SUPERWORM
187
the pimpled boy erected now behind
Cavalier;
the emptied shine boy,
chocolate lad of sixteen, dead butt in his teeth and lacquer on his
head. He speak from the heart and not so much the head, address
all this dumb world:
"We've got to tolerate those different from ourselves even if
they don't tolerate us. Why are you all so violent? Look here. What
ever happened to generosity of spirit? Even in love we want victory
and violence. (Note:
to
tuck,
an ancient word, probably Sanskrit,
meaning 'to hit or strike.') Why do we want to
control
everything?
To smash everything different from ourselves? We must learn to live
in peace with those who are...."
The seat tilts back and Charlie hits him with a hot towel.
"Commie fascist rat," the salesman mutters. "This is a great
country it wasn't for you pinko commie creeps, you creep."
"Make your face feel great. Get rid of that puffiness," says the
barber.
Beneath the towel, in its hot snow folds, the professor weeps
silently. The word is dead, why waste the word? I saw it die on TV
of a late Tuesday. "What puffiness?"
"He's right, you know." The voice comes from near the front
window.
It
is the blue broadcloth voice. "About the Anglo-Saxon
hehehe.
Partridge makes the point, I believe."
"Well, wow! 1'd sure like to hit
or
strike some of this old smack
then." Paper rustles as the boy turns out yet another center spread.
The professor imagines a smiling
girl
spilling maggots. He is very
sad under his towel. The great cities are crumbling. Being melted
down for cannon. Get that irony: getting big muscles while the heart
collapses and the guts grow ulcers and the mind shrivels. Oh, Spengler
(calls he out, 'cause he's a prof of history, maybe, to that god), the
great crumbling cities, who would have guessed they'd die, not being
bombed, but bombing? Apollo grows female dugs, is worshiped as
Hem1aphrodite to blow and be blown by the golden boys; Dionysos
is carried about in a wheelbarrow, fat, drunk, slavering, idiotic, im–
potent. And everywhere there is the fear of the great grass fire: the
youth
is
corrupt. Only the soldier is pure, and he is pure in a brutal
courage turned to an unjust end.
The towel unwinds and the ceiling comes into focus. Claude
works his lips and blinks. "Don't misunderstand, gentlemen. I am a
