My Spanish is not, I swear to God, a perfectly spoken idiom but I can easily make myself being easily understood. I was in Paradise High under Professor Rigol and Mr. Campbell is only being jealous.[58] I also gave it a good scrubbing before coming to Cuba. I will never exhibit outside a language I do not well know. Incidentally, on dit sword of Damocles, pas Damoclian sword.
There wasn’t any melodrama. Mr. Campbell’s story, as told, is not only incompetent but also infested with halfs of the truth and lies. There never was any General Campbell’s Last stance nor any lynching-mobs nor applause nor any final face of the pitiful beggar. We couldn’t have seen him anyway from the taxi. I never screamed when I saw the other—I find these italics disgusting, nothing but drama and sugar-bathing, like a metaphor for the whole story: “other walking stick”: why not just “other walking stick”?—the other walking stick, nor did I have an attack of catatonia. There were no hysterics; I simply limited myself to showing him the walking stick that was presently ours. I thought that a terrible mistake had been made of course, but then I thought that the mistake and the injustice were reparable still. We went straight again to the café and by questioning the people in there we found out where the police station was: it was Mr. Campbell’s Spanish fort that had fallen into disrepair. The beggar was not longer there. The policeman had released him at the gates while his colleagues laughed and the robber who was himself the only one who had been robbed wept inexhaustible tears. Nobody, “of course”, knew where to find him.
We missed the boat and had to return by plane—with our luggage and books and souvenirs plus two walking sticks.
Seventh session
I told you a lie on Friday, doctor. A really big lie. That boy I was telling you about, we never got married. I married another boy who I didn’t even know and he never married anyone, because he was a homosexual and I knew it from the day I met him because he told me. What happened was that he invited me to go out with him because his parents suspected that his best friend was something more than just his best friend and. they had threatened that they would send him to a military academy if he didn’t offer to marry me. But I was never his fiancée. And they didn’t have to send him to an academy after all.
BRAINTEASER
Who was Bustrófedon? Who was/is/will be Bustrófedon? Boustrophedon? Thinking about him is like thinking of the goose that laid golden eggs, of a riddle with no answer, a spiral without end. He was Bustrófedon for all and all for Bustrófedon was he.
I don’t know where the fuck he got that 7-plus-4-letter name from. All I know is that he often called me Bustrofoton or Bustrophotomaton or Busneforoniepce, depending deepening my current hangup, but I always answered his mastery voice, and Silvestre was Bustrophoenix or Bustrophoelix or Bustrofitzherald, and Florentino Cazalis was Bustrofloren long before he changed his name and began writing in the papers bustroperously as Floren Cassalis, and his girl was always called Bustrofedora and his mother was Bustrofelisa and his father Bustrofather, and I just don’t know if his girl friend’s real name was Fedora or if his mother was really called Felisa or whatever. But I guess he must have picked that word, the word at random (house) out of a dictionary like the way he took the name of a medicine (with Silvestre’s help?) to bustroform the continent of Mutaflora with its metafauna of bustroffaloes composed of hunting bustrophies sent back alive.
I remember one day we’d gone out to eat together, he and Bustrófedonte (which was Rine’s name that week, because his name wasn’t just Man’s Best Friend but also: Rinecerous, Rinaidecamp, Rinaissance, leading to general Rinformation and Rineffulgence followed by a Rinegation and back to Rinessentials and Rinephemera, Rinetcetera, Rineffervescent, Bonofarniente, Bonosirviente, Busnofedante, Bustopedant: rineing ringing the changes on his name to show the ring & range and changes in their friendship: casting words in a spellometer) and me, and when the two of them came to find me in the newspaper office he said, Let’s go eat in a Bustrofeteria, because he loathed expensive restaurants and chandeliers and paper flowers, and when we found a B-eanery and before we’d sat down he’d called the waiter. Bustroboy, he said. You know what they’re like, the waiters in Havana early in the evening or late at night: all bums, so they don’t like to be called by their name: neither waiter nor boy or Charlie or even come here you flunky, that kind of thing, and so this fellow came up with a face as long as a boa’s tail and almost as cold and scaly and he clearly wasn’t a boy any longer if he ever had been. C-come on, old b-boy, w-we w-want s-some b-bustrofood, said putting on a sturm und s-stammer this Bustrofunfare, and the waiter (if that’s the right word) looked daggers at him, more cobra than boaish or boyish or boorish, and I shoved a paper napkin (it was a modernstyleatery) in my mouth to drown my laughter, but my laughs could crawl and do breast and back and breathstroke so the paper towels were beginning to taste like papertigertale, and as fuck or late would have it, B., whose name was Bustrophate that moment, said to me, We should of off invited Bustróphoelix, and my laughter was Bustrofoaming around the floodgates of the next of napkin and then he asked me, What you think, Bustrophotoflood? and I answer Fure fof fourse and my napkin flies off fike a pfeiffer fjet followed by a superzanic bang composed of a chain eruction of vocal or oral or auroral farts and in the trajectory it follows the servjette sets itself on a collision main course with the waiter’s face, taking the whole length of his long lonely face like a landing strip, finally striking his jaundiced eyeball like a yellow bullseye and the fellouch refuses to serve us and gets off our cloud to plunge icariously into the horizontal chasm of thiseatery and starts bellyaching in the backroom to the Poseidowner and we’re still there in the hear-after drowning of laughter on the shores of the tablecloth, almost nausicated, with this unbelievable public proclaimer Bustrophone herald tribunely crying out, You were a BustrophenoNemo, a Bustrofonbraum, crying out loud, Bustyphoon, Bustornado, Bustrombone, outcrying himself, Bustrombamarina, crying to left and right, sydneyster-and-dexterly, ambidexterritorially. Of curse the wan and ownly oner had to turn up right then & there: a fat bald little fellow even shorter than the waiter, so short that be hecame shorter as he approached us and when he finally arrived at the table he seemed to be walking on his hands not his feet. A moveable feat. A bust. Or was it a buster?
—WAS SA MATTA?
—We wonly want to weat, Bustro said, turning a doldrum profile toward him.
—You won’t get anything to eat if you fool around like that.
—Like what? Bustrofastidious asked and as he was a tall skinny fellow with a real ugly mug and thismugly of his was cratered with an acme of an acne or
huge pox Americana or
by time and tide and its ruins or
meteorites or
vultures or
by all these things together:
MACNEPDXVLTURETEORUINITES
he stood, got to his feet, doubled tripled, B’ telescoped himself forward looking more like an unjolly green giant every miniminute till he almust touched the ceiling, roof or rafters, so big was he.
AND THE OWNER GOT SMALLER AND SMALLER AND
SMALLER AND YET SMALLER IF IT WAS STILL POSSIBLE AND MAN
was but so incredibly shrunk he was only the size of my
thumb or my little finger which is a very little finger:
he’s in fact a genie of the bottle in reverse and now he
went on getting littler and littler, as tiny as anyone
can be, even tinier and tinier: the tiniest tim on
earth, and tinier even: tm: till amazing us with
his shrinking bouts & feats: and he was no
longer visible, not quite yet invisible: so
finally he stood up to vanish down a hole
by the door: a mouse-whole by-by by
the way by the door: a house of a
dormouse so very Butso housey this
mousey-hall did not begin right
& there it began somewhere
els somewhere elsie: it
bega
n with—oh no! oh
yes!—but no! but yes,
sire, it began it
yessiree! but hole
it, mate! hold it a
moment for this
hole begins
here but
and/or,
ah so
an
o
and it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland and I said just that to Bustroformidable crytone and he began to entertain certain sentences and us and he delit and regaled us: the brief and regal night of Frank Masonry: Alice in Funland, Alice in Thyland, Alice in Mytime, Alice in Wonder, Alice in Wanderlush, Alice the one and last, My Alice, Malice, Malice Forathought, Alice and Eve, Malice and Varix, Evealice, Avarice, Avaricia and Malicia and Malaysia and Melanesia and Macromicia and Micronisia and Microlicia, Microalice in the hole, in the whole, in the hold, Alace in the hole, Alichole, Alls-hole, Alasthouse, Alasose, Alicetose, Alicetosis, Halicetosis, Helixhose, Helaxhoses, Elaxtosis and shrinking and growing up again and shriveling back to seize he—B—B1—B1? Why not B2? B or not 2B—him began sitting and singing and seizing and sizing me up and down with my Fure fof fourse, furoff coarse, my Four de Force and with his Alliteration his Alcemptation his Alicevocation, merrily marrying, Marryling my self and Cuba and Martí and the Wanton nightmare I Want-a-name-’ere La Guantanamera, that Martian song with its tropsical rhythm that goes wroughly like thus, dedicated to the one I hate:
(instant pretension or interpoleation or inpernetration by M.S.)
Yo soy un hombre sincero
I’m a man without a zero
De donde crece la palma
From the land of the pawn-trees
Y antes de morirme quiero
And ‘fore lay-dying I xerox
Hechar mil votes del alma.
One thousand copies of me.
Con los sobres de la piedra
With the sour sickle of this hearse
Quiero yo mi muerte hinchar
I want to share man Mao
El apoyo de la Sierra
The reivers of the Sierra
Más compras hace que el mal
I like butter, then some tea.
Mi anverso es un verde claro
My grin is a dear sun-tan
En un jardin encendido
Gotten in a flaming garden
Mi reverso un muerto herido
My torso is a wounded fountain
Que luce en el norte un faro.
That looks for shells in a maiden.
BUT NO, it’s no good: you’d have to hear it, you’d have to hear him in Bustroperson as you’d also have to hear his Poe(t)’ Ravings:
Twice beneath a mudtime weirdly ponderous I spoke in faerie
Over (and o’er) a voluminium of unwritten law (oh lore!)—
While I nodled, noodled, nundled, trundlingly I come
unsundered,
As if someone howsomever, rapping, crapping at my do’er.
“ ‘Tis a widershins,” I mongreled, “crapping at my own
undo’er—
Who unstuck my nether moor?”
Undustunctly I rumumbled it were dissembling Decembled;
And each humbled, blundering embryo fell upon its dying floor. Ungrately I wished tomorrow; or tomorrow and to borrow
In mine bones was Caesar’s horror—horror for a long lost
bore—
For the bare and fair and barren former maiden whom I bore—
Quoth the waiter, “Medium raw.”
And the silken, sullen slinking of each skulking purple passage
Thrilled and spilled and filled and chilled me with a drafty
corridor;
So that howsoever bleating my heart stopped but natheless
cheating
Went on beating, eating sleeting (a self-wind heart it was I
swore)
The whore it was I mildly swore.
Incessantly my soul glue longer; so I longered more languorous,
“So said I,” I said, “you Modman, come inside me and explore;
But in sooth, in truth, ‘tis proof, you spied me at my knightly
crapping,
I’m a ghostwriter, thou knowst well, inscribbling on inphantile
floor
Whatsomever rhymes Unreason hath in his untimely maw—
Bottomless, I ask for more.
And so on incessanter till breath do us phart. And it was in that same Bloke Decembryo that Rogelito Castresino took the opportunity to go down the street and we started singing all the variations on all the names of the people we know. A secret game—until the chambermate or whatever his name is came and interrupted the ceremony and Bustrofacetious hailed him like a long lost bugger, doing what he called, poor Bfellow, his namaste, but he did it not with the palms of his hands, but with the back, like this:
and we ordered dinner. He did.
Bustrobeans said Bustrofacile said he With white rice I tried to say but he said a T T T-bone or Bustrofilet and a cup of BustrófedonT said Bustrofidelis said Bustrofricassee said Bustrofartingissuchsweetsighing and Bustrordered them all at once because it was always he who was talking and he said it all looking at the waiter in the eye (or eyeball to youball), face to farce, looking him in the I’s, condescending the stares because though he was still seated he was taller than the other even though he had generously shrunk himself a little, and when we’d finished he ordered dessert for us all too. Tootsyfruitsy. Bustroflan, he said and then he said, Bustrofocee (you focoffee yourselfish, said I) and then trying to serve as gobetween (they also serve who only stand as waiters) said quickly, Three coffees, but when I tried to say, pleasantly, If you please, I said Piss you eve and something Elsie, I’m not sure and I’m not sure either how we managed to make a getaway without someone accusing us of being terrorists what with all the implosion and explosion of laughter, like slaughters off the avenue and when they brought us the coffee, we drank it in pieces and paid and left the restoroom all systems à gogo singing the Quistrisini Variations (copyright Boustrophedon Inc.) on that jittery Festineburg that Bustroffenbach had composed. Here’s to Frenchsip!
Last aald acqaaantanca ba fargat
And navar saan agaan
Wall drank a cap of kandnass yat
Far tha sanka afaald Lang Sana.
Lest eeld acqeeentence be ferget
End never seem egeen
We’ll drenk e cep of kendness yet
Fer the neskefe eeld Leng Sene.
List iild icqiiintinci bi firgit
Ind nivir siin igiin
Wi’ll drink i cip if kindniss yit
Fir thi sikihi iild Ling Sini.
Lost oold ocqooontonco bo forgot
Ond novor soon ogoon
Wo’ll dronk o cop of kondnoss yot
For tho so kopho oold Long Sono.
Lust uuld unquuuuntuncu bu furgut
Und nuvur suun uguun
Wu’ll drunk u cup uf kundnuss yut
Fur thu sucus uf uuld Lung Sunu.
with me prohividing the reuthmic accompanist, misstaking probing that mon is evolting into mankey by drinking the mild of humonkeydniss: lone leave monkind!, phlaying my chimpanum to Eribó’s baboongo, mandrilling a little cynosure of old eyes, making negular roises (at least I think so: I was zoo drunk I insisted I got rhythm) with my fingerprints and a glassdarkly and spooneristmus in my handshake and later outlawside with my handsoff and fingertrips and the mouthfool and for feetall coming in from thime to tyme crying !$£!!!¿¿%+= &&&! Ah ah ah! AH! What a wallz we had that night, that Knight of the Balls, we really did have a goot dime and Bustroform in grate shape invented the most twattwisting and frensyfree and sample tongtwisters like that one this one it Was he Houdini who wrote whodunits for women humorously wondering under humble exhumed human uteruses and humeruses? hand hall those Madam I’m Adam’s, like that so hold hand beewtifutile hand clocksickall hand heternal No evil live on, and these three he cuntcockeded, on the stop. spot. after laying a bed for a chit with Ry
ne: Now a gas saga won number one Wonder Eve’s amoral aroma severed now number two Emit a tit a time number three whitch are sample and seasy and are half-Cubist and half-Quexotic or completely a toxic for an ekuedistant third partying is sock sweet surrey, and they sourprised me because Rhine’s reinforced feet (two, said Bustrofaraway, the left and the wrigth, degauche et malraudroit) were three, ad pedem litter: Havana, the name of a city which is just a beautyfoul corruption of Savanna/ Sabannah/ Sabana/ Abanna/ Havannah/ Havana/ Habana/ La Habana/ Avana in Italics Cyrillically Gabana, and the Sbanish panner (why? because we were crossing Central Park between the three centers, the Galician center and the Asturian center plus the off center) and mulatto she-woman walked on by and there was another horny foot (B. said that that made a quadruped, a Nu or Gnude or New) which was our eternal theme then, La Estrella of cursed, and Bustrofactored it into more anagrams (a word he broke up into: A ram sang) with the phrase Dádiva ávida: vida which when written in a ringaroundarosy, in an encierro: is the serpent that eats itself: is the ring that is an ankh: is a magic circle, cyclic shift which continually makes a cipher of the zephyr of life and deciphers its ways anyway and which you can begin reading with any one of the words and it is a wheel of fartune: David, ávida, vida, avi, vid, ida, dádiva, dad, ad, di, va: beginning again, turning and turning and turning the till undtil you come to the wheel of aloneliness with its still center out of which it can tale us its tell, and which can also and as well and so well be used with La Estrella because the wordwheel, the life sentence, the three-times-four-letter anagram which also makes twelve words a twelf-word :
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