Russell Banks - Outer Banks

It should be noted that everywhere he goes, the Subject inadvertently reveals flaws, oversights, and malfunctions in the various systems. It is not clear whether this is intentional. If not, he might be of immense use to the systems.

Conclusion: The Subject warrants further study.

6.

He leans against the chain link fence that encloses the playground behind the gymnasium proper and watches the Crown Prince run, jump, and throw. When the prince has completed his exercises and has gone into the showers, the Subject departs, and, as he departs, he drops, or perhaps throws, to the ground the small piece of paper on which he earlier was observed writing:

Right-handed, favors left knee and hip slightly (chondromalacia, probably). Will doubtless move to his right when threatened. Large muscles are overdeveloped, small ones underdeveloped: not as much endurance as he probably thinks he can rely on if threatened. Could be dangerous, if threatened, especially because of martial skills, but can be overcome by almost any opponent using disciplined, intelligent force.

On the strength of this note, the Subject is arrested and imprisoned, where he presently languishes unafraid.

7.

FIRST INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: Are you working alone?

SUBJECT: Alone?

INQUISITOR: Do you have co-conspirators?

SUBJECT: No. Of course not.

INQUISITOR: Then you are working alone!

SUBJECT: Well, yes.

SUMMATION: Subject insists no one else involved in his assassination plot.

8.

SECOND INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: Did you realize, when you hatched your insidious plot, that in this country assassination is a capital offense? Did you know that we execute assassins?

SUBJECT: I surmised it.

INQUISITOR: Aha!

SUMMATION: Subject is not insane, as was formerly thought, and must be judged responsible for his actions.

9.

THIRD INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: What is your real name? Your legal name.

SUBJECT: Steve Katz.

INQUISITOR: Don’t fuck with me, wiseass, or I’ll break your fingers. What’s your real name? We have ways…

SUBJECT: Ronald Sukenick.

INQUISITOR: Cut the funny stuff. This is serious! You are in no position to be funny.

SUBJECT: Artemas Ward. Laurence Sterne. Lamar Sabacthani.

INQUISITOR: One last time, before we break all your limbs. What’s your real name?

SUBJECT: John Doe.

SUMMATION: Subject is hereinafter to be referred to as John Doe.

10.

FOURTH INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: Why were you in the vicinity of Blue Job mountain when Prince Dread was shot and killed?

JOHN DOE: I went there to watch him hunt a cougar. I wanted to know if he was the hunter he thought he was.

INQUISITOR: And was he?

JOHN DOE: No. Obviously not.

SUMMATION: John Doe freely admits to having tracked down Prince Dread on the ill-fated “Blue Job Cougar Hunt.”

11.

FIFTH INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: What were you doing at Lulu’s the night Prince Egress was killed by the Indian band?

JOHN DOE: I wanted to see if he was as in touch with his anger as he seemed to think he was.

INQUISITOR: And was he? No, never mind. Disregard that last question.

SUMMATION: John Doe freely admits to having goaded the child-like band of Abenaki “Friendlies” into attacking Prince Egress at Lulu’s.

12.

SIXTH INTERROGATION

INQUISITOR: Do you know a schoolgirl named 37-24-37? She claims that you are her father and that you made obscene sexual overtures toward her.

JOHN DOE: I know her only slightly. But I’m not her father, a man who insults and reviles her and who, therefore, is probably the person who made a pass at her. Thus, she’s only half-right. Someone made a pass at her. But I would never do such a thing. I’m virtually a stranger to her.

INQUISITOR: Do you know the dwarf Genghis? He claims you are responsible for his having been fired from his job.

JOHN DOE: I do know him, and I’m glad he’s being treated more fairly, but no, I can’t claim responsibility.

INQUISITOR: Okay, answer this one correctly and you get all the prizes. How did you kill Prince Orgone?

JOHN DOE (PROUDLY): Blood poisoning. You’ll recall that he broke a bottle of body cologne in the shower a few days ago and stepped on a piece of the broken glass, cutting his left foot slightly. He should have stayed away from those public showers until after the cut had healed, but he knew he’d go crazy if he skipped a workout. He was trapped by himself, like the others.

INQUISITOR: Well said, Mr. Doe. But just for the hell of it, why these three young princes, each in the prime of his life? Why these young fellows? Why not the king?

JOHN DOE: I’ve got a thing about princes, I guess.

SUMMATION: We’ve got our man. We’ve got his plot.

1.

The Loon, because of his job as janitor, or custodian, for the Star Chamber, a position obtained for him by the king, had no difficulty in keeping abreast of developments. He knew more about what was going on than did the king himself. Unlike the king, however, he didn’t care about what was going on, which is why the king had appointed him to this somewhat delicate post in the first place. The king had many faults, but he knew how to maintain security. He knew that every morning, after a night of cleaning up the inquisition rooms, the Loon would go home to his tree house in Central Park and forget practically everything he had seen, heard, or smelled. The Loon was much too self-absorbed to be a busybody.

2.

The Loon was like a bat. He slept all day long, from sunrise to sunset, regardless of where he was or what was expected of him. He would, as the sun rose, simply fold whatever piece of cloth there was at hand, a drapery, a rug, a coat, around him like a shroud and drop off to sleep, usually positioning himself in a foetal heap in a corner. The only thing that could wake him was the sunset. In many ways, the habit was inconvenient and sometimes embarrassing to others, but it was a habit he had formed early in childhood and thus he was devoted to it. Actually, all his habits were formed early in childhood, and he was devoted to all his habits. He had not formed a new habit or broken an old one since his fourth birthday.

3.

People in positions of power seemed to fall in love with the Loon, through no design or effort of the Loon himself. There were the director of the nursery school he had attended, the cop on the block, the mayor of the small town in the South where he had spent his middle childhood, the president of the University of Virginia where he had matriculated, the governor of a large industrial state in the northeast, the head of a television network, a Latin-American dictator, a Greek shipping magnate, a U.S. Secretary of the Interior, and, most recently, Egress the Hearty, a king. Only coincidentally were all these powerful persons men, but as a result of that coincidence, most people thought the Loon was a homosexual. They did not, of course, think it of his lovers.

4.

Often, on late-night TV talk shows, he was asked by the host to talk about whether or not he was, as the host put it, a “homosexual.”—Are you, Mr. Loon, a “homosexual”?

— Way-yell, Dick, the Loon would drawl (he had a pronounced southern accent, especially on TV), — since you put it “that way,” ah, not really.

The audience and Dick the host would roar with laughter, winking and elbowing each other fiercely.

5.

When the Loon learned, one by one, of the deaths of the three princes, he was surprised but not particularly saddened. He had never thought of them as high-quality persons. All three of them had, at one time or another, jerked off on him while he was waiting, naked, in the anteroom for the king. They hated him, and even if they didn’t know it, he did. It was their ignorance, more than the semen on his hairless chest, that had bothered him. The king, on the other hand, had always known he hated the Loon, and thus he never once had jerked off on him. He simply would come into the anteroom and go right to work, buggering the Loon once or twice, and then lie back and tell him his troubles all night long. You had to respect the king.