The room was inundated in a devastating hiss, like the shriek of an injured
dragon. Casimir's hands were knocked aside by the fabulously high pressure of
the escaping oxygen. Papers blizzarded and piano keys skittered across the
floor. Ignoring it, Bert Nix stuffed Kleenex into Sharon's ears, then into
his own. In a minute Sharon began to breathe easier. At the same time his
pipe-ashes burst into a small bonfire, ignited by the high oxygen levels.
Casimir was making ready to stomp it out when Virgil pushed him gently aside;
he had been wise enough to yank a fire extinguisher from the wall on their way
up. Once the fire was smothered, Virgil commenced what first aid was possible
on Sharon. Casimir returned to the Burrows and, finding an elevator, brought
up more oxygen and a regulator. Using a garbage bag they were able to rig a
crude oxygen tent.
The ambulance crew arrived in an hour. The technicians loaded Sharon up and
wheeled him away, Bert Nix advising them on Sharon's favorite foods.
I passed this procession on my way there-- Casimir had called to give me
the news. When I arrived in the doorway of Sharon's office, I beheld an
unforgettable scene: Virgil and Casimir knee-deep in wreckage; a desk littered
with the torn-open wrappers of medical supplies; Virgil holding up a sheaf of
charred, bloodstained, fire-extinguisher-caked forms; and Casimir laughing
loudly beneath the opened sky.
--October--
At the front of the auditorium, Professor Embers spoke. He never lectured;
he spoke. In the middle of the auditorium his audience of five hundred sat
back in their seats, staring up openmouthed into the image of the Professor
on the nearest color TV monitor. In the back of the auditorium, Sarah sat in
twilight, trying to balance the Student Government budget.
"So grammar is just the mode in which we image concepts," the professor was
saying. "Grammar is like the walls and bumpers of a pinball machine. Rhetoric
is like the flippers of a pinball machine. You control the flippers. The rest
of the machine-- grammar-- controls everything else. If you use the flippers
well, you make points. If you fail to image your concepts viably, your ball
drops into the black hole of nothingness. If you try to cheat, the machine
tilts and you lose-- that's like people not understanding your interactions.
That's why we have to learn Grammar here in Freshman. That, and because S. S.
Krupp says we have to."
There was a pause of several seconds, and then a hundred or so people laughed.
Sarah did not. Unlike the freshmen in the class, who thought Professor Embers
was a cool guy, Sarah thought he was a bore and a turkey. He continued to
speak, and she continued to balance.
This was the budget for this semester, and it was supposed to have been done
last semester. But last semester the records had been gulped by a mysterious
computer error, and now Sarah had to reconstruct them so that the government
could resume debate. She had some help from me in this, though I don't know
how much good it did. We had met early in the year, at a reception for
faculty-in-residence, arid later had a lunch or two together and talked about
American Megaversity. If nothing else, my suite was a quiet and pleasant
enough place where she could spread her papers out and work uninterrupted when
she needed to.
She could also work uninterrupted in her Freshman English class, because she
was a senior English major with a 3.7 average and didn't need to pay much
attention.
Her first inkling that something was wrong had been in midsummer, when the
megaversity's computer scheduling system had scheduled her for Freshman
English automatically, warning that she had failed to meet this requirement
during her first year. "Look," she had said to the relevant official when she
arrived in the fall, "I'm an English major. I know this stuff. Why are you
putting me in Freshman English?"
The General Curriculum Advisor consulted little codes printed by the computer,
and looked them up in a huge computer-printed book. "Ah," he said, "was one of
your parents a foreign national?" "My stepmother is from Wales."
"That explains it. You see." The official had swung around toward her
and assumed a frank, open body-language posture. "Statistical analysis
shows that children of one or more foreign nationals are often gifted with
Special Challenges." Sarah's spine arched back and she set her jaw. "You're
saying I can't speak English because my stepmother was Welsh?" "Special
Challenges are likely in your case. You were mistakenly exempted from Freshmen
English because of your high test scores. This exemption option has now been
retroactively waived for your convenience."
"I don't want it waived. It's not convenient."
"To ensure maintenance of high academic standards, the waiver is avolitional."
"Well, that's bullshit." This was not a very effective thing to say. Sarah
wished that Hyacinth could come talk for her; Hyacinth would not be polite,
Hyacinth would say completely outrageous things and they would scatter
in terror. "There's no way I can accept that." Drawn to the noise like
scavengers, two young clean-cut advisors looked in the door with open and
understanding smiles. Everyone smiled except for Sarah. But she knew she was
right this time-- she knew damn well what language was spoken in Wales these
days. They could smile stupidly until blue in the face. When the advisor
hinted that she was asking for special treatment because she was President,
she gave him a look that snapped his composure for a second, a small but
helpful triumph.
She had done it by the books, filing a petition requesting to be discharged
from Freshman English. But her petition was rejected because of a computer
error which made it appear that she had gotten 260 instead of 660 on her SATs.
By the time an extra score report from the testing company proved that she was
smart after all, it was too late to drop or add classes-- so, Freshman English
it was.
The end of the class approached at last, and Professor Embers handed back this
week's essays. The assignment was to select a magazine ad and write about how
it made you feel.
"I've been epiphanied by the quality of your essays this week," said Professor
Embers. "We hardly had to give out any C's this time around. I have them
alphabetized by your first names up here in sixteen stacks, one for each
section."
All five hundred students went down at once to get theirs. Sarah worked for
ten minutes. then gathered her things and headed for the front, dawdling on
purpose. Clustered around the stack of papers for her section she could see
five of the Stalinists-- for some reason they had all ended up in her section.
Since she never attended section meetings, this was no problem, but she did
not want to encounter them at times like this either. Standing there tall and
straight as a burned-out sapling in a field was Dexter Fresser, an important
figure in the Stalinist Underground Battalion. Most of all, she wanted to
avoid him. Sarah and Dex had gone to the same high school in Ohio, ridden
the same bus to school, slept in the same bed thirteen times and shared the
same LSD on three occasions. Since then, Dex had hardly ever not taken lots
of acid. Sarah had taken none. Now he was a weird rattle-minded radical who
nevertheless remembered her, and she avoided him scrupulously.
About halfway down the aisle she found a television monitor displaying an
image of Dex. She sank deeply into a seat and watched him and his comrades.
Dex was reading a paper desultorily and she knew it was hers. He flipped
aimlessly through it, as though searching for a particular word or phrase,
then shook his head helplessly and dropped it back on the stack. Finally the
last of them excavated his paper and they were collectively gone, leaving
behind several dozen essays no one had bothered to pick up.
Associate Professor Archibald Embers, Learning Facilitator of Freshman English
G Group, was regarding a young woman on his sofa and endeavoring to keep his
pipe lit. This required a lot of upside-down work with his butane lighter
and he thought the burn on his thumb might be second-degree. This particular
woman was definitely confrontational, though, and it was no time to show pain.
He held the pipe cautiously and reached out with the other hand to drape
his thumb casually over the rim of a potted plant, thrusting the roasted
region deeply into the cool humus. I am Antaeus, he thought, and yet I am
Prometheus, singed by my own flame. They were sitting in the conversation pit
he had installed so as to avoid talking to students across his desk like some
kind of authoritarian. Or was it totalitarian? He could never remember the
distinction.
This woman was clearly high voltage, Type A, low-alpha and left-hemisphere,
with very weird resonances. Seeing her through to the end of her crisis would
be painful. She had ripped off a lot of papers from the auditorium and had
brought them into his space to fine-tooth comb them. She had a problem with
her grade, a B.
"Now," she continued, whipping over another page, "let's look at page two of
this one, which is about an advertisement for Glans Essence Cologne. 'The
point of this is about these foxes. He has a bunch. On him. He a secret agent,
like Bond James Bond or something. Or some other person with lots of foxes.
Why he has foxes? Is Glans Essence Cologne. They hope you figuring that out,
will buy some of it. Which is what they are selling.' Now, next to that in the
margin you wrote, 'excellent analysis of the working of the ad.' Then at the
end you wrote, 'Your understanding of how the System brainwashes us is why I
gave you an A on this paper.' Now really, if you want to give him an A for
that it's up to you, but you can you then give me a B? Mine was three times as
long, I had an introduction, conclusion, an outline, no grammatical errors, no
misspelled words-- what do you expect?"
"This is a very good question," said Embers. He took a long draw on his pipe.
"What is a grade? That is the question." He chuckled, but she apparently
didn't get it. "Some teachers grade on curves. You have to be a math major to
understand your grade! But forget those fake excuses. A grade is actually a
form of poetry. It is a subjective reaction to a learner's work, distilled and
reduced down to its purest essence-- not a sonnet, not a haiku, but a single
letter. That's remarkable, isn't it?"
"Look, that's just groovy. But you have to grade in such a way that I'm shown
to be a better writer than he is. Otherwise it's unfair and unrealistic."
Embers recrossed his legs and spent a while sucking his pipe back into a
blaze. His learner picked up a paper and fanned smoke away from her face.
"Mind if I smoke?" he said.
"Your office," she said in a strangled voice.
Fine, if she didn't want to assert herself. He finally decided on the best
approach. "You aren't necessarily a better Writer. You called some of them
functional illiterates. Well those illiterates, as you called them, happen to
have very expressive prose voices. Remember that in each person's own dialect
he or she is perfectly literate. So in the sense of having escaped orthodoxy
to be truly creative, they are highly advanced wordsmiths, while you are
still struggling to break free of grammatical rules systems. They express
themselves to me and I react with little one-letter poems of my own-- the
essence of grading! Poetry! And being a poet I'm particularly well suited for
it. Your idea of tearing down these proto-artists because they aren't just
like you smacks of a kind of absolutism which is very disturbing in a temple
of academic freedom."
They sat there silent for a while.
"You really said that, didn't you?" she finally asked.
"I did."
"Huh. So we're just floating around without any standards at all."
"You could put it that way. You should interact with the department chairman
on this. Look, there is no absolute reality, right? We can't force everyone to
express themselves through the same absolute rules."
When the young woman left she seemed curiously drained and quiet. Indeed,
absorbing new world-views could be a sobering experience. Embers found a
blister on his thumb, and was inspired to write a haiku.
There came the sound of a massive ring of keys being slapped against the
outside of Casimir Radon's door. He looked up from the papers on his desk, and
in his lap Spike the illicit kitten followed suit, scrambling to red-alert
status and scything sixteen claws into his thigh. Before Casimir had opened
his mouth to say "Who is it" or Spike could spring forward to engage the foe,
the door was unlocked and thrown open. A short, heavy man with a disconcerting
resemblance to Leonid Brezhnev stepped into the room.
"Stermnator," he mumbled, rolling the r's on his tongue like Black Sea caviar.
Casimir covered Spike with his hand, hoping to prevent detection, and the
kitten grasped a finger between its forepaws and began to rasp with its
tongue.
Behind the man was a small wiry old guy with chloracne, who bore metal
canister with a pump on top and a tube leading to a nozzle in his hand. Before
Casimir could even grunt in response, this man had stepped crisply into the
room and begun to apply a heavy mist to the baseboards. The B-man glowered
darkly at Casimir, who sat in silence and watched as the exterminator walked
around the room, nozzle to wall, spraying everything near the baseboards,
including shoes, Spike's food and water dishes, a typewriter, two unmatched
socks, a book and a calculator charger. Both the strangers looked around the
inside of his nearly barren room with faint expressions of incomprehension or
disdain.
By the time Casimir got around to saying, "That's okay, I haven't seen
any bugs in here since I moved in," the sprayer was bearing down on him
inexorably. Casimir pushed the kitten up against his stomach, grasped the
hem of his extra-long seven-year-old Wall Drug T-shirt, and pulled it up to
form a little sling for the struggling creature, crossing his arms over the
resulting bulge in an effort to hold and conceal. At the same time he stood
and scampered out of the path of the exterminator, who bumped into him and
knocked him off balance onto the bed, arms still crossed. He bounced back up,
weaved past the exterminator, and stood with his back to the door, staring
nonchalantly out the window at the view of E Tower outside. Behind him, the
exterminator paused near the exit to soak the straps of an empty duffel bag.
As Casimir watched the reflection of the two men closing the door he was
conscious of a revolting chemical odor. Immediately he whirled and tossed
Spike onto the bed, then took his food and water dishes out to wash them in
the bathroom.
Casimir had seen his first illicit kitten on the floor above his, when he had
forgotten to push his elevator button. He got off on the floor above to take
the stairs down one flight, and saw some students playing with the animal in
the hallway. After some careful inquiries he made contact with a kitten pusher
over the phone. Two weeks later Casimir, his directions memorized, went to the
Library at 4:15 in the morning. He proceeded to the third floor and pulled
down the January-- March 1954 volume of the Soviet Asphalt Journal and placed
two twenty-dollar bills inside the cover. He then went to the serials desk,
where he was waited on by a small, dapper librarian in his forties.
"I would like to report," he said, opening the volume, "that pages 1738
through 1752 of this volume have been razored out, and they are exactly the
pages I need."
"I see," the man said sympathetically.
"And while I'm here, I have some microfilms to pick up, which I got on
interlibrary loan."
"An, yes, I know the ones you're talking about. Just a moment, please." The
librarian disappeared into a back office and emerged a minute later with a
large box filled with microfilm reel boxes. Casimir picked it up, finding it
curiously light, smiled at the librarian and departed. A pass had already been
made out for him, and the exit guard waved him through. Back in his room, he
pulled out the top layer of microfilm boxes to find, curled up on a towel, a
kitten recovering from a mild tranquilizer.
Since then Spike had been neither mild nor tranquil, but that at least
provided Casimir with some of the unpredictability that Plex life so badly
lacked. He almost didn't mind having a kitten run around the obstacle course
of his room at high speed for hours at a time in the middle of the night,
because it gave his senses something not utterly flat to perceive. Even though
Spike tried to sleep on his face, and hid all small important articles in odd
places, Casimir was charmed.
He pulled on his glacier glasses in a practiced motion and stepped out
into the hail. Casimir's wing was only two floors away from allies of the
Wild and Crazy Guys, best partiers in the Plex, and two Saturdays ago they
had come down with their spray paint and painted giant red, white and
blue twelve-spoked wheels between each pair of doors. These were crude
representations of the Big Wheel, a huge neon sign outside the Plex, which the
Wild and Crazy Guys pretended to worship as a joke and initiation ritual. This
year they had become aggressive graffitists, painting Big Wheels almost every
in the Plex. Casimir, used to it, walked down this gallery of giant wheels to
the bathroom, Spike's dishes in hand.
The bathrooms in the wings looked on the inside like microwave ovens or
autoclaves, with glossy green tile on the walls, brilliant lighting, overwaxed
floors and so much steam that entering one was like entering a hallucination.
At one end of the bathroom, three men and their girlfriends were taking
showers, drinking, shouting a lot and generally being Wild and Crazy. They
were less than coherent, but most of what Casimir could make out dealt with
Anglo-Saxon anatomical terms and variations on "what do you think of this"
followed by prolonged yelling from the partner. Casimir was tempted to stay
and listen, but reasoned that since he was still a virgin anyway there was no
point in trying to learn anything advanced, especially by eavesdropping. He
went down the line of closely spaced sinks until he found one that had not
been stuffed with toilet paper or backed up with drain crud.
As he was washing Spike's dishes, a guy came in the door with a towel
around his waist. He looked conventional, though somewhat blocky, athletic
and hairless. He came up and stood very close to Casimir, staring at him
wordlessly for a long time as though nearsighted; Casimir ignored him, but
glanced at him from time to time in the mirror, looking between two spokes of
a Big Wheel that had been drawn on it with shaving cream.
After a while, he tugged on Casimir's sleeve. "Hey," he mumbled, "can I borrow
your"
Casimir said nothing.
"Huh?" said the strange guy.
"I don't know," said Casimir. "Depends on what you want. Probably not."
A grin gradually sprouted on the man's face and he turned around as though
smirking with imaginary friends behind him. "Oh, Jeez," he said, and turned
away. "I hate fuckers like you!" he yelled, and ran to the lockers across
from the sinks, running a few steps up the wall before sprawling back down on
the floor again. Casimir watched him in the mirror as he went from locker to
locker, finally finding an unlocked one. The strange guy pawed through it and
selected a can of shaving cream. "Hey," he said, and looked at the back of
Casimir's head. "Hey, Wall."
Casimir looked at him in the mirror. "What is it?"
The strange guy did not understand that Casimir was looking right at him. "Hey
fucker! Cocksucker! Mr. Drug! You!" Rhythmic female shrieking began to emanate
from a shower stall. "What is it," Casimir yelled back, refusing to turn. The
strange guy approached him and Casimir turned half around defensively. He
stood very close to Casimir. "Your hearing isn't very good," he shouted, "you
should take off your glasses." "Do you want something? If so, you should just
tell me." "Do you think he'd mind if I used this?"
"Who?"
The strange guy smirked arid shook his head. "Do you know anything about
terriers?"
"No."
"Ah, well." The strange guy put the shaving cream on the shelf in front of
Casimir, muttered something incomprehensible, laughed, and walked out of the
bathroom.
Casimir dried the food bowl under an automatic hand dryer by the door. As he
was on his third push of the button, a couple from one of the showers walked
nude into the room, getting ten feet from cover before they saw Casimir.
The woman screamed, clapping her hands over her face. "Oh Jeez, Kevin, there's
a guy in here!" Kevin was too mellowed by sex and beer to do anything but
smile wanly. Casimir walked out without saying anything, breathed deeply of
the cool, dry air of the hallway, and returned to his room, where he filled
Spike's water bowl with spring water from a bottle.
As soon as Casimir had heard about Neutrino, the official organization of
physics majors, he had crashed a meeting and got himself elected President and
Treasurer. Casimir was like that, meek most of the time with occasional bursts
of effectiveness. He walked into the meeting, which so far consisted of six
people, and said, "Who's the president?"
The others, being physics majors and therefore accustomed to odd behavior of
all sorts, had answered. "He graduated," said one. "No, when he graduated, he
stopped being our president. When the guy who was our president graduated, we
instantaneously ceased to have one," another countered.
"I agree," a third added, "but the proper term is 'was graduated.'"
"That's pedantic."
"That's correct. Where's the dictionary?"
"Who cares? Why do you want to know?" the first asked. As the other two
consulted a dictionary, a fourth member held a calculator in his hand, gnawing
absently on the charger cord, and the other two members argued loudly about an
invisible diagram they were drawing with their fingers on a blank wall.
"I want to be president of this thing," Casimir said. "Any objections?"
"Oh, that's okay. We thought you were from the administration or something."
Casimir's motivation for all this was that after the Sharon incident, it was
impossible for him to escape from his useless courses. The grimness of what
had happened, and the hopelessness of his situation, had left him quiet and
listless for a couple of weeks to the point where I was beginning to feel
alarmed. One night, then, from two to four in the morning, Casimir's neighbor
had watched Rocky on cable and the sleeping Casimir had subconsciously
listened in on the soundtrack. He awoke in the morning with a sense of
mission, of destiny, a desire to go out and beat the fuckers at their own
game. Neutrino provided a suitable power base, and since his classes only
consumed about six hours a week he had all the time in the world.
Previous to Casimir's administration most of the money allotted to Neutrino
had been dispersed among petty activities such as dinners, trips to nuclear
reactors, insipid educational gadgets and the like. Casimir's plan was to
spend all the money on a single project that would exercise the minds of the
members and, in the end, produce something useful. Once he had convinced the
pliable membership of Neutrino that this was a good idea, his suggestion for
the actual project was not long in coming: construction of a mass driver.
The mass driver was a magnetic device for throwing things. It consisted of a
long straight rail, a "bucket" that slid along the rail on a magnetic cushion
and powerful electromagnets that kicked the bucket down the rail When the
bucket slammed to a halt at the rail's end, whatever was in it kept on going--
theoretically, very, very fast. Recently this simple machine had become a pet
project of Professor Sharon, who had advocated it as a lunar mining tool.
Casimir argued that the idea was important and interesting in and of itself,
and that Sharon's connection to it lent it sentimental value. As a tribute
to Sharon, a fun project and a toy that would be a blast to play with when
finished, the mass driver was irresistible to Neutrino. Which was just as
well, because nothing was going to stop Casimir from building this son of a
bitch.
Casimir had been drawing up a budget for it on this particular evening,
because budget time for the Student Government was coming up soon. Not long
after the exterminator's visit, Casimir got stuck. Many of the supplies he
needed were standard components that were easy for him to get, but certain
items, such as custom-wound electromagnets, were hard to budget for. This was
the sort of fabrication that had to be done at the Science Shop, and that
meant dealing with Virgil Gabrielsen. After nailing down as much as he could,
Casimir gathered his things and set out on the half-hour elevator ride to the
bottom of the Burrows.
In the interests of efficiency, security, ease of design and healthy interplay
among the departments, the designers of the Campustructure had put all the
science departments together in a single bloc. It was known as the Burrows
because it was mostly below street level, and because of the allegedly
Morlockian qualities of its inhabitants. At the top of the Burrows were the
departmental libraries and conference rooms. Below were professors' offices
and departmental headquarters, followed by classrooms, labs, stockrooms and at
the very bottom, forty feet below ground level, the enormous CC-- Computing
Center-- and the Science Shop. Any researcher wanting glass blown, metal
shaped, equipment fixed, circuits designed or machines assembled, had to come
down and beg for succor at the feet of the stony-hearted Science Shop staff.
This meant trying to track down Lute, the hyperactive Norwegian technician,
rumored to have the power of teleportation, who held smart people in disdain
because of their helplessness in practical matters, or Zap, the electronics
specialist, a motorcycle gang sergeant-at-arms who spent his working hours
boring out engine blocks for his brothers and threatening professors with
bizarre and deadly tortures. Zap was the cheapest technician the Science Shop
steering committee had been able to find, Lute had been retained at high
salary after dire threats from all faculty members and Virgil, to the immense
relief of all, had been hired three years earlier as a part-time student
helper and had turned the place around.
Science Shop was at the end of a dark unmarked hallway that smelled of machine
oil and neoprene, half blocked by junked and broken equipment. When Casimir
arrived he relaxed instantly in the softly lit, wildly varied squalor of the
place, and soon found Virgil sipping an ale and twiddling painstakingly with
wires and pulleys on an automatic plotter.
They went into his small office and Virgil provided himself and Casimir with
more ale. "What's the latest on Sharon?" he asked. "The same. No word,"
Casimir said, pushing the toes of his tennis shoes around in the sawdust and
metal filings on the floor. Not quite in a coma, definitely not all there.
Whatever he lost from oxygen starvation isn't coming back."
"And they haven't caught anyone."
"Well, E14 is the Performing Arts Floor. They used to have a room with a piano
in It. The E13S people didn't like it because the Performing Artists were
always tap dancing."
"We know how sensitive those poor boys are to noise." "A couple of days
before the piano crash, the piano was stolen from E14. Two of the tap-dancers
had their doors ignited the same night. A couple of days later, E13S had a
burning-furniture-throwing contest, and it just happens that at the same time
a piano crashed through Sharon's ceiling. Circumstantial evidence only."
Virgil clasped his hands over his flat belly and looked at the ceiling.
"Though a pattern of socio-heterodox behaviors has been exhibited by
individuals associated with E13S, we find it preferable to keep them within
the system and counsel them constructively rather than turn them over to
damaging outside legal interference which would hinder resocialization. The
Megaversity is a free community of individuals seeking to grow together
toward a more harmonious and enlightened future, and introduction of external
coercion merely stifles academic freedom and-- "
"How did you know that?" asked Casimir, amazed. "That's word for word what
they said the other day."
Virgil shrugged. "Official policy statement. They used it two years ago, in
the barbell incident. E13 dropped a two-hundred-pound barbell through the
roof of the Cafeteria's main kitchen area. It crashed into a pressure vat and
caused a tuna-nacho casserole explosion that wounded fifteen. And the pressure
is so high in those vats, you know, that Dr. Forksplit, the Dean of Dining
Services, who was standing nearby, had a nacho tortilla chip shard driven all
the way through his skull. He recovered, but they've called him Wombat ever
since. The people who handle this in the Administration don't understand how
deranged these students are. Now, Kruno and his people would like to pour
molten lead down their throats, but they can't do anything about it-- the
decisions are made by a committee of tenured faculty."
Casimir resisted an impulse to scream, got up and paced around talking through
clenched teeth. "This shit really, really pisses me off. It's incredible, Law
doesn't exist here, you can do what you please." "Well," said Virgil, still
blasи, "I disagree. There's always law. Law is just the opinion of the guy
with the biggest gun. Since outside law rarely matters in the Plex, we make
our own law, using whatever power-- whatever guns-- we have. We've been very
successful in the Science Shop."
"Oh, yeah? I suppose this was something to do with what you said the other
day about some unofficial work here for me." "That's a perfect example. The
researchers of American Megaversity need your services. It's illegal, but the
scientific faculty have more power than the rule-enforcers, so we make our own
law regarding technical work. You keep track of what you do, and I pay you
through the vitality fund.
"The what?"
"The fund made up of donations from various professors and firms who have a
vested interest in keeping the Science Shop running smoothly. Hell, it's all
just grant money. In the egalitarian system we had before, nobody got anything
done."
"Look." Casimir shook his head and sat back down. "I don't want even to
hear all this. You know, all I've ever wanted to be is a normal student.
They won't let me take decent classes, okay, so I work on the mass driver.
Now I come here to get your help and you start talking about local law
and free enterprise. I just want some estimates from you on getting these
electromagnets wound for the mass driver. Okay? Forget free enterprise."
Casimir dropped a page of diagrams and specifications on Virgil's desk.
Virgil looked it over. "Well, it depends," he finally said. "If we pretend
you're just a normal student, then I will charge you, oh, about ten thousand
dollars for this stuff and have it done by the time you graduate. Now,
unofficially, I could log it in as something much simpler and charge you less.
But you can't put that into a formal budget proposal. Very unofficially, I
might do it for a small bribe, like some help from you around the Shop. But
that's really abnormal to put in a budget. Looks like you're stuck."
"It wouldn't really take you three years."
"It would take me." Virgil waved at the door. "Zap could do it in a week.
Want to ask him? He's not hard to wake up." Casimir brooded momentarily.
"Well, look. I don't really care how it gets done. But it's necessary to have
something on paper, you know?"
Virgil shook his head, smiling. "Casimir. You don't think anyone pays any
attention to those budgets, do you?"
"Aw, shit. This is too weird for me."
"It's not weird, you're just not used to it yet. Here is what we'll do. We
work out a friendly gentlemen's agreement by which I make the magnets for you,
probably over Christmas vacation, in exchange for a little of your expert help
around the Science Shop. When I'm done with the magnets I put them in an old
box and mark it, say, 'SPARE PARTS, 1932 AUTOMATIC BOMBSIGHT PROTOTYPE.' I
dump it in the storeroom. When budget time comes around you say, 'Oh, gee, it
happens I've designed this thing to use existing parts, I know just where they
are.' Ridiculous, but no one knows that, and those who understand won't want
to meddle in any arrangement of mine."
"Okay!" Casimir threw up his hands. "Okay. Fine. Ill do it. Just tell me what
to do and don't let me see any of this illegal stuff." "It's not illegal, I
said it was legal. Hang on a sec while I Xerox these pages."
Virgil opened the door and was met by a clamor of voices from several advanced
academic figures. Casimir looked around the room: a firetrap stuffed with
books and papers and every imaginable variety of electronic junk. A Geiger
counter hung out the window into a deep air shaft, clicking every second or
two. In one corner a 1940's radio was hooked up to a technical power supply
and wired into the guts of a torn-open telephone so that Virgil could make
hands-off phone calls. An old backless TV in another corner enabled Virgil to
monitor the shop outside. Electronic parts, hunks of wire, junk-food wrappers
and scraps of paper littered the floor. And in three separate places sat those
little plastic trays Casimir saw everywhere, overflowing with tiny seeds-- rat
poison.
"Damn!" spat Casimir as Virgil reentered. "There's enough of that poison in
this room alone to kill every rat in this city. What's their problem with that
stuff anyway?"
Virgil snorted. Everyone knew the rat poison was ubiquitous; the wastebaskets
might go a month without emptying, but when it came to rat poison the B-men
were fearsomely diligent, seeming to pass through walls and locked doors like
Shaolin priests to scatter the poison-saturated kernels. "It's cultural,"
he explained. "They hate rats. You should read some Scythian mythology. In
Crotobaltislavonia it's a capital crime to harbor them. That's why they had a
revolution! The old regime stopped handing out free rat poison."
"I'm serious," said Casimir. "I've got an illegal kitten in my room, and If
they keep breaking in to spread poison, they'll find it or let it out or
poison it."
"Or eat it. Seriously, you should have mentioned it, Casimir. Let me help you
out."
Casimir rested his face in his hand. "I suppose you also have an arrangement
with the B-men."
"No, no, much too complicated. I do almost all my work at the computer
terminal, Casimir. You can accomplish anything there. See, a few years ago a
student had a boa constrictor in his room that got poisoned by the B-men, and
even though it was illegal he sued the university for damages and won. There
are still a lot of residents with pets whom the administration doesn't want
to antagonize, because of connections or whatever. Some students are even
allergic to the poison. So, they keep a list of rooms which are not to be
given any poison. All I have to do is put your room on it."
Casimir was staring intently at Virgil. "Wait a minute. How did you get that
kind of access? Aren't there locks? Access checks?" "There are some annoyances
involved."
"I suppose with photographic memory you could do a lot on the computer."
"Helps to have the Operator memorized too."
"Oh, fuck! No!"
Casimir, I am sure, was just as surprised as I had been. The Operator was
an immense computer program consisting entirely of numbers-- machine code.
Without it, the machine was a useless lump. With the Operator installed, it
was a tool of nearly infinite power and flexibility. It was to the computer as
memory, instinct and intelligence are to the human brain.
Virgil handed Casimir a canister of paper computer tape. The label read, "1843
SURINAM CENSUS DATA VOLUME 5. FIREWOOD USAGE ESTIMATES AND PROJECTIONS."
"Ignore that," said Virgil. "It's a program in machine code. It'll put your
room on the no-poison list, and your cat will be safe, unless the B-men forget
or decide to ignore the rule, which is a possibility." Casimir barely looked
at the tape and stared distantly at Virgil. "What have you been doing with
this knowledge?" he whispered. "You could get back at E13S."
Virgil smiled. "Tempting. But when you can do what I can, you don't go for
petty revenge. All I do, really, is fight the Worm, which is really my only
passion these days. It's why I stay around instead of getting a decent job.
It's a sabotage program. It's probably the greatest intellectual achievement
of the nineteen-eighties, and it's the only thing I've ever found that is so
indescribably difficult and complex and beautiful that I haven't gotten bored
with it."
"Why would anyone do such a thing? It must be costing the Megaversity
millions."
"I don't know," said Virgil, "but it's great to have a challenge."
Sarah and I were in her room with my toolbox. Outside, the Terrorists were
trying to get in. I sat on her bed, as she had commanded, silent and neutral.
"When did they start calling themselves the Terrorists," she asked during a
lull.
"Who knows? Maybe Wild and Crazy Guys was too old-fashioned."
"Maybe the hijacking of that NATO tank yesterday gave them the idea. That got
lots of coverage. Shit, here they are again." Cheerfully screaming, another
Airhead was dragged down the hail to be given her upside-down cold shower. The
original Terrorist plan had been to drag the Airheads to the bathroom by their
hair, as in olden times, but after a few tries they were convinced that this
really was painful, so now they were holding on to the feet.
"Terrorists, Terrorists, we're a mean, sonofabitch," came a hoarse chant
as a new group gathered in front of Sarah's door. "Come on, Sarah," their
leader shouted in a heavy New York accent. He was trying to sound fatherly
and patient, but instead sounded anxious and not very bright. "It'll be a lot
better for you if you just come out now. We're tickling Mitzi right now and
she's going to tell us where the master key is, and once we get that we'll
come in and you'll get ad-dition-al pun-ish-ment."
"God," Sarah whispered to me, "these dorks think I'm just playing hard-to-get.
Hope they enjoy it."
"Give the word and I'll shoo them off," I said again.
"Wouldn't help. I have to deal with this myself. Don't be so macho."
"Sorry. Sometimes it works to be macho, you know."
Their previous effort to flash her out of her room had failed. "Flashing" was
the technique of squirting lighter fluid Under a door and throwing in a match.
It wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, but it invariably smoked the victim out.
Powdering was a milder form of this: an envelope was filled with powder, its
mouth slid under the door, and the envelope stomped on, exploding a cloud of
powder into the room. Three days earlier this had been done to Sarah by some
Air-heads. A regular vacuum cleaner just blew the powder out again, so we
brought my wet-dry vacuum up and filled it with water and had better results,
though she and her room still smelled like babies. She had purchased a heavy
rubber weatherstrip from the Mall's hardware store and we had just finished
installing it when the flashing attempt had taken place. From listening to the
Terrorists on the other side of the door, I had now become as primitive as
they had-- it was no longer a negotiable situation-- and was itching to knock
heads.
"Why don't you stop bothering me?" she yelled, trying too hard to sound strong
and steady. "I really don't want to play this game with you. You got what you
wanted from the others, so why don't you leave? You have no right to bother
me."
At this, they roared. "Listen, bitch, this is our sister floor, we decide what
our rights are! No one escapes from the rule of the Terrorists, Terrorists,
we're a mean, sonofabitch! We'll get in sooner or later-- face up to it!"
Another one played the nice guy. "Listen, Sarah-- hey, is that her name?
Right. Uh, listen, Sarah. We can make life pretty hard on you. We're just
trying to initiate you into our sister floor-- it's a new tradition. Remember,
if you don't lock your door, we can come in; and if you do lock it, we can
penny you in."
The Airheads had once pennied Sarah in. The doors opened inward and locked
with deadbolts. If the deadbolt was locked and the door pushed inward with
great force, the friction between the bolt and its rectangular hole in the
jamb became so great that it was impossible for the occupant to withdraw the
bolt to unlock the door. One could not push inward on the door all the time,
of course, but it was possible to wedge pennies between the front of the door
and the projecting member of the jamb so tightly that the occupant was sealed
in helplessly. Since this maneuver only worked when the owner of the room was
inside with the door locked, it was used discourage people from the unfriendly
habit of locking their doors. Sarah was pennied in just before a Student
Government meeting, and she had to call me so that I could run upstairs and
throw myself against the door until the pennies fell out.
"Look," said Sarah, also taking a reasonable tack, "When are you going to
accept that I'm not coming out? I don't want to play, I just want peace and
quiet." She knew her voice was wavering now, and she threw me an exasperated
look.
"Sarah," said the righteously perturbed Terrorist, "you're being very childish
about this. You know we don't want that much. It doesn't hurt. You just have
one more chance to be reasonable, and then it's ad-dition-al pun-ish-ment."
"Swirlie! Swirlie! Swirlie!" chanted the Terrorists. "Fuck yourselves!" she
yelled. Realizing what was about to happen, she yanked my pliers out of my
toolbox and clamped their serrated jaws down on the lock handle just as
Mitzi's master key was slid into the keyhole outside.
She held it firm. The Terrorists found the lock frozen. The key-turner called
for help, but only one hand can grip a key at a time. The handle did rotate a
few degrees in the tussle, and the Terrorists then found they could not pull
the key from the lock. Sarah continued to hold it at a slight twist as the
Terrorists mumbled outside.
"Listen, Sarah, you got a good point. We'll just leave you alone from now on."
"Yeah," said the others, "Sorry, Sarah."
Looking at me, Sarah snorted with contempt and held on to the pliers. A minute
or so after the Terrorists noisily walked away, an unsuccessful yank came on
the key.
"Shit! Fuck you!" The Terrorist kicked and pounded viciously on the door,
raging.
After a few minutes I got on my belly and pried up the rubber strip and
verified that the Terrorists were no longer waiting outside. Sarah opened
her door, pulled out the master key, and pocketed it. She smiled a lot, but
she was also shaking, and wanted no comfort from me. I was about to say she
could sleep on my Sofa for a few days. Sometimes, though, I can actually be
sensitive about these things. Sarah was obviously tired of needing my help.
I felt she needed my protection, but that was my problem. Suddenly feeling
that dealing with me might have been as difficult for her as dealing with the
Terrorists, I made the usual obligatory offers of further assistance, and
went home. Fortunately for what Sarah would call my macho side, I was on an
intramural football team. So were all of the Terrorists. We met three times.
I am big, they were average; they suffered; I had a good time and did not
feel so proud of myself afterward. The Terrorists did not even understand
that I didn't like them. Like a lot of whites, they didn't care much for
blacks unless they were athletic blacks, in which case we could do whatever we
wanted. To knock Terrorist heads for two hours, then have them pat me on the
butt in admiration, was frustrating. As for Sarah, she had no such outlets for
her feelings.
She lay on her bed for the rest of the afternoon, unable to think about
anything else, desperate for the company of Hyacinth, who was out of town for
the weekend. Ultra-raunch rock-'n'-roll pounded through from the room above.
The Terrorists figured out her number and she had to take her phone off the
hook. She ignored the Airheads knocking on her door. Finally, late in the
evening, when things had been quiet for a couple of hours, she slipped out to
take a shower-- a right-side-up, hot shower.
This was not very relaxing. She had to keep her eyes and ears open as much as
she could. As she rinsed her hair, though, a klunk sounded from the showerhead
and the water wavered, then turned bitterly cold. She yelped and swung the
hot-water handle around, to no effect, and then she couldn't stand it and had
to yank open the door and get out of there.
They were all waiting for her-- not the Terrorists, but the Airheads in their
bathrobes. One stood at every sink, smiling, hot water on full blast, and one
stood by every shower stall, smiling, steam pouring out of the door. With huge
smiles and squeals of joy, they actually grabbed her by the arms, shouting
Swirlie!, Swirlie!, took her to one of the toilets, stuck her head in, and
flushed.
She was standing there naked, toilet water running in thin cold ribbons down
her body, and they were in their bathrobes, smiling sympathetically and
applauding. Apologies came from all directions. Somehow she didn't scream, she
didn't hit anyone; she grabbed her bathrobe-- tearing her hand on the corner
of the shower door in her spastic fury-- wrapped it around herself and tied
it so tightly she could hardly breathe. Her pulse fluttered like a bird in
an iron box and tingles of hyperventilation ran down her arms and into her
fingertips.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?"
They mostly tittered nervously and tried to ignore the way she had flown off
the handle. They were leaving her a social escape route; she could still
smooth it over. But she was not interested. "Listen to me good, you dumb
dragon. Casimir's hands were knocked aside by the fabulously high pressure of
the escaping oxygen. Papers blizzarded and piano keys skittered across the
floor. Ignoring it, Bert Nix stuffed Kleenex into Sharon's ears, then into
his own. In a minute Sharon began to breathe easier. At the same time his
pipe-ashes burst into a small bonfire, ignited by the high oxygen levels.
Casimir was making ready to stomp it out when Virgil pushed him gently aside;
he had been wise enough to yank a fire extinguisher from the wall on their way
up. Once the fire was smothered, Virgil commenced what first aid was possible
on Sharon. Casimir returned to the Burrows and, finding an elevator, brought
up more oxygen and a regulator. Using a garbage bag they were able to rig a
crude oxygen tent.
The ambulance crew arrived in an hour. The technicians loaded Sharon up and
wheeled him away, Bert Nix advising them on Sharon's favorite foods.
I passed this procession on my way there-- Casimir had called to give me
the news. When I arrived in the doorway of Sharon's office, I beheld an
unforgettable scene: Virgil and Casimir knee-deep in wreckage; a desk littered
with the torn-open wrappers of medical supplies; Virgil holding up a sheaf of
charred, bloodstained, fire-extinguisher-caked forms; and Casimir laughing
loudly beneath the opened sky.
--October--
At the front of the auditorium, Professor Embers spoke. He never lectured;
he spoke. In the middle of the auditorium his audience of five hundred sat
back in their seats, staring up openmouthed into the image of the Professor
on the nearest color TV monitor. In the back of the auditorium, Sarah sat in
twilight, trying to balance the Student Government budget.
"So grammar is just the mode in which we image concepts," the professor was
saying. "Grammar is like the walls and bumpers of a pinball machine. Rhetoric
is like the flippers of a pinball machine. You control the flippers. The rest
of the machine-- grammar-- controls everything else. If you use the flippers
well, you make points. If you fail to image your concepts viably, your ball
drops into the black hole of nothingness. If you try to cheat, the machine
tilts and you lose-- that's like people not understanding your interactions.
That's why we have to learn Grammar here in Freshman. That, and because S. S.
Krupp says we have to."
There was a pause of several seconds, and then a hundred or so people laughed.
Sarah did not. Unlike the freshmen in the class, who thought Professor Embers
was a cool guy, Sarah thought he was a bore and a turkey. He continued to
speak, and she continued to balance.
This was the budget for this semester, and it was supposed to have been done
last semester. But last semester the records had been gulped by a mysterious
computer error, and now Sarah had to reconstruct them so that the government
could resume debate. She had some help from me in this, though I don't know
how much good it did. We had met early in the year, at a reception for
faculty-in-residence, arid later had a lunch or two together and talked about
American Megaversity. If nothing else, my suite was a quiet and pleasant
enough place where she could spread her papers out and work uninterrupted when
she needed to.
She could also work uninterrupted in her Freshman English class, because she
was a senior English major with a 3.7 average and didn't need to pay much
attention.
Her first inkling that something was wrong had been in midsummer, when the
megaversity's computer scheduling system had scheduled her for Freshman
English automatically, warning that she had failed to meet this requirement
during her first year. "Look," she had said to the relevant official when she
arrived in the fall, "I'm an English major. I know this stuff. Why are you
putting me in Freshman English?"
The General Curriculum Advisor consulted little codes printed by the computer,
and looked them up in a huge computer-printed book. "Ah," he said, "was one of
your parents a foreign national?" "My stepmother is from Wales."
"That explains it. You see." The official had swung around toward her
and assumed a frank, open body-language posture. "Statistical analysis
shows that children of one or more foreign nationals are often gifted with
Special Challenges." Sarah's spine arched back and she set her jaw. "You're
saying I can't speak English because my stepmother was Welsh?" "Special
Challenges are likely in your case. You were mistakenly exempted from Freshmen
English because of your high test scores. This exemption option has now been
retroactively waived for your convenience."
"I don't want it waived. It's not convenient."
"To ensure maintenance of high academic standards, the waiver is avolitional."
"Well, that's bullshit." This was not a very effective thing to say. Sarah
wished that Hyacinth could come talk for her; Hyacinth would not be polite,
Hyacinth would say completely outrageous things and they would scatter
in terror. "There's no way I can accept that." Drawn to the noise like
scavengers, two young clean-cut advisors looked in the door with open and
understanding smiles. Everyone smiled except for Sarah. But she knew she was
right this time-- she knew damn well what language was spoken in Wales these
days. They could smile stupidly until blue in the face. When the advisor
hinted that she was asking for special treatment because she was President,
she gave him a look that snapped his composure for a second, a small but
helpful triumph.
She had done it by the books, filing a petition requesting to be discharged
from Freshman English. But her petition was rejected because of a computer
error which made it appear that she had gotten 260 instead of 660 on her SATs.
By the time an extra score report from the testing company proved that she was
smart after all, it was too late to drop or add classes-- so, Freshman English
it was.
The end of the class approached at last, and Professor Embers handed back this
week's essays. The assignment was to select a magazine ad and write about how
it made you feel.
"I've been epiphanied by the quality of your essays this week," said Professor
Embers. "We hardly had to give out any C's this time around. I have them
alphabetized by your first names up here in sixteen stacks, one for each
section."
All five hundred students went down at once to get theirs. Sarah worked for
ten minutes. then gathered her things and headed for the front, dawdling on
purpose. Clustered around the stack of papers for her section she could see
five of the Stalinists-- for some reason they had all ended up in her section.
Since she never attended section meetings, this was no problem, but she did
not want to encounter them at times like this either. Standing there tall and
straight as a burned-out sapling in a field was Dexter Fresser, an important
figure in the Stalinist Underground Battalion. Most of all, she wanted to
avoid him. Sarah and Dex had gone to the same high school in Ohio, ridden
the same bus to school, slept in the same bed thirteen times and shared the
same LSD on three occasions. Since then, Dex had hardly ever not taken lots
of acid. Sarah had taken none. Now he was a weird rattle-minded radical who
nevertheless remembered her, and she avoided him scrupulously.
About halfway down the aisle she found a television monitor displaying an
image of Dex. She sank deeply into a seat and watched him and his comrades.
Dex was reading a paper desultorily and she knew it was hers. He flipped
aimlessly through it, as though searching for a particular word or phrase,
then shook his head helplessly and dropped it back on the stack. Finally the
last of them excavated his paper and they were collectively gone, leaving
behind several dozen essays no one had bothered to pick up.
Associate Professor Archibald Embers, Learning Facilitator of Freshman English
G Group, was regarding a young woman on his sofa and endeavoring to keep his
pipe lit. This required a lot of upside-down work with his butane lighter
and he thought the burn on his thumb might be second-degree. This particular
woman was definitely confrontational, though, and it was no time to show pain.
He held the pipe cautiously and reached out with the other hand to drape
his thumb casually over the rim of a potted plant, thrusting the roasted
region deeply into the cool humus. I am Antaeus, he thought, and yet I am
Prometheus, singed by my own flame. They were sitting in the conversation pit
he had installed so as to avoid talking to students across his desk like some
kind of authoritarian. Or was it totalitarian? He could never remember the
distinction.
This woman was clearly high voltage, Type A, low-alpha and left-hemisphere,
with very weird resonances. Seeing her through to the end of her crisis would
be painful. She had ripped off a lot of papers from the auditorium and had
brought them into his space to fine-tooth comb them. She had a problem with
her grade, a B.
"Now," she continued, whipping over another page, "let's look at page two of
this one, which is about an advertisement for Glans Essence Cologne. 'The
point of this is about these foxes. He has a bunch. On him. He a secret agent,
like Bond James Bond or something. Or some other person with lots of foxes.
Why he has foxes? Is Glans Essence Cologne. They hope you figuring that out,
will buy some of it. Which is what they are selling.' Now, next to that in the
margin you wrote, 'excellent analysis of the working of the ad.' Then at the
end you wrote, 'Your understanding of how the System brainwashes us is why I
gave you an A on this paper.' Now really, if you want to give him an A for
that it's up to you, but you can you then give me a B? Mine was three times as
long, I had an introduction, conclusion, an outline, no grammatical errors, no
misspelled words-- what do you expect?"
"This is a very good question," said Embers. He took a long draw on his pipe.
"What is a grade? That is the question." He chuckled, but she apparently
didn't get it. "Some teachers grade on curves. You have to be a math major to
understand your grade! But forget those fake excuses. A grade is actually a
form of poetry. It is a subjective reaction to a learner's work, distilled and
reduced down to its purest essence-- not a sonnet, not a haiku, but a single
letter. That's remarkable, isn't it?"
"Look, that's just groovy. But you have to grade in such a way that I'm shown
to be a better writer than he is. Otherwise it's unfair and unrealistic."
Embers recrossed his legs and spent a while sucking his pipe back into a
blaze. His learner picked up a paper and fanned smoke away from her face.
"Mind if I smoke?" he said.
"Your office," she said in a strangled voice.
Fine, if she didn't want to assert herself. He finally decided on the best
approach. "You aren't necessarily a better Writer. You called some of them
functional illiterates. Well those illiterates, as you called them, happen to
have very expressive prose voices. Remember that in each person's own dialect
he or she is perfectly literate. So in the sense of having escaped orthodoxy
to be truly creative, they are highly advanced wordsmiths, while you are
still struggling to break free of grammatical rules systems. They express
themselves to me and I react with little one-letter poems of my own-- the
essence of grading! Poetry! And being a poet I'm particularly well suited for
it. Your idea of tearing down these proto-artists because they aren't just
like you smacks of a kind of absolutism which is very disturbing in a temple
of academic freedom."
They sat there silent for a while.
"You really said that, didn't you?" she finally asked.
"I did."
"Huh. So we're just floating around without any standards at all."
"You could put it that way. You should interact with the department chairman
on this. Look, there is no absolute reality, right? We can't force everyone to
express themselves through the same absolute rules."
When the young woman left she seemed curiously drained and quiet. Indeed,
absorbing new world-views could be a sobering experience. Embers found a
blister on his thumb, and was inspired to write a haiku.
There came the sound of a massive ring of keys being slapped against the
outside of Casimir Radon's door. He looked up from the papers on his desk, and
in his lap Spike the illicit kitten followed suit, scrambling to red-alert
status and scything sixteen claws into his thigh. Before Casimir had opened
his mouth to say "Who is it" or Spike could spring forward to engage the foe,
the door was unlocked and thrown open. A short, heavy man with a disconcerting
resemblance to Leonid Brezhnev stepped into the room.
"Stermnator," he mumbled, rolling the r's on his tongue like Black Sea caviar.
Casimir covered Spike with his hand, hoping to prevent detection, and the
kitten grasped a finger between its forepaws and began to rasp with its
tongue.
Behind the man was a small wiry old guy with chloracne, who bore metal
canister with a pump on top and a tube leading to a nozzle in his hand. Before
Casimir could even grunt in response, this man had stepped crisply into the
room and begun to apply a heavy mist to the baseboards. The B-man glowered
darkly at Casimir, who sat in silence and watched as the exterminator walked
around the room, nozzle to wall, spraying everything near the baseboards,
including shoes, Spike's food and water dishes, a typewriter, two unmatched
socks, a book and a calculator charger. Both the strangers looked around the
inside of his nearly barren room with faint expressions of incomprehension or
disdain.
By the time Casimir got around to saying, "That's okay, I haven't seen
any bugs in here since I moved in," the sprayer was bearing down on him
inexorably. Casimir pushed the kitten up against his stomach, grasped the
hem of his extra-long seven-year-old Wall Drug T-shirt, and pulled it up to
form a little sling for the struggling creature, crossing his arms over the
resulting bulge in an effort to hold and conceal. At the same time he stood
and scampered out of the path of the exterminator, who bumped into him and
knocked him off balance onto the bed, arms still crossed. He bounced back up,
weaved past the exterminator, and stood with his back to the door, staring
nonchalantly out the window at the view of E Tower outside. Behind him, the
exterminator paused near the exit to soak the straps of an empty duffel bag.
As Casimir watched the reflection of the two men closing the door he was
conscious of a revolting chemical odor. Immediately he whirled and tossed
Spike onto the bed, then took his food and water dishes out to wash them in
the bathroom.
Casimir had seen his first illicit kitten on the floor above his, when he had
forgotten to push his elevator button. He got off on the floor above to take
the stairs down one flight, and saw some students playing with the animal in
the hallway. After some careful inquiries he made contact with a kitten pusher
over the phone. Two weeks later Casimir, his directions memorized, went to the
Library at 4:15 in the morning. He proceeded to the third floor and pulled
down the January-- March 1954 volume of the Soviet Asphalt Journal and placed
two twenty-dollar bills inside the cover. He then went to the serials desk,
where he was waited on by a small, dapper librarian in his forties.
"I would like to report," he said, opening the volume, "that pages 1738
through 1752 of this volume have been razored out, and they are exactly the
pages I need."
"I see," the man said sympathetically.
"And while I'm here, I have some microfilms to pick up, which I got on
interlibrary loan."
"An, yes, I know the ones you're talking about. Just a moment, please." The
librarian disappeared into a back office and emerged a minute later with a
large box filled with microfilm reel boxes. Casimir picked it up, finding it
curiously light, smiled at the librarian and departed. A pass had already been
made out for him, and the exit guard waved him through. Back in his room, he
pulled out the top layer of microfilm boxes to find, curled up on a towel, a
kitten recovering from a mild tranquilizer.
Since then Spike had been neither mild nor tranquil, but that at least
provided Casimir with some of the unpredictability that Plex life so badly
lacked. He almost didn't mind having a kitten run around the obstacle course
of his room at high speed for hours at a time in the middle of the night,
because it gave his senses something not utterly flat to perceive. Even though
Spike tried to sleep on his face, and hid all small important articles in odd
places, Casimir was charmed.
He pulled on his glacier glasses in a practiced motion and stepped out
into the hail. Casimir's wing was only two floors away from allies of the
Wild and Crazy Guys, best partiers in the Plex, and two Saturdays ago they
had come down with their spray paint and painted giant red, white and
blue twelve-spoked wheels between each pair of doors. These were crude
representations of the Big Wheel, a huge neon sign outside the Plex, which the
Wild and Crazy Guys pretended to worship as a joke and initiation ritual. This
year they had become aggressive graffitists, painting Big Wheels almost every
in the Plex. Casimir, used to it, walked down this gallery of giant wheels to
the bathroom, Spike's dishes in hand.
The bathrooms in the wings looked on the inside like microwave ovens or
autoclaves, with glossy green tile on the walls, brilliant lighting, overwaxed
floors and so much steam that entering one was like entering a hallucination.
At one end of the bathroom, three men and their girlfriends were taking
showers, drinking, shouting a lot and generally being Wild and Crazy. They
were less than coherent, but most of what Casimir could make out dealt with
Anglo-Saxon anatomical terms and variations on "what do you think of this"
followed by prolonged yelling from the partner. Casimir was tempted to stay
and listen, but reasoned that since he was still a virgin anyway there was no
point in trying to learn anything advanced, especially by eavesdropping. He
went down the line of closely spaced sinks until he found one that had not
been stuffed with toilet paper or backed up with drain crud.
As he was washing Spike's dishes, a guy came in the door with a towel
around his waist. He looked conventional, though somewhat blocky, athletic
and hairless. He came up and stood very close to Casimir, staring at him
wordlessly for a long time as though nearsighted; Casimir ignored him, but
glanced at him from time to time in the mirror, looking between two spokes of
a Big Wheel that had been drawn on it with shaving cream.
After a while, he tugged on Casimir's sleeve. "Hey," he mumbled, "can I borrow
your"
Casimir said nothing.
"Huh?" said the strange guy.
"I don't know," said Casimir. "Depends on what you want. Probably not."
A grin gradually sprouted on the man's face and he turned around as though
smirking with imaginary friends behind him. "Oh, Jeez," he said, and turned
away. "I hate fuckers like you!" he yelled, and ran to the lockers across
from the sinks, running a few steps up the wall before sprawling back down on
the floor again. Casimir watched him in the mirror as he went from locker to
locker, finally finding an unlocked one. The strange guy pawed through it and
selected a can of shaving cream. "Hey," he said, and looked at the back of
Casimir's head. "Hey, Wall."
Casimir looked at him in the mirror. "What is it?"
The strange guy did not understand that Casimir was looking right at him. "Hey
fucker! Cocksucker! Mr. Drug! You!" Rhythmic female shrieking began to emanate
from a shower stall. "What is it," Casimir yelled back, refusing to turn. The
strange guy approached him and Casimir turned half around defensively. He
stood very close to Casimir. "Your hearing isn't very good," he shouted, "you
should take off your glasses." "Do you want something? If so, you should just
tell me." "Do you think he'd mind if I used this?"
"Who?"
The strange guy smirked arid shook his head. "Do you know anything about
terriers?"
"No."
"Ah, well." The strange guy put the shaving cream on the shelf in front of
Casimir, muttered something incomprehensible, laughed, and walked out of the
bathroom.
Casimir dried the food bowl under an automatic hand dryer by the door. As he
was on his third push of the button, a couple from one of the showers walked
nude into the room, getting ten feet from cover before they saw Casimir.
The woman screamed, clapping her hands over her face. "Oh Jeez, Kevin, there's
a guy in here!" Kevin was too mellowed by sex and beer to do anything but
smile wanly. Casimir walked out without saying anything, breathed deeply of
the cool, dry air of the hallway, and returned to his room, where he filled
Spike's water bowl with spring water from a bottle.
As soon as Casimir had heard about Neutrino, the official organization of
physics majors, he had crashed a meeting and got himself elected President and
Treasurer. Casimir was like that, meek most of the time with occasional bursts
of effectiveness. He walked into the meeting, which so far consisted of six
people, and said, "Who's the president?"
The others, being physics majors and therefore accustomed to odd behavior of
all sorts, had answered. "He graduated," said one. "No, when he graduated, he
stopped being our president. When the guy who was our president graduated, we
instantaneously ceased to have one," another countered.
"I agree," a third added, "but the proper term is 'was graduated.'"
"That's pedantic."
"That's correct. Where's the dictionary?"
"Who cares? Why do you want to know?" the first asked. As the other two
consulted a dictionary, a fourth member held a calculator in his hand, gnawing
absently on the charger cord, and the other two members argued loudly about an
invisible diagram they were drawing with their fingers on a blank wall.
"I want to be president of this thing," Casimir said. "Any objections?"
"Oh, that's okay. We thought you were from the administration or something."
Casimir's motivation for all this was that after the Sharon incident, it was
impossible for him to escape from his useless courses. The grimness of what
had happened, and the hopelessness of his situation, had left him quiet and
listless for a couple of weeks to the point where I was beginning to feel
alarmed. One night, then, from two to four in the morning, Casimir's neighbor
had watched Rocky on cable and the sleeping Casimir had subconsciously
listened in on the soundtrack. He awoke in the morning with a sense of
mission, of destiny, a desire to go out and beat the fuckers at their own
game. Neutrino provided a suitable power base, and since his classes only
consumed about six hours a week he had all the time in the world.
Previous to Casimir's administration most of the money allotted to Neutrino
had been dispersed among petty activities such as dinners, trips to nuclear
reactors, insipid educational gadgets and the like. Casimir's plan was to
spend all the money on a single project that would exercise the minds of the
members and, in the end, produce something useful. Once he had convinced the
pliable membership of Neutrino that this was a good idea, his suggestion for
the actual project was not long in coming: construction of a mass driver.
The mass driver was a magnetic device for throwing things. It consisted of a
long straight rail, a "bucket" that slid along the rail on a magnetic cushion
and powerful electromagnets that kicked the bucket down the rail When the
bucket slammed to a halt at the rail's end, whatever was in it kept on going--
theoretically, very, very fast. Recently this simple machine had become a pet
project of Professor Sharon, who had advocated it as a lunar mining tool.
Casimir argued that the idea was important and interesting in and of itself,
and that Sharon's connection to it lent it sentimental value. As a tribute
to Sharon, a fun project and a toy that would be a blast to play with when
finished, the mass driver was irresistible to Neutrino. Which was just as
well, because nothing was going to stop Casimir from building this son of a
bitch.
Casimir had been drawing up a budget for it on this particular evening,
because budget time for the Student Government was coming up soon. Not long
after the exterminator's visit, Casimir got stuck. Many of the supplies he
needed were standard components that were easy for him to get, but certain
items, such as custom-wound electromagnets, were hard to budget for. This was
the sort of fabrication that had to be done at the Science Shop, and that
meant dealing with Virgil Gabrielsen. After nailing down as much as he could,
Casimir gathered his things and set out on the half-hour elevator ride to the
bottom of the Burrows.
In the interests of efficiency, security, ease of design and healthy interplay
among the departments, the designers of the Campustructure had put all the
science departments together in a single bloc. It was known as the Burrows
because it was mostly below street level, and because of the allegedly
Morlockian qualities of its inhabitants. At the top of the Burrows were the
departmental libraries and conference rooms. Below were professors' offices
and departmental headquarters, followed by classrooms, labs, stockrooms and at
the very bottom, forty feet below ground level, the enormous CC-- Computing
Center-- and the Science Shop. Any researcher wanting glass blown, metal
shaped, equipment fixed, circuits designed or machines assembled, had to come
down and beg for succor at the feet of the stony-hearted Science Shop staff.
This meant trying to track down Lute, the hyperactive Norwegian technician,
rumored to have the power of teleportation, who held smart people in disdain
because of their helplessness in practical matters, or Zap, the electronics
specialist, a motorcycle gang sergeant-at-arms who spent his working hours
boring out engine blocks for his brothers and threatening professors with
bizarre and deadly tortures. Zap was the cheapest technician the Science Shop
steering committee had been able to find, Lute had been retained at high
salary after dire threats from all faculty members and Virgil, to the immense
relief of all, had been hired three years earlier as a part-time student
helper and had turned the place around.
Science Shop was at the end of a dark unmarked hallway that smelled of machine
oil and neoprene, half blocked by junked and broken equipment. When Casimir
arrived he relaxed instantly in the softly lit, wildly varied squalor of the
place, and soon found Virgil sipping an ale and twiddling painstakingly with
wires and pulleys on an automatic plotter.
They went into his small office and Virgil provided himself and Casimir with
more ale. "What's the latest on Sharon?" he asked. "The same. No word,"
Casimir said, pushing the toes of his tennis shoes around in the sawdust and
metal filings on the floor. Not quite in a coma, definitely not all there.
Whatever he lost from oxygen starvation isn't coming back."
"And they haven't caught anyone."
"Well, E14 is the Performing Arts Floor. They used to have a room with a piano
in It. The E13S people didn't like it because the Performing Artists were
always tap dancing."
"We know how sensitive those poor boys are to noise." "A couple of days
before the piano crash, the piano was stolen from E14. Two of the tap-dancers
had their doors ignited the same night. A couple of days later, E13S had a
burning-furniture-throwing contest, and it just happens that at the same time
a piano crashed through Sharon's ceiling. Circumstantial evidence only."
Virgil clasped his hands over his flat belly and looked at the ceiling.
"Though a pattern of socio-heterodox behaviors has been exhibited by
individuals associated with E13S, we find it preferable to keep them within
the system and counsel them constructively rather than turn them over to
damaging outside legal interference which would hinder resocialization. The
Megaversity is a free community of individuals seeking to grow together
toward a more harmonious and enlightened future, and introduction of external
coercion merely stifles academic freedom and-- "
"How did you know that?" asked Casimir, amazed. "That's word for word what
they said the other day."
Virgil shrugged. "Official policy statement. They used it two years ago, in
the barbell incident. E13 dropped a two-hundred-pound barbell through the
roof of the Cafeteria's main kitchen area. It crashed into a pressure vat and
caused a tuna-nacho casserole explosion that wounded fifteen. And the pressure
is so high in those vats, you know, that Dr. Forksplit, the Dean of Dining
Services, who was standing nearby, had a nacho tortilla chip shard driven all
the way through his skull. He recovered, but they've called him Wombat ever
since. The people who handle this in the Administration don't understand how
deranged these students are. Now, Kruno and his people would like to pour
molten lead down their throats, but they can't do anything about it-- the
decisions are made by a committee of tenured faculty."
Casimir resisted an impulse to scream, got up and paced around talking through
clenched teeth. "This shit really, really pisses me off. It's incredible, Law
doesn't exist here, you can do what you please." "Well," said Virgil, still
blasи, "I disagree. There's always law. Law is just the opinion of the guy
with the biggest gun. Since outside law rarely matters in the Plex, we make
our own law, using whatever power-- whatever guns-- we have. We've been very
successful in the Science Shop."
"Oh, yeah? I suppose this was something to do with what you said the other
day about some unofficial work here for me." "That's a perfect example. The
researchers of American Megaversity need your services. It's illegal, but the
scientific faculty have more power than the rule-enforcers, so we make our own
law regarding technical work. You keep track of what you do, and I pay you
through the vitality fund.
"The what?"
"The fund made up of donations from various professors and firms who have a
vested interest in keeping the Science Shop running smoothly. Hell, it's all
just grant money. In the egalitarian system we had before, nobody got anything
done."
"Look." Casimir shook his head and sat back down. "I don't want even to
hear all this. You know, all I've ever wanted to be is a normal student.
They won't let me take decent classes, okay, so I work on the mass driver.
Now I come here to get your help and you start talking about local law
and free enterprise. I just want some estimates from you on getting these
electromagnets wound for the mass driver. Okay? Forget free enterprise."
Casimir dropped a page of diagrams and specifications on Virgil's desk.
Virgil looked it over. "Well, it depends," he finally said. "If we pretend
you're just a normal student, then I will charge you, oh, about ten thousand
dollars for this stuff and have it done by the time you graduate. Now,
unofficially, I could log it in as something much simpler and charge you less.
But you can't put that into a formal budget proposal. Very unofficially, I
might do it for a small bribe, like some help from you around the Shop. But
that's really abnormal to put in a budget. Looks like you're stuck."
"It wouldn't really take you three years."
"It would take me." Virgil waved at the door. "Zap could do it in a week.
Want to ask him? He's not hard to wake up." Casimir brooded momentarily.
"Well, look. I don't really care how it gets done. But it's necessary to have
something on paper, you know?"
Virgil shook his head, smiling. "Casimir. You don't think anyone pays any
attention to those budgets, do you?"
"Aw, shit. This is too weird for me."
"It's not weird, you're just not used to it yet. Here is what we'll do. We
work out a friendly gentlemen's agreement by which I make the magnets for you,
probably over Christmas vacation, in exchange for a little of your expert help
around the Science Shop. When I'm done with the magnets I put them in an old
box and mark it, say, 'SPARE PARTS, 1932 AUTOMATIC BOMBSIGHT PROTOTYPE.' I
dump it in the storeroom. When budget time comes around you say, 'Oh, gee, it
happens I've designed this thing to use existing parts, I know just where they
are.' Ridiculous, but no one knows that, and those who understand won't want
to meddle in any arrangement of mine."
"Okay!" Casimir threw up his hands. "Okay. Fine. Ill do it. Just tell me what
to do and don't let me see any of this illegal stuff." "It's not illegal, I
said it was legal. Hang on a sec while I Xerox these pages."
Virgil opened the door and was met by a clamor of voices from several advanced
academic figures. Casimir looked around the room: a firetrap stuffed with
books and papers and every imaginable variety of electronic junk. A Geiger
counter hung out the window into a deep air shaft, clicking every second or
two. In one corner a 1940's radio was hooked up to a technical power supply
and wired into the guts of a torn-open telephone so that Virgil could make
hands-off phone calls. An old backless TV in another corner enabled Virgil to
monitor the shop outside. Electronic parts, hunks of wire, junk-food wrappers
and scraps of paper littered the floor. And in three separate places sat those
little plastic trays Casimir saw everywhere, overflowing with tiny seeds-- rat
poison.
"Damn!" spat Casimir as Virgil reentered. "There's enough of that poison in
this room alone to kill every rat in this city. What's their problem with that
stuff anyway?"
Virgil snorted. Everyone knew the rat poison was ubiquitous; the wastebaskets
might go a month without emptying, but when it came to rat poison the B-men
were fearsomely diligent, seeming to pass through walls and locked doors like
Shaolin priests to scatter the poison-saturated kernels. "It's cultural,"
he explained. "They hate rats. You should read some Scythian mythology. In
Crotobaltislavonia it's a capital crime to harbor them. That's why they had a
revolution! The old regime stopped handing out free rat poison."
"I'm serious," said Casimir. "I've got an illegal kitten in my room, and If
they keep breaking in to spread poison, they'll find it or let it out or
poison it."
"Or eat it. Seriously, you should have mentioned it, Casimir. Let me help you
out."
Casimir rested his face in his hand. "I suppose you also have an arrangement
with the B-men."
"No, no, much too complicated. I do almost all my work at the computer
terminal, Casimir. You can accomplish anything there. See, a few years ago a
student had a boa constrictor in his room that got poisoned by the B-men, and
even though it was illegal he sued the university for damages and won. There
are still a lot of residents with pets whom the administration doesn't want
to antagonize, because of connections or whatever. Some students are even
allergic to the poison. So, they keep a list of rooms which are not to be
given any poison. All I have to do is put your room on it."
Casimir was staring intently at Virgil. "Wait a minute. How did you get that
kind of access? Aren't there locks? Access checks?" "There are some annoyances
involved."
"I suppose with photographic memory you could do a lot on the computer."
"Helps to have the Operator memorized too."
"Oh, fuck! No!"
Casimir, I am sure, was just as surprised as I had been. The Operator was
an immense computer program consisting entirely of numbers-- machine code.
Without it, the machine was a useless lump. With the Operator installed, it
was a tool of nearly infinite power and flexibility. It was to the computer as
memory, instinct and intelligence are to the human brain.
Virgil handed Casimir a canister of paper computer tape. The label read, "1843
SURINAM CENSUS DATA VOLUME 5. FIREWOOD USAGE ESTIMATES AND PROJECTIONS."
"Ignore that," said Virgil. "It's a program in machine code. It'll put your
room on the no-poison list, and your cat will be safe, unless the B-men forget
or decide to ignore the rule, which is a possibility." Casimir barely looked
at the tape and stared distantly at Virgil. "What have you been doing with
this knowledge?" he whispered. "You could get back at E13S."
Virgil smiled. "Tempting. But when you can do what I can, you don't go for
petty revenge. All I do, really, is fight the Worm, which is really my only
passion these days. It's why I stay around instead of getting a decent job.
It's a sabotage program. It's probably the greatest intellectual achievement
of the nineteen-eighties, and it's the only thing I've ever found that is so
indescribably difficult and complex and beautiful that I haven't gotten bored
with it."
"Why would anyone do such a thing? It must be costing the Megaversity
millions."
"I don't know," said Virgil, "but it's great to have a challenge."
Sarah and I were in her room with my toolbox. Outside, the Terrorists were
trying to get in. I sat on her bed, as she had commanded, silent and neutral.
"When did they start calling themselves the Terrorists," she asked during a
lull.
"Who knows? Maybe Wild and Crazy Guys was too old-fashioned."
"Maybe the hijacking of that NATO tank yesterday gave them the idea. That got
lots of coverage. Shit, here they are again." Cheerfully screaming, another
Airhead was dragged down the hail to be given her upside-down cold shower. The
original Terrorist plan had been to drag the Airheads to the bathroom by their
hair, as in olden times, but after a few tries they were convinced that this
really was painful, so now they were holding on to the feet.
"Terrorists, Terrorists, we're a mean, sonofabitch," came a hoarse chant
as a new group gathered in front of Sarah's door. "Come on, Sarah," their
leader shouted in a heavy New York accent. He was trying to sound fatherly
and patient, but instead sounded anxious and not very bright. "It'll be a lot
better for you if you just come out now. We're tickling Mitzi right now and
she's going to tell us where the master key is, and once we get that we'll
come in and you'll get ad-dition-al pun-ish-ment."
"God," Sarah whispered to me, "these dorks think I'm just playing hard-to-get.
Hope they enjoy it."
"Give the word and I'll shoo them off," I said again.
"Wouldn't help. I have to deal with this myself. Don't be so macho."
"Sorry. Sometimes it works to be macho, you know."
Their previous effort to flash her out of her room had failed. "Flashing" was
the technique of squirting lighter fluid Under a door and throwing in a match.
It wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, but it invariably smoked the victim out.
Powdering was a milder form of this: an envelope was filled with powder, its
mouth slid under the door, and the envelope stomped on, exploding a cloud of
powder into the room. Three days earlier this had been done to Sarah by some
Air-heads. A regular vacuum cleaner just blew the powder out again, so we
brought my wet-dry vacuum up and filled it with water and had better results,
though she and her room still smelled like babies. She had purchased a heavy
rubber weatherstrip from the Mall's hardware store and we had just finished
installing it when the flashing attempt had taken place. From listening to the
Terrorists on the other side of the door, I had now become as primitive as
they had-- it was no longer a negotiable situation-- and was itching to knock
heads.
"Why don't you stop bothering me?" she yelled, trying too hard to sound strong
and steady. "I really don't want to play this game with you. You got what you
wanted from the others, so why don't you leave? You have no right to bother
me."
At this, they roared. "Listen, bitch, this is our sister floor, we decide what
our rights are! No one escapes from the rule of the Terrorists, Terrorists,
we're a mean, sonofabitch! We'll get in sooner or later-- face up to it!"
Another one played the nice guy. "Listen, Sarah-- hey, is that her name?
Right. Uh, listen, Sarah. We can make life pretty hard on you. We're just
trying to initiate you into our sister floor-- it's a new tradition. Remember,
if you don't lock your door, we can come in; and if you do lock it, we can
penny you in."
The Airheads had once pennied Sarah in. The doors opened inward and locked
with deadbolts. If the deadbolt was locked and the door pushed inward with
great force, the friction between the bolt and its rectangular hole in the
jamb became so great that it was impossible for the occupant to withdraw the
bolt to unlock the door. One could not push inward on the door all the time,
of course, but it was possible to wedge pennies between the front of the door
and the projecting member of the jamb so tightly that the occupant was sealed
in helplessly. Since this maneuver only worked when the owner of the room was
inside with the door locked, it was used discourage people from the unfriendly
habit of locking their doors. Sarah was pennied in just before a Student
Government meeting, and she had to call me so that I could run upstairs and
throw myself against the door until the pennies fell out.
"Look," said Sarah, also taking a reasonable tack, "When are you going to
accept that I'm not coming out? I don't want to play, I just want peace and
quiet." She knew her voice was wavering now, and she threw me an exasperated
look.
"Sarah," said the righteously perturbed Terrorist, "you're being very childish
about this. You know we don't want that much. It doesn't hurt. You just have
one more chance to be reasonable, and then it's ad-dition-al pun-ish-ment."
"Swirlie! Swirlie! Swirlie!" chanted the Terrorists. "Fuck yourselves!" she
yelled. Realizing what was about to happen, she yanked my pliers out of my
toolbox and clamped their serrated jaws down on the lock handle just as
Mitzi's master key was slid into the keyhole outside.
She held it firm. The Terrorists found the lock frozen. The key-turner called
for help, but only one hand can grip a key at a time. The handle did rotate a
few degrees in the tussle, and the Terrorists then found they could not pull
the key from the lock. Sarah continued to hold it at a slight twist as the
Terrorists mumbled outside.
"Listen, Sarah, you got a good point. We'll just leave you alone from now on."
"Yeah," said the others, "Sorry, Sarah."
Looking at me, Sarah snorted with contempt and held on to the pliers. A minute
or so after the Terrorists noisily walked away, an unsuccessful yank came on
the key.
"Shit! Fuck you!" The Terrorist kicked and pounded viciously on the door,
raging.
After a few minutes I got on my belly and pried up the rubber strip and
verified that the Terrorists were no longer waiting outside. Sarah opened
her door, pulled out the master key, and pocketed it. She smiled a lot, but
she was also shaking, and wanted no comfort from me. I was about to say she
could sleep on my Sofa for a few days. Sometimes, though, I can actually be
sensitive about these things. Sarah was obviously tired of needing my help.
I felt she needed my protection, but that was my problem. Suddenly feeling
that dealing with me might have been as difficult for her as dealing with the
Terrorists, I made the usual obligatory offers of further assistance, and
went home. Fortunately for what Sarah would call my macho side, I was on an
intramural football team. So were all of the Terrorists. We met three times.
I am big, they were average; they suffered; I had a good time and did not
feel so proud of myself afterward. The Terrorists did not even understand
that I didn't like them. Like a lot of whites, they didn't care much for
blacks unless they were athletic blacks, in which case we could do whatever we
wanted. To knock Terrorist heads for two hours, then have them pat me on the
butt in admiration, was frustrating. As for Sarah, she had no such outlets for
her feelings.
She lay on her bed for the rest of the afternoon, unable to think about
anything else, desperate for the company of Hyacinth, who was out of town for
the weekend. Ultra-raunch rock-'n'-roll pounded through from the room above.
The Terrorists figured out her number and she had to take her phone off the
hook. She ignored the Airheads knocking on her door. Finally, late in the
evening, when things had been quiet for a couple of hours, she slipped out to
take a shower-- a right-side-up, hot shower.
This was not very relaxing. She had to keep her eyes and ears open as much as
she could. As she rinsed her hair, though, a klunk sounded from the showerhead
and the water wavered, then turned bitterly cold. She yelped and swung the
hot-water handle around, to no effect, and then she couldn't stand it and had
to yank open the door and get out of there.
They were all waiting for her-- not the Terrorists, but the Airheads in their
bathrobes. One stood at every sink, smiling, hot water on full blast, and one
stood by every shower stall, smiling, steam pouring out of the door. With huge
smiles and squeals of joy, they actually grabbed her by the arms, shouting
Swirlie!, Swirlie!, took her to one of the toilets, stuck her head in, and
flushed.
She was standing there naked, toilet water running in thin cold ribbons down
her body, and they were in their bathrobes, smiling sympathetically and
applauding. Apologies came from all directions. Somehow she didn't scream, she
didn't hit anyone; she grabbed her bathrobe-- tearing her hand on the corner
of the shower door in her spastic fury-- wrapped it around herself and tied
it so tightly she could hardly breathe. Her pulse fluttered like a bird in
an iron box and tingles of hyperventilation ran down her arms and into her
fingertips.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?"
They mostly tittered nervously and tried to ignore the way she had flown off
the handle. They were leaving her a social escape route; she could still
smooth it over. But she was not interested. "Listen to me good, you dumb