John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Someone whispered, " '…not bread alone'!" Another, "To make way for the new!" And a third asked, "Eat instead of EAT; is that it?" I did not reply.

The sixth and seventh tasks, on the other hand, were clear: to Pass the Finals could only mean to by-pass WESCAC; perhaps not to destroy it, as the students urged (who regarded it as the emblem of much that they objected to in the University), but certainly to frustrate or circumvent it by way of denying its authority. This established, the final task, like the first, was already accomplished: I myself was my Examiner; I had no proper father, nor was there anyone save myself to whom my ID-card need be presented. I read the seventh task aloud and asked The Living Sakhyan: "What signatures do I need on my card? And who are the 'proper authorities'?" His silence was my Answer.

I bid goodbye to the students then, who thanked me for Tutoring them and hoped I wouldn't judge their group by its non-non-violent members; they'd needed the time of day from the "Old Man of the Mall" in order to schedule a protest march to Main Detention in behalf of Max and me.

"That's not what I was protesting," said one of them. "I was protesting Saturday-morning classes and the Open Book rules."

Some applauded his deviation and maintained that both protests could be served by a general demonstration in the name of Carte-blanchisme. Others protested this indiscrimination, but most certainly didn't want to be thought to favor the opposite; still others contended that repudiating such distinctions was the first principle of Beism (as well as the last, since All was One). And so I left them, some protesting, some protesting the protest, and a few protesting that to protest protest was either to affirm Carte-blanchisme and hence (by Beistic paradox) to deny it, or to deny it and hence affirm it — which was perhaps to say, deny it…

Stoker slouched beside Ira Hector on the bench. Ignoring the old man's scolding, he grinned contemptuously as I approached.

"You're supposed to protect the right of private information!" Ira berated him. "What do I pay taxes for?"

"You never paid taxes in your life," Stoker said, not bothering to look at him. "Did you think they'd thank you for cutting off their scholarships?"

Drawing his head into the collar of his topcoat, Ira retorted that he didn't give a fact for their opinion of him, but he did have more right to be protected from robbery than anyone else in New Tammany College; precisely because he had withdrawn all support from his former tax write-offs, the Philophilosophical Fund and the Unwed Co-ed's Hospital, he now paid the highest taxes on campus. In fact, he declared (glaring at me with his shelled eyes) the Administration was bleeding the golden goose to death, and thus cooking its own; he was on the verge of intellectual bankruptcy, thanks to my bad advice, and the daily robberies and copyright infringements perpetrated on him would soon put him over the edge if the campus patrol refused him the help he'd bought and paid for — with his ward Anastasia as well as with his ruinous taxes.

"Buy your own bodyguard," Stoker said. "You can afford it."

"Why didn't you help me, Goat-Boy?" he demanded.

"Help yourself," I answered. "That's what you were Certified for doing."

He thrust a bony fist at me from his coatsleeve and accused me of having given him false advice nine months previously. I reminded him that, as he hadn't paid the Tutor, he shouldn't complain of the Tutoring.

"But my advice to you might have been good, after all," I added with a smile. "I told you that wealth was flunking and that the passèd thing to do was to flunk yourself to help others pass — "

"Don't believe him," Stoker said behind his hand. "He told me the same thing."

"I don't believe him," Ira snapped. "You should've heard the claptrap he was retailing! But I don't believe you, either! I'm my own man, sir!"

"What I meant," I put in, "was that selfishness was flunking, but that to keep your wealth from others would actually be unselfish …"

"Rot!"

"So it turns out," I agreed. "Now I think you ought to be selfish, because Failure is Passage."

Ira thrust out his neck and blinked his lashless lids. "You talk like those fool Beists."

"Exactly. The question is, which is selfish: the miser or the philanthropist? Take me to the Light House, Stoker."

"Flunk you," Stoker cursed amiably. But when I thanked him for doing just that, he sneered off towards the motorcycle.

"Well, which is it?" Ira demanded. "Not that I'd believe you."

"Let go my sleeve, please," I said. "I don't Grand-Tutor for my health."

"You can't Tutor at all!" he reminded me angrily. "You're not the Grand Tutor!"

We struck up a bargain then, to exchange bad advice for the wrong time of day.

"Be greedy," I counseled him. "Give all you have to the P.P.F. and the New Tammany Lying-in! Then you'll have nothing, and pass at other people's expense. That's the flunking thing to do, you see, and Failure is Passage. When those Beist-fellows come around, don't just give them the time of day; give them all they want. Give them the shirt off your back."

Ira considered my shadow and squinted at me cunningly. "It's exactly eight o'clock."

However, as I mounted the motorcycle and Stoker throttled its engine, he cackled from the depths of his coat-collar: "I can turn your bad advice inside out, Goat-Boy, but you can't do that with the time of day! I got the best of you again!"

But I smiled — and not merely to worry him, as I'd done with Stoker. For the fact was, I hadn't the slightest idea whether reversing my advice would flunk and therefore pass him, or vice-versa, and whether in either case he'd be passed or failed. Whereas I suspected he'd given me the correct time in order to mislead me, for an hour did seem to have elapsed since I'd heard that student say seven o'clock. But if he'd lied to his molesters too, I was no worse off, for Ira Hector desperately needed Grand-Tutoring, but I had no use at all for the time of day. Let him shriek after me (as he did), "It's later than you think!" How could it be, when I had no thought upon the matter?

We came in sight of that grand square where Tower Hall stands like a dean at the head of a committee-table, flanked on one side by the Light House, on the other by the Old Chancellor's Mansion. There was traffic now; I checked the Clock, also my watch: neither was running. A flutter of blackbirds from the Belfry reminded me of Eblis Eierkopf. Again I tapped my chauffeur's shoulder.

"What ever happened to Dr. Eierkopf? Do you suppose he's still in the Belfry?"

Stoker shook his head. "I got him running the hamburg concession out at the Powerhouse. All he can eat and seconds on Madgie."

I recognized that he was speaking sarcastically. "I'm going to see him before I call on the Chancellor," I said. "But I'll need a ride later to the Infirmary. Would you rather have lunch with your brother in the Light House or have him out to dinner at the Power Plant?"

Stoker snorted and opened the throttle; I barely managed to land on my feet. Newsboys hawked the morning paper on the Tower Hall esplanade, calling out that Max's Shaft-time had been set for next day at sunset, and that in consequence of grave new incidents at the Power Lines, Classmate X had arrived on Great Mall, presumably to sever the remaining diplomatic ties between East and West Campus. I half expected Stoker to wait for me, but as I entered the lobby of Tower Hall I saw him drive off towards a squadron of his troopers roaring up in ragged files from the direction of Main Gate.

The elevator-guard frowned at my detention-suit, consulted an empty clipboard, and forbade me the Belfry-lift.