Thomas paused.
The Dead Father stepped forward and assumed his speaking position, a kind of forwardly lean.
Only old males are excluded and live in isolation, he said.
It taught me that I had no talent for philosophy, said Thomas, bbbbbbut --
He lifted his hand and rotated it languidly, representing negligence and of-no-consequence.
Quite extraordinary, said Emma, what did it mean?
Please release my toe.
Then we wont talk about giraffes any more, Thomas said, I will instead explain myself.
Thats interesting, Thomas said. How do you do that?
Let us talk about giraffes, said Thomas, when I explain myself I tend to stutter. Of course I dont know a great deal about giraffes. They are said to be very intelligent. They have beautiful eyes. They have beautiful eyelashes. Tongues extend to twenty inches. Not much of a mane. Terrific base of the neck. Low fluttering voice. Faster than a horse and can travel longer distances at speed. Can beat lion in fight using hooves unless lion gets lucky. Herds running from twenty to thirty are not uncommon each containing several males but many more females.
How many of them are there?
More grebe? Julie asked.
The Dead Father waited for the applause.
Rather good I think, said the Dead Father, for an old man.
The Wends, Thomas said.
Thomas rapped the Dead Father sharply in the forehead, across the cloth.
Prolonged and fervent applause. Whistles. Stamping of feet. Waving of handkerchiefs (the women).
Is there mustard? Thomas asked.
Dont like us? Why is that?
What is peculiar about them? the Dead Father asked.
Look how the red is rising to his top, Emma observed.
Near to a million, at the last census.
But what?
And what did philosophy teach you? asked the Dead Father.
Why is it, asked the Dead Father, that alone among the members of this party I am not allowed to be filthy-mouthed?
Have the troops fed themselves? Julie asked.
Julie returned the straight look.
In considering, he said, inconsidering inconsidering inconsidering the additionally arriving human beings annually additionally arriving human beings each producing upon its head one hundred thousand individual hairs some retained and some discarded -- All the men sat down and began talking to each other. In contemplating I say these additionally arrived human beings not provided for by anticipatory design hocus or pocus and thus problematical, we must reliably extend a set of ever-advancing speeding poised lingering or dwelling pattern behaviors sufficient unto the day or adequate until the next time. Given the existence of the next time, anticipatory design neurosis designs for integration of the until-then-threatening non-self-requested experience of life and sweet, sweet variable stresses and flows to carry inward and inwardize if rain floods fires earthquakes tornadoes do not occur as predicted but look out of the window and see how dark the sky, how bold the wind, how whipped the trees, how gravitational the red falling skinripping rooftiles not provided for by anticipatory design fury preallotted to the discontinuance of consciousness known as sleep, let us pray. Tensionally cohered universe here today and gone tomorrow finity inward and finity outward and ever-advancing speeding poised lingering or dwelling particles in waveful duality and progressive conceptioning and Fathers Day interface with holistic behaviors unpredicted by parts such as you, me, them, and we, and I, and he, and she, and it. These, assigned by a static or "at rest" analysis to super series of unpredictable mathematical frequencies composed of complementary and reciprocal numbers found in cyclic bundling of experience not necessarily compromised by variable geographic bundle limitations, but sometimes, as in the song at twilight when the lights are low and the flickering shadows softly come and go, to multidynamically blossom or burst forth in beauty or pain and pre- and postnatal . . . disappointments . . . next appropriate trial balance struck. . . as to what might be. . . in the best case. . . however. However. Given the already-secreted true experience of the regeneratively-evolving comprehensive world-design effort against fire flood pestilence violent atmospheric disturbance and providing seventeen cubic feet of air per minute per person free of toxic or disagreeable odors or dust, or malice, we feel that metals broadly speaking and synthetics narrowly speaking will interlink into continuously improving world-around extra-corporeal networks, networks within which only individual man presents himself as an inherent island of physical discontinuity sad to say, sad to say, physical discontinuity and torpor, total velocities of which known practices have proved inadequate to solve. Given however all-over compensatory design despair such as is known to you and known to me, and freakiness, and bearing in mind push-pull as prior to and above all, and disregarding those whose larger pattern security is challenged or threatened by these systematically pulsing alternations, we project your existence here as possibly tolerable within tolerances of .01, .02, and .03, given up-tooling of social engineering extra-genetic razzle post-partum reprepositioning and I spy. Thank you.
The Dead Father placed the toe in his mouth.
Because you are an old fart, she said, and old farts must be notably clean of mouth in order to mitigate the disgustingness of being old farts.
Yesterday you said no.
Thank you, the Dead Father said, thank you.
The men loved it, said Thomas.
Thomas, said the Dead Father, let us change the subject. We can talk about something interesting, giraffes for example. Or you can explain yourself. It is always interesting to hear someone explaining himself.
The Dead Father burst off down the road, his cable trailing.
You have rapped the Father, he said between moans. Again. You should not rap the Father. You must not rap the Father. You cannot rap the Father. Striking the sacred and holy Father is an offense of the gravest nature. Striking the noble, wise, all-giving Dead Father is --
But I think everyone should have a little philosophy, Thomas said. It helps, a little. It helps. It is good. It is about half as good as music.
The Dead Father continued to grasp the toe.
They followed at a rapid pace.
Groan from Julie.
Twenty-three, Thomas said. Counting Edmund.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, of course.
He is going to do it again, said Thomas.
Thomas was collecting the carcasses of the edible.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, I think so.
A marvelous speech, said Julie, would you autograph my program.
You did, you did, said Thomas, with an iron hand.
In the pot.
It will be a hot thing, probably, Thomas said. Touch and go.
Positively on the edge of my chair, said Emma, figuratively speaking.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it was a pisser all right.
Thomas peered up the road. Cooking fires were visible.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it meant I made a speech.
It is because you are slipping into the starry starry night, Julie said, together with all your works and pomps. Rule of the Wends was taken away from you in 1936.
The Wends? What are they?
I will give you the short form, Thomas said, the basic datatata. I was bbbbbbborn twice-twenty-less-one years ago in a great city the very city in fact from which we have subtracted you. As a new creature on the earth I was of course sent to school where I did reasonably well except where I did reasonably badly. As a child I had the necessary sicknesses seriatim a pox here a measle there broke a bone now and then just to keep in step with the others blacked an eye and had an eye blacked now and then just to keep in step with the others. I then proceeded to higher education as it is called and was educated upon by a team of masked gowned and scrubbed specialists, top performers every one. It had been decided that I would be educated up to the height of two meters and this was done over a ppppppperiod of. Next, my convalescence which was spent as was right and proper and natural and good in military service chiefly in far parts and strange climes, learning there how to salute and stamp my foot at the same time in the English wwwwwway, a skill that has been endlessly useful to me ever since. Also a certain amount of truckling, a skill that has been endlessly useful to me ever since. Also how to make friends with the mess sergeant, a skill that et cetera et cetera. Also how to dig a latrine wherein one may spend many happy and productive hours as have we all reading the great Robert Burton. Next, I returned to the educational arena and studied one of the sort-of sciences, sociology to be precise, but quickly learned that I had no talent for it. Nnnnnnext, wishing with all my heart and all my soul to be true to the aspirations and prefabrications of my generation the boys of 34 to be precise, I married. Oh, did I marry. I married and married and married moving from comedy to farce to burlesque with lightsome heart. Oh joy oh bliss oh joy oh bliss. When the bliss had blistered and the smoke had cleared I found that I had fathered, but only once, nota bene nota bene. Then a period of what I can only describ as vacancy. During this period I spent much of my time watching single-engine aircraft practicing stalls and hoping that an engine would fail so that I could see the crash. None ever did. After this I prepared to reenter the main-scream of commercial life. Superbly equipped as I was for nothing-in-particular, I fitted myself into the slot "Navaho lawgiver" but this was a flop because first I am not a Navaho and second there are as you know no Navahos in our country. Pity. I was rather good at chanting. Then I did a bit of poaching. Poached trout from government hatcheries, mostly, sorry disestimable work which dddddid nothing to raise the low esteemin which the organism held itself. I was back where I had started, in low esteem. I then spent some several years in a monastery, but was ejected for consuming too much of the product, a very fine cognac. Then I began to read philosophy.
First, because we are armed and alien walkers through their domains. Second, because you are, in one of your aspects, a gigantic and strange and awe-inspiring object.
Thank you. Thank you.
Emmas gaze (admiring).
Toe fell from the mouth. The Dead Father clutched his forehead.
How many of us are there?
The men stood in a ragged half circle. The nineteen. Edmund with his hand on his back pocket, where the flask was. Emma at one tip of the crescent, Julie at the other.
Beautifully done, said Thomas, are you free for lunch?
Toe, he said, now theres an interesting word. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. A veiny toe. Red lines on toe. Succulent toe. Succulent, succulent toe. Succulent succulent succulent --
See how many! the Dead Father said again.
Let him make his speech, Julie said.
I ignore sense data, she said, let him make his speech.
She produced from the knapsack a new tablecloth and a new seating plan.
I was in a fouler mood yesterday. Today I am in a fairer mood.
The Dead Father placed the tips of the fingers of his two hands together.
Would you like to make your speech now?
They are what is ahead.
The Dead Father reached for Julies bare toe.
What is ahead? asked the Dead Father.
A storm of applause from the men!
He cut a few figures in the air with it: quinte, sixte, septime.
All the men lighted cigarettes. Julie lighted a cigarette as did Emma.
A wonderful speech, said Thomas.
Temporary happiness of the Dead Father.
They found the Dead Father standing in a wood, slaying. First he slew a snowshoe rabbit cleaving it in twain with a single blow and then he slew a spiny anteater and then he slew two rusty numbats and then whirling the great blade round and round his head he slew a wallaby and a lemur and a trio of ouakaris and a spider monkey and a common squid. Then moving up and down the green path in his rage he dispatched a macaque and a gibbon and fourscore innocent chinchillas who had been standing idly by watching the great slaughter. Then he rested standing with the point of his sword stuck in the earth and his two hands folded upon the hilt. Then he again as if taken by a fit set about the bloody work slaying a prairie dog and a beaver and a gopher and a dingo and a honey badger and an otter and a house cat and a tapir and a piglet. Then his anger grew and he called for a brand of even greater weight and length which was brought him by a metaphorically present gillie and seizing it with his two fine-formed and noble hands he raised it above his head, and every living thing within his reach trembled and every dead thing within his reach remembered how it got that way, and the very trees of the wood did seem to shrink and step away. Then the Dead Father slew a warthog and a spotted fawn and a trusting sheep and a young goat and a marmoset and two greyhounds and a draghound. Then, kicking viciously with his noble and shapely foot at the piles of the slain, raw and sticky corpses drenching the earth in blood on every side, he cleared a path to a group of staring pelicans slicing the soft white thin necks of them from the bodies in the wink of an eye. Then he slew a cassowary and a flamingo and a grebe and a heron and a bittern and a pair of ducks and a shouting peacock and a dancing crane and a bustard and a lily-trotter and, wiping the sacred sweat from his brow with one ermine-trimmed sleeve, slew a wood pigeon and a cockatoo and a tawny owl and a snowy owl and a magpie and three jackdaws and a crow and a jay and a dove. Then he called for wine. A silver flagon was brought him and he downed the whole of it in one draught looking the while out of the corner of his ruby eye at a small iguana melted in terror against the limb of a tree. Then he tossed the silver flagon into the arms of a supposititious cupbearer sousing the cupbearers hypothetical white tunic with the red of the (possible) wine and split the iguana into two halves with the point of his sword as easily as one skilled in the mystery fillets a fish. Then the Dead Father resumed his sword work in earnest slaying diverse small animals of every kind, so that the heaps mounted steaming to the right and to the left of him with each passionate step. A toad escaped.
I am offended, said the Dead Father. Again.
Enough! said Julie.
His smoking whinyard wiped upon the green grass.
They are eating hearty, he said, because they know what is ahead.
Heavy work, the Dead Father said, looking pleased. See how many!
The Dead Father lunged against his cable.
I have been elevated, in the arrangements! the Dead Father exclaimed.
Truly formidable, Julie said, to please him. Sword play of this quality has not been seen since the days of Frithjof, Lancelot, Paracelsus, Rogero, Artegal, Otuel, Ogier the Dane, Rinaldo, Oliver, Roll the Thrall, Haco I, and the Chevalier Bayard.
They dont like us.
A long time since Ive heard anything like it, she said, a very long time, not since my student days in fact.
How is it I rule them no longer?
And now, lunch, Julie said.
See how long it is, the Dead Father said, and how limber.
Yes, said the Dead Father.
And I, relegated, Thomas said. He gave Julie a straight look.
Thank you, said the Dead Father.
Julie was wiping the Dead Fathers brow, with her handkerchief.
I have prepared some remarks, said the Dead Father. Remarks which are perhaps not without pertinency.
I do inspire awe, said the Dead Father. Better than anybody. A lifetime of it. Did I not once rule the Wends?
Thomas turned to the Dead Father.
Thomas gathered together the men and Emma.
