by John Barth
JUNE: It was fun. I’m glad you came with me. (An especially conspicuous sound of swimmers comes from downstream, JUNE shivers.) They’re getting closer.
MAY (Points): What do you think? Can we make it to that ledge on that little island over there before the crowd arrives?
JUNE: So that’s what an island is. Let’s try it. It’s a better place than this to watch them from.
MAY: Maybe we can throw rocks at their heads. Let’s crab ten degrees starboard to compensate for leeway, wouldn’t you say?
JUNE: Crab? Oh, right: Aye aye, ma’am!
MAY: Ma’am?
PETER (Aside): Pretty soon it’ll be Wham Bam.
(JUNE links arms with her; just as they plunge forward, a lone SWIMMER sweeps onto the scene, not from downstream, but from around the upstream boulder.)
K: Aha.
P: What does he look like?
K: What does who look like? I swear.
(He wears a black wet-suit, a white rubber cap, and wire-rimmed spectacles. From between his shoulderblades, a thin white tail runs down his spine and on for another several feet. He is swimming wearily upstream, croaking “Onward! Upward!” with failing breath—but the current sweeps him backward into the two FLOATERS. After a moment’s tumbling consternation, they spring together upstreamward; the swimmer, equally surprised, cries out and springs downstreamward. The frightened FLOATERS backstroke carefully to hold position against the current and begin working warily sideways, JUNE toward the ledge, MAY toward the eddy. The swimmer, regaining possession of himself, pushes up his eyeglasses and crying “Love!” dives determinedly at JUNE. MAY cries out again and leaps back a few feet. JUNE deftly sidesteps. The SWIMMER tumbles past her.)
Katherine giggles. Peter hums.
SWIMMER (Recovers himself, strokes his chin, straightens his tail. He is young and wiry, with a sensitive, somewhat drawn face.): Excuse me, ma’am! (He adjusts his eyeglasses; squints now at MAY; dutifully shouts.) Love! Love! (He plunges at her. MAY shrieks, too alarmed to evade him properly, and he actually manages to catch hold, first of her envelope and then, as most of it rips free, of her leg.)
KATHERINE (Aside): May Jump would flatten him.
SWIMMER (Sees that he has all but removed MAY’s envelope): Oh, Father! I’m sorry, ma’am!
(But his right hand on her leg—his left is holding the torn portion of her envelope—galvanizes MAY. Much tumbling and crying out as she pummels him and he protects himself without letting go of her or the remains of her envelope.)
MAY: Pig! Rapist! (Etc.)
SWIMMER: Ouch! Ow! (Etc.)
PETER: Yes. Well. Et cetera.
(JUNE has paddled over to help; she lays hold of the SWIMMER’s tail with distaste and pulls, MAY is then able to free herself enough to deliver a wicked left-handed chop. The SWIMMER lets go of her leg and rolls about.)
K: Right on, Maze. But the poor wimp seems more confused than dangerous.
(JUNE, still alarmed but somewhat concerned for him as well, releases his tail. Ever more belligerent, MAY delivers a few well-placed kicks and would do worse, but JUNE restrains her. The SWIMMER, groaning and clutching his crotch, gets to his feet; MAY’s paisley envelope has gotten wound around his neck like a scarf)
Get me out of here, marvels Katherine, pulling off her scarf.
(When MAY tries to get at him, he retreats in freestyle terror. The FLOATERS pursue him—MAY ferociously, JUNE half amused—until he disappears upstream. They float back, laughing, to the ledge—MAY with some difficulty for lack of most of her envelope—and hang on awhile, comparing impressions, before hauling themselves up to rest and stand watch.)
JUNE: You were terrific!
MAY: Thanks. The sonofabitch would’ve Fused with you if I hadn’t been there.
JUNE: I don’t think so. (Teases her) Anyhow, it was you he wanted to Merge with. I heard what he said when he went after you!
MAY: It wouldn’t have mattered to him which of us he got. They all want the same thing.
KATHERINE: Come on, May: Knock it off.
(Again they inspect and patch their envelopes, MAY has barely enough left to cover her.)
JUNE: Seems to me he didn’t know what he wanted, much less which. I think he was as surprised as we were.
MAY (Not amused): For the first time in history, We had Them outnumbered! I guess they can’t take that.
PETER: Good point there, Playwright.
JUNE: Did you notice? He even said “Excuse me”!
MAY: Pig rapist. He attacked me!
JUNE (Amused): It was the most tentative attack I ever saw. We played rougher than that in the Right Ovarium!
KATHERINE: Oy, I’d forgotten about those Ovarium things.
PETER: The Saint Deniston School for Floaters.
K: Then the Park Schoolers down in Washington would be the Lefties. They always creamed us. Only Molly and me had balls enough to foul them right back.
JUNE: When you turned him off, he seemed almost relieved.
MAY: Faggot.
Katherine Sherritt opines that this anonymous playwright is making the May character into too much of a caricature; May Jump never went around saying “Macho pig rapist faggot.” Peter Sagamore reminds her that life is life and art art, ideally.
JUNE: A macho pig rapist faggot?
KATHERINE (Thinking of her first husband): It happens, honey.
JUNE (Looks upstream): Why do you suppose he went on up? I thought we were supposed to be their destination. (Excited) Hey, aren’t they funny-looking? Those tails! But I loved watching him move. Mustn’t it be fun to swim like that?
MAY (Appraises her companion candidly): Fusing with you is what would be fun. I can’t blame him for trying.
Says Katherine There’s our Maisie. Frowning Peter reflects that one of the pleasures of writing playscripts must be that stage directions needn’t be socko prose. Appraises her companion candidly: fwuff.
JUNE: He certainly didn’t seem to me to be threatening, May. Weren’t you the least curious to see what it would be like?
MAY: Not with him.
JUNE: I wish we could have talked awhile before he swam off.
MAY: Talked! With a Swimmer?
K: Why not?
JUNE: Why not? All through school I kept wishing that. To find out what they’re really like, and what’s really downstream, (MAY shakes her head; JUNE presses on.) Don’t you think he’d like to know about the Confluence, and the rapids up in the Branches, and what it was like in the Right and Left Ovaria?
K: Poonie sure wanted to.
(She breaks off as MAY clutches her arm and points downstream. The sound of SWIMMERS is close indeed now; their splashing distinct. The FLOATERS move back a bit on their ledge.)
MAY (Whispers): Mama Moon!
(Now we see what they see: the awesome spectacle of the SWIMMERS’ ADVANCE GUARD moving upstream. From their ledge, the FLOATERS can look and listen without being seen. Before and below them swim a dozen or more SWIMMERS, singing in rough male harmony “Onward! Upward!” as they stroke past in approximate unison. We see—and recognize better than MAY and JUNE yet can—several sorts: brawny “machos,” all body and tail with tiny heads; “eggheads,” some with tiny tails; effeminates and predators; self-flagellators and flagellators of others; and many quite ordinary fellows. Some surge forward, even pushing their comrades under; some lose ground and are swept back. Some wander off from the Mainstream. Some pause just under the ledge—the FLOATERS step back another step, not to be espied. Some merely drown and float off downstream.)
This is not a bad effect, says Katherine: the Swimmers’ Chorus. I see the whole thing more as a water ballet or an aquatic opera than as a TV play.
(The two FLOATERS direct each other’s attention silently to one SWIMMER or another with expressions of amazement, amusement, alarm; with whispers behind hands and admonitions to silence lest they be discovered. Curiosity is JUNE’s prevailing reaction; di
staste MAY’s. Both are inclined to draw about themselves what remains of their envelopes—but JUNE, in her interest and excitement, often lets hers go.)
PETER: Of course she does.
(Soon the parade thins out. A final, ordinary SWIMMER swims by, calling “Onward, upward” in a mild voice as if simply counting cadence, and disappears upstream. They watch him go, then sit some moments in silence.)
PETER SAGAMORE: Not a bad effect.
JUNE: And that’s just the Advance Guard!
MAY (Shudders): So they say. A couple dozen out of millions.
JUNE: Did you see the one that was all head and no tail? He could have passed for a Floater!
P.S. (Aside): There’s a foreshadow.
MAY (Nods grimly): It’s the ones that are all tail and no head I worry about. Thank the Moon they didn’t see us.
JUNE: That one we met earlier wasn’t so terrible. Hey, look! (She points upstream. Expecting another Swimmer, MAY scrambles to a posture of defense.)
MAY (Incredulous, as she sees what JUNE sees): Mo-ther!
(Bobbing idly down toward them is what appears to be yet a third FLOATER: a spheroid body wrapped in a light green paisley Floater’s envelope.)
P.S.: Guess who.
K.S.S.: Ssh. Maybe it’s the third act, rolled up in a Baggie.
MAY: It’s another one of Us!
JUNE: But she’s all tucked in, like a preschooler! How’d she ever graduate?
MAY: She’s wearing my school’s colors. . . . How she got through those Swimmers is what I’d like to know.
JUNE (Touches MAY’s arm): Do you suppose she’s been . . . Merged?
MAY: It’s your Identity you lose when you Fuse, Jay-Gee, not your arms and legs and head. (The strange FLOATER is bobbing just past their ledge now.) She’s a mighty queer-looking Floater!
JUNE (Moves to reach out for the stranger): All the same, a sister is a sister. Let’s fish her in; she’s not even steering!
MAY: If I fall in without my envelope, I might go under. I’ll hold your legs while you lean out and get her.
Katherine, when she reaches this line, hums. Peter, when he reaches this line, hums.
(JUNE flattens herself prone on the ledge and reaches out for the FLOATER. MAY, prone also, happily embraces JUNE’s legs to keep her from falling in.)
JUNE: Not so tight, May. Here she comes. . . . Just a minute . . . I’ve got her. . . . (She has indeed drawn the new FLOATER to the ledge, and holds her with both arms to keep her from slipping downstream.) Don’t ask me how we’re going to haul her up!
MAY (Sighs): I’ll lend you a hand. (Reluctantly letting go, she moves to JUNE’s side and also lays hold of the FLOATER. But their leverage is awkward; the two together are still unable to lift the newcomer from the water.)
JUNE (A little desperately): Where are her hands?
MAY (Loudly, to the FLOATER): Hey, Dum-Dum! Can’t you give us a hand?
K: Here it comes.
P (A few moments later): Yup.
(“She” does: In exhausted but rapid order, the floater whips off the envelope—which we now recognize as the missing part of MAY’s—
PETER: Now recognize?
—raises his head, uncoils his tail, wrapped around him like string on a ball, extends his legs, straightens his eyeglasses, and, his expression more desperate than triumphant, seizes both MAY and JUNE by the wrists. They scream and pull back; the SWIMMER—it is of course the one they first encountered—
P: Let us guess.
—holds on tenaciously, MAY slips and almost goes off the ledge. As the scene dissolves, the frantic FLOATERS are slipping nearer and nearer the water, while from downstream once again we hear the ominous sound of another host of swimmers: no doubt the main body.)
No doubt, says Peter; but the girls are perfectly safe. Katherine wants to know damn it how does he know, but she knows how he knows and answers her own question: because it’s only Act Two of what is presumably a three-act play, and all protagonists are as invulnerable as Achilles until the last act. You can drop a protagonist off the World Trade Center in Scene One of Act Two, declares Peter Sagamore, and that protagonist will either bounce like a tennis ball or not hit the pavement until the end of Act Three. But Katherine worries about the May character.
Excuse P’s expression, but the May character is more exposed, by reason both of her role as supporting actress and of the tendency of the plot. Supporting characters do not inevitably survive second acts, and in the case of supporting characters who are also foils for the protagonist, as May is for June, the actuarial picture is even more uncertain. But look, he doesn’t want to spoil the story. Kath’s got the other two scenes of Act Two there, right?
She leafs through the leaves. There’s only one more. It’s called
Scene 2: May Fuses.
Is that good?
Peter considers: three scenes in Act One, two scenes in Act Two. Act Three, then, when it floats our way, can be expected to be a single extended scene. And Act Two, Scene Two, is called “May Fuses.” She’s a goner, hon, he declares. Want to take a swim and read the bad news later?
Sighs Katherine All you Swimmers care about is one thing. Go dunk, she tells him; she and the kids are hooked. We’ll just make tuna salad for dinner.
So our man slips out of his trunks and goes over the transom. He is not hooked, though he finds the conceit entertaining enough. And he is as spooked as is his wife by the several resemblances of this story to ours—not to mention our finding both canisters, in the right sequence, on a body of water as large and multifarious as the Chesapeake. Were the script not literally penned, he might suspect some crank of trashing the estuary with photocopies in distress-flare canisters: Rejected by network television, distressed playwright signals for help.
He does ten laps around the boat and then hangs onto the anchor rode to catch his breath. Kath’s tee-heeing up in the cockpit. Downcreek he sees another dark-hulled cruiser, this one a salty-looking blue cutter, coming in under all plain sail, an inflatable dinghy in tow. The skipper must know the entrance well. It turns our way, the crew dropping headsails, and chugs up under power past the Toronto schooner.
Kath whoops Testorium! You’re going to have trouble with this scene. Where are you?
Pete calls back his whereabouts and says to himself to the approaching cutter Not too close, friends; right about there. A husky, bearded, sun-browned fellow on the bowsprit signals the helmsman to stop—helmswoman, Peter sees now—acknowledges us with a wave, and lowers their anchor at a point politely halfway between us and the Canadians. It is about six in the afternoon, summer-warm, the sun still well above setting but about to drop behind the treetops just across the creek and give us shade. Though the newcomers have maintained maximum distance off for courtesy’s sake, they are not far enough away for real privacy. P’s pleased to see therefore that, like ourselves, they are neither prudish nor exhibitionistic: As soon as they’re moored, the middle-aged-looking fellow drops first their swim-ladder and then, discreetly, his cutoff jeans and jockey shorts and lowers himself into the water. His companion—younger-looking, trim, similarly tanned—follows suit: another pair of sunbirds working north up the Intracoastal. Pete gets just flash enough of her on her way over their transom to observe that she’s well put together and that her breasts and behind are almost as brown as the rest of her.
No fair, Katherine frets mildly, looking over there some while later through our binoculars: Look at her flat turn and those tight little buns.
Says reading Peter Shush.
(The same scene, a moment later. The FLOATERS still struggle on the ledge, the swimmer clutching their wrists, MAY and JUNE give a last, frantic, concerted pull; he makes use of it, not to yank them in with him, but to heave himself, still trailing MAY’s envelope, up onto the ledge with them. Squeals and grunts as they tumble together. The FLOATERS’ wrists are free. Tangled in MAY’s envelope, the SWIMMER falls face down, exhausted.)
He’s well hung, too, voyeuring Kate reports. She herself is back to paisley scarf and underpants; it is our first really sticky evening aboard. They remind me of somebody. Ted and Diana?
Theodoros Dmitrikakis wasn’t bald, Peter reminds her, not looking up. We are finishing our cold supper and sipping Lancer’s rose and Perrier.
Says naughty Kate Not so: I bet Dee balled him every night.
MAY: Get him, Jay-Gee, before he Fuses us! (She herself jumps with both feet upon his tail-tip, which happens to be nearby. The SWIMMER shouts in pain, but is too spent to move, JUNE piles on to straddle his waist and pummel his back, then bends one of his arms behind him. He cries out again.)
MAY (Kneels on the SWIMMER’s tail now, her back to JUNE): Farther up, or he’ll whip around and bite us!
(Somewhat gingerly, JUNE releases his arm and slides up to sit on the SWIMMER’s shoulders and seize his neck.)
MAY: Throttle him!
(JUNE begins to squeeze. Neither the job nor her position is to her liking.)
SWIMMER: Don’t!
MAY (Pounds his tail on the ledge): Wolf in sheep’s clothing!
SWIMMER: Ow!
MAY (Pulls the wreck of her envelope off him and gives his tail a karate chop)’. Pervert!
SWIMMER: Ow! I wasn’t trying to trick you! I was floating just to keep afloat! I won’t hurt you!
MAY (Jumps up and down on his tail): That’s what they all say. Throttle him, Jay-Gee, for pity’s sake!
SWIMMER: Please don’t hurt me!
JUNE (Eases up): They don’t all say that, May. . . .
Katherine reports from the binoculars Their boat’s called Reprise, pronouncing the second syllable “prize.” Or is it Repreeze?
MAY (Grabs his tail in a sort of hammerlock, grimacing at the feel of it): He pretended he was a Floater so he could pull us in and Fuse us both!
SWIMMER: I swear I didn’t! I’m sorry about before. You’re supposed to want us. . . . (MAY wrenches his tail.) Ow! Really, I’m not interested if you’re not!
JUNE (Less hostilely): Why did you swim on upstream?
MAY: You know why. He’s after our kid sisters.