John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"I'm not the one she's to meet there," I interrupted pleasantly; "it's Harold Bray."

He managed to accuse me of jealousy and mendacity, but I saw he was alarmed.

"I'm going to drive Bray out," I told him. "Among other things."

"I'll bet you are. So you can take his place!"

I shrugged. "One thing at a time."

He glared at me furiously. "You're as false as he is!"

"Bray's not exactly a phony," I said. "But he must be driven out. Would you like to do it yourself, before your wife services him?"

There I had him: except during his extraordinary "reform" back in March, Stoker had an aversion to Great Mall generally and a positive abhorrence of Tower Hall, its hub and crown. Yet for all his present soot and bluster he was not quite the Stoker of old: clearly he was distressed by My Ladyship's new aggressiveness, and jealous of lovers she chose herself; he wanted the Belfry-tryst prevented, but could not deal himself with Bray (who I pointed out might well retreat with Anastasia into the Belly), and distrusted her with me. On the other hand he doubtless understood that if I were the Grand Tutor, I alone might manage Bray; and (less assuredly) of all healthy men on campus I alone might be the one not interested in cuckolding him at his wife's invitation. Therefore he found himself, so I imagined, in the position of having to hope that I was what he declared I was not, and that I would overcome the temptations and obstacles he'd surely put in my way. His face grew livid with contradictions. As I gimped firmly into his sidecar, which Greene and Leonid had vacated, Tower Clock struck the half-hour.

"It's getting on," I observed. The troopers stood about expectantly.

"Move!" Stoker shouted at them. "Achtung! Dunkelbier! Sauerbraten!" He fired his pistol at the ground near their feet, and they scrambled cursing for their vehicles. Stoker swung onto his own, not neglecting to fart as he kicked the starter. As if in reply his powerful engine barked and spat. He let out the clutch, spun our drive-wheel in the dust, howled an obscenity at the troopers leaping clear of us, and threw back his head as we snarled down the road. But it was I who laughed.

I had come from Great Mall rapidly enough; returning, we fairly flew, by every trick and short-cut in the book: crossed through woods and fields and private lawns, took corners without a pause and stop-signs at full throttle. As if energized by our speed, Stoker resumed his usual baiting and other stratagems.

"So you still want to be Grand Tutor!" he shouted. "Now's the time to make your play, while Rexford's out of commission and everything's upset!"

I smiled.

"Why not work together?" he suggested, and outlined at the top of his voice a plan for "taking over the College": the Chancellor was in political disgrace and therefore vulnerable; only some extraordinary stroke of fortune — such as absolute Commencement by an undisputed Grand Tutor — might redeem his public image; but if Stoker himself had been disgusted by Rexford's conduct in the Living Room, surely Bray would be more so, and would revoke his Certification. The thing to do, then, was get rid of Bray — for example, by exposing his intended adultery with Anastasia — and establish me as Grand Tutor; Ira Hector's wealth and Stoker's secret influence (but he would deny me publicly and affirm Bray, to sway student opinion contrariwise) could promote me to that office easily, given the present disorder and uncertainty in West Campus. Then I would declare Lucky Rexford reinstated and Commencèd, and we three could run New Tammany as we wished.

"What you really want," I said, "is to see your brother Commence."

Stoker flushed and cursed. "Brother my arse! You should've seen him carrying on! Not that I care!"

I listened carefully to the quarter-hour chimes far in the distance and pointed when we came to a fork. "Bear left."

Stoker bore right. We soon drew up to Main Gate, passed through and down the dim-lit Mall to where indigent students, as always, were badgering Ira Hector, even swatting him with their various placards. Goalless and shirtless in the cold night air, Ira sneezed and feebly called for help. Stoker paused nearby, at the bole of a leafless elm where The Living Sakhyan sat upon the ground.

"Why not help old Ira?" he challenged. "Then he'll owe you a favor, and someday you can use him."

I smiled and got off the motorcycle. "Is that a dare?" But before I went to Ira's aid I bowed to The Living Sakhyan.

"Thank You for the disappeared ink, sir," I said. "I signed my ID-card with it when I completed my Assignment at once, in no time." He appeared to be smiling.

"For pity's sake, help!" Ira called.

"Excuse me, sir," I said to The Living Sakhyan. "I'm going to go help the Old Man of the Mall."

"Goat-Boy!" Stoker shouted from the motorcycle. "I dare you to help him! Understand? I'm daring you!"

To him also I bowed, but then waded into the circle of angry young students, most of whom "went limp" until they recognized me and then stood by while their spokesman explained their grievance. But a few, who had previously been standing on the fringe of the group with their backs turned, now moved in and commenced to swat Ira, not very violently, with their placards, perhaps in protest against the general détente .

"He's as stingy as ever!" the spokesman said angrily. "He poisons the whole West Campus."

"Didn't he give everything to the P.P.F.?" I asked.

"Gave 'em the shirt off my back!" Ira cried. "Why d'ye think I can't see to tell time? I'm a sick man!" He sneezed again and wiped his eyes, which were clotted with rheum. "Gesundheit," said a student beating him.

"It's night-time anyhow," I observed to the group. "He can't see our shadows to tell time by."

"Ha!" Ira cried.

"That's not the whole point," said the student spokesman. "He's pulled the rug out from under the Rexford administration. Ruined the economy."

"Who cares?" another challenged. "The Administration's corrupt anyhow. All power corrupts."

"And knowledge is power," said a third, whose sign bore the one word Ignorabimus. "So absolute knowledge corrupts absolutely. Look at Dr. Faustus. Look at Dr. Bray."

They fell to arguing then whether Lucius Rexford was a liberal conservative or a conservative liberal, and became so preoccupied, I was able to spare Ira Hector further swats, for the present, simply by sliding him half a meter down the bench, out from under the swinging placards.

"I don't owe you a thing," he wheezed at once. "You owed me, for taking your fool advice this morning." He had, I learned, instructed his agents to make over his entire estate and divers incomes to the Philophilosophical Fund, with the declared intention of Passing through poverty and ignorance, and burdening others with his wealth. But the result was that he stood to become wealthier than ever from tax-refunds, while the College went bankrupt for want of tax revenues. Half the student body would subsist on tax-free scholarships, all deductible by the Hector cartel. Moreover, his agents were abandoning him to take service with his brother, lately back from the goat-farms, in the mistaken conviction that Reginald was independently wealthy: why else would he have "resigned" from the P.P.F. directorship? Finally, the students whose tuition had been going to be paid by Lucius Rexford's tax-supported grant-in-aid program now despised Ira, and had apparently stripped the clothes from his back when he offered them, gratis, the time of night.

"You said you gave them your shirt," I reminded him.

He sneezed and cursed. "I'd like to see 'em try to get along without me!"

"They can't," I said.