PAR TI
SA N
REV lEW :
239
his
job
~what's
the difference. You're either part of the plot or part
of the counterplot. Everybody's"got to be either one or the other they
all
have their own opinions about which they are. Personally that's
not part of my assignment. Part of it is having meets. This is a meet.
The way you have meets
is
you take out your stick of dynamite that's
your i. d. Don't fall. This is a two person meet there are bigger ones.
When we get all our dynamite together we have a bomb. Then we
set it off. It's
all
chance. Don't trust anyone you don't know that's the
big thing. It's all who you like who you can work with who you fuck.
Personal affinity. Of course we don't have real names we have aliases.
Today I'm Harrold. Two r's. Tomorrow I might be someone else. Don't
fall. Of course all this probably sounds wacky to you. :That's because
none of it
is
true. It's "just a joke a wa.y we have of testing people's
reactions. The dynamite stick's a dud. Light the fuse and see. Or maybe
you better not. Maybe it'll blow your head off. Well you never know
till
you try. Right?
I'm disappointed says President Nixon. They edge across the
window ledge seven floors up working their way to the left dynamite
stick in one hand the other bloodied
finge~tips
clutching grips in stone.
Beneath them ' long rolling lawn red brick slate shrubbery crowds of
disconsolate children clump disperse circulate. Reports of fires fire–
bombs bomb scares window smashing assaults.
I'm disappointed she repeats. Oops. She lurches sickeningly as her
foot slips on the edge does an odd dance with the wall ends holding on
with both hands feet firm dynamite clamped between her teeth.
Don't fall says Harrold.
""
I find this ridiculous mumbles President Nixon dynamite wobbling
in
her mouth. I come here to meet the Admiral and I find myself
creepiDg"across a window ledge with a stick of dynamite between my
teeth.
This isn't what I have in mind. At all. At all at all. What I
want is wisdom. Enlightenment. How
to
live.
I
want to talk to the
Admiral.
" "
". "
Harrold guffaws. I can tell you what he's "goiDg to say he mimics
the "oid
ma~.
Plenny SDlOkin' drinkin fuckin. That's what he "always
says.
He's just an old man.
""
They reach a window. Harrold winks and motions her to look in–
side. Inside a blond girl nude to
th~
waist and wearing bobbysox hovers
over a scrawny adolescent boy tied to a wooden chair his head hang–
ing like a wilted flower. As they watch she grabs him by the jaws with
one hand forcing
his
mouth open
inserts
a gleaming knife and severs
his
tongue. Blood covers
his
chin the severed tongue bounces off
his
