Giles Goat Boy (51 page)

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Authors: John Barth

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary

BOOK: Giles Goat Boy
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“That’s a terrible thing to do!” I cried aloud. “How could anybody do a thing like that?” Until people shushed and chuckled all around me, I was as indignant as I’d been at Troll’s misconduct years before. Apparently, however, Agenora herself had not approved of this cruel expedient, for she wiped the hollow eyes of her mask with the hem of her robe and said:

AGENORA:
The thought of it still makes me want to throw up. Labdakides was sure the kid would grow up and do him in; for my part, I was willing to take a chance on that instead of killing our only son. My husband had his way, but things weren’t right between us from that day until the day I heard that he’d died. Now listen, and you’ll see the proph-prof lied: Our poor boy never had a chance to clobber Labdakides; it was some highway robber—a gang, I mean—that knocked him off near Isthmus while he was out weekending with his mistress. That intersection called the Three-Tined Fork is where they ambushed him and pulled his cork, and slit his little girlfriend’s throat from ear to ear
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
His girlfriend?
AGENORA:
What, are you still here? Yes, I mean that brazen little slut, his secretary. Was I glad they cut
her
up!
TALIPED:
Excuse me, dear, but were there two or four roads at that intersection you just mentioned?
AGENORA:
Are you deaf or something, baby?
Three-Tined Fork
is what I said
.
TALIPED:
[Aside]
 
Then maybe old Gynander’s not entirely blind! Good grief!
AGENORA:
What is it, doll? What’s on your mind?
TALIPED:
Tell me again: it was a robber gang?
AGENORA:
That’s what the valet said who came and flang himself before me. Four or five, he swore, attacked my husband and that little whore. They were so busy murdering and raping, they didn’t notice that he was escaping. He said it was a gang, and begged a transfer to the sheep-barns
.
TALIPED:
I must hear that answer from the man himself. I wish you’d ask your maid to fetch him
.
AGENORA:
I put him out to pasture years ago; but he can always leave
.
TALIPED:
Send for him, then. My dear, you won’t believe what I’m about to tell you …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
[Aside]
 
Here we go: another monster-story
.
TALIPED:
Sure, I know I
look
as perfect as you think I am: handsome, brave, and smart—
AGENORA:
Sexy,
lamb
,
not smart
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
[Aside]
    
Not modest, either
.
TALIPED:
I’m so swell
,
you probably won’t believe me when I tell you that I once did something
bad …
AGENORA:
I’ll try
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Me too
.
TALIPED:
Are you still here?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Where else?
TALIPED:
Then I will tell you both of the one indiscretion in an otherwise faultless life. This whole confession is off the record, naturally
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Oh, sure
.
TALIPED:
I know you’ve often asked yourselves before: “Where did our clever, handsome dean come from?”
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
I stay awake nights wondering that
TALIPED:
“How come he came here?” you have doubtless asked each other. “Who was his daddy, and who was his mother?” Well, it’s this way: Once upon a time—
AGENORA:
Spare us the details, hon
.
TALIPED:
All right. I’m from Isthmus College, where the dean’s my dad. I was his fair-haired boy—you see I had it made there. I would be their dean today, except I heard a drunk old poet say at someone’s cocktail party that I wasn’t my dad’s son at all! Now, such talk doesn’t bother me, as a rule; bad-tempered fellows call you a bastard just because they’re jealous. This poet, though, had no ax to grind, and so I called our proph-prof in to find out what he’d say about it
. (
Dad refused even to discuss it; I was used to silence from him and from Mom—his wife—whenever I brought up the Facts of Life. I had to learn the truth myself
.)
AGENORA:
I see
.
[
TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
]
That’s why he was so green when he met me. I taught him what a young man needs to know
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
You taught us all, madam, even though we weren’t young and didn’t need a tutor
.
AGENORA:
You needed blood transfusions
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Or someone cuter, who wouldn’t’ve had to pull her husband’s rank to get us into bed
.
AGENORA:
Screw you
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
No thank you
.
TALIPED:
Stop mumbling, please, and listen
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
If we must
.
TALIPED:
As I was saying …
AGENORA:
[
TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
]
 
I’ll fix you, buddy; just you wait
.
TALIPED:
Some things the proph-prof said weren’t clear—
you know how those chaps talk—he didn’t hear my question, or chose not to answer it. Instead, he told me something that, well, hit me like a load of bricks. You’ll never guess …
AGENORA:
He didn’t say you’d kill your father?
TALIPED:
Yes
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
And swive your mother in the prone position?
TALIPED:
That’s right! How did you guess?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Just intuition. I swear, those proph-profs have a one-track mind
.
AGENORA:
A dirty track at that
.
TALIPED:
I’m inclined to think so too
.
AGENORA:
What happened next?
TALIPED:
I quit my assistant-deanship. Daddy had a fit
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Naturally
.
TALIPED:
I left the College on sabbatical, hoping I’d avoid what that fanatical proph-prof laid on me. I’m still on leave, and never shall return
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
It makes me heave—
TALIPED:
A sigh, to think I left them in the lurch?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
—my lunch, to think of all the great research I could’ve managed on a nine-year furlough
.
TALIPED:
I would have done some, too, except there were no libraries where I traveled
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
I’ll bet not
.
TALIPED:
In any case, one day I reached that spot they call the Three-Tined Fork and tried to hitch a ride to Cadmus with some sonofabitch who passed by with his lackeys and who turned up
his old nose at me. Boy, was I burned up! He wasn’t headed for Cadmus, so he shouted; he told some drunken tale
—
no doubt about it, he was plastered—of a beast someplace behind them, with a pretty woman’s face and a lion’s body. Naturally I thought the guy was putting me on, and when I caught a glimpse of what was sitting on his knees, I knew the old man was afraid I’d please her more than he could. “You’re a liar,” I said. He had the gall to punch me in the head just because I called him that and pinched his girl’s backside. Well, of course that clinched it. First I cut the old man’s throat and dumped him out, to teach him manners. Then I humped his girlfriend as he bled to death, for sport. My policy, in cases of this sort, is first to stab ’em in the belly-button and then cut other things. She was a glutton for punishment, this kid—all kinds of stamina. I spent so much time butchering and banging her, the others almost got away. I found three, as I recall, hiding around and underneath the wagon, and of course dismembered them
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
I’m ill
.
TALIPED:
I felt remorse
afterwards
.
AGENORA:
Nonsense: you did your duty. The wretch insulted you. As for his cutie-pie, she got what she deserved
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
I’m iller
.
TALIPED:
Sure she did, but shucks, I’m not the killer type; I’m gentle as a lamb
.
AGENORA:
And twice as sexy, big boy
.
TALIPED:
Killing isn’t nice, even when it’s justified, and I would not have stabbed those fellows in the eye or carved initials in the girl’s behind unless I’d lost my temper
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
[Aside]
 
Or his mind.
And I thought
I
was sick! He’s got some sort of complex!
TALIPED:
Well, to make a long tale short, the Three-Tined Fork is where I blew my gasket. Perhaps I’m just a worry-wart—
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
[Aside]
 
A basket-case is what he is
.
TALIPED:
—but I must hear this shepherd-fellow tell me not to fear that it was old Labdakides I killed
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
How could you dream it was? The roads are filled with old Cadmusian topers and their staffs and pretty girlfriends. They ride out for laughs to Three-Tined Fork and tell hitch-hikers there a monster-story, just to throw a scare into them. We lose a lot of folks that way to angry strangers
.
TALIPED:
Your bad jokes will cost you dearly one day. That old fault in me of getting angry and assaulting those who cross me—it’s my tragic flaw, you might say—well, I have it still. You saw me threaten old Gynander. A word to the wise …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
… is quite enough, sir. I apologize
.
AGENORA:
[
TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
]
To me, too, if you know which side your bread is buttered on. A man no good in bed should be polite, at least
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Forgive me, Deaness
.
AGENORA:
You’re cute when you’re contrite
.
TALIPED:
I have the keenest interest in this shepherd’s testimony …
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
[Aside]
Here we go again. I hate this phony Go-to-any-length-for-Answers bit
.
TALIPED:
Perhaps he was embarrassed to admit that he ran off instead of fighting too
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Or that one man did in the Dean’s whole crew
.
TALIPED:
How nice of you to mention that!
AGENORA:
Now look: You were alone at Three-Tined Fork. That
shnook,
the shepherd, said it was a gang that cut the Dean up. We all heard him say it. But so what if he says something different now? I told you once already, sweetie, how Labdakides turned off our poor kid early and beat the prophecy. So put your curly head to rest on that point, baby. We’ll ring the shepherd in to give his spiel, but nothing he can say will change the facts. Proph-profs are for morons. So relax
.
TALIPED:
Gee whiz, I hope you’re right
.
AGENORA:
I always am, sweetheart
.
[
TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
]
 
Run along now, sport
.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Yes, ma’am
.
AGENORA:
[
TO TALIPED
]
My little boy will have his little way
.
Let’s go in, till the shepherd comes, and play
.

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