Pricksongs & Descants

by Robert Coover

  The maid stoops to right the pitcher, but too late. Gone. The milk, the eggs, the chickens, the fatbellied sows, the cows and the calves, that clumsy stupid beautiful boy: all gone. Tears burst down the maid’s tanned face. Gone, gone! In her anguish, she does not at first notice the two dry cracked hands that are helping her set aright the stoneware jug, but when through her tears she sees them at last, it takes but a brief second more for her to discover the rest: the tattered black hat and uncut hair, the dark bearded face with its bulging bloodshot eye, the sweat-stained shirt open down to the belt She starts back in terror, her right hand pressed against her open mouth. She scrambles to her feet Her left hand comes up as though to ward off some blow. She steps back, seems about to run. The man sets the pitcher in the grass by the foot of the bridge, turns back to her, smiles. She smiles faintly, wipes the tears from her cheeks, takes another rearward step. He looks down at himself, at his torn yellow shirt and muddy shoes, makes an apologetic gesture, bows slightly from the waist. She nods, clutches with both hands her brightly checked apron, smiles again, shakes her head, does not step back. He shrugs his shoulders, gestures at the sun, at the pitcher standing by the bridge, at the bread beside it in the grass. She smiles openly, showing her large, white teeth, shakes her head, also gestures at the high sun and then at the road she has just traveled. He follows her gestures, gazes with real compassion down the long dusty road, then again at the empty pitcher, hesitates, finally reaches into his pocket and withdraws some coins. He shows them to the maid. She steps forward to observe them more closely: they are few, but of gold and silver. They look, to tell the truth, like nothing less than a whole private universe of midsummer suns in the man’s strong dark hand. She smiles, casts her eyes down.

  The pitcher, thought at first to be stable in the grass at die foot of the bridge, is actually, as we now can see, on a small spiny ridge: it weaves, leans, then finally rolls over in a gently curving arc, bursting down its rust-colored veins into a thousand tiny fragments, fragments not unlike the broken shells of white eggs. Many of these fragments remain in the grass at the foot of the bridge, while others tumble silently down the hill into the eddying stream below.

  ○ ○ ○

  3

  The Leper’s Helix

  At first, in an instant half-real half-remembered; the leper is at rest; then he begins his approach, urgent across the—no, nol impossible! he has always been beginning, always approaching, it was the glare, just the glare caused the illusion: sun at its zenith and this leper coming on. Solitary flutter advancing like a crippled bird, the leper, staggering out of isolation, staggering toward us as though in amazement, joy, disbelief, here under the boiling desert sun, across die parched and desolate surface, jerking, twisting, his white robe— if it is a robe—stirring starched and binding, illustrating the fault of his motion, me painful shifts of fulcrum through his abdomen, die strange uncertain gait as though he lacks the hang of it, or having had it, lost it, dazzling white this shimmery figure crossing the molten red flats, his outline blurred by the savage glare.

  Our own progress, on the other hand, is precise, governed, has been from the start The active principle, we might call it Might mockingly call it We are describing a great circle on the desert surface, die leper’s starting position as our compass point (thus, admittedly, forcing a further reconsideration of the realities of that first idle moment—good god! must we fall foul of such riddles forever?). Since the leper is always approaching, must always approach, we compel him with this studied tour to bend his stupid bungling lope into a spiral, so regulating our own velocity as to schedule his arrival, if only he doesn’t stumble, the fool, and fall (and he does not, will not), at our starting point.

  He seems puzzled by our motion—hah! must look to him like flight, recoil, he unable, at such a separation, to envision any shape to our career—but o constancy! he but devotes more strength to the cause, more of his failing strength, feet now pigeon-toed now splayed, arms flung like torn sails grappling for a stay, pelvis now thrust forward now twisted to one side, head swaying precariously on his thin white (is it for art’s sake we prolong this miserable journey? what matter! for art or no, let him know extremity!—how else obtain impact for its counterpart?) neck. His approach in some other circumstances might even serve for comedy, this ungainly, high-legged, limbs-awry dance in the hot sun. It’s his isolation cuts the humor. If anything is a serious thing, it must be he.

  Our speed is not constant. No, were it so, we would leave him behind at the end, we would have to inscribe additional circles to catch him from the rear, a dull and pointless strategy. So our velocity diminishes, doubtless at a computable rate. He does not know that He merely dances on, arms and legs outflung, dances on helplessly—yet full of hope, that old disease—scratching his helix across the desert floor, less true perhaps than our perfect circle, yet for that the more beautiful, his steaming white helix on the burnt red plane. His robe seems not so much a robe as a ... a winding sheet! Death! we cry inwardly, but beat back the (alarming!) absurdity. It’s the sun, only the sun, the glare, heat—but only for a moment! it is, and to the end will be, a leper in a white tunic. And he, not we, will die.

  Down the last arc segment we glide, dosing it now, our task more than two-thirds done, the worst of it over. Our pace letting up, steadily—he is close enough now for us to see his eager smile: strange that smile! for his mouth is split apart at the corners, and even not smiling he would surely seem to. Crusted eyes protruding over shiny white cheekbones, tattered ends of his white flesh confusing themselves with (peculiar, perhaps, this sensuous digression, and just at this moment, but there’s, you see, a kind of pleasure to be had in it, a need being reached) confuse themselves with his fluttering robe, flake off in a scaly dust that blurs his outline, dance lightly around him as he staggers wildly on, closing in on us. The flesh, the flesh reminds of mica: translucent layers of dead scaly material, here and there hardened into shiny nodules, here and there disturbed by deep cavities. In the beds of these cavities: a dark substance, resem bling blood not so much as ... as: excrement. Well, simple illusion, blood mixed with pus and baked in the sun, that’s what it is. His bare feet leave a trail of this viscous brown

  But now—oh my god!—as a mere few paces separate us, our point of origin—and end!—just visible before us, the brute reality slams through the barriers of our senses: the encounter is now imminent! Absorbed in our visual registrations, our meaningless mathematics, our hedonistic pleasure in mere action and its power-how could we have wasted it all!—we had forgot what was to come at the end! had we thought, only thought, we could have drawn two circles, or ten circles, postponed this ultimate experience, could have, but the choice was ours just once, our impulsive first action has become—alas!—a given, the inexorable governor of all that remains—or has the leper had us all along? did his pace allow two circles? and does it matter? for the encounter must come, mustn’t it? whether after one circle, two circles, or ten.

  It is of no consequence. There is in us that conditions acceptance. We turn to greet the leper.

  Our hands, my hands, appear before us, ruddy, hairy, thickwristed, muscular, fine rich blood pounding through them, extended now for the embrace. They do not tremble. The leper, tongue dangling—god! nearly black!—frothing pitifully at the mouth, eyes blank, whole wretched body oozing a kind of milky sweat, hurls himself into our arms, smothering us, pitching us to the red clay, his sticky cold flesh fastening to us, me, his black tongue licking my face, blind eyes, that whine! his odors choking us, we lie, I lie helpless under the sickening weight of his perishing flesh. Then, in die same instant, it is over. Purged of all revulsions, we free ourselves from him, lay him gently on the red earth, dry his final ecstatic tears. At first, we make an effort to claw the earth with our fingers, dig a hole large enough to conceal the blight of his gathering decay. But we weary of it: the earth is hard, burial an, old reflex. We leave him lie and sit beside to wait Under the desert sun. We wait, as h
e waited for us, for you. Desperate in need, yet with terror. What terrible game will you play with us? me.

  A PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT

  Paul stepped off the curb and got hit by a truck. He didn’t know what it was that hit him at first, but now, here on his back, under the truck, there could be no doubt. Is it me? he wondered. Have I walked the earth and come here?

  Just as he was struck, and while still tumbling in front of the truck and then under the wheels, in a kind of funhouse gambado of pain and terror, he had thought: this has happened before. His neck had sprung, there was a sudden flash of light and a blaze roaring up in the back of his head. The hot—almost fragrant—pain: that was new. It was the place he felt he’d returned to.

  He lay perpendicular to the length of the truck, under the trailer, just to the rear of the truck’s second of three sets of wheels.

  All of him was under the truck but his head and shoulders. Maybe I’m being born again, he reasoned. He stared straight up, past the side of the truck, toward the sky, pale blue and cloudless. The tops of skyscrapers closed toward the center of his vision; now that he thought about it, he realized it was the first time in years he had looked up at them, and they seemed inclined to fell. The old illusion; one of them anyway. The truck was red with white letters, but his severe angle of vision up the side kept him from being able to read the letters. A capital “K,” he could see that—and a number, yes, it seemed to be a “14.” He smiled inwardly at the irony, for he had a private fascination with numbers: fourteen! He thought he remembered having had a green light, but it didn’t really matter. No way to prove it. It would have changed by now, in any case. The thought, obscurely, troubled him.

  “Crazy goddamn fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!”

  The voice, familiar somehow, guttural, yet falsetto, came from above and to his right People were gathering to stare down at him, shaking their heads. He felt like one chosen. He tried to turn his head toward the voice, but his neck flashed hot again. Things were bad. Better just to lie still, take no chances. Anyway, he saw now, just in the corner of his eye, the cab of the truck, red like the trailer, and poking out its window, the large head of the truckdriyer, wagging in the sunshine. The driver wore a small tweed cap—too small, in fact: it sat just on top of his head.

  “Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless the laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

  The truckdriver spoke with broad gestures, bulbous eyes rolling, runty body thrusting itself in and out of the cab window, little hands flying wildly about Paul worried still about the light It was important, yet how could he ever know? The world was an ephemeral place, it could get away from you in a minute. The driver had a bent red nose and coarse reddish hair that stuck out like straw. A Bard shiny chin, too, like a mirror image of the hooked nose. Paul’s eyes wearied of the strain, and he had to stop looking.

  “Listen lays and gentmens I’m a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible man and goddamn that boy what he do but walk right into me and my poor ole truck!”

  On some faces Paul saw compassion, or at least a neutral curiosity, an idle amusement, but on most he saw reproach. There were those who winced on witnessing his state and seemed to understand, but there were others—a majority—who jeered.

  “He asked for it if you ask me!”

  “It’s the idler plays the fool and the workingman’s to hang for it!”

  “Shouldn’t allow his kind out to walk the streets!”

  “What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?” It worsened. Their shouts grew louder and ran together. There were orations and the waving of flags. Paul was wondering: had he been carrying anything? No, no. He had only—wait! a book? Very likely, but... ah well Perhaps he was carrying it still. There was no feeling in his fingers.

  The people were around him like flies, grievances were being aired, sides taken, and there might have been a brawl, but a police man arrived and broke it up. “All right, everybody! Stand back, please!” he shouted. “Give this man some air! Can’t you see he’s been injured?”

  At last, Paul thought He relaxed. For a moment, he’d felt himself in a strange and hostile country, but now he felt at home again. He even began to believe he might survive. Though really: had he ever doubted it?

  “Everybody back, back!” The policeman was effective. The crowd grew quiet, and by die sound of their sullen shuffling, Paul guessed they were backing off. Not that he got more or less air by it, but he felt relieved just the same. “Now,” said the policeman, gently but firmly, “what has happened here?”

  And with that it all started up again, same as before, die clamor, the outrage, the arguments, the learned quotations, but louder and more discordant than ever. I’m hurt, Paul said. No one heard. The policeman cried out for order, and slowly, with his shouts, with his nightstick, with his threats, he reduced diem again to silence.

  One lone voice hung at the end: “—for the last time, Mister, stop goosing me!” Everybody laughed, released. “Stop goosing her, sir!” the policeman commanded with his chin thrust firmly forward and everybody laughed again.

  Paul almost laughed, but he couldn’t, quite. Besides, he’d just, with that, got the picture, and given his condition, it was not a funny one. He opened his eyes and there was the policeman bent down over him. He had a notebook in his hand.

  “Now, tell me, son, what happened here?” The policeman’s face was thin and pale, like a student’s, and he wore a trim little tuft of black moustache under the pinched peak of his nose.

  I’ve just been hit, Paul explained, by this truck, and then he realized that he probably didn’t say it at all, that speech was an art no longer his. He cast his eyes indicatively toward the cab of the truck.

  “Listen, I asked you what happened here! Cat got your tongue, young man?” “Crazy goddam fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!”

  The policeman remained crouched over Paul, but turned his head up to look at the truckdriver. The policeman wore a brilliant blue uniform with large brass buttons. And gold epaulettes.

  “Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless die laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

  The policeman looked down at Paul, then back at the truck-driver. “I know about truckdrivers,” Paul heard him say.

  “Listen lays and gentmens I’m a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible man and goddamn that boy what he do but walk right into me and my poor oletrike. Track, I mean.”

  There was a loose tittering from the crowd, but the policeman’s frown and raised stick contained it “What’s your name, lad?” he asked, turning back to Paul. At first, the policeman smiled, he knew who truckdrivers were and he knew who Pauls were, and there was a salvation of sorts in that smile, but gradually it faded. “Come, come, boy! Don’t be afraid!” He winked, nudged him gently. “We’re here to help you.”

  Paul, Paul replied. But, no, no doubt about it, it was jammed up in there and he wasn’t getting it out.

  “Well, if you won’t help me, I can’t help you,” the policeman said pettishly and tilted his nose up. “Anybody here know this man?” he called out to the crowd.

  Again a roar, a threatening tumult of words and sounds, shouts back and forth. It was hard to know if none knew him or if they all did. But men one voice, belted out above the others, came through: “O God in heaven! It’s Amory! Amory Westerman!” The voice, a woman’s, hysterical by the sound of it, drew near. “Amory! What ... what have they done to you?”

  Paul understood. It was not a mistake. He was astonished by his own acumen.

  “Do you know this young man?” the policema
n asked, lifting his notebook. “What? Know him? Did Sarah know Abraham? Did Eve know Cain?” The policeman cleared his throat uneasily. “Adam,” he corrected softly.

  “You know who you know, I know who I know,” the woman said, and let fly with a low throaty snigger. The crowd responded with a belly laugh.

  “But this young man—!” the policeman insisted, flustered.

  “Who, you and Amory?” the woman cried. ‘”ican’t believe it!”

  The crowd laughed and the policeman bit his lip. “Amory! What New persecutions are these?” She billowed out above him: old, maybe even seventy, fat and bosomy, pasty-faced with thick red rouges, head haloed by ringlets of sparse orangish hair. “My poor Amory!” And down she came on him. Paul tried to duck, got only a hot flash in his neck for it. Her breath reeked of cheap gin. Help, said Paul.

  “Hold, madame! Stop!” the policeman cried, tugging at the woman’s sleeve. She stood, threw up her arms before her face, staggered backwards. What more she did, Paul couldn’t see, for his view of her face was largely blocked by the bulge of her breasts and belly. There were laughs, though. “Everything in order here,” grumped the policeman, tapping his notebook. “Now, what’s your name, please ... uh ... miss, madame?”