Delancey's Stapler: Love, Lust, Duty, Doom, Rage, Revelation and Pizza

By Dave Veith

Spring 196-, on the campus of the U of C and D--, in crumbling World War II barracks foreshadowing Vietnam -- incoming freshman are driven by testosterone, fear, and a dim sense of obligation to become "men."  

Draft boards close in.  Beautiful co-eds drift doe-eyed under the pine trees on the Quadrangle, circled by upper-class Jocks like so many sharks.  Professors profess from the pulpits of  various disciplines, a neon mermaid throbs in the night sky at the apex of the L-shaped business district, and the latest Girl of the Month appears like clockwork in brazen glory on the wall above Roger Osborn's Love Candle.  

In the midst of such perils, what chance has a late bloomer like The Gnat?  A budding misanthrope in a black raincoat like Martin Calihan?  An accidental housemother like nubile Susan Thurlby -- or a neurotic maiden like lissome Shelley Wencelas, running against her will for Exhibit Day Queen -- or Osborn himself, the reluctant Jock transformed by ruthless publicity into The Freshman Whiz? 

Osborn doesn't know, but he's determined to think of something -- after all, human relationships are his specialty.  And the jungle is waiting.  And life.  Or death.

While nearby, steadfast in his quest for order in the midst of chaos, armed by the concept of duty, his green eyeshade and his trusty stapler, lurks Lawrence DeLancey ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467859981

Dave Veith

Dave Veith is retired and lives with his wife in Northern California. They have four children and three grandchildren.

Book preview

DeLancey’s Stapler

Love, Lust, Duty, Doom, Rage,

Revelation and Pizza

A Novel by

Dave Veith

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

© 2008 Dave Veith. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/24/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4343-4052-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4343-4053-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-5998-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007908302

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

First

Prologue: Under The Mermaid

I HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

1. Osborn

2. Calihan

3. DeLancey

4. Gnat

5. Mrs. Thurlby (1)

6. Mrs. Thurlby (2)

7. Big Ed Levine

8. Bullroar

9. OOna

10. Exchange

II PIZZA IN THE CEMETERY

11. Ringleader

12. News

13. Dawn

14. Baseball

15. Psychology

16. The Usual Beefcake Hucksterism

17. Negotiations

18. Transportation

19. Tombstones (1)

20. Tombstones (2)

III THE SLEEPING WOMAN

21. Sourceless Volition

22. Opener

23. Hypotenuse (1)

24. Codicil

25. Sunday

26. Waiting for Leon

27. Stupendous Clout

28. Synesthesia

29. In The Sycamore Grove

30. Whiz

31. Justification

32. Undie

33. Duel

34. Spring Fling (1)

35. Spring Fling (2)

IV EXHIBIT DAY

36. Visitors

37. Escalation (1)

38. Q & A

39. Thighbones

40. Escalation (2)

41. Parade

42. Twin Dip

43. Agamemnon

44. And Now, Back To Our Studios

45. Aftermath

V HYPOTENUSE (2)

46. The Dean’s List

47. Cul-De-Sac

48. Shelley

49. Sedation

50. Greeting

51. Sound Off

52. Big WhOOp

VI FINITUDE

53. Artifacts

54. An Essentially Meaningless Exercise

55. Northpaw

56. Zenda

Epilogue: Through Both Canals

Last

This book is for

Glo, Nick, Ems,

Sharkgruber and Resops

First

The series of events which occurred at the U- of C- at D- in the spring of the year 196- were, to at least one of the participants, an extraordinary introduction to the rest of his life.

Later I would come across a short story by Stephen Crane, from which I quote:

... there was this comradeship, that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.

Later still I would study 20th Century French Literature in translation, including The Plague, by Albert Camus. Even less than the narrator of that tale, I have no special claim to the story I recount, except for two facts.

I was there.

And:

Somebody has to mention it.

Prologue: Under The Mermaid

As the white whale lured Ahab, as the dark center of his soul consumed Kurtz, so yearned The Gnat for the flesh-and-blood incarnation of the neon mermaid above the Brazen Jane. In a previous time, legend told, she’d signaled safe to harbor ships; so now to his storm-tossed soul.

By night he walked the streets, his footsteps hollow sounds, ask not for Whom Whom Whom. From the apex of the L-shaped business district the mermaid winked and flared and crackled, casting on the sidewalk pale pastel auras of yellow hair, blue eyes, pink shoulder and spangled green tail in which his ghostly shadow swam. Sometimes she was always there, sometimes one part or another, once gone completely for a long wrenching moment in which The Gnat’s heart stopped beating entirely before she blazed forth again and filled him with desire for hope and hope for desire, yet remained as unreachable as the stars.

He reconnoitered. It was October. The wind was turning cold. Away to the north marched the streetlamps of 1st Avenue, to the west the softer residential globes of A Street. A shadow passed behind him. He turned. The door to the Brazen Jane was closing. Nose to glass, he peered through the plate-glass window of the pizza parlor.

A long room stretched back, customers in booths down one side and Andre the refugee behind the counter. Gradually all movement stopped. Conversations ceased. Forks paused in mid-air and throats in mid-swallow.

A girl stood just inside the door.

The Gnat stared. Glorious golden hair hid much of her face except for the tip of her nose, yet somehow he knew she was beautiful. From chin to knee she was concealed by a blue coat with gold buttons, yet her topography transmitted through the cloth which parts of her moved and how much and where. Her calves might have been the tiniest bit heavy, but this was nitpicking. Her ankles were heart-breaking: delicate, finely-articulated, aristocratic bones and sinews poised in a perfect marriage of form and function above dainty shoes of midnight blue.

She held her pose as if she knew she was being catalogued. Then, quickly and economically, she slid into the booth facing the window, placed a large blue purse on the table, and looked directly at The Gnat’s nose.

Her eyes, bruised by mascara, looked out through the glass, through what must have been her own reflection in it, through the reflection of The Gnat on the other side, and through The Gnat himself. She didn’t see him, of course. He was invisible. She didn’t know he was there.

But he saw her. The glistening tears. And in the depths of her eyes, blind terror.

He did not think. He did not analyze. Without hesitation he pushed open the door to the Brazen Jane and went in.

Heat and noise assailed him. Life had resumed, mouths chewed, forks dove into pizza. No one paid him the slightest attention, but he wouldn’t have noticed if they had.

The girl remained as she was, staring out the window, weeping in silence.

He stood still. Turning her head, she saw him.

He slid onto the bench across from her.

I don’t believe you did that, she said.

She had a sallow face with unexpected angles, thin cheeks, a sharp nose at the moment red, large blue eyes and a curving mouth. She gave a shake of her head, so that the highlights in her hair shimmered and dazzled him.

Aren’t you going to say anything? she said.

He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

You’re not a weirdo, are you?

He shook his head. No, not a weirdo.

Are you deaf? Mute? A deaf-mute? A vertical line appeared in the center of her forehead and she leaned forward. Speaka da English?

Her voice tinkled like a wind-chime. He sensed that her mockery was turned against herself as much as him. She shrugged and hooded her eyes.

If you are mute, I hope you’re careful. Mutes can be mistaken for choking victims and have their ribs crushed by bystanders applying the Heimlich maneuver.

He would have smiled, but she was crying again, tears rolling singly down her pale face, streaking the mascara.

Actually, I’m glad you’re a mute.

She took a gold compact from the blue purse and dabbed at her face.

Maybe you’re a cretin too. If you’re a cretin, nod your head.

The Gnat nodded.

I don’t much like cretins, but at least you’re mute. The compact snapped shut. I suppose it’s too much to expect. It’s not likely. But by any chance are you a eunuch as well?

The Gnat paused.

Yes? No? The blue eyes studied him. Think it over. Take your time.

The Gnat furrowed his brow.

If I knew you were a eunuch, or at least a cretin, I’d tell you everything about me. But I can’t risk it in case you’re only a mute.

The Gnat tried to think of a way to convince her he was a cretin but came up empty. His heart pounded in his ears.

I’ll tell you anyway, she said. I’m waiting for someone I promised to wait for. I wish I hadn’t promised, but I had to, I had no choice, or so I thought at the time, and now the piper must be paid. You can go now.

She looked out the window and waited, but he stayed where he was.

If you stay, you’ll get the shit beat out of you. I really don’t care what you do. It’s your decision.

She looked out the window again, but he didn’t move.

She sighed. All right, maybe we should reevaluate the situation. What’s your name?

He gave a croaking sound.

Sorry, I forgot. Write it on this napkin.

She pushed a square of scalloped tissue toward him, followed by a ballpoint pen. In block letters he printed ‘THE GNAT’ and pushed it back. She studied it with a slight flaring of nostrils.

I like the ethnic quality, she said.

He cleared his throat and indicated the napkin.

You’re kidding.

He shook his head.

You think it’s that easy?

He shook his head again.

Do you know who you’re talking to? she said.

He looked at her.

I guess that was a pretty stupid remark Give me that. She printed something on the other side and pushed it back. Now we’re even.

He gazed at the napkin, raised his eyes.

You don’t suppose I could have something to drink, do you?

Panic seized him.

You know, like a lemon coke? You have to go to the bar.

The Gnat stood up. Andre the refugee watched his approach with a disconcerting smirk.

The Gnat’s mind raced. If he could only think, gain time, regain his voice. If!

May I help you, said Andre.

The Gnat turned. The booth by the window was empty. The girl stood in the open doorway with one foot outside, looking back. She seemed about to speak when an unseen presence yanked her from sight with a force that made her teeth snap.

The door shut. She was gone.

For a long moment The Gnat stood frozen to the spot.

Then he moved toward the door. At the booth he paused. Wreckage was everywhere.

He went outside. Empty sidewalks stretched in all directions. The neon mermaid crackled overhead. Presaging winter, a cold wind filled his lungs.

Back at Echo Building he launched himself with a soft cry onto the asphalt walkways, first in a trot, then a lope, finally in a full-out sprint around one corner then another, through the yellow light from Mrs. Thurlby’s office, past the blue light of Mrs. Thurlby’s refrigerator, around and around beneath the almond trees and brooding oaks, faster! faster! until his tortured molecules must surely fly apart in every direction and at last allow him peace.

But in the middle of his third lap Roger Osborn burst from concealment and brought him down with a cross-body block to the shins.

Brought down! cried Osborn.

Aieeeee! cried The Gnat, sailing upward. The earth tilted beneath him, the stars rotated above. At apogee, the cold wind blew in one ear and out the other, and then the ground rose up and clobbered him.

Gnat.

Osborn stood above him, at the end of a furrow in the grass.

Gnat?

He lay with arms flung wide in an attitude of crucifixion.

Gnat!

I’m in love, Oz.

Great news, Osborn said. What’s her name?

The Gnat handed over the scalloped napkin.

THE WHITE CANADIAN SNOW GOOSE, Osborn read.

Hee hee hee, said The Gnat.

Overhead, Mrs. Thurlby’s clothesline sliced the moon.

I

HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Hi!

My name is

______________________ !

The Love Candle flickers in its wax-encrusted dish in the corner of Osborn’s room, tear-drop flame illuminating like golden pears the bare curved bodies of Miss February and her guitar. Lounging on a polar bear rug the one strokes the resonant belly of the other, while around a blond flank pokes an inquisitive nipple like a small blind beast seeking affection.

You rang? says The Gnat.

Nice talk, says Osborn.

Hee hee hee!

1. Osborn

At moments of crisis, or sometimes just at moments in general, Roger Osborn’s head detached itself from his stocky body and rose into the atmosphere like a freckled weather balloon. From high above, his gray-eyed gaze fell impartially on the town and the U- of C- campus, the railroad tracks and the distant mountains. It was hard to believe, at such times, even from so high up, that a War was going on. Of course, it wasn’t going on anywhere near him, or the University, or the town, or the mountains. It was going on overseas in jungles and rice paddies. But every day there was increasing evidence that it was a real War, even though it had never officially been declared. Declaring War had become an unnecessary anachronism in complicated times. Every evening, reports airing on Mrs. Thurlby’s TV in the Student Lounge caused his stomach to hurt, if only until the next commercial.

Despite the TV, and despite Lawrence DeLancey’s predictions of doom, Osborn wasn’t quite sure what to make of a War which most of the time seemed so far away.

His immediate problem, in fact, was the polar opposite.

Oz is a lover! Oz is a lover!

Quiet, Gnat.

The Gnat considered Osborn to be a lover because of the Love Candle illuminating in the corner of his room the latest centerfold from Barrington magazine he’d stapled to the wall with DeLancey’s stapler, thus triggering its owner’s ritual wrath. The Candle burned at best ten minutes before being extinguished in deference to Mrs. Thurlby’s obsessive fear that Echo Building might at any time explode into flames that would leap into the canopy of oak and almond trees and engulf the rest of Glen House, the University’s euphemism for the World War Two army barracks set under the trees like rows of gray two-story shoeboxes. Because of a wildcat strike which had paralyzed the construction of Hobart Hall on the far side of the campus, Glen House had been thrown into the breach as the official dormitory for incoming freshman males.

Also, Osborn had dates every Friday and Saturday night with a large and varied roster of girls. The Gnat had never been on a date. Osborn’s specialty was human relationships of all shapes and sizes: complex, simple, straight-forward and Byzantine. The Gnat moped about, yearning for perfection.

The Gnat was crazed, with an underlying foundation of existential despair. Osborn was a solid citizen with a hidden streak of anarchy who shielded The Gnat as best he could from the patronizing of Lawrence DeLancey, the pugilism of Roland Soy, the constipated lust of Robert Drucker, and the thinly-disguised misanthropy of Martin Calihan.

I like being thinly disguised, said Martin Calihan, who was the New Roommate in Apartment E-11 and always wore a black raincoat.

Why do you always wear a black raincoat? Osborn asked him.

It might rain.

Calihan was a puzzle. But as a freshman in college Roger Osborn was determined to appreciate life as a möbius strip in four dimensions and in that spirit enjoyed being puzzled, not so much by Calihan as by, for example, Shelley Wenceslas.

Shelley Wencelas was the most beautiful girl in the freshman class, maybe even the entire student body. Of course no one had seen all the girls but she was at least tied for most beautiful. Osborn had met her at the Freshman Mixer approximately ten seconds before her reputation was validated and thus squeaked past the deadline when it was decreed that he or any other freshman had with her a snowball’s chance in Hell.

She was standing at the edge of the dance floor, her foot tapping too fast for the music. Everyone noticed her. She was the classic American beauty: long honey-blonde hair, cornflower blue eyes, a haughty demeanor in counterpoint to a luscious body and electric feminine nervous system. No one dared approach her until Osborn sidled up and said:

Hey sweetie, wanna dance?

Hmpf, said Shelley Wenceslas.

Is that a yes or a no?

At that point a contingent of upperclassmen moved in.

Hi, said their spokesman. You’re Shelley, right?

She stopped tapping her foot.

I’m Basil Conroy and this is Thomas Babington Macaulay, Bracewell Robbins, and Michael Angelo, from over at the Jock House.

Well it’s about time, she said.

This is a Freshman Mixer, said Michael Angelo. We just wanted to introduce ourselves.

We won’t horn in on your fun, said Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Fun? she said.

Have a good time, said Bracewell Robbins. We’ll be in touch.

They circled away, perused the rest of the new crop, and left. Biting her lip, Shelley tapped her foot even faster.

Yes or no, said Osborn.

Oh well, she said. I suppose I might.

They took a spin or two around the floor. Then the band took a break and he escorted her to the punch table.

My name is Roger, he said.

How nice for you.

You can call me Oz.

She looked around as if hoping the Jocks would reappear.

I would like to dance with you again, he said.

Would you.

But I’m not going to.

She looked at him. What?

You see, my goal is to dance with every girl here. Do you think I can do it?

Her lip curled. That’s dense.

Maybe. But I’ve made a commitment, and I always honor my commitments. Goodnight.

Goodbye.

After that, he’d seen her around campus once in awhile. It was believed she went out with the Jocks and a graduate student or two, and rumors had her mixed up with a French Professor with a big nose. An aura of mystery preceded and followed her. Everybody knew who she was, but nobody seemed to know her well, not even the other girls living in Bundle Hall. She was generally considered a snooty snob.

Osborn was too busy taking out all the other girls he’d met to worry much about Shelley Wenceslas. Each Friday and Saturday night he dated a different girl: Mary, Sherry, Karen, Sharon, Kimberly, Tiffany, Jane. Sometimes he borrowed Mrs. Thurlby’s old green Chevrolet and took them to eat pizza in the cemetery. Sometimes he bought corsages which Mrs. Thurlby stored in her back-porch refrigerator until he picked them up.

Tweet-HONK! he cried, bounding into her office with his fluorescent pink tie flying over his shoulder and his brown corduroy jacket bouncing off his rump. I love you, Mrs. T!

O Oz!

Of course, my love encompasses all humanity. At least, the female part.

Mrs. Thurlby giggled like a piccolo machine-gun. So who’s the lucky girl tonight, Oz? Ellen? Helen? Carol? Meryl?

The Gnat bounded in. Oz is a lover! Oz is a lover!

You worry me, Gnat.

Spoken like a true Psychology Major.

It’s important to have direction, Osborn said. Besides, it’s intriguing to probe the inner man.

You mean the inner woman, said The Gnat. Oz is a lover!

Mrs. Thurlby giggled. Here’s your corsage, lover-boy.

Nice talk, said Osborn, his freckles turning transparent.

2. Calihan

The reason Martin Calihan wore a black raincoat wasn’t that he was a pervert with nothing on underneath, or that he was especially fond of the raincoat, or that he had no other clothes. It was that he was nearly petrified with fear.

At times during the fall semester he’d become concerned that the nearly was in jeopardy. Such moments of self-knowledge usually came as he curled in the pre-natal position on his bed and wondered if he could, or why he should, ever move again.

He’d lived in Lima Building with his roommate, Roland Soy.

Ah grog, Calihan, said Soy. Soy is hairy. Soy is all man. Lend me your electric razor.

I’d rather not.

No give, Soy take!

Soy used Calihan’s electric razor every day for a week and then tossed it onto Calihan’s bed.

Ah grog. Broken.

When Soy was gone Calihan opened the razor and discovered the rotary blades clogged with chin-stubble, a mixture of his own and Roland Soy’s. Shortly afterwards Soy returned.

Ah ha. Oh ho. Big Soy understands you, Calihan. Soy displayed a manual razor and a package of straight blades he’d just purchased at Starr’s drugstore. Big Soy knows you are a ‘stuck-up.’ He will not bother you or your razor again.

Thank god, said Calihan.

I oughta pound you, said Roland Soy.

The next day, at a Physical Geography lecture in the Chem Aud, Calihan learned that an earth-encircling meridian passed directly through the chair in which he sat.

He drifted in the gloaming, one with the shadows in his black raincoat. During the first lonely weeks of the semester he’d sent his high school girlfriend Nancy Gooth a letter every day, always using the same mailbox in the middle of the night, and received not a single reply. Finally Nancy Gooth had sent a postcard of an owl in a snowy tree and on the back had written that she hoped he was OK and that she might hear from him again someday. He went back to the mailbox he’d been using and realized that it was abandoned, but because he’d always approached it in the dark he hadn’t comprehended the meaning of the posted signs.

Back in Lima Building he sat at his desk and was staring at a blank piece of paper when Roland Soy appeared.

Ah grog, Calihan. Lend me your pen.

I don’t want to, Soy.

Soy’s eyes narrowed. About that pen.

Calihan had two ballpoint pens, identical except for the color, one red, one black. He handed Soy the red pen.

Ah no. Soy pointed to a speck on the silver clip. You have given me the inferior pen.

I haven’t given you anything, said Calihan. It’s a loan.

Soy glowered and made a fist, but then relaxed. Ah ha. Oh ho. Calihan, you are a shrewdie. But remember, Big Soy does not forget.

When he was gone Calihan took the black pen and wrote on the blank paper, Dear Nancy. Then he stared at the paper some more. Then he put it away.

That night, as he lay in bed, he heard the faint scraping of his chair. Opening one eye, he saw Roland Soy bending over his desk, switching the clips of the ballpoint pens.

As the fall semester drew to a close, Mrs. Thurlby announced that several of the buildings in Glen House would be closed, including Lima Building. The remaining students--those who had survived the first semester and not found alternate housing--would be consolidated into the remaining buildings to reduce the University’s heat, electricity, and miscellaneous maintenance bills.

Mrs. Thurlby was 22 years old and cute as a button and was Housemother of Glen House only through an extremely odd series of circumstances. With a giggle she added that it would also ease the burden on the maintenance men themselves, chief among them old Mr. Burich with his milky eyeball. Those students who were in buildings scheduled to remain open, she continued, would stay where they were. Those students who were in buildings scheduled to be closed, and who did not plan to seek alternate housing, on the other hand, should come see her.

Thus it was that on an afternoon of coppery clouds pressed low to the northern horizon a strange young man in a black raincoat appeared at the counter of her office in Echo Building, Apartment E-3.

I need another room, he said.

O, said Mrs. Thurlby. I’m sorry but I don’t know your name.

Martin Calihan.

Of course, Martin. Don’t worry, we’ll find you a room.

Calihan said: There’s something else.

O?

Roland Soy.

Roland? If you two want to room together I can--

No. I don’t want to room with Soy. He thinks he’s joining the TW fraternity but I’m afraid they’ll see through him and boot him out and then he’ll want to room with me. He might even come in here and ask you about it.

Mrs. Thurlby opened the resident register on top of the counter and scanned a list of names. How about Stuart Filchuck?

No.

No?

Filchuck and Soy are opposites. I can’t stand either one of them.

How about a three-man room? You know, so they cancel each other out.

Calihan shook his head. They’d kill each other.

I was kidding, said Mrs. Thurlby. Anything else? No? She noted his attire and the coppery clouds. Do you think it might rain?

Calihan disappeared. A few minutes later Lawrence DeLancey came in, followed by The Gnat marching around the office chanting the theme of the TW fraternity: THUNdering thundering thundering WEBELOS! THUNdering thundering thundering WEBELOS!

Blast it all, Gnat! DeLancey turned to Mrs. Thurlby. Do you see what I have to put up with?

Mrs. Thurlby giggled. Go, Gnat, Go!

DeLancey raised an eyebrow. Here’s the problem. Big Ed Levine is gone and we need a new roommate.

Big Ed Levine, oh no.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask, but I can’t risk another crazed buffoon like The Gnat.

I see, she said. No crazed buffoon.

Nor a blustering sex-fiend like Robert Drucker.

No blustering sex-fiend.

Nor a misguided freckled humanist like Roger Osborn.

Mrs. Thurlby was shocked. You don’t like Osborn either?

All right, perhaps I went too far.

How about Martin Calihan? she said.

Who? said DeLancey.

Who? said The Gnat, ceasing his march.

He always wears a black raincoat, said Mrs. Thurlby.

No way, DeLancey said. If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s a black raincoat wearer.

Mrs. Thurlby stamped her foot. Too bad, Larry. There’s too much intolerance in the world. We have to learn to like each other. Consider it done.

Mrs. Thurlby!

You heard me.

You heard her, said The Gnat. Calihan it is.

DeLancey sighed. So be it. As needs be, so shall I endure.

3. DeLancey

You know what your trouble is, Lare?

Tell me what my trouble is, Gnat.

Self-pity.

Agreed, said DeLancey. But I’ve suffered enough to earn it.

It was ten o’clock at night and they were sitting on a concrete bench forming the top row of a small concrete amphitheater west of campus. The amphitheater was surrounded by the dark woods of the University arboretum and, except for them, deserted. The dark waters of the University creek rippled in front of the concrete stage.

What is this place, Lare?

Thespian’s Wood, Gnat.

Would they what?

Would who what?

The Gnat sighed. Lare, you’re a withered soul.

Maybe. But it didn’t deter me then and it won’t deter me now.

Deter you from what?

From my duty, of course. When the trumpet call of duty sounds, answer it. Otherwise, don’t call yourself a man.

I’m a man!

An eyebrow raised. Oh yeah? Let’s see your pubic hair.

The Gnat said nothing.

That was harsh of me, Gnat. After all, you can’t control your rate of maturation.

Why did you drive me here? said The Gnat.

DeLancey owned a lumpy dust-blue sedan which on weekends he drove across the alfalfa fields southwest of town to visit his Mater. During the week it sat in the Glen House parking lot while he rode a bicycle to class like everyone else. Tonight, however, had been an exception.

The fact is, DeLancey said, I have a brother.

I thought he was in Nam.

According to Mater, he has returned.

Has Mater seen him?

How dare you call her ‘Mater,’ Gnat? She’s no Mater of yours. Unfortunately she is Leon’s Mater as well as mine, and I promised her I’d meet him here.

The Gnat looked around. Here?

Relax. Leon won’t rip me apart with his bare hands, I’m his brother.

Maybe, but what about me?

Not likely.

The Gnat looked uneasily over his shoulder. A thin moon hung in the trees. Anyway, I heard his dick was cut off.

My brother’s dick is no concern of yours.

In the distance across the flat fields rose the lighted windows of Bundle Hall, home of freshman girls. The concentration of pulchritude caused The Gnat to moan: Ooooohhhhh.

Hold your tongue, DeLancey said.

Aaaaaggggg.

"Never