574
reach meee" with the look
of a mendicant spider-monkey.
"There'll be no cheating in
this game," Corso shouted from
his altar. "This is gotta be play–
ed straight." He sat cross-legged
and bounced ever so lightly on
the sagging mattress. A blond
file-clerk on my left shook her
head in befuddlement. "Is this
guy for real?" she whispered.
"He's a saint," the Wellesley
girl said, and canonized
him
with a nod of her head. "Gins–
berg said so. I read it in one of
his Introductions."
There was a hush in the cabin
as Corso pulled a bottle of Bour–
bon from his back pocket and
passed it around. The rules of
the game were simple: someone
took a swig of Bourbon, which
then entitled him to ask the
most candid possible question of
any person in the room. When
the question was answered, that
person in turn took his swig and
shot the question at someone
else.
The object of the game, Corso
claimed, was to strip off our in–
hibitions so we would "feel" for
one another's hidden shames
and deformities and learn to
accept and love one another in
our collective nudity. The final
outcome, alas, was quite the op–
posite. At the end of an hour
and two pints of Bourbon the
cabin was a shambles of de–
molished egos. Reputations lay
scattered on the floor like rem-
nants of a busted
pinata
-
all
crepe-paper fragments, soiled
candy, and broken bits of clay.
"How many men have you
slept with?" a pony-tailed Vas–
sar girl was asked by the file–
clerk. Her wholesome good looks
appeared to fade before the as–
sembly as she confessed, halt–
ingly, the first adolescent grop–
ings with the doctor's son ; the
lonely nights in the Vineyard
with the caretaker's son ; the dis–
astrous adventure with the but–
ler's son . . . By the time she
was through, her Minerva-like
glow had fled entirely, to return,
no doubt, the moment she
stepped off the ship.
A Dartmouth peacock who
had styled himself the cruise's
Casanova was asked point blank
to enumerate his conquests.
"Four," he replied with a
brisk grin, thinking to slip away
without the particulars.
"Which
four?" Corso inquir–
ed, in the quiet, merciless voice
of the Grand Inquisitor. The
peacock's proud, erect feathers
appeared to quiver and grey
visibly around the edges as he
committed one miscall after
another. None of the young
women present, it developed, re–
called h a v i n g been "con–
quered."
A spinster secretary who had
passed herself off as a youthful
ingenue
was asked to confess
her real age, after which she sat
huddled in a corner, weeping
