Robert Coover - Pricksongs & Descants

A moment then of calm, but Aged Clown spoils it, quips in an old croak: “Very bad comma Sport!”

Audience roars again. Cameras swing, bend, spring forward, recoil. Lights boil up, dim, pivot, strike.

“Reminds me of the old story of the three-spined stickleback!” Clown cackles.

Howls and chants. Moderator reacts with flushed giggle and finger to soft lips. No, no! Winks at Audience.

Mr. America nudges you and mutters under the others’ noise: “Detail! Detail! Game’s built on it, don’t miss it!” A friend, after all.

So think. Stickleback. Freshwater fish. Freshwater fish: green seaman. Seaman: semen. Yes, but green: raw? spoiled? vigorous? Stickle: stubble. Or maybe scruple. Back: Bach: Bacchus: baccate: berry. Raw berry? Strawberry? Maybe. Sticky berry in the raw? In the raw: bare. Bare berry: beriberi. Also bearberry, the dog rose, dogberry. Dogberry: the constable, yes, right, the constable in… what? Comedy of Errors! Yes! No.

“And so this here boy stickleback he shimmies up to the girl stickleback and she displays him her crimson belly. Hoo boy! That does itl Zam! They scoot down to his pad!”

Hooting and howling. Moderator collapses into easy laughter. Lamps pulse. Lovely Lady shyly reveals belly. Not crimson at all, but creamy with a blush of salmon pink. Shouts and whistles. Hooboys and zams. Salmon: semen. There we are again. Stickle: tickle. Belly: bag. Lovely one, too.

“I do believe,” chuckles the Moderator loosely, “we might begin.”

“Too late, bub!” croaks Clown. “Sport’s done commenced!”

Horselaughs and catcalls. You forgo any further search for clues in Lovely’s navel, shrink before the noise, before the jut of lenses, strike of strobes: Eyes of the World. On you, Sport.

“Think!” whispers America. “She reveals! She reveals!”

Scoot: scute. But what: scales? shield? bone or horn? Scut is tail and pad is paw: an animal! Yes! But crimson: why not just red? Because crimson comes from kermes: insect — but more! dried fe male insect bodies! Shimmy: chemise, or a shimmer of light. But pad is stuff: female bellies dried and stuffed? Dry den-stuffed. It’s possible. Stickle: stick: stich — a poem here, that’s obvious. And some animal. Light. And Dogberry from—?

A hush…

“Arc you ready?” demands the Moderator, and the Audience replies: “We are!”

Ready: red-dy. Red bone. Green semen. Naval: navel. Salmon pink.

“Then let us proceed!” Rounded syllables, dried and stuffed. “I am quite reasonably certain — that is,” Moderator coughs and titters, “I believe —may I have that privilege?”

“Yes! Yes!” cries the Audience.

“Of course he may,” whispers Mr. America. “He only asks out of malice.”

“Yes,” sighs the Moderator, solemnizing, “for reasonable certainty is but the repercussion and ritornelle of belief!”

Vigorous applause, reverently paced.

“Huzzah!” hoots Aged Clown and the fat man nods. It could be so.

“Therefore, if you will allow me, I believe ” the Moderator continues, “with what constitutes an almost categorical certi tude —”swooping upwards on “-tude” till his voice cracks like a young boy’s, extracting a jubilant “ Aaah !” and easy laughter like a loose cough from the spectators, “—I beg your pardon!”

Gentle approving laughter.

“And so you should , son I” the old Clown cracks. Laughter. “That ain’t nice!” Larger laughter. “You keep it clean now!” Gross laughter.

“Hint! Hint!” wheezes fat America.

Clean. Immaculate. Virgin. Verges. Aha! the headborough with Dogberry in—? The Merry Wives ! No. Verges: verger: verdure: hmmm, back to green again. Green scutes: greenhorns. Immaculate belly. Dogberry pink. Steal a glance: still there. Nice. Don’t touch it, though. Eyes of the World. Keep it immaculate.

“Believe, then, as a certifiable category—”

“That’s better, son.” More laughter and applause.

“Thank you.”

“Not at all, bub.” Clown grimaces. Laughter.

“—That all of you on our panel are well apprised of the precepts and procedures of our little — our wonderfully delightful little game.”

From the masses packed beyond the lights: an explosion of cheering, an enthusiasm clearly insisting against demurrals, but you say: “I’m not.”

Hush. Hostile maybe.

Moderator, into the silence, as though disbelieving: “I beg your pardon?”

“Sport ain’t!” hollers the Clown and you jump.

“Sport isn’t,” Moderator corrects.

“That’s what I said, he ain’t!” responds Aged Clown. Crash of laughter. Nothing serious. All a joke.

“The one who has the most money wins,” mutters Mr. America under his breath, which is coming heavier now. Excitement? Not likely. Growth. Yes, expanding still, the old lard, some accretion process turned on early and the safety valve plugged, cells piling up, and rapidly, for your own rump is skidding perceptibly under pressure along the bench toward the Lady. She is self-absorbed, powder ing her nose and her bosom, using a camera lens for a mirror. Eyes of the World: white globes and pupils pink as raspberries.

She turns, lifts bodice, smiles at you. “Isn’t what?” she asks, cooing.

“Isn’t got it!” quips the old showman on the other side of her. Does he have his old gnarled fist between her legs? From the Audience: the usual response. They love him. Shrunken and yellowed, mapped with wrinkles, quaking with palsy, white-haired and brown-toothed, Clown’s a remnant from the Great Tradition. But not much help. On the contrary.

“Got what?” pursues Lovely Lady. “Come on, boys! You’re teasing me! Hasn’t got what?”

“My dear…!” pleads the Moderator, giggling softly but with brows lifted in tender supplication. Whoops and whistles from the Audience.

“Oh, really!” laughs Lady sweetly. “You can tell me! Is it something I can wear?”

“You’re warm!” crows Clown mid the laughter and whacks her behind.

“Mind on your business!” whispers America, now in possession of at least half the whole bench, his eyes lost in puffing fleshfolds, suitseams parting, buttons popping. “Here it comes!”

“Would I wear it, more likely, above the waist,” Lady asks, then reddens and lowers lashes, “or below?”

“Depends on your scruples!” Clown squawks and the crowd roars.

Hah! Scruple: stickle: stickleback. Getting warm now. Warm indeed: flush against the Lovely Lady. Arc those her toes under your pantleg? Don’t jump to conclusions. Couldn’t put it past the old Clown, for example, not if there was a laugh in it.

Big A groans faintly, snorting and sucking like a team of trotters, flesh pushing out as the suit tears. Wear and tear. Wear: bear. Bearberry: Dogberry: the dog rose. Paw and tail. But what of the scute? The dog rose and — what? Rose and scrupled? Rose: rows: stichs: stickleback. Going in circles. “Depends!” gasps America. Can’t last long now. Own cells against him. Flesh dog bane pink. “Depends—!”

Depends: hangs. But what hangs or hangs on what?

Old Clown hunches, trembling uncontrollably over knotted knuckles. Humor. Lady: beauty, excitement, life itself. America: hard to guess. Prestige maybe, or justice. Inclusion. The team. And Bad Sport? Ah, clearly, it’s your mind they’re after.

Humor, passion, sobriety, and truth. On you, then, it depends, they depend, they all depend. They all hang. It may be so.

Odd silence. You look up to discover the Moderator drumming his ringed fingers on the rostrum and staring blankly at you. Yes, yes, the moment’s come! They want to know I Cameras plunge, withdraw. Lamps blaze. You, pinned, sweat. Chilled by America’s enveloping blubber, heated by the Lady pink as salmon. Pink as dog rose. As dogberry. All’s Well That Ends Well ? Hardly.