Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy Part 2

"So we keep the same instincts as our primate and pre-primate ancestors," one student was saying. (He was from Chicago, his name was Mounty Babbit, and he was crazy even for Berkeley.) "But we superimpose culture and law on top of this. So we get split in two, dig? You might say"-Babbit's voice betrayed pride in the aphorism he was about to unleash-"mankind is the statutory ape."

"... and," the professor, Percy "Prime" Time, said at just that moment, "when such a related series appeared in a random process, we have what is known as a Markoff Chain. I hope Mr. Chaney won't be tormented by jokes about this for the rest of the semester, even if the related series of his appearances in cla.s.s does seem part of a notably random process." The cla.s.s roared; another tone of bile was entered on the midget's s.h.i.+t ledger, the list of people who were going to eat t.u.r.d before he died.

In fact, his cuts were numerous, both in math and in other cla.s.ses. There were times when he could not bear to be with the giants, but hid in his room. p.u.s.s.ycat p.u.s.s.ycat centerfold open, masturbating and dreaming of millions and millions of nubile young women all built like p.u.s.s.yettes, all throwing themselves pa.s.sionately upon him. Today, however, centerfold open, masturbating and dreaming of millions and millions of nubile young women all built like p.u.s.s.yettes, all throwing themselves pa.s.sionately upon him. Today, however, p.u.s.s.ycat p.u.s.s.ycat would avail him not; he needed something raunchier. Ignoring his next cla.s.s, he hurried across Bancroft Way and slammed into his room, chain-bolting the door behind him. would avail him not; he needed something raunchier. Ignoring his next cla.s.s, he hurried across Bancroft Way and slammed into his room, chain-bolting the door behind him.

d.a.m.n "Prime" Time and d.a.m.n the science of mathematics itself, the line, the square, the average, the measurable world that p.r.o.nounced him subnormal. Once and for all, beyond fantasy, in the depth of his soul, he declared war on the statutory ape, on law and order, on predictability. He would be the random factor in every equation; from this day forward, unto death, it would be civil war: the midget versus the digits.

He took out his p.o.r.nographic Tarot deck, which he used when he wanted a really far-out fantasy for his o.r.g.a.s.m, and shuffled it thoroughly. Let's have a Markoff Chain o.r.g.a.s.m, just to start with, he thought savagely.

His first overt act-his Fort Sumter, as it were-began in San Francisco the following Sat.u.r.day. He was in Norton's Emporium, a glorified five-and-dime store, when he saw the sign: NO SALESPERSON MAY LEAVE THE FLOOR.

WITHOUT THE AUTHORIZATION OF A SUPERIOR.THE MGT.

What, he thought, are the poor girls supposed to pee in their panties if they can't find the superior? Years of school came back to him ("Please, sir, may I leave the room, sir?"). Hah! Not for nothing had he spent a semester in Professor "Sheets" Kelly's intensive course on textual a.n.a.lysis of modern poetry. The following Wednesday, the midget was back at Norton's and hiding in a coffee urn when the staff left and locked up. A few moments later the sign was down and an improved version hung in its place: NO SALESPERSON MAY LEAVE THE FLOOR.

OR LOOK OUT THE DOOR.

WITHOUT THE AUTHORIZATION OF A SUPERIOR.THE MGT.

Markoff Chaney launched what he considered a reign of terror against the oversized idiots of the statistical majority. An electronics whiz since his first junior Edison set, he found it easy to reverse relays in street intersections, so that the WALK sign flashed on red and the DON'T WALK signs on green. This proved to be bereft of amus.e.m.e.nt, except in small towns; denizens of New York, Chicago, and similar elephantine burgs, accustomed to nothing working properly, ignored the signs anyway. The midget branched out and soon incomprehensible memos signed "THE MGT." were raining upon employees everywhere.

His father, crusty old Indole Chaney, had been a stockholder in Blue Sky Inc., a very dubious corporation manufacturing devices for use in low gravity; when John F. Kennedy announced that the U.S. would place a man on the moon before 1970, Blue Sky suddenly began to haul in the long green. Markoff inherited a fund that delivered $300 per month. For his purposes, it was enough. Living in Spartan fas.h.i.+on, constantly crisscrossing the country by Greyhound (he soon knew every graffito in every White Tower men's room by heart), dining often on a tin of sardines and a container of milk, Markoff left a train of anarchy in his wake.

EMPLOYEES MAY NOT EXCHANGE VACATION DAYS.-THE MGT.EMPLOYEES MAY NOT PUNCH OTHER EMPLOYEES' TIME CARDS. ANY DEVIATION WILL RESULT IN TERMINATION.-THE MGT.FILL OUT IN TRIPLICATE. KEEP ONE COPY,MAIL ONE COPY TO THE OFFICE AND SEND THE THIRD TO THE TRANSYLVANIA CONSULATE.-THE MGT.

(THIS WAS USED AT A BLOOD BANK, OF COURSE.).

On January 18, 1984, the midget was in Chicago, hiding in a coffee urn in the tenth-floor editorial offices of p.u.s.s.ycat p.u.s.s.ycat magazine. He had a Vacation Schedule Form with him, to be run off on Xerox and distributed to each editor's desk. This form was his masterpiece; it was sure to provoke a nervous breakdown in anyone who tried to decipher and comply with all its directions, yet it was not much different, on the surface, from the hundreds of similar forms handed out in offices daily. Chaney was quite happy and quite impatient for the staff to leave so he could set about his cheerful task for the night. magazine. He had a Vacation Schedule Form with him, to be run off on Xerox and distributed to each editor's desk. This form was his masterpiece; it was sure to provoke a nervous breakdown in anyone who tried to decipher and comply with all its directions, yet it was not much different, on the surface, from the hundreds of similar forms handed out in offices daily. Chaney was quite happy and quite impatient for the staff to leave so he could set about his cheerful task for the night.

Two editors pa.s.sed the coffee urn, talking.

"Who's the p.u.s.s.ycat p.u.s.s.ycat interview for next month?" one asked. interview for next month?" one asked.

"Dr. Dashwood. You know, from o.r.g.a.s.m Research."

"Oh."

The midget had heard of o.r.g.a.s.m Research and it was, of course, on his s.h.i.+t list. More statistics and averages, more of the modern search for the norm that he could never be. And now the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who headed it, Dr. Dashwood, would be interviewed by p.u.s.s.ycat p.u.s.s.ycat-and probably would get to f.u.c.k all the gorgeous p.u.s.s.yettes at the local p.u.s.s.ycat Club. Chaney fumed. o.r.g.a.s.m Research moved from the middle of his s.h.i.+t list to the top, replacing his archenemy, Bell Telephone.

The thought of Dr. Dashwood remained with him all night, as he ground out his surrealist vacation memo on the office Xerox. He was still fuming when he returned to his pantry-sized room at the YMCA and slipped the bolt (to keep out the wandering and prehensile deviates who infest YMCAs everywhere). Dr. Francis Dashwood, supervisor of o.r.g.a.s.ms, and now ready to dive headfirst into a barrel of p.u.s.s.yettes: the midget suffered at the thought.

But it was nearly 4 A.M. A.M. and he was tired. Tomorrow morning would be time to do something about o.r.g.a.s.m Research. and he was tired. Tomorrow morning would be time to do something about o.r.g.a.s.m Research.

Chaney dreamed of Dashwood measuring o.r.g.a.s.ms with an n-dimensional ruler in Frankenstein's laboratory while men in trench coats went slinking about in the shadows asking unintelligible questions about 132 missing gorillas.

In the morning he shuffled through his bogus letterhead file, looking for something appropriate for correspondence with o.r.g.a.s.m Research.

THUGGEE SOCIETY, DIVISION OF HASH IMPORT AND AFROGENEALOGY, said the handsomest letterhead; this was ill.u.s.trated with a three-headed Kali. But that one he reserved for correspondence with prominent white racists, informing them that the Afrogenealogy Division (Alex Haley, researcher-in-chief) had discovered that their great-great-grandmother was black. Chaney always invited the recipients to come to the next Thuggee meeting and bring their wives and sisters.

FRIENDS OF THE VANIs.h.i.+NG MALARIA MOSQUITO (COMMITTEE TO BAN D.D.T.) was a good one, but not good enough for Dr. Dashwood. Chaney reserved it for correspondence with President Lousewart.

Finally, the midget selected CHRISTIANS AND ATHEISTS UNITED AGAINST CREEPING AGNOSTICISM, a Nonprophet Organization, Reverend Billy Graham, President; Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Chairperson of the Board.

In a few moments Chaney produced a letter calculated to short a few circuits in Dr. Dashwood's computeroid cortex: Dear Dr. Dashwood:When you are up to your a.s.s in alligators, it's hard to remember that you started out to drain the swamp.Cordially,Ezra Pound, Council of Armed RabbisP.S. Entropy requires no maintenance. Entropy requires no maintenance.

That should make the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wonder a bit, he thought with satisfaction, stuffing the enigmatic epistle in an envelope and addressing it.

Markoff Chaney loathed math because it contained the concept of the average. average.

Chaney not only loathed, but hated, despised, abominated, detested, and couldn't stand the thought of Dr. Dashwood, not just because Dashwood's work involved statistics and averages, but because is was concerned with o.r.g.a.s.ms.

That was a tender subject to Chaney. He was a virgin.

He was never attracted to women of his own stature-that was almost incestuous, and, besides, they simply did not turn him on. He adored the giantesses of the hateful oversized majority. He adored them, l.u.s.ted after them, and was also terrified of them. He knew from sad experience, oft-repeated, that they regarded him as cute cute and even and even cuddly cuddly, and one of them had gone so far as to say adorable adorable but absolutely but absolutely ridiculous ridiculous as a s.e.x partner, d.a.m.n and blast them all to h.e.l.l. as a s.e.x partner, d.a.m.n and blast them all to h.e.l.l.

He had tried building his courage with booze. They thought he was disgusting disgusting and and chauvinistic chauvinistic and not even and not even cute cute anymore. anymore.

He tried weed. They thought he was cute cute again, and even hilarious, but even more absurd as a possible lover. again, and even hilarious, but even more absurd as a possible lover.

He tried est. The trainers spent the first day tearing him down-telling him he was a no-good s.h.i.+t and everybody knew he was a no-good s.h.i.+t and things like that, which he had always suspected. The second day they built him up and convinced him he could control his s.p.a.ce as well as any other mammal. He was flying when he came out.

He went at once to a singles bar and sidled up to the most attractive blonde in the place.

"Hi," he said boldly, swaggering a bit. "What would you say to a friendly little f.u.c.k?"

She gazed down at him from what suddenly seemed an enormous height. "h.e.l.lo, friendly little f.u.c.k," she drawled with magnificent boredom.

When Chaney slunk back to his YMCA room and his p.o.r.nographic Tarot, he vowed more vehemently than ever that he would be the meanest f.u.c.k on the planet. n.o.body n.o.body would ever call him a friendly little f.u.c.k again. would ever call him a friendly little f.u.c.k again.

He still adored the giantesses and feared them, but now he hated them too; in short, he was really stuck on them.

Their c.u.n.ts c.u.n.ts-those hairy, moist, hot, adorable, inaccessible, rejecting, terrible, divine, frightening Schwartzchild Radiuses of the dimension of Manhood-were the Holy Grail to him.

He knew their c.u.n.ts were hairy and hot and moist, etc., despite his virginity, because he had read a lot of p.o.r.nographic novels.*

*Galactic Archives: p.o.r.nographic novels were novels about the things primates enjoy most, namely s.e.xual acrobatics. They were taught to feel ashamed of these natural primate impulses so that they would be guilty-furtive-submissive types and easy for the alpha males to manipulate. Those caught reading such novels were called no-good s.h.i.+ts, of course. p.o.r.nographic novels were novels about the things primates enjoy most, namely s.e.xual acrobatics. They were taught to feel ashamed of these natural primate impulses so that they would be guilty-furtive-submissive types and easy for the alpha males to manipulate. Those caught reading such novels were called no-good s.h.i.+ts, of course.

PEP.

Muss es sein? Es muss sein.-LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

PEP-the People's Ecology Party-had been founded by Furbish Lousewart V following the success of his monumental best-seller, Unsafe Wherever You Go. Unsafe Wherever You Go.

Lousewart V was a man born into the right time; his book perfectly reflected all the foreboding of the late 1970s. Its thesis was simply that everything science does is wrong, that scientists are very nasty people, and that we need to go back to a simpler, more natural way of life. The message was perfect for the time; it was simply Hitler's National Socialism redone, with only a few minor changes.

Where Hitler wrote "Jew," for instance, Lousewart wrote "scientist." n.o.body but the most backward denizens of Bad a.s.s, Texas, or Chicago, Illinois, was capable of really getting riled up by the anti-Semitic ploy anymore, and Lousewart had, with intuitive brilliance, picked the one scapegoat capable of mobilizing real fear, rage, and hatred among the general population.

And Hitler's Wagnerian primitivism was altogether too Teutonic for young America in the 1970s, so Lousewart replaced it with a chic blend of Taoist and Amerindian primitivism.

It didn't matter that scholars pointed out that all of Lousewart's arguments were illogical and incoherent (his followers despised logic and coherence on principle), and it didn't even matter that he had brazenly lifted most of his notions right out of Roszak's Where the Wasteland Ends Where the Wasteland Ends and Von Daniken's and Von Daniken's Gold of the G.o.ds. Gold of the G.o.ds. It was a package that had a built-in market. With the collapse of the Republican Party after Nixon and Ford, there was a void in national politics; somebody had to organize a force to challenge the Democrats, and the People's Ecology Party moved quickly to capture the turf. It was a package that had a built-in market. With the collapse of the Republican Party after Nixon and Ford, there was a void in national politics; somebody had to organize a force to challenge the Democrats, and the People's Ecology Party moved quickly to capture the turf.

Furbish Lousewart was an expert in Morality and Ideology; he understood that seeking out and denouncing no-good s.h.i.+ts was the path by which one could become leader of a movement of the anxious and angry. In short, he had the instincts of a politician.

The Lousewart philosophy of asceticism, medievalism, and despair was officially called the Revolution of Lowered Expectations.

The Revolution of Lowered Expectations had not been invented by Furbish Lousewart. The whole neurosociology of the twentieth century could be understood as a function of two variables-the upward-rising curve of the Revolution of Rising Expectations and the downward-plunging trajectory of the Revolution of Lowered Expectations.

The Revolution of Rising Expectations, which had drawn more and more people into its Up-thrust during the first half of the century, had led many to believe that poverty and starvation and disease were all gradually being phased out by advances in pure and applied science, growing stockpiles of surplus food in the advanced nations, accelerated medical progress, the spread of literacy and electronics, and the mounting sense that people had a right to demand a decent life for themselves and their children.

The Revolution of Lowered Expectations was based on the idea that there wasn't enough energy to provide for the rising expectations of the ma.s.ses. Year after year the message was broadcast: There Isn't Enough. The ma.s.ses were taught that Terra was a closed system, that entropy was increasing, that life was a losing proposition all around, and that the majority were doomed to poverty, starvation, disease, misery, and stupidity.

Most of the people who still had rising expectations were scientists. When Furbish Lousewart realized the political capital to be made from the Revolution of Lowered Expectations, he also realized-thus demonstrating his political savvy-that having an opposition meant having a scapegoat group.

The scientists were an ideal scapegoat group because they all spoke in specialized languages and hardly anybody could understand them.

The Jews had served this function in earlier ages because they spoke Yiddish. Yiddish.

The scientists spoke Mathematics. Mathematics.

LOUSES IN THE SKIDROW DIMEHAUNTS.

It is impossible now to suppose that organic life exists only on this planet.-FURBISH LOUSEWART V, Unsafe Wherever You Go Unsafe Wherever You Go Justin Case heard about the louses in the skidrow dime-haunts at one of Epicene Wildeblood's wild, wild parties, on December 23, 1983. Simon Moon, a creature with almost as much hair as Bigfoot, planted the louses in Case's semantic preconscious. The whole evening was rather confusing-too many martinis, too much weed, too many people-and Moon was regarded as somewhat sinister by everybody because he worked for the Beast (or with with the Beast, or the Beast, or on on the Beast). To make matters even more surrealistic, that intolerable bore Blake Williams was lecturing on the Birth of Cosmic Humanity to anyone who would listen, and several other conversations were going on simultaneously. Nonetheless, Moon had a ma.n.u.script with him, and a few listeners, and Case couldn't help absorbing part of what the mad Beastman was reading. the Beast). To make matters even more surrealistic, that intolerable bore Blake Williams was lecturing on the Birth of Cosmic Humanity to anyone who would listen, and several other conversations were going on simultaneously. Nonetheless, Moon had a ma.n.u.script with him, and a few listeners, and Case couldn't help absorbing part of what the mad Beastman was reading.

"Thee gauls simper at his tyrant power," Moon was chanting when Case first became conscious of him. What the h.e.l.l was that? "He is ghoon with this seven-week booths and his mickeyed into mistory. His eyes did seem auld glowery."

"f.u.c.k THEM ALL!" a drunken writer from California said, cymbal-like, in Case's other ear.

"I beg your pardon?" Epicene Wildeblood, gay as three chimps in a circus, seemed to think the drunk was addressing him.

"I said, f.u.c.k THE b.l.o.o.d.y CAPITALISTS!!!" the writer explained, weaving a bit to windward. "The G.o.dd.a.m.n motherf.u.c.king moneygrubbing Philistine lot of them ..."

"I see," Wildeblood said dryly. He did not like people throwing scenes at his parties. "I think maybe you've had too much to drink...."

"Yeah??? Well," the drunk decided majestically, "f.u.c.k Well," the drunk decided majestically, "f.u.c.k you you too. And the horse you rode in on, as they say in Texas. too. And the horse you rode in on, as they say in Texas.

But that lard-a.s.sed bore Blake Williams was droning, "The whole problem, of course, is that we haven't been born yet. In fact, only now, at this point in history, is humanity about to be born." Williams was full of rubbish like that.

"About to be born?" asked Carol Christmas, the most delicious piece of blond femininity in the galaxy. Case thought at once that it would be a splendidly wonderful idea to deposit at least some of his sperm within her-any orifice would do. He thought this was a brilliant decision on his part, and wondered how to begin implementing it. He had no idea that every male hominid, and many other male primates, immediately had that idea when looking at Carol. orifice would do. He thought this was a brilliant decision on his part, and wondered how to begin implementing it. He had no idea that every male hominid, and many other male primates, immediately had that idea when looking at Carol.

"Elverun, past Nova's atoms," the hairy Moon read on to his small circle of admirers, "from mayan baldurs to monads of goo, brings us by a divinely karmic Tao-Jones leverage back past tactics and aztlantean tooltechs to Louses in the Skidrow Dimehaunts. This way the Humpytheatre."

"I still say f.u.c.k 'em all." The drunk was a solitary ba.s.soon against Moon's keening violin. "Capitalism is a rich man's heaven and a poor man's h.e.l.l."

"Ahm yes," that windy old baritone sax, Blake Williams, bleated to the adorable Carol. "You see terrestrial life is embryonic in the evolutionary sense. In perspective to the cosmos." Old chryselephantine pedant, Case thought.

The shrill fife of Josephine Malik, Case's editor, was heard: "Moon. They say he works for the Beast." She wore jeans, combat boots and a b.u.t.ton saying in psychedelic colors, BRING BACK THE SIXTIES. Walking nostalgia.

"Floating you see," the tuba of Williams oompah-oompah-ed onward, "in the amniotic atmosphere at the bottom of a 4,000-mile gravity well. And taking the Euclidean parameters of that gestation as the norm. Totally fetal, if you follow me, and in a very real sense blind because unborn, knowing um the dimensions of the wombplanet but not knowing what lies beyond the gravitational v.a.g.i.n.a-the whole universe outside" outside".

"A 4,000-mile c.u.n.t?" c.u.n.t?" Carol was awed by the concept. Her blond head leaned forward in doubtful inquiry. "That's a Carol was awed by the concept. Her blond head leaned forward in doubtful inquiry. "That's a very very funny metaphor, Professor." funny metaphor, Professor."

"The only difference between my publishers and the James gang," the drunk went on, monotonous as a ba.s.s drum, "is that the James boys had horses."

"... which explains the various rebirth experiences reported by astronauts like Aldrin and Mitch.e.l.l and the others," Williams trumpeted (ga.s.sy old windbag). "Earth is our womb. Leaving Earth is literally rebirth. There's nothing metaphoric about it."

"The James boys h.e.l.l, my last publisher was more like Attila the Hun," plonkty-plonked Frank Hemeroid in pianissimo.

Case began to feel that he had had perhaps too much hash.

"Right Wingers?" astronomer Bertha Van Ation was trilling. "We've got real real Right Wingers out in Orange County. Let me tell you about the Committee to Nuke the Whales...." Right Wingers out in Orange County. Let me tell you about the Committee to Nuke the Whales...."

But that impossible Williams person was murmuring privately now to Carol the Golden G.o.ddess, and Case tried desperately to catch the words, dreading the thought that a s.e.xual liaison was being formed.

"The mnemonic," Williams was crooning, "is quite easy. Just say, 'Mother Very Easily Made a Jam Sandwich Using No Peanuts, Mayonnaise, or Glue.' See?"

Mnemonic for what, in G.o.d's name? But Moon was shrilling like a banshee now: "Wet with garrison statements, oswilde sh.o.r.es, daily blazers, tochus culbook depositories, middles.e.xed villains and fumes. Fict! The most unkennedest carp of all. Fogt. Veiny? V.D.? Wacky? His bruttus gypper."

"I was walking on Lexington Avenue one morning around three A.M. A.M.," the drunk maundered on, "and I heard this URRRRRP, this horrible the drunk maundered on, "and I heard this URRRRRP, this horrible eldritch laughter eldritch laughter just like in an H. P. Lovecraft story, and do you want to know what I think it was? A publisher and his lawyer had just figured out a new way to screw one of their writers." just like in an H. P. Lovecraft story, and do you want to know what I think it was? A publisher and his lawyer had just figured out a new way to screw one of their writers."

"This the lewdest comedy nominator," Moon keened high on the G-string. "This de visions of spirals fur de lewdest comedy nominator. Eerie cries from the scalped nations! This the oval orefice sends the plumbers fur de spills. l.u.s.t of the walkregans. Think! White ha.r.s.e devoted. Thank! Wit ars devoided. Dunk!"

"I wish Moon would stop reading that drivel," Fred "Figs" Newton was clearly heard in solo. "I'd like to ask him how much the Beast really knows."

"Oh," the mournful oboe of Benny Benedict sang ominously, "the Beast knows everything...." everything...."

"... by Loop Sh.o.r.e and Dellingersgangers," Moon keened over them, oblivious, "where yippies yip and doves duz nothing, to the hawkfullest convention ever."

At this point Case had to beat a hasty retreat to the John (one martini too many) and he never did get all the conversations sorted out in his memory, but the louses in the skidrow dimehaunts were firmly lodged in the Ambiguous Imagery files of his Myth-and-Metaphor Detector, right next to the Three Stooges and Chinatown.

And Cagliostro the Great.

TO HAVE LOCKS ON THESE DOORS.

One of the causes of cancer is the harmfulness of cooked foods.-FURBISH LOUSEWART V, Unsafe Wherever You Go Unsafe Wherever You Go Blake Williams had the great good fortune to suffer a bout of polio in infancy. Of course he did not realize it was good fortune at the time-nor did his parents or his doctors. Nonetheless, he was among the lucky few who were treated by the Sister Kenny method at a time (the early 1930s) when the American Medical a.s.sociation was denouncing that method as quackery and forbidding experiment thereon by its members. He was walking again, with only a slight limp, when he entered grade school in 1938. The real luck occurred twelve years later, in 1950, when he was eighteen; the limp and the dead muscles in his lower calves disqualified him for military service. The next man drafted, in his place, had both t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es bloodily blown off in Korea.

Williams, of course, never knew about this patriotic gelding, but he was well aware that various boys his age were having various portions of their anatomy blown off in Korea; being somewhat philosophical, he often reflected on the paradox that the polio (which had been, when it occurred, a physical agony to him and a psychological agony to his parents) had preserved him from such mutilations. Considering that the only continuing effect of the polio was the slight limp, he had to admit that Nature or G.o.d or something-or-other had sneakily done him great good while appearing to do him great evil. This was a decided encouragement toward an optimistic att.i.tude toward the seemingly evil and made him wonder if the universe were not benevolent after all. The guy who lost his b.a.l.l.s in Williams's place, on the other hand, became a p.r.o.nounced pessimist and cynic.

Between Korea and Vietnam, while Blake was acquiring first an M.S. and then a Ph.D. in paleoanthropology, another great good fortune, in the form of another seeming evil, came before his eyes. He was walking in lower Manhattan; he had started from Was.h.i.+ngton Square, where he and his current girl friend-they were both NYU students-had just had a particularly nasty quarrel right after a biology cla.s.s. He had wandered far to the west in a mood of suicidal gloom, such as young male primates often think they should experience after losing a s.e.xual partner. Somehow, he wandered onto Vandivoort Street and found himself at the Vandivoort Street incinerator. There he saw a most peculiar sight: a rather stout man, looking like he was about to cry, was watching while two younger, thinner men were pouring books out of a truck into the incinerator.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Blake Williams asked n.o.body in particular. It was like an old movie of n.a.z.i Germany. n.o.body had told him that bookburning was now an American inst.i.tution.

He approached the stout man, who was the only one of the three who seemed unhappy, and repeated his question. "What the h.e.l.l?" he asked. "I mean, are you people burning books books?"