John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Aw, Mr. Greene," the man pleaded. He spoke from one corner of his mouth, holding his whistle in the other. "You'll get me fired. I can't let everybody run, or we'd never — "

"Hear this." A great loudspeakered voice interrupted him; the crowd grew still, and all eyes turned to Main Gate, its top now gleaming in the sun's first rays. "The next voice you hear will be your Grand Tutor's."

"You don't have to beg for me," I whispered to Peter Greene. "I'm going through anyway."

The crowd's applause made reply impossible; with a shock I realized the implication of the announcement: had Bray then come unEATen from the Belly? The official Murphy, relieved by the interruption, wandered off frowning at his watch and the diminishing shadow on Main Gate.

"Dear Tutees," a new voice said, and its familiar clicking roused me now to frankly jealous anger. "Trial-by-Turnstile will begin in one minute. Please have your ID-cards ready for scanning. Contestants will be admitted at the Left Gate as the Turnstile scans and releases them; all others may enter through either gate as soon as the last contestant is admitted. Proceed then directly to the Gate House Assembly Room for Chancellor Rexford's welcoming address. Remember: Except ye believe in me, ye shall not pass; and no one may matriculate without an ID-card. So be it."

"I got one somewheres," Greene said, slapping his pockets. There was a fishing for cards among the spectators; the crouching athletes held theirs between their teeth. I of course had none, and for the first time that morning began to be daunted by the prospect of Trial-by-Turnstile. How on campus had Bray managed such a fraud — upon WESCAC itself!

"Got the pre-game jitters?" Greene said cheerfully. "Use my slogan, if you want; it ain't copyrighted."

Now drums rolled, and Maurice Stoker, with exaggerated gestures of menace, took up a position before the Turnstile, facing the athletes. The sequined beauty on his motorcycle, evidently the new Miss University, was escorted to a dais near the Left Gate. Stoker's appearance this time was met with good-humored hisses and boos, as he represented the Dean o' Flunks now in his aspect of Opponent rather than Tempter.

"He's in pretty good shape for a fellow his age," Greene said. "But his reflexes won't be too quick." He himself now stripped off jacket, shirt, and undershirt — in order, he explained, both to run and climb the more freely and to offer Stoker as little as possible to grab hold of. For the latter reason the athletes also oiled their skin.

"Best we can do's work up a good sweat," he said, and asking me to hold his ID-card, began doing push-ups on the pavement. Me he advised to do the same, but since I thought it inappropriate to remove my wrapper, I saw little point in perspiration. I did however accept from him a "pep pill," as he called it, to counter the effect of two restless nights; had I known the black capsules came from the Powerhouse, I'd perhaps have declined. Just as I swallowed, the drums ceased with a crash; Stoker spread his arms and danced threateningly; the whistle blew; and the first athlete dashed with a bleat from the starting line. As he neared the "Dean o' Flunks" he feinted left, then dashed around him to the right; just as Green had anticipated, Stoker was unable to recover his balance quickly enough to catch him. The crowd applauded, and the athlete nimbly sprang up into the teeth of the Turnstile. In former terms he would then have merely strained with every muscle to turn it — in vain, of course — until the "Dean o' Flunks" pulled him down, whereupon he'd be suitably laureled, kissed by Miss University, and admitted. Today, however, for the first time, the objective was to climb as high as possible up the stationary gate, like a great comb stood on end, through which the spindled teeth of the Turnstile proper passed. The apparatus was some seven meters tall: when the climber had half scaled it, unpursued, it clicked and turned, and he was caught like a twig in a hayrake. The spectators exclaimed — as did I, thinking all was up with him — but then applauded his effort when it became clear that he was unhurt. From a metal arm above him swung down the lensed device which Max had guessed to be a scanner; the pinned athlete turned his teeth to it, still clenching his ID-card, and at once he was released. Thereupon Bray's voice proclaimed from the loudspeakers what traditionally it had been the role of some Founder's-Hall dignitary to say:

"Get thee hence, Dean o' Flunks! Let this man be matriculated!"

Stoker stamped the ground in mock chagrin, the Left Gate rang open, the whistle blew again, and as the first athlete, waving to the crowd, was rewarded by the sequined girl and ushered inside by a gowned official, the second charged down the aisle to a similar fate, making what he took to be goatlike noises. I ticked my batteries nervously together and shifted the shophar-sling to my other shoulder, wondering how I'd be able to climb with a walking-stick in my hand. Impossibly, my watch read only six; yet the sun's edge now was plainly visible behind us and the whole gate fired with light. A third athlete set out. On a sudden dread suspicion I put the watch to my ear — it was silent. I shook it, horrified, and tried the stem: it turned freely. I had neglected to rewind it at the Observatory!

"What time is it?" I cried to Peter Greene. But the third runner had been named Foltz and the next was to be Harvey, so my companion had knelt at the mark to take his turn.

"Later'n you think, I reckon!" he called back, and whinnied away, his irregular costume provoking mirth among the onlookers.

"It's me'll catch heck for this," Murphy complained.

I shouted, "Wait!" and set out after, having noted earlier that George — - and for that matter, Goat-Boy — - ought to start before Greene. Now there was merriment indeed in the grandstands; my wrapper flopped, the shophar pitched, my watch flew on its lanyard, and as I gimped the lenses clattered on my stick. Murphy blew his whistle again and again at us, mistaking which signal the rest of the athletes sprang forth and pounded behind me. Stoker had poised himself to intercept Greene, but seeing me he changed his mind and crouched to snatch with particular relish. "Not you, Goat-Boy!"

But as once before in George's Gorge, my stout stick served me. "I'm okay," I said to myself, and with an angry ranuncular trumpet jabbed it at him. He sidestepped grinning and caught the stick's end, but the dodge fetched him squarely in the way of the runner behind me. The pair went sprawling; the crowd roared to its feet and pressed into the aisle, blocking other contestants. I sprinted the last few meters to the Turnstile, in whose lower teeth Greene was already caught.

"I'm okay!" he laughed. "It don't matter anyhow. Misplaced my durn card!"

I saw it lying at his feet and snatched it up for him as the scanner descended. Just as I pressed it into his hand the gadget buzzed, and the great stile turned a few degrees to release him. The crowd and shrill officials pressed in; there was no time to scale the standing teeth; as Greene stepped out I slipped behind into the angle he'd been trapped in. A guard snatched at me, caught hold of the bouncing shophar; I ducked out of its sling and left it in his hands. The Turnstile turned back to catch me just as I reached its axis. I pressed there into the vertex, where a little space was between the shaft and the standing teeth. No one could reach me, but I thought I might be crushed in the machinery, and desperately told myself what the heck anyhow, it didn't nothing matter, so to speak. If I came through and attained that grander Gate, well and good for studentdom! If I passed away then and there, I would be saved one later pain, and the loss was studentdom's, not mine; let them attend their Harold Bray, and all of them fail! I was in short okay.