394
PARTISAN REriEW
still
can't
tell;
and others are easy
to
change,
like
Robert and
Roberta 'or Bernie and Bernice. All of this is an
old
story to
Marcia.
But now, there are some
chosen
ones, who are supposed to be
cut but somehow they get off. Why? They are only
partly
cut–
and this is ser-cum-si-zhun, because they use a scissors. These are
J oos. For a moment, starting from "Louis," Marcia thinks that
she can tell by the names, but then when she thinks of "Ronnie"
and of "Terry" and "Larry," two boys in school whom she now
knows are J oos (in fact, Terry is and Larry is not), she sees that
she can't. The
last
names are connected with marrying and have
nothing to do with ser-cum-si-zhun.
Now, she sees in a flash, it is
better
to be a Joo, for then you
still have the secret power and the thing, but at the same time you
can be cleverer like a girl. This is why Larry and Terry are always
~able
to beat her, they have an unfair advantage; but Harry, the
dope, is only a boy and not a J oo.
There are also differences among J oos; for instance, Louis
is much smarter than Papa. But this
proves
it, for Louis is more
like Martha; that is, they cut the
best
amount off him, but not so
much from Papa. Anyway, she hates Louis and loves her poor
papa. And now an enormous love for poor Harry suffuses her and
she begins to tremble and want to go to school; he has so much
secret power.
But more important-and, lying in bed, Marcia begins to
tremble as she thinks about herself-what is a Juice? and besides
all these, there are Gen-tiles. Martha and Marcia are Juice and
Bernie is a Gen-tile. Oh! what a mean thing to say about poor
Bernie, that he is not even a Juice, but even worse than a girl; he
is not even clever. It is nice of Louis to be so kind to him. So it
seems that things go in the following order: Boys, Joos, Juices,
Girls, Gen-tiles. Except that it is smartest to be a J oo. But what
is it! What is it that they did to Marcia to be a Juice? As she lets
her fingers
mo•te
between her thighs, she breaks into a cold sweat,
and an urgency of longing loosens her strength. With a violent
dismissal, she leaps from bed.
