By now the second baton had descended. Without so much as an upward glance, Duckworth caught it neatly and spun on. The drum section picked up the cadence and we marched smartly through the intersection, leaving behind a scene that forms the core of several epic poems relating the incident.

Duckworth immediately signaled for "El Capitan," and as we attacked the intro the crowd burst into a great fantastic roar of applause and surging emotion. The aroma of burnt rubber, scorched copper, ionized chrome, and frozen ozone trailed us up the street. Santa Claus, in a window, sat mouth agape. Grumpy's hammer was held stiffly at half-mast. The Christmas trees had flickered out, and MERRY XMAS MERRY XMAS neon signs were dark. neon signs were dark.

We knew that the baton that had gone up in smoke had been one of Wilbur's awards-his Presentation set of matched wands, won at the State Championships. The other, the survivor, he held lightly in his gloved right hand, his arm shooting high over his head and down diagonally across his body, up and down, up and down. He spun as we finished "El Capitan." Three quick blasts, the signal for "Under the Double Eagle." His eyes as steely as ever; his jaw grim and square.

From all sides we could hear the sound of sirens approaching the scene we were leaving behind us. "Under the Double Eagle" with its ma.s.sive crescendos, its unmatched sousaphone obbligato. As we played this great cla.s.sic and Duckworth led us on into the gloom, every sousaphone player, every baritone man, the trombones, the clarinets, the piccolos and flutes, the snare drummers and Janowski, all of us thought one thing: "Did he plan it!?"

You never can tell about Drum Majors. This was not the sort of mistake Wilbur Duckworth would make. Had he calculated this? Practiced, worked for this moment for four long years? Was this gigantic Capper, this unparalleled Capper his final statement to Hohman, Indiana, and the steel mills, the refineries, and the Sheet & Tube Works, those gray oyster eyes, and the Croatian Ladies' Aid Society?

Up ahead Duckworth's arched back, as taut as spring steel, said nothing. His shako reached for the sky, his great plume waved on. He blew a long, single, hanging blast, holding his remaining baton at a high oblique angle over his head. Two short blasts followed, and he smartly commanded a Column Right. The drums thundered as we moved into a side street and headed back toward school. The parade was over. The wind was rising and it seemed to be getting colder. A touch of snow was in the air. Christmas was on its way.

XXV

I RELATE THE STRANGE TALE OF THE HUMAN HYPODERMIC NEEDLE I RELATE THE STRANGE TALE OF THE HUMAN HYPODERMIC NEEDLE The retired trombonist stood behind the bar with his shoulders thrown back, an old familiar light blazing in his eyes. He wore the look of a man on the mark; tensed, waiting for the sharp downbeat, lips slightly pursed for the opening blast of "Under the Double Eagle." Gradually he relaxed, as we returned to the warm, moist, sudsy atmosphere of the friendly corner tavern.

"You know, Ralph, I don't tell many people this, but once in a while I go down in the bas.e.m.e.nt when n.o.body's home, and I play my trombone. The lip is still there."

He drummed his fingers in a rhythmic, quick cadence tempo on the polished mahogany to the pattern of our well-remembered and much envied, by the other bands, of course, March Cadence. It is not generally known outside of the marching band world that each band has great pride in its distinct March Cadence drum pattern. It can be identified by this sound just as surely as a set of fingerprints gives away an axe murderer.

"Well, Flick, there are times when I can feel an old, dull itch in my left shoulder. Especially when I'm watching football games on TV, and they come on with the half-time shows."

"Ah, they got all them girls with them cowboy hats. You don't see many good marching marching bands. Just a lot of bazooms, doing the Frug." bands. Just a lot of bazooms, doing the Frug."

"Times change, Flick." Again the beer was sparking deep philosophical concepts. Flick continued, with a touch of bitterness in his voice: "Fer Chrissake, there's nothing funnier than a short, fat girl clarinet player wearing a band suit, trying to do a double-time quick countermarch."

"It's s...o...b..z, Flick. That's what it is." We were getting a bit maudlin.

"It's s...o...b..z, Flick, it's all s...o...b..z. They're always doing this stuff like a salute to TV, or a salute to Richard Rodgers, or My Fair Lady My Fair Lady, for G.o.d's sake. Can you imagine what Duckworth woulda said if they had tried to foist off a Majorette on him, or what the h.e.l.l do they call them-a Pom-Pom girl, or a Color Guard?"

"Plenty a bazooms...."

"It's s...o...b..z, Flick."

We sat together, Flick now perched on his high stool, me on mine, staring grimly out into the middle distance.

"I'm watching one the other day, Flick. They must have had a band of about 30,000 pieces. They came out with more junk hanging on 'em. Horns, whistles, smoke bombs, sirens; these guys had it all, and I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned if they don't start making a formation while this announcer on the TV says; 'We are now going to pay a tribute to Doctor Kildare, that famous TV doctor.' And you know what they made, Flick, in a formation while they were playing that theme song from that TV show?"

"A bedpan?" Flick guessed.

I knocked my beer over into my lap and leaped up, brushing the suds off the fine English flannel, the pride of my life. Flick grinned the self-contented grin of a man who knows he's made a funny. He drew me another beer, cackling all the while.

"h.e.l.l, no! A bedpan woulda been great. I'd a cheered! What this band did was march around, and they make a big hypodermic needle. 'Covered the whole d.a.m.n field! And then somebody blows a whistle and the plunger goes in, and the whole Ba.s.s section and about thirty-eight trumpets and six guys playing glockenspiels go pouring out through the needle. They're the dope, see, and when they get out of the needle they spell out 'Ouch!,' fer Chrissake. Well, I can see about 500,000 Junkies sitting out there, coming to in the middle of the football game and seeing this giant spike. And thinking all of a sudden they're doing a commercial for Heroin or something. It's a wonder they didn't bust the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n stadium!"

The phone rang. Flick picked up the receiver.

"Yeah? Now, you know I'm going to the game tonight. (Pause) You can have the car. They won't even know I'm not there. Okay, I promise. I will not not miss the next meeting; okay? That's a promise." miss the next meeting; okay? That's a promise."

He hung up.

"The wife. Janis."

I remembered Janis faintly from school as a dark, quiet girl. I hardly knew her. I decided quickly not to pursue the subject any further. You never know.

"What meeting you talking about, Flick?"

"PTA. She drags me to that d.a.m.n thing every month. They sit around and talk about the Penny Supper. And how to raise more money to buy more World Books."

"You got kids?" I asked.

"You know it!"

A sudden thought hit me. The PTA. Teachers, parents-the old alma mater.

"Do you ever see any of our old teachers? Like Mr. Milton? Or...."

I groped for a few names that were indelibly, forever tattooed on the tough hide of my memory.

"How 'bout ah...yeah, old Fatso Appleton?" He was a notorious Shop teacher who ran his Shop cla.s.ses like an actual Sweatshop Sweatshop. I guess he figured we better learn early.

"He's tougher than ever," Flick said. "In fact, a couple years ago some kids even tried to start a union, in his Shop, and he imported a bunch of Scab students after they went out on strike. Locked 'em out."

"Too bad we never thought of that when we were around. What a jerk! How 'bout Miss Bryfogel?"

He thought for a long moment and said: "No...I don't see her around any more. She really was something."

I thoughtfully munched a pretzel.

"She certainly was, Flick. I, for one, will never forget her."

XXVI

MISS BRYFOGEL AND THE FRIGHTENING CASE OF THE SPECKLE-THROATED CUCKOLD MISS BRYFOGEL AND THE FRIGHTENING CASE OF THE SPECKLE-THROATED CUCKOLD The sticky-sweet, body-warm taste of p.o.r.nography lingers in the soul long after the fires have been banked and the shades drawn. Where did it all begin? What ancient caveman drew the first dirty picture on the wall of his dank granite hole and then, cackling fiendishly, scuttled off into the darkness. At what point in time did some lecherous p.o.r.nographer-his acne itching, his palms sweaty-proclaim his smudgy craft as Art? Thereby giving rise and hope and sustenance to a whole generation, nay, an immense population of beady-eyed, furtive probers in the rank undergrowth of human debauchery.

At long last we have finally solved that age-old problem, that ancient challenge which drove countless philosophers of the past to the verge of madness; of how to change the base metal lead into precious gold. Even as I write this, battalions of hard-working, Serious, dedicated artists, their tongues lolling, their breath coming in short, uneven pants, foreheads sticky with clammy perspiration, their agents impatiently clamoring at the door of their sacred writing chamber, are contriving at immense artistic cost yet another description; evocation, of a basically simple bodily function, or yet another monstrously imagined portion of the human anatomy. Theirs is not an easy task. Pause and consider. There really aren't many four-letter words, and there are just so many ways you can arrange them. Already, perhaps, the end is in sight.

But their task is dwarfed by the legion of ready reviewers whose duty it is to trans.m.u.te their inchoate lead into magnificent golden works of Art. His a.r.s.enal of phrases, like that of the Artist, is also limited, and hence sees repeated use: "Biting satire...."

"Scathing indictment of our Puritanical s.e.xual mores."

"Brilliant parody-a real thrust at the Victorian ethos."

"Deliciously savage tongue-in-cheek treatment of...."

"Ribald, picaresque, rollicking novel that has a deep undertone of...."

"Ecstatic poetic vision, reminiscent of an enlightened D. H. Lawrence."

I repeat, theirs is not an easy task. Yet willingly, nay, eagerly eagerly, they sit imprisoned in their digs, eyes bulging, a work of Art clutched in their palsied talons. They suffer great insights for all of us.

What has happened to the old-fashioned Dirty Old Man, not to mention the old-fashioned Dirty Young Man? The answer is obvious. They are now Artists, destined to stand in that great pantheon that stretches back through the mists of time to Euripides, marching forward with Melville and Conrad, Chaucer and Shakespeare. It has been a long, difficult process but we in our time have finally solved the old riddle of the alchemist.

And yet, let us be honest. Deep down in the innermost recesses of our minds there is something that peers out at us with tiny, red-rimmed eyes, its mildewed beak chittering, that reminds us by its lewd cackling that we are scrawling pictures on the walls of our cave. There are times when you can ignore this insistent, omniscient beast, and then there are times when you can't. There are just so many ways to spell "a.s.s."

Not long ago I was subtly and forcibly reminded of that inescapable fact. It was Sunday, a gray, milky, Nothing Sunday in the great tradition. I lounged, coffee cup in hand, in my gilded cell, vaguely conscious of a gnawing and unfamiliar sense of shame and discomfort. Knee-deep in the Sunday papers I sat, futilely warding off those elusive pangs of shame and guilt. I am a Twentieth-Century Man. I should not know these feelings! Then why the vague feverish flush, the clammy palms, the fugitive desire to hide under the daybed? True, I had been in attendance at a monumental debauch the night before and had indulged myself strenuously, but, after all, the Debauch itself is now a recognized art form, and I merely an aspiring, creative performer. Then why this persistent sense of unease? Could it be that I was suffering from an attack of recurrent vestigial conscience? I immediately crossed that out, since, being a representative citizen of our time, I knew that it was an impossibility.

It must be caused, then, by something from without my body and psyche, certainly not from within. But what?

I looked about me. My television set droned on harmlessly in the corner with its endless professional golf match, its perpetual succession of Arnold Palmers, Julius Boros, Gary Players, Jay Heberts, and other heroic figures of our time, hitting little b.a.l.l.s with short sticks perpetually over the green hills of TV Land. Surely it could not be this this innocent vision. I looked about the room again. All was familiar and normally sybaritic. innocent vision. I looked about the room again. All was familiar and normally sybaritic.

I sipped nervously at my rich, full-flavored, tepid instant coffee and tried to get my mind back into healthier channels. Forcibly I made myself think of Higher Things. I tried to recall a few of the better scenes from a magnificent 8mm Art film I had seen the week before at the Nouveau Cinematique Realite Festival I had attended. The Pa.s.sionate Transvest.i.te The Pa.s.sionate Transvest.i.te, a superb, delicate, subtly controlled delineation of a sensitive theme, and its attendant feature, Tilly the Toiler Meets Winnie Winkle Tilly the Toiler Meets Winnie Winkle, a wildly robust comedy making light of the Puritanical mores of our day. Pa.s.sionate Pa.s.sionate, as it is known to us cinema aficionados aficionados, was almost better than Candy Meets King Kong Candy Meets King Kong, a frank Anti-War statement couched in cuttingly sardonic Voltairean brushstrokes.

It was no use. Something was troubling me. I stirred restlessly, kicking at the drift of newspaper that covered my ankles. Something caught my eye. And held it. Those sinister fugitive pangs of guilt rose to a crescendo. And then I knew! It was unmistakable! Draped over the toe of my Italian ostrich-skin, alligator lounging slipper, provocatively half-opened, was the Sunday Times Book Review Supplement Sunday Times Book Review Supplement It held my steady nervous gaze like a hooded cobra about to strike. But this was only the good old familiar Book Review Supplement Book Review Supplement, a trusted friend that had sustained me through many a slippery moment at countless c.o.c.ktail parties. And yet now, for some unaccountable reason, this friendly, faithful companion had touched off that sinister, faint but insistent sickness of fear and humiliation, deep in my vitals where such things happen.

Ordinarily, on long, timeless Sundays, I save the supplement and the magazine section for last, as a kind of self-indulgent treat, but today, unmistakably, a new and alien note had been sounded. The Book Review Supplement Book Review Supplement had mysteriously stirred some long-dead, or at least sleeping, specter in my soul. had mysteriously stirred some long-dead, or at least sleeping, specter in my soul.

Perhaps my language is a bit overwrought, but there are times when it is not easy to maintain the cool steady eye and the casual hand.

What was there about this innocent fold of paper? I bent forward to look more closely at the cover page. Its familiar staid measured grayness suddenly came into sharp focus. "New Edition of Renaissance Cla.s.sic"-the heading in bold type, and at center page a black and white woodcut showing a languorous youth lounging under a fairy-tale tree, and over him stood a Florentine lady wearing the flowing gowns of the nunnery. Where had I seen that lad, that spent lad, that lady of the Church before?

And then, eerily, faintly perceptible, a voice drifted out of the bottomless depths of the swamp of my subconscious, the indistinct syllables bursting like bubbles of some loathsome combustible gas generated by the decomposed slime of prehistoric monsters. A feminine voice! What in G.o.d's name is she saying to me?

I strained to hear that ghostly caller. It seemed to come somehow from the very grain of the woodcut itself! Somewhere, in some far-off land, Sam Snead was sinking fifteen-foot putts, Cary Middlecoff was happily birdying, but there was no joy in my soul that day. I hunched even further, deeper into my motor-driven Vibra-Snooze lounging chair, alert, my senses tingling, ready for danger. The voice came nearer and nearer, and then, clearly, distinctly, I sensed it was asking me a question, a question I had been asked before, aeons aeons before. My G.o.d! It was now impossible to evade! before. My G.o.d! It was now impossible to evade!

"Where did you get that book?"

With an inchoate cry I leaped to my feet, sending that rank scorpion, that culture shark the supplement spinning into the corner where it lay for a moment, its pages sinuously fluttering like some ghastly living thing.

Shaken to my underpinnings I stumbled, half-crazed with a terror such as I had not known since my days as a ten-year-old innocent. I rushed to my Inna-Wall sliding teakwood-paneled Danish bar and blindly pressed a b.u.t.ton. Seconds later, clutching three fingers of Chevas Regal, I tried to regroup.

But Miss Bryfogel pursued me, asking her question again and again, louder and louder! Miss Bryfogel! And then it all began to come back, the whole sordid, fetid mess.

Shakily easing myself back into the comforting depths of my chair, driven by forces beyond my control, I painfully began to reconstruct that awful moment of my fall from Grace and Purity. I once was as pure as the driven snow, an apple-cheeked lad who delighted in the birds of spring and the soft humming afternoons of summer, and I was insanely, madly, totally in love. With Miss Bryfogel. My commitment was complete.

Miss Bryfogel taught sixth-grade English, and for every fifty-five minute period that I was permitted in her presence I lay prostrate at her feet. Her soft heart-shaped face and dark, liquid eyes haunted me in my every waking hour. She never gave the slightest indication that she, too, was stirred to the depths. But I knew knew.

Miss Bryfogel would read poetry to us, as my cla.s.smates, clods to a man, dozed fitfully. But I, love buds a-tingle, eyes misty, wept with her over Evangeline Evangeline and and Old Ironsides Old Ironsides. I had only one way to tell her of my love. To speak to her through our mutual secret language, the one thing other than insane pa.s.sion we shared together-the Book Report.

Perhaps it is because we are a nation that, almost to the last individual, spent the greater part of its youth sweating over the accursed book report that we have become in our adulthood a nation of book-review readers. What is a book review but merely an overblown book report? And we all half suspect that, like our book reports of our dim past, the book reviewers rarely bother actually to read the books. We instinctively admire their suave fakery, their artful dodging, their expansive self-congratulatory phraseology, their mellifluous padding. We have been through it, too, and we know good trickery when we see it.

Miss Bryfogel placed great importance on our weekly reports. Early in the semester she had issued a mimeographed sheet to us, called the Suggested Reading List, from which we drew our ammunition.

I was never a stylist, but I felt that sincerity and neatness, as well as meticulous spelling and ample margins would get my subtle message through.

As far as my actual reading went, I ran heavily toward The Outdoor Chums The Outdoor Chums, which my Aunt Glenn persisted in giving me, Flash Gordon Meets Ming The Merciless Flash Gordon Meets Ming The Merciless, and Popular Mechanics Popular Mechanics. And three ancient copies of G-8 And His Battle Aces And His Battle Aces, which I had re-read at least seventy-four times, getting more from their rich mosaic at every reading. However, these were not Reportable.

And so, every week was sheer torture as I phonied and nervously mocked up my Friday report. The books themselves were taken from the public library, and were doled out to us by Miss Easter. Miss Easter was a kindly, thin, ancient lady who had been born wearing a pair of gold-rimmed bifocals and with a full head of blue-gray hair, a true dedicated librarian; an alert protector of the morals of the young. I recall vividly one h.e.l.lish week trying to read four consecutive words of something called Ivanhoe Ivanhoe which had been highly recommended by both Miss Easter and my true Heart-Wound. which had been highly recommended by both Miss Easter and my true Heart-Wound.

My reports themselves actually ran to a sort of form. For example: "Robinson Crusoe"

by DANIEL DEFOE"Robinson Crusoe is about this man who got lost on this island. He made a hat out of a coconut sh.e.l.l and found this foot-print on the beach. His island was named Friday, and they had a goat. This is a very interesting book. It was exciting. I think is about this man who got lost on this island. He made a hat out of a coconut sh.e.l.l and found this foot-print on the beach. His island was named Friday, and they had a goat. This is a very interesting book. It was exciting. I think Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe is a good book." is a good book."

Or, "Black Beauty"

by ANNA SEWELL"Black Beauty is about this horse that got sold to a very cruel man. He hit Black Beauty and Black Beauty was very unhappy because Black Beauty was a kind horse and didn't hit anybody. I think books about horses are very exciting, and is about this horse that got sold to a very cruel man. He hit Black Beauty and Black Beauty was very unhappy because Black Beauty was a kind horse and didn't hit anybody. I think books about horses are very exciting, and Black Beauty Black Beauty is a very exciting book. It has three hundred and two pages, and I think anyone would enjoy reading is a very exciting book. It has three hundred and two pages, and I think anyone would enjoy reading Black Beauty." Black Beauty."

I felt strongly that unqualified applause for any book on the Suggested Reading List would convey to Miss Bryfogel my deep feelings about the books she read, and also would net me at least a C.

My love grew from Friday to Friday, and little did I realize that disaster was drawing closer and closer by the hour. Trouble invariably sneaks up behind on little cats' feet; soft and innocent and shadowy. And it quite often results from an attempt to better oneself, to raise the sights, to elevate the standards, to break through into a clearer, brighter world.

Miss Bryfogel continually encouraged something she called "Outside Reading," which meant books not on the official list. Miss Easter had a vast file of these desirable Non-official Official books at her command. She worked hand in glove with all the Miss Bryfogels at the Warren G. Harding School, ceaselessly striving to push back the frontiers of Barbarism and Ignorance and to raise high the fluttering banners of Culture. And in Hohman, Indiana, that is not an easy task. Amid the dark, swirling mists exhaled by the Blast Furnace, the c.o.ke Plant, and the Oil Refinery, Miss Easter quietly brooded over acres of silent kids hunched over The Lady of the Lake The Lady of the Lake and and David Copperfield David Copperfield in her brightly lit island of fantasy and dreams-her library. in her brightly lit island of fantasy and dreams-her library.

On several occasions I had gone the treacherous route of the Outside Reading. It was dangerous, and usually stupendously boring. But already I had mastered the art of manufacturing an entire book report from two paragraphs selected at random, plus a careful reading of the dust jacket, a system which still earns a tidy living for many a professional reviewer.

However, the library was not the only source of books available to the probing mind. There was home. And in my instance, the bookcase in the dining room, filled to bursting with my father's precious collection of bad books. We did not subscribe to Literary magazines. I doubt whether my father had ever read a book review in his entire life, if he even knew they existed, so hence he read for pure pleasure and ran heavily to The Claw of Fu Manchu, The Canary Murder Case, The Riders of the Purple Sage The Claw of Fu Manchu, The Canary Murder Case, The Riders of the Purple Sage, and the complete exploits of Philo Vance. At least these were the books that he kept in the dining-room bookcase. I never really a.s.sociated them with book reports. They were just Stories, and book reports were about Books.

There were other volumes that were kept around the house, were not talked about much, but were just there. Not many, just a few mysterious books kept in my parents' bedroom, or in the closet. No one ever said we shouldn't read them. They were just kept out of our way. For as long as I could remember there had been this thick green-covered, bulky book on the bottom shelf of my mother's end table. It had been there so long and was so much a part of the scenery that it wasn't a book any more; just a Thing. It was always there. I had opened it maybe twice in my entire life-tiny print, incomprehensible; just a book. Until that pivotal day when everything changed.

It was a chill, dark, lowering afternoon. Faint puffs of oily wind bearing the essence of Phillips 66 and the Number-One Open Hearth through the gaunt trees, and under the eaves. I was home alone. And itchy.

These are dangerous conditions, known to us all. Ranging through the empty house, looking for something to do, somewhere to light, chewing a salami sandwich, I homed in inevitably to the Fountain of Evil. I rarely went into my parents' bedroom, because it was somehow off my main beat. Nothing Freudian or Victorian; it just wasn't where my action was. However, as the barometer fell and my itch increased, I drifted in past the bra.s.s bed, just looking. Drawn.

The how and why of the exact instant the Book came into my hands I do not clearly recall, and perhaps even that fact is significant. I somehow knew without even being told that it was wrong. I somehow knew that what I was doing was vaguely on the other side of the line. Our instincts run deep.

I dragged the book, my ears acutely alert for footsteps on the porch, into the bathroom and began my descent into iniquity and degradation.

The t.i.tle of the book meant nothing to me. I had not seen it on Miss Easter's shelves, nor on Miss Bryfogel's Selected lists, but it was thick and had small print, so I figured it must be good. Or at least Official. Not only that, it had a foreign name, and anyone who has ever gone to school knows that any book with a foreign name is Important.

Well, I hadn't read four sentences when I realized that I had in my hands the golden key to Miss Bryfogel's pa.s.sionate heart. Not only was this book almost totally incomprehensible, it was about friars and abbots, counts and countesses, knight errants, kings and queens, and a lot of Italians. It also had pictures, woodcuts that reminded me of other Important books that Miss Bryfogel spoke highly of. In accordance with my usual practice of book reporting, I looked through the Table of Contents to pick out something specific to read and to quote in case of embarra.s.sing questions.

I had never seen a Table of Contents like this before. It was listed: "Day The First"

"Day The Second"

"Day The Third"

and under that heading something caught my eye: "The First Story:Ma.s.setto of Lamporeccio feigneth himself dumb and becometh gardener to a convent of women, who all flock to lie with him."

Well, this was a natural, since I knew what "dumb" meant. There were plenty of dumb kids in my cla.s.s. And Mrs. Kissel, next door, had a garden. I was on home grounds.

I plowed ahead, and the more I struggled to read the more I realized that this was good for at least a B+. My senses alert to sounds in the driveway, I forged into unknown territory. There was something about that story that drew me on like some gigantic magnet hauling an atom of iron with its unseen, mysterious force field. Does the iron understand magnetism? Did I understand what went on in the convent? As the gardener lieth with the abbess?