John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

A bend was in the road just down from the barn, the farthest I'd ever seen from the pasture gate. There (the strange whistle having ceased) I paused to review the cupolas and gambrels of my home. Lest I see more I pressed on. But just round the bend I found the road divided. I inclined to the right, being of that hand; then checked myself and bent left instead, it was so thin a reason. Yet this was no sensibler, after all, and I found myself quite stopped and suddenly discouraged.

How long I might have languished there who knows; the mere resolve that brooked no suggestion of retreat, before the issue of left or right availed me nothing. When I had commenced once more to shivering, however, I heard a rustle in the fork, and from a growth of sumac Max himself came forth, supported by G. Herrold.

"You walking in your sleep?" he asked me.

I might have demanded the same of him, under whose arm I spied now the horn that had waked me. But I saw a riddling seriousness in the question — it had the air more of a sentry's challenge than a query — and at the same moment I understood that twice before in recent nights it was the sound of our actual shophar which had figured in my dreams.

"It's time I matriculated," I said.

"You know what you're going to do, do you?"

"I'll know once I get there."

"So." All this while Max stood before me, straining close to see my face in the dim light. "And you know the way? It's not easy."

"I'll find it," I declared.

" Ja , well. But come on back now, G. Herrold fixes you a box-lunch and packs some things. Wait till daylight, you can see your way better."

But I declined, observing the hour was already late, too late almost, and that as for food and extra clothing, I could not be burdened with them. Truly I was impatient to be off: if he would accept hasty, heartfelt thanks for all he'd done for me — and tell me please which fork led to New Tammany — I'd be all right, and forever in his debt.

"Which fork, Georgie? You mean you're not sure?"

"It doesn't matter," I said at once. "There's bound to be a sign. Well, bye-bye, Max. Bye-bye, G. Herrold. I really must go."

And I struck out as if I knew my way, hoping some impulse would turn me left or rightwards if I kept myself from thinking on the choice. But of course I could not not-think; no impulse came; and unwilling either to halt again or to betray my quandary (for I was conscious of their eyes upon me), I forged ahead into the sumac.

"I believe I'll take a short-cut through here," I called back.

" Ach, George! Wait once!" Max's voice was joyous; but though I heard him call again for me and urge G. Herrold to help him overtake me, I crashed on through briars and foxgrape — only a bit more slowly, not to rip my fleece.

"Wait Once, I got to tell you what we did!" As I would not stay, he bade G. Herrold fetch him up and run, and so in a moment was at my side, fending boughs off as we plunged.

"To the right, boy, not this way. Ay, George! I wouldn't believe! Just an old Moishian!"

I said nothing, but turned to the right as he directed. Shortly we were on paved road again, all things more distinct now as the light came from behind us. I went on without hesitation and at such a determined clip (being free of brambles) that Max was obliged to remain in G. Herrold's arms if he would keep pace.

"You know who you are, all right!" he said. "What you thought right along — but who could believe such a thing? Until we proved it!"

Without looking at him I inquired, "That's why you blew the horn?"

" Ja, ja, that's just why!" More excited than ever I'd seen him, Max described the "experiments" he'd mentioned the previous day. I had, he confirmed, met nearly all the prerequisites of herohood, as far as could be judged: the mystery of my parentage, about which it could be presumed only that I was the offspring of someone high in the administration; the irregularity of my birth, which had so seemed a threat to someone that an attempt had been made on my life; the consequent injury to my legs; the circumstances of my rescue, and my being raised by a foster parent in a foster-home, disguised as an animal and bearing a name not my own — these and other details corresponded to what Max had found true of scores of hero-histories. On the other hand none seemed unambiguous or conclusive, at least not to one who all his life had been skeptical of heroship. Even if it could be verified that my mother and father were close blood-relatives; that I'd been conceived in a thunderstorm and born in a cave; that rumor had it I was not my father's son; or that my would-be assassin was either my father or my mother's father — still nothing followed necessarily. As Max put it: "Not every dumbhead with a scar is a bonafide hero."

To settle his doubts in the matter (that is, to prove to himself that my claims were mere boyish ambition) he had instructed G. Herrold on a certain night to blow a certain call upon the horn: if I had waked and asked what was the matter, as Max anticipated, my claim for some reason would have been nullified. If on the other hand I had responded without a question or hesitation and set out in a certain way… But I had done neither, quite, only gone on with my troubled sleep. On a second night therefore had come a second call, which to have answered in any wise had been my refutation (Max did not say why): luckily, it too had not moved me, except to lustful dreams. This night had sounded the third and final; had I slept through it or merely inquired what was the matter, my future had been clear: Max would have enrolled me in the fall as a regular freshman at NTC, to pass or fail in some one of the usual curricula like any other undergraduate — quite what he wished for me, he confessed, in all his reasonable moods.

"But I couldn't help thinking what you said, Georgie, about the WESCAC and its AIM. And crazy or not, I couldn't help thinking how it was my hand pushed the EAT-button once, and the only way to save me from flunking forever was to lead a Grand Tutor down to West Campus with that same hand."

From the corner of my eye I saw him stress the point with the finger next to his missing one. But my sharp attention to what he said did not retard me.

"So we blew and we blew; two times tonight we did; and just when G. Herrold took his breath to blow the one last time — what did you hear, my boy?"

"There was a different sound," I said. "It wasn't our horn."

"It was the EAT-whistle!" Max cried. "I never thought till then how it wouldn't mean nothing you should answer to the buckhorn anyhow. But the EAT-whistle, that they blow it from the Power Plant for riot-drills — that's what fetched you! It's just right!"

Privately I wondered how Max accounted, since his change of mind, for the element of Dunce and Dean o' Flunks in me, which themselves had been discovered by his experimenting. I chose not to ask, but felt compelled at least to observe that I had waked already and was prepared to set out before I'd heard the stranger sound.

"That's okay!" Max insisted. "But what if it wasn't okay? Suppose I said it proves you're only George the Goat-Boy, let's turn around home?"

As I could think of no reply, I walked on without comment.

"You see that, G. Herrold? He goes on anyhow, you shouldn't ask!"

My dear dark comrade, need I say, saw neither more nor less than he ever could. But he was all hum-hum and smile.

"What you said yourself once, Georgie, it's one or the other: if you're not Grand Tutor, you're crazy as G. Herrold, the WESCAC messed your mind up like it did his. If you're not crazy, you got to be a Grand Tutor, nobody else could be in WESCAC's Belly and not get himself EATen."

"That's right," I agreed.