacts with flushed giggle and finger to soft lips. No, no! Winks at Audience.

  Mr. America nudges you and mutters under the others’ noise: “Detail! Detail! Game’s built on it, don’t miss it!” A friend, after all.

  So think. Stickleback. Freshwater fish. Freshwater fish: green seaman. Seaman: semen. Yes, but green: raw? spoiled? vigorous? Stickle: stubble. Or maybe scruple. Back : Bach : Bacchus : baccate : berry. Raw berry? Strawberry? Maybe. Sticky berry in the raw? In the raw: bare. Bare berry: beriberi. Also bearberry, the dog rose, dogberry. Dogberry: the constable, yes, right, the constable in ... what? Comedy of Errors! Yes! No.

  “And so this here boy stickleback he shimmies up to the girl stickleback and she displays him her crimson belly. Hoo boy! That does itl Zam! They scoot down to his pad!”

  Hooting and howling. Moderator collapses into easy laughter. Lamps pulse. Lovely Lady shyly reveals belly. Not crimson at all, but creamy with a blush of salmon pink. Shouts and whistles. Hooboys and zams. Salmon : semen. There we are again. Stickle: tickle. Belly: bag. Lovely one, too.

  “I do believe,” chuckles the Moderator loosely, “we might begin.”

  “Too late, bub!” croaks Clown. “Sport’s done commenced!”

  Horselaughs and catcalls. You forgo any further search for clues in Lovely’s navel, shrink before the noise, before the jut of lenses, strike of strobes: Eyes of the World. On you, Sport.

  “Think!” whispers America. “She reveals! She reveals!”

  Scoot : scute. But what: scales? shield? bone or horn? Scut is tail and pad is paw: an animal! Yes! But crimson: why not just red? Because crimson comes from kermes: insect—but more! dried fe male insect bodies! Shimmy: chemise, or a shimmer of light. But pad is stuff: female bellies dried and stuffed? Dry den-stuffed. It’s possible. Stickle : stick : stich—a poem here, that’s obvious. And some animal. Light. And Dogberry from—?

  A hush...

  “Arc you ready?” demands the Moderator, and the Audience replies: “We are!”

  Ready: red-dy. Red bone. Green semen. Naval: navel. Salmon pink.

  “Then let us proceed!” Rounded syllables, dried and stuffed. “I am quite reasonably certain—that is,” Moderator coughs and titters, “I believe—may I have that privilege?”

  “Yes! Yes!” cries the Audience.

  “Of course he may,” whispers Mr. America. “He only asks out of malice.”

  “Yes,” sighs the Moderator, solemnizing, “for reasonable certainty is but the repercussion and ritornelle of belief!”

  Vigorous applause, reverently paced.

  “Huzzah!” hoots Aged Clown and the fat man nods. It could be so.

  “Therefore, if you will allow me, I believe” the Moderator continues, “with what constitutes an almost categorical certitude—”swooping upwards on “-tude” till his voice cracks like a young boy’s, extracting a jubilant “Aaah!” and easy laughter like a loose cough from the spectators, “—I beg your pardon!”

  Gentle approving laughter.

  “And so you should, son I” the old Clown cracks. Laughter. “That ain’t nice!” Larger laughter. “You keep it clean now!” Gross laughter.

  “Hint! Hint!” wheezes fat America.

  Clean. Immaculate. Virgin. Verges. Aha! the headborough with Dogberry in—? The Merry Wives! No. Verges: verger: verdure: hmmm, back to green again. Green scutes: greenhorns. Immaculate belly. Dogberry pink. Steal a glance: still there. Nice. Don’t touch it, though. Eyes of the World. Keep it immaculate.

  “Believe, then, as a certifiable category—”

  “That’s better, son.” More laughter and applause.

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all, bub.” Clown grimaces. Laughter.

  “—That all of you on our panel are well apprised of the precepts and procedures of our little—our wonderfully delightful little game.”

  From the masses packed beyond the lights: an explosion of cheering, an enthusiasm clearly insisting against demurrals, but you say: “I’m not.”

  Hush. Hostile maybe.

  Moderator, into the silence, as though disbelieving: “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sport ain’t!” hollers the Clown and you jump.

  “Sport isn’t,” Moderator corrects.

  “That’s what I said, he ain’t!” responds Aged Clown. Crash of laughter. Nothing serious. All a joke.

  “The one who has the most money wins,” mutters Mr. America under his breath, which is coming heavier now. Excitement? Not likely. Growth. Yes, expanding still, the old lard, some accretion process turned on early and the safety valve plugged, cells piling up, and rapidly, for your own rump is skidding perceptibly under pressure along the bench toward the Lady. She is self-absorbed, powder ing her nose and her bosom, using a camera lens for a mirror. Eyes of the World: white globes and pupils pink as raspberries.

  She turns, lifts bodice, smiles at you. “Isn’t what?” she asks, cooing.

  “Isn’t got it!” quips the old showman on the other side of her. Does he have his old gnarled fist between her legs? From the Audience: the usual response. They love him. Shrunken and yellowed, mapped
with wrinkles, quaking with palsy, white-haired and brown-toothed, Clown’s a remnant from the Great Tradition. But not much help. On the contrary.

  “Got what?” pursues Lovely Lady. “Come on, boys! You’re teasing me! Hasn’t got what?”

  “My dear...!” pleads the Moderator, giggling softly but with brows lifted in tender supplication. Whoops and whistles from the Audience.

  “Oh, really!” laughs Lady sweetly. “You can tell me! Is it something I can wear?”

  “You’re warm!” crows Clown mid the laughter and whacks her behind.

  “Mind on your business!” whispers America, now in possession of at least half the whole bench, his eyes lost in puffing fleshfolds, suitseams parting, buttons popping. “Here it comes!”

  “Would I wear it, more likely, above the waist,” Lady asks, then reddens and lowers lashes, “or below?”

  “Depends on your scruples!” Clown squawks and the crowd roars.

  Hah! Scruple: stickle: stickleback. Getting warm now. Warm indeed: flush against the Lovely Lady. Arc those her toes under your pantleg? Don’t jump to conclusions. Couldn’t put it past the old Clown, for example, not if there was a laugh in it.

  Big A groans faintly, snorting and sucking like a team of trotters, flesh pushing out as the suit tears. Wear and tear. Wear: bear. Bearberry: Dogberry: the dog rose. Paw and tail. But what of the scute? The dog rose and—what? Rose and scrupled? Rose: rows: stichs: stickleback. Going in circles. “Depends!” gasps America. Can’t last long now. Own cells against him. Flesh dog bane pink. “Depends—!”

  Depends: hangs. But what hangs or hangs on what?

  Old Clown hunches, trembling uncontrollably over knotted knuckles. Humor. Lady: beauty, excitement, life itself. America: hard to guess. Prestige maybe, or justice. Inclusion. The team. And Bad Sport? Ah, clearly, it’s your mind they’re after.

  Humor, passion, sobriety, and truth. On you, then, it depends, they depend, they all depend. They all hang. It may be so.

  Odd silence. You look up to discover the Moderator drumming his ringed fingers on the rostrum and staring blankly at you. Yes, yes, the moment’s come! They want to know I Cameras plunge, withdraw. Lamps blaze. You, pinned, sweat. Chilled by America’s enveloping blubber, heated by the Lady pink as salmon. Pink as dog rose. As dogberry. All’s Well That Ends Well? Hardly.

  Still, in the silence, or so you tell yourself, so it seems: an aura of hope. Moderator relaxed, smiling kindly. Lifts brows in calm anticipation. Audience suppressed to a patient murmur. Will he do it? Will you do it? Fat man, perishing, balloons and snorts. Lovely Lady watches, admires. Encourages. They need you. You take strength from their need, and clear your throat.

  “Oh, come, cornel” exclaims the Moderator. “Reckon you not this old refrain? To replicate is but to repent and lost is less recalled!”

  Applause and cheers greet his eloquence, accepting which he preens and smiles. But what does it mean? what does it mean? “Muteness is mutinous and the mutable inscrutable!” cries the Moderator, warm ing to the moment now, riding on waves of grand hosannas. “Inflexibly same and the lex of the game!”

  Nothing, nothing there at all. Think back. Wear and tear. Wary. Tarry. Salmonberry. Faster I Sticklestuff and Dryden’s belly. Crowd roars. Moderator stands to bow. Crimson semen green as—? Green as—? Faster! Could she wear it? Bear it? Bare it! That’s it! Keep it going! Keep it—!

  “Too—!” gasps Mr. America, blind and flaccid, nearly faceless, and he has no breath to finish, yet his mouth gapes, struggling.

  You speak: “I think—”

  “Admirable!” smiles the Moderator grimly, bringing caustic laughter from the Audience. “So what?”

  “—That, if the subject is animal—”

  Unexpected crash of laughter. Lady blushes, lowers lashes.

  Moderator, crimson with giggling and with tears in his eyes, cries: “Good God! I should hate to conceive of it otherwise!” Whoop! goes the Audience, louder than ever, and even the cameras twitch spasmodically.

  “Keep it clean, son!” cackles the Aged Clown.

  “But—!”

  “I said, keep it clean!”

  Immaculate butt? Incredible!

  “—Late!” concludes the fat man, releases wind, and dies. Dead. Only friend in the house. No loss felt, but no relief either. The challenge is still the same one.

  “Come, come, sir!” cries the Moderator, much amused, but rising now and pressing forward. “You must have contrived some concrete conjunctions from the incontrovertible commentary qua commentary just so conspicuously constituted!” Deafening applause.

  Dig in! Tie it up! The truth is: “The truth is—”

  “The truth is,” shouts the Moderator, jabbing at him with an angry finger, “you have lost!”

  “But I haven’t even—!”

  “Why are you here,” the Moderator explodes, losing all patience, “if not to endeavor to disentangle this entanglement? In short, Bad Sport, you would be wise to remember that the saga of sagacity is the purse of pebspicacity!” Wild applause, cheers, hoots, screams. “Reason is the resin, the college of knowledge!” Uncontrollable uproar. Moderator rips off bowtie and flings it like a rose to the stamping shrieking crowd. Lamps flame up. “Failed! You have failed! And you must pay the consequences!”

  “But the truth is—”

  “The truth is,” crows the old Clown and leaps upon the table; Lovely Lady takes his quaking claw and hops up to join him:

  “There once was a young bellydancer—”

  Lady strips to half chemise as Audience whistles and heaves coins to the stage. Somewhere a brass band plays Eastern music. With her thumbs, she pushes the chemise to half-mast on her hips. Wear it: bare it, bright as berries, and the old dog rose...

  “Who supposed that her art was the answer—”

  Above or below? Waist: waste. Scruples, pink as salmon. Crimson. Female belly, darts and thrusts...

  “But one night in a bump,

  She fractured her rump—”

  Lovely Lady halts abruptly, knees bent out, twitching like a spastic, navel aimed at you: Eye of the World—then staggers, thus in mid-bump, about the table, eyes wide and mouth puckered, to the con vulsive delight of the entire world, then drops—bam!—stiff as a scute to the table...

  “—And perished grotesquely of cancerl”

  Audience paroxysms reach new frenzies as Lady vibrates in last throes and ossifies, legs up toward the lenses. “Yes, the truth is,” gasps the guffawing Moderator when he’s able, wiping his eyes with a linen cloth:

  “Don’t twiddle or piddle

  Or diddle your middle

  While riding a riddle, old Sport—

  Lovely Lady miraculously revives, and with a wink of the Eye of the World, lures you to the tabletop. Laughs crash and thunder. Whistles, catcalls, hostile hoots. Cameras crouch, pounce, jab, retract. The fat man, you see, was not Mr. America after all, but Mr. Amentia. Should have known. Changes everything…

  “—For the frame is the same In fame or in shame And the name of the game—”

  Clown and Lady grip an arm apiece. A noose descends—yes, yes, it all depends...

  “—is La Mort!”

  “I thought—” But the Audience drowns you out. Well, they are happy, think about that. The noose is fitted.

  “You thought—?” asks the Moderator and the crowd subsides.

  “I thought it was all for fun.”

  “That is to say,” smiles the Moderator wearily, “much ado about nothing.”

  “That’s it! that’s it! Yes! that’s what I was trying to—!”

  The Moderator shakes his head. At heart, a tough old boy.

  “Sorry.” He rests his chins in his pudgy fist, smile informed by a surfeit of knowledge. Nods gravely at Clown and Lady.

  “Keep it clean, son!” rattles the old Clown, jabbing you goodhumoredly with his elbow. Well of laughter. Always the laughter. A second constant.

  Noose is scratchy. Tickles your
throat. Swallow. Can’t swallow.

  Lovely Lady’s scented breath is in your ear. “Don’t be gone long, darling,” she coos and dispatches you with a parting goose.

  Whoop! Off you go!

  The dog rose and there depended

  Lamps expand—whap!

  burst into crimson flares...

  Eyes of the

  So long, Sport.

  ○ ○? ○

  2

  The Marker

  Of the seven people (Jason, his wife, the police officer, and the officer’s four assistants), only Jason and his wife are in the room. Jason is sitting in an armchair with a book in his hand, a book he has doubtless been reading, although now he is watching his wife get ready for bed. About Jason: he is tall and masculine, about 35, with strong calloused hands and a sensitive nose; he is deeply in love with his wife. And she: she is beautiful, affectionate, and has a direct and charming manner of speaking, if we were to hear her speak. She seems always at ease.