Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

“But graffiti can also be art, and art can be vandalized, as this university has vandalized one of the great calligraphic achievements in its history—”

Adam didn’t know Randy had it in him. But it didn’t really help that when he wanted to emphasize a point, he would throw up his hands…with his elbows pressed against his rib cage. Not that there was anything wrong with making effeminate gestures—gestures and walks and body language generally shouldn’t be categorized that way—but Randy made effeminate gestures, when you got right down to it, and none of the hundreds who had gathered here in the Great Yard could miss it. And nobody watching those videotapes they were making—which would be shown where?—to how many thousands?—millions?—on network television?—but they couldn’t broadcast references to fellatio and cunnilingus on TV, could they? Much less Camille’s placard—she was in this same lineup of spear carriers, down at the other end, with a placard aloft reading, FUCK A DUCK! FUCK A CUCUMBER! FUCK ANYTHING! FUCK ALL! The same sign company had produced all the placards, including hers, but she had no doubt composed this piece of polymorphous perversity herself. But those millions or however many would pick up on Randy’s effeminacy immediately—

—and what else would they pick up? Adam Gellin as one of the Gay and Lesbian Fist’s loyal fellatiotic troopers, FREE SPEECH IS QUEER, TOO!—in short, Adam Gellin, gay—in plain, noneuphemistic English: Adam Gellin, queer, lover of anal sex and Eskimo pies. He hated himself for even thinking such a thought, having any such faintness of heart. He could tell Edgar felt exactly the same way. Edgar was at one end of this lineup of spear carriers—or placard carriers—at the foot of the podium and the feet of Randy Grossman. Edgar’s placard read SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE—NOW! From the moment he picked it up and shouldered it, he looked ashen. The two of them had the same problem, and he bet Edgar, like him, was ashamed to talk about it. Edgar, like him, had no obvious sexual involvement with women. He had often wondered if Edgar was gay, and Edgar had probably wondered the same thing about him. Maybe Edgar was gay. How was anyone to know? Why was everybody so obsessed with the labels? What was wrong with the neutral term “bachelor”? Why had he given in and allowed Randy to shame him into coming—so the entire campus could conclude he…was homosexual? Not that he hadn’t done exactly the right thing, what so many others who gave lip service to gay rights wouldn’t have dared do—and his thoughts began to race around in a circle again.

“—beloved ‘truth,’ as they probably think it is,” the amplified leader of the people was saying, “they don’t even know their truth! Made to order by them—for them! What kind of ‘truth’ is that?—the ultimate delusion! The self-scam! The self-scam! The so-called ‘trustees’—the ring that controls Dupont—they’re so retro, they won’t stop at conning you and me, they’re—”

Adam couldn’t believe it. Randy was getting louder and more shrill. Now he thought he was an orator. He was turning rhetorical…figurae repetitio, figurae sententiae…Namby Pamby Randy Grossman, leader of the people—

“Boooo…Boooo…” A chorus of boos was rising from somewhere in the rear ranks of the crowd. Adam, standing at ground level, couldn’t see.

But Randy, up on the dais, could. He started screaming. “Yo! You! Yeah, you! You repressed queens in the back there—”

“Boooo!……Boooo!…” The chorus was mounting in volume.

“—you in the short pants! That’s cute! It’s so butch! The Eskimo pie got you all turned on, didn’t it? You can’t wait to get back to the frat house and try it, can you!”

The blue jeaners in front loved that. They cut loose with the sort of cries and yodels of adrenaline-pumped people bloody ecstatic over grievous wounds inflicted upon the enemy.

But the boos of the agitators rose to the level of a roar, then broke into a chant. Adam couldn’t hear what they were saying at first, but then he got it.

“COCK—SUCKERS! COCK—SUCKERS! COCK—SUCKERS!”

It was so blatantly bigoted, he couldn’t believe it. Students had been expelled or suspended for an entire year for less, especially when it was antigay.

Then he could see them. Some were bulling their way through the blue jeaners as if they were about to storm the dais and seize the microphone. Others had come around the flanks of the crowd. Now he could understand Randy’s reference to “You in the short pants.” To a man, they wore shorts, mostly khaki shorts, the kind commonly worn with flip-flops in the spring and early fall, except that they were wearing construction boots—and it was freezing out here. At first Adam didn’t get it, the short pants, but in the next moment he did. “You want everybody to wear jeans to show support for gay rights? We’ll show you something—utter mockery—even if it means freezing our asses off!” There must have been dozens of them, and as they came to the fore, their chant overwhelmed the attempts of the crowd, taken by surprise, to shout them down.

“COCK—SUCKERS!” they chanted. “COCK—SUCKERS!”

But wait a minute—now that they were close, Adam realized it wasn’t COCK—SUCKERS at all. “GOD’S YUCCAS! GOD’S YUCCAS! GOD’S YUCCAS!”

Randy was shouting into the microphone: “Stuck on sucking cocks! You’re stuck on sucking cocks! You’re queerer than we are!” he boomed out over the Great Yard. “Admit it—”

“GOD’S YUCCAS! GOD’S YUCCAS! GOD’S YUCCAS!”

“—you wanna suck each—” Randy broke off his analysis in mid-sentence. All at once he realized they were shouting “GOD’S YUCCAS!”

Some of them were no more than fifteen feet away—and big. What did they intend to do?—Adam leaned forward and looked this way and that at his fellow placard holders. He didn’t want to be the first to break ranks—nor did he intend to be the last.

He glanced up. Randy was no longer at the podium. The little shit must have bolted, fled. Adam brought his placard—FREE SPEECH IS QUEER, TOO in front of his face. But what good would that do? None. So he peeked around the placard…In the immediate foreground—Hoyt Thorpe! He was the one leading the chant!

“GOD’S YUCCAS! GOD’S YUCCAS!”

Fear and hatred descended upon Adam’s amygdala with equal force. Tormentor of the woman he loved!—physical threat to his very hide in the here and now! He worked it out by concluding that if he now confronted the bastard physically, it would play right into the counterdemonstrators’ hands—and besides, Thorpe would recognize him—and the Night of the Skull Fuck story would be compromised, and—

What? A woman’s voice raged over the Great Yard: “FUCK YOU IN THE ASS, YOU CLOSET QUEENS! YOU FUCKING HIV VAMPS! WHAT’S THIS SHORT PANTS SHIT? YOU HOPE SOME CHILD MOLESTER WILL STICK A WEENIE UP YOUR HERSHEY HIGHWAY?”

Camille. Could only be. Adam didn’t even have to look up to be absolutely sure. But he did anyway. Her face was as contorted as he had ever seen it.

“WANT IT THAT BAD? WHYN’T YOU PULL YOUR LITTLE PANTIES DOWN AND LEAN OVER AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN! YOU FUCKING SHIT-FACED MAGGOT MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Camille’s raw-throated rant breathed life into the blue jeaners. They broke into a roar of their own. Thorpe and the other frat boys—there was Vance Phipps, too!—their lips were still moving in the chant

:::::GOD’S YUCCAS:::::GOD’S YUCCAS:::::but they could no longer be heard. Hoyt Thorpe held up his hand, as if to restrain his boys and avoid a pitched battle, then slowly led them away and back toward the other end of the Great Yard. Nobody could hear them, but they kept chanting