SUPERWORM
189
The professor closes
his
eyes to hear it worse. He is screaming
at them from inside his eyelids. "Come on, fellas, let's talk it over
rationally."
But his compulsive black underwear reminds him of his
secret role and his disastrous knowledge, en he lay low in dere, ain't
sayin' nothin'.
The sedan waits for the getaway. And under the sheet ·he con–
tinues to unbutton.
"Shine 'em up, Mr. Mercer?" the shine boy asks the salesman.
"O.K., Sam. You shine 'em good or
I'll
kick your black ass all
the way back to Africa, y'hear?" sezee goodnaturedly.
"Yassir, Mr. Mercer." He rolls his eyes and does a little jig.
"Free enterprise," the salesman says, "I ask you: Where would
men like me be if Mousy Tongue was to take over? How about that,
professor? What would happen to me?"
But he lay low now, unbutton another button, and don' say
nothin'. Still his mind screams, Economic justice! Controls!
"Soon you salesmen'll be done for anyway," the
Times
says.
"We'll displace you in your own lifetime. Subliminal appeal, that's
the trick. They'll trample salesmen on their way to buy. Controlled
impulse." The sheet flaps and he stands up and adjusts his tie, tilts
his
head to the side, notices a hair out of place and steps back into the
chair for a touch-up.
The professor's brain is slammed into boxcars, separated from its
wife and children, comholed and skinned by mad faggot doctors,
spread out to dry on barbed wire, molded into bowling shoes. Gassed,
pickled and eaten by Control. So he says
in
spite of himself, says it
heavily, deep from a suffering he is not supposed to know, nor
alienation: "By you this is good news, already?"
The barber shrugged, dismissing him.
"How's that, Mr. Mercer? Shiny enough for you?" The boy sits
back on his heels, smiling and rolling his eyes.
"Listen boy," the salesman says. He leans forward in the chair
and holds out a five-dollar bill. "You can have this and keep the
change you do me one little favor take about five minutes we drive
to the park." His face contorts into a huge wink, the pouild of flesh
on his cheek rising ponderously to close his eye. The barber flips ·off
the sheet and unpins the paper around the man's neck. He stands up
and, as the boy dusts off his coat with a whisk broom, puts his arm
