The Frumious Bandersnatch полностью

The representative of Priapus Perpetual was named Larry Graham. He knew that the widely accepted meaning of “fey” was “strange or unusual” but he himself had been considered strange or unusual long before he became gay. Dressed tonight in a purple turtleneck sweater over which he had thrown a beige cashmere jacket, he sat looking smug and self-satisfied, the little fag, Ollie thought. Actually, Graham was as bewildered as the reverend was, even though he realized the question wasn’t being asked about the black dancer who’d played the Bandersnatch, but rather about Tamar Valparaiso herself, whose father had warned “Beware the Jabberwock, my son,” mind you, and had later exulted, “Come to my arms, my beamish boy,” don’t forget.

As Graham saw it, the question being asked was: Who or what is this person with the exuberant breasts in a torn and tattered costume? A girl or a boy? A daughter or a son? A male or a female? In short, gay or fey? A revealed homosexual or merely a female eccentric, a whimsical adolescent girl, or—dare one even suggest it—a visionary? A Joan of Arc, mayhaps, wielding an invisible vorpal sword?

“What do you say, gentlemen?” Curly asked, and then immediately said, “Ooops, excuse me, Larry,” and then, compounding the felony, said, “But that’s what the debate tonight is all about, isn’t it?Is the person on that tape supposed to be homosexual, like Larry Graham here, who admits it freely? And if so…”

“Of course he is,” Graham said.

“Reverend?”

“Are we talking about the African-American in the mask? If so, he is very definitely homosexual.”

“And how do you know that? ” Graham asked at once.

“Well, the very way he moves, ” Brenner said.

“He moves like a dancer,” Graham said.

“Fred Astaire didn’t move that way. Neither did Gene Kelly.”

“Besides, we’re not talking about the dancer. The question does not refer to the dancer. ”

“It certainly doesn’t refer to the girl, ” Brenner said.

“That’s exactly the metaphor,” Graham said.

The Reverend Brenner didn’t know what metaphor meant, either. He thought it meant simile. If so, was this little homosexual person here implying that the girl being assaulted was somehow a simile for a homosexual?

“I do not see any connection,” he said. “The problem with organizations like yours, Mr. Graham, is that you presuppose everyone in the world is either already homosexual or else would like to become homosexual. That is the implicit threat to family values, and the entire reason for the existence of groups like CVC…”

“I do believe, yes,” Larry said, “that ‘Bandersnatch’ is about a young boy coming out of the closet, yes. If we study the video carefully, we…”

“Oh, please,” Brenner said, “that’s utter nonsense.”

“Why don’t we take another look at it?” Curly said, and to someone off camera, “Can we roll it again, boys?”

Ollie thought, Good, let’s watch the strip tease again.

This was not the tape Honey Blair and her crew had shot on the night of the kidnapping. This was the studio-shot video with its animated footage and a skimpily but fully clothed Tamar larking under a yellow sky with pastel colored clouds and whimsical budding flowers and fanciful floating insects while the sound of a synthesizer…

She looks like a shepherd boy, Ollie thought, and suddenly understood what Larry Graham had meant a moment ago.

She did not look like a boy for very long.

Within seconds after the black guy in his gray mask came whiffling out of the woods, he was clawing and biting at her and tearing her clothes to ribbons, exposing a ripe female form that Ollie was sure would promote perpetual Priapic emissions from teenage boys all over America, not to mention even more mature males in the population.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Graham’s voice said over the video. “The boy has to recognize himself as female before he can realize his full power.”

Bullshit, Ollie thought, and the telephone rang.

He hit the mute button and picked up the receiver.

“Weeks,” he said.

“Oll?”

Patricia.

He grinned.

“Hey,” he said, “how are you?”

“Fine, Oll,” she said. “Whatcha doing?”

“Watching television. You familiar with this kidnapping the 8-7 caught?”

“Yeah, this new singer.”

“Some fag is saying she’s a boy.”

“Get out,” Patricia said.

“Did you see the video?”

“Sure, it’s all over the place.”

“That’s some boy, huh?”

“I’d like to look like a boy like that,” Patricia said.

“You look fine just the way you are,” Ollie said.

“Thanks, Oll,” she said, and was silent for a moment. “I was calling to…uh…see if we’re still on for Tuesday night,” she said.

“Why shouldn’t we still be on?”

“I just wondered, that’s all. Also, there’s this old movie playing at the Atlantis—that’s like an art house, y’know—I thought I’d like to see again, if you’d like to see it. It’s with Al Pacino, it’s called Looking for Richard. That’s Richard the Third, the Shakespearean character, y’know. Well, it’s also a real king, but Shakespeare wrote the play.” Patricia hesitated again. “Do you think you might like to see it?”