Hey son come here a minute. I want you and me to have a little talk. Youre turnin pale. How come you always turn pale when we have a little talk? You delicate? Pore delicate little flower? Naw you aint, youre a man, son, or will be someday the good Lord willin. But you got to do right. Thats what I want to talk to you about. Now put down that comic book and come on over here and sit by me. Sit right there. Make yourself comfortable. Now, you comfortable? Good. Son, I want to talk to you about your personal habits. Your personal habits. We aint never talked about your personal habits and now its time. I been watchin you, kid. Your personal habits are admirable. Yes they are. They are flat admirable. I like the way you pick up your room. You run a clean room, son, I got to hand it to you. And I like the way you clean your teeth. You brush right, in the right direction, and you brush a lot. Youre goin to have good gums, kid, good healthy gums. We aint gonna have to lay out no money to get your teeth fixed, your mother and I, and thats a blessing and we thank you. And you keep yourself clean, kid, clothes neat, hands clean, face clean, knees clean, thats the way to hop, way to hop. Theres just one little thing, son, one little thing that puzzles me. I been studyin bout it and I flat dont understand it. How come you spend so much time washin your hands, kid? I been watchin you. You spend an hour after breakfast washin your hands. Then you go wash em again bout ten-thirty, ten-forty, nother fifteen minutes washin your hands. Then just before lunch, maybe a half hour, washin your hands. Then after lunch, sometimes an hour, sometimes less, it varies. I been noticin. Then in the middle of the afternoon back in there washin your hands. Then before supper and after supper and before you go to bed and sometimes you get up in the middle of the night and go on in there and wash your hands. Now Id think you were in there playin with your little prick, your little prick, cept you a shade young for playin with your little prick and besides you leave the door open, most kids close the door when they go in there to play with their little pricks but you leave it open. So I see you in there and I see what youre doin, youre washin your hands. And I been keepin track of it and son, you spend bout three quarters of your wakin hours washin your hands. And I think theres somethin a little bit strange about that, son. It aint natural. So what I want to know is, how come you spend so much time washin your hands, son? Can you tell me? Huh? Can you give me a rational explanation? Well, can you? Huh? You got anything to say on this subject? Well, whats the matter? Youre just sittin there. Well come on, son, what you got to say for yourself? Whats the explanation? Now it wont do you no good to start cryin, son, that dont help anything. Okay kid stop crying. I said stop it! Im goin to whack you, kid, you dont stop cryin. Now cut that out. This minute. Now cut it out. Goddamn baby. Come on now kid, get ahold of yourself. Now go wash your face and come on back in here. I want to talk to you some more. Wash your face, but dont do that other. Now go on in there and get back in here right quick. I want to talk to you bout bumpin your head. Youre still bumpin your head, son, against the wall, fore you go to sleep. I dont like it. Youre too old to do that. It disturbs me. I can hear you in there, when you go to bed, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. Its disturbing. Its monotonous. Its a very disturbing sound. I dont like it. I dont like listenin to it. I want you to stop it. I want you to get ahold of yourself. I dont like to hear that noise when Im sittin in here tryin to read the paper or whatever Im doin, I dont like to hear it and it bothers your mother. It gets her all upset and I dont like your mother to be all upset, just on accounta you. Bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump, what are you, kid, some kind of animal? I caint figure you out, kid. I just flat caint understand it, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. Duddent hurtcha? Duddent hurtcha head? Well, never mind about that right now. Go on in there and wash your face, and then come on back in here and well talk some more. And dont do none of that other, just wash your face. You got three minutes.
Bat Qol
Fathers and dandling: If a father fathers daughters, then our lives are eased. Daughters are for dandling, and are often dandled up until their seventeenth or eighteenth year. The hazard here, which must be faced, is that the father will want to sleep with his beautiful daughter, who is after all his in a way that even his wife is not, in a way that even his most delicious mistress is not. Some fathers just say "Publish and be damned!" and go ahead and sleep with their new and amazingly sexual daughters, and accept what pangs accumulate afterward; most do not. Most fathers are sufficiently disciplined in this regard, by mental straps, so that the question never arises. When fathers are giving their daughters their "health" instruction (that is to say, talking to them about the reproductive process) (but this is most often done by mothers, in my experience) it is true that a subtle rinse of desire may be tinting the situation slightly (when you are hugging and kissing the small woman sitting on your lap it is hard to know when to stop, it is hard to stop yourself from proceeding as if she were a bigger woman not related to you by blood). But in most cases, the taboo is observed, and additional strictures imposed, such as, "Mary, you are never to allow that filthy John Wilkes Booth to lay a hand upon your bare, white, new breast." Although in the modern age some fathers are moving rapidly in the opposite direction, toward the future, saying, "Here, Mary, here is your blue fifty-gallon drum of babykilling foam, with your initials stamped on it in a darker blue, see? there on the top." But the important thing about daughter-fathers is that, as fathers, they dont count. Not to their daughters, I dont mean -- I have heard daughter-stories that would toast your hair -- but to themselves. Fathers of daughters see themselves as hors concours in the great exhibition, and this is a great relief. They do not have to teach hurling the caber. They tend, therefore, to take a milder, gentler hand (meanwhile holding on, with an iron grip, to all the fierce prerogatives that fatherhood of any kind conveys -- the guidance system of a slap is an example). To say more than this about fathers of daughters is beyond me, even though I am father of a daughter.
Birch
Bob
Bodiel
On the rescue of fathers: Oh they hacked him pretty bad, they hacked at him with axes and they hacked at him with hacksaws but me and my men got there fast, wasnt as bad as it might have been, first we fired smoke grenades in different colors, yellow and blue and green, that put a fright into them but they wouldnt quit, they opened up on us with 81-mm. mortars and meanwhile continued to hack. I sent some of the boys out to the left to flank them but theyd put some people over there to prevent just that and my men got into a fire fight with their support patrol, no other way to do the thing but employ a frontal assault, which we did, at least it took the pressure off him, they couldnt continue to hack and deal with our assault at the same time. We cleaned their clocks for them, I will say that, they fell back to the left and linked up with their people over there, my flanking party broke off contact as I had instructed and let them flee unpursued. We came out of it pretty well, had a few wounded but thats all. We turned immediately to the task of bandaging him in the hacked places, bloody great wounds but our medics were very good, they were all over him, he never made a complaint or uttered a sound, not a whimper out of him, not a sign. This took place at the right arm, just above the elbow, we left some pickets there for a few days until the arm had begun to heal, I think it was a successful rescue, we returned to our homes to wait for the next time. I think it was a successful rescue. It was an adequate rescue.
The death of fathers: When a father dies, his fatherhood is returned to the All-Father, who is the sum of all dead fathers taken together. (This is not a definition of the All-Father, only an aspect of his being.) The fatherhood is returned to the All-Father, first because that is where it belongs and second in order that it may be denied to you. Transfers of power of this kind are marked with appropriate ceremonies; top hats are burned. Fatherless now, you must deal with the memory of a father. Often that memory is more potent than the living presence of a father, is an inner voice commanding, haranguing, yes-ing and no-ing -- a binary code, yes no yes no yes no yes no, governing your every, your slightest movement, mental or physical. At what point do you become yourself? Never, wholly, you are always partly him. That privileged position in your inner ear is his last "perk" and no father has ever passed it by.
Balberith
Biqu
Binah
If your fathers name is Hiram or Saul, flee into the woods. For these names are the names of kings, and your father Hiram, or your father Saul, will not be a king, but will retain, in hidden places in his body, the memory of kingship. And there is no one more blackhearted and surly than an ex-king, or a person who harbors, in the dark channels of his body, the memory of kingship. Fathers so named consider their homes to be Camelots, and their kith and kin courtiers, to be elevated or depressed in rank according to the lightest whinges of their own mental weather. And one can never know for sure if one is "up" or "down," at a particular moment; one is a feather, floating, one has no place to stand. Of the rage of the king-father I will speak later, but understand that fathers named Hiram, Saul, Charles, Francis, or George rage (when they rage) exactly in the manner of their golden and noble namesakes. Flee into the woods, at such times, or earlier, before the mighty scimitar or yataghan leaps from its scabbard. The proper attitude toward such fathers is that of the toad, lickspittle, smell-feast, carpet knight, pickthank, or tuft-hunter. When you cannot escape to the trees, genuflect, and stay down there, on one knee with bowed head and clasped hands, until dawn. By this time he will probably have drunk himself into a sleep, and you may creep away and seek your bed (if it has not been taken away from you) or, if you are hungry, approach the table and see what has been left there, unless the ever-efficient cook has covered everything with clear plastic and put it away. In that case, you may suck your thumb.
The sexual organs of fathers: The penises of fathers are traditionally hidden from the inspection of those who are not "clubbable," as the expression runs. These penises are magical, but not most of the time. Most of the time they are "at rest." In the "at rest" position they are small, almost shriveled, and easily concealed in carpenters aprons, chaps, bathing suits, or ordinary trousers. Actually they are not anything that you would want to show anyone, in this state, they are rather like mushrooms or, possibly, large snails. The magic, at these times, resides in other parts of the father (fingertips, right arm) and not in the penis. Occasionally a child, usually a bold six-year-old daughter, will request permission to see it. This request should be granted, once. But only in the early morning, when you are in bed, and only when an early morning erection is not present. Yes, let her touch it (lightly, of course), but briefly. Do not permit her to linger or get too interested. Be matter-of-fact, kind, and undramatic. Pretend, for the moment, that it is as mundane as a big toe. And then calmly, without unseemly haste, cover it up again. Remember that she is being allowed to "touch it," not "hold it"; the distinction is important. About sons you must use your own judgment. It is injudicious (as well as unnecessary) to terrify them; you have many other ways of accomplishing that. Chancre is a good reason for not doing any of this. When the penises of fathers are semi-erect, titillated by some stray erotic observation, such as a glimpse of an attractive female hoof, bereft of its slipper, knowing smiles should be exchanged with the other fathers present (better: half smiles) and the matter let drop. Semi-erectness is a half measure, as Aristotle knew; that is why most of the penises in museums have been knocked off with a mallet. The original artificers could not bear the idea of Aristotles disapproval, and mutilated their work rather than merit the scorn of the great Peripatetic. The notion that this mutilation was carried out by later (Christian) "cleanup squads" is untrue, pure legend. The matter is as I have presented it. The excited, mad, fully erect penis should be displayed only to the one who has excited it, for his or her lips, for the kiss of amelioration. Many other things can be done with the penises of fathers, but these have already been adequately described by other people. The penises of fathers are in every respect superior to the penises of nonfathers, not because of size or weight or any consideration of that sort but because of a metaphysical "responsibility." This is true even of poor, bad, or insane fathers. African artifacts reflect this special situation. Pre-Columbian artifacts, for the most part, do not.
I knew a father named Yamos who was landlord of the bear gardens at Southwark. Yamos was known to be a principled man and never, never, never ate any of his children no matter how dire the state of his purse. Yet the children, one by one, disappeared.
Bealphares
Buhair
B:
Similarly, jealousy is a useless passion because it is directed mostly at ones peers, and that is the wrong direction. There is only one jealousy that is useful and important, the original jealousy.
Byleth
There are twenty-two kinds of fathers, of which only nineteen are important. The drugged father is not important. The lionlike father (rare) is not important. The Holy Father is not important, for our purposes. There is a certain father who is falling through the air, heels where his head should be, head where his heels should be. The falling father has grave meaning for all of us. The wind throws his hair in every direction. His cheeks are flaps almost touching his ears. His garments are shreds, telltales. This father has the power of curing the bites of mad dogs, and the power of choreographing the interest rates. What is he thinking about, on the way down? He is thinking about emotional extravagance. The Romantic Movement, with its exploitation of the sensational, the morbid, the occult, the erotic! The falling father has noticed Romantic tendencies in several of his sons. The sons have taken to wearing slices of raw bacon in their caps, and speaking out against the interest rates. After all he has done for them! Many bicycles! Many gardes-bébés! Electric guitars uncountable! Falling, the falling father devises his iron punishment, resolved not to err again on the side of irresponsible mercy. He is also thinking about his upward progress, which doesnt seem to be doing so well at the moment. There is only one thing to do: work harder! He decides that if he can ever halt the "downturn" that he seems to be in, he will redouble his efforts, really put his back into it, this time. The falling father is important because he embodies the "work ethic," which is a dumb one. The "fear ethic" should be substituted, as soon as possible. Peering skyward at his endless hurtling, let us simply shrug, fold up the trampoline we were going to try and catch him in, and place it once again on top of the rafters, in the garage.
I hate relativists, she said, and threw the book into the fire.
Balthial
We have seen that the key idea, in fatherhood, is "responsibility." First, that heavy chunks of blue or gray sky do not fall down and crush our bodies, or that the solid earth does not turn into a yielding pit beneath us (although the tunneling father is sometimes responsible, in the wrong sense, for the latter). The responsibility of the father is chiefly that his child not die, that enough food is pushed into its face to sustain it, and that heavy blankets protect it from the chill, cutting air. The father almost always meets this responsibility with valor and steadfastness (except in the case of child abusers or thiefs of children or managers of child labor or sick, unholy sexual ghouls). The child lives, mostly, lives and grows into a healthy, normal adult. Good! The father has been successful in his burdensome, very often thankless, task, that of keeping the child breathing. Good work, Sam, your child has taken his place in the tribe, has a good job selling thermocouples, has married a nice girl whom you like, and has impregnated her to the point that she will doubtless have a new child, soon. And is not in jail. But have you noticed the slight curl at the end of Sam IIs mouth, when he looks at you? It means that he didnt want you to name him Sam II, for one thing, and for two other things it means that he has a sawed-off in his left pant leg, and a baling hook in his right pant leg, and is ready to kill you with either one of them, given the opportunity. The father is taken aback. What he usually says, in such a confrontation, is "I changed your diapers for you, little snot." This is not the right thing to say. First, it is not true (mothers change nine diapers out of ten), and second, it instantly reminds Sam II of what he is mad about. He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, thats not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didnt notice.
C:
Blaef
Yes it does seem a little harsh, said Thomas.
Beli
Baldwin
It would depend on the experience of the individual making the judgment, as to whether it was judged to be too harsh or judged to be not harsh enough.
Or perhaps its not harsh enough?
A tongue-lashing: "Whosoever hath within himself the deceivableness of unrighteousness and hath pleasure in unrighteousness and walketh disorderly and hath turned aside into vain jangling and hath become a manstealer and liar and perjured person and hath given over himself to wrath and doubting and hath been unthankful and hath been a lover of his own self and hath gendered strife with foolish and unlearned questions and hath crept into houses leading away silly women with divers lusts and hath been the inventor of evil things and hath embraced contentiousness and obeyed slanderousness and hath filled his mouth with cursing and bitterness and hath made of his throat an open sepulcher and hath the poison of asps under his lips and hath boasted and hath hoped against hope and hath been weak in faith and hath polluted the land with his whoredoms and hath profaned holy things and hath despised mine holy things and hath committed lewdness and hath mocked and hath daubed himself with untempered mortars, and whosoever, if a woman, hath journeyed to the Assyrians there to have her breasts pressed by lovers clothed in blue, captains and rulers, desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses, horsemen riding upon horses who lay upon her and discovered her nakedness and bruised the breasts of her virginity and poured their whoredoms upon her, and hath doted upon them captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, girdled with girdles upon their loins, and hath multiplied her whoredoms with her paramours whose flesh is as the flesh of asses and whose issue is like the issue of horses, great lords and rulers clothed in blue and riding on horses: this man and this woman, I say, shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow like a pot whose scum is therein and whose scum hath not gone out of it and under which the pile for the fire is and on which the wood is heaped and the fire kindled and the pot spiced and the bones burned and then the pot set empty on the coals that the brass of it may be hot and may burn and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed, for ye have wearied yourselves with lies and your great scum went not forth out of you, your scum shall be in the fire and I will take away the desire of thine eyes. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things?"
The names of fathers: Fathers are named
Your true task, as a son, is to reproduce every one of the enormities touched upon in this manual, but in attenuated form. You must become your father, but a paler, weaker version of him. The enormities go with the job, but close study will allow you to perform the job less well than it has previously been done, thus moving toward a golden age of decency, quiet, and calmed fevers. Your contribution will not be a small one, but "small" is one of the concepts that you should shoot for. If your father was a captain in Battery D, then content yourself with a corporalship in the same battery. Do not attend the annual reunions. Do not drink beer or sing songs at the reunions. Begin by whispering, in front of a mirror, for thirty minutes a day. Then tie your hands behind your back for thirty minutes a day, or get someone else to do this for you. Then, choose one of your most deeply held beliefs, such as the belief that your honors and awards have something to do with you, and abjure it. Friends will help you abjure it, and can be telephoned if you begin to backslide. You see the pattern, put it into practice. Fatherhood can be, if not conquered, at least "turned down" in this generation -- by the combined efforts of all of us together.
Blake
Boamiel
Badgal
Basus
Seems a little harsh, Julie said, when they had finished reading.
Bull
Hey son. Hey boy. Lets you and me go out and throw the ball around. Throw the ball around. You dont want to go out and throw the ball around? How come you dont want to go out and throw the ball around? I know why you dont want to go out and throw the ball around. Its cause you. . . Lets dont discuss it. It dont bear thinkin about. Well lets see, you dont want to go out and throw the ball around, you can hep me work on the patio. You want to hep me work on the patio? Sure you do. Sure you do. We gonna have us a fine-lookin patio there, boy, when we get it finished. Them folks across the street are just about gonna fall out when they see it. Cmon kid, Ill let you hold the level. And this time I want you to hold the fucking thing straight. I want you to hold it straight. It aint difficult, any idiot can do it. A nigger can do it. Were gonna stick it to them mothers across the street, they think theyre so fine. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, thats what I always say. Seen it on a sign one time, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME. Crazy guy goin down the street holdin this sign, see, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME, it tickled me. Went round for days sayin it out loud to myself, flee from the wrath to come, flee from the wrath to come. Couldnt get it outa my head. See theyre talkin bout God there, thats what thats all about, God, see boy, God. Its this God shit they try and hand you, see, they got a whole routine, see, lets dont talk about it, gets me all pissed off. It fries my ass. Your mother goes for all that shit, see, and of course your mother is a fine woman and a sensible woman but shes just a little bit ape on this church thing we dont discuss it. She has her way and I got mine, we dont discuss it. Shes a little bit ape on this subject see, I dont blame her it was the way she was raised. Her mother was ape on this subject. Thats how the churches make their money, see, they get the women. All these dumb-ass women. Hold it straight kid. Thats better. Now run me a line down that form with the pencil. I gave you the pencil. Whatd you do with the fuckin pencil? Jesus Christ kid find the pencil. Okay go in the house and get me another pencil. Hurry up I cant stand here holdin this all day. Wait a minute heres the pencil. Okay I got it. Now hold it straight and run me a line down that form. Not that way dummy, on the horizontal. You think were buildin a barn? Thats right. Good. Now run the line. Good. Okay now go over there and fetch me the square. Squares the flat one, looks like a L. Like this, look. Good. Thank you. Okay now hold that mother up against the form where you made the line. Thats so we get this side of it square, see? Okay now hold the board and lemme just put in the stakes. HOLD IT STILL DAMN IT. How you think I can put in the stakes with you wavin the damn thing around like that? Hold it still. Check it with the square again. Okay, is it square? Now hold it still. Still. Okay. Thats got it. How come youre tremblin? Nothin to it, all you got to do is hold one little bitty piece of one-by-six straight for two minutes and you go into a fit? Now stop that. Stop it. I said stop it. Now just take it easy. You like heppin me with the patio, dontcha. Just think bout when its finished and we be sittin out here with our drinks drinkin our drinks and them jackasses cross the street will be shittin. From green envy. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, flee from the wrath to come. He he.
Bigtha
To find a lost father: The first problem in finding a lost father is to lose him, decisively. Often he will wander away from home and lose himself. Often he will remain at home but still be "lost" in every true sense, locked away in an upper room, or in a workshop, or in the contemplation of beauty, or in the contemplation of a secret life. He may, every evening, pick up his gold-headed cane, wrap himself in his cloak, and depart, leaving behind, on the coffee table, a sealed laundry bag in which there is an address at which he may be reached, in case of war. War, as is well known, is a place at which many fathers are lost, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Fathers are frequently lost on expeditions of various kinds (the journey to the interior). The five best places to seek this kind of lost father are Nepal, Ruperts Land, Mount Elbrus, Paris, and the agora. The five kinds ofvegetation in which fathers most often lose themselves are needle-leaved forest, broad-leaved forest mainly evergreen, broad-leaved forest mainly deciduous, mixed needle-leaved and broad-leaved forest, and tundra. The five kinds of things fathers were wearing when last seen are caftans, bush jackets, parkas, Confederate gray, and ordinary business suits. Armed with these clues then, you may place an advertisement in the newspaper: Lost, in Paris, on or about February 24, a broad-leaf-loving father, 6 2", wearing a blue caftan, may be armed and dangerous, we dont know, answers to the name Old Hickory. Reward. Having completed this futile exercise, you are then free to think about what is really important. Do you really want to find this father? What if, when you find him, he speaks to you in the same tone he used before he lost himself? Will he again place nails in your mother, in her elbows and back of the knee? Remember the javelin. Have you any reason to believe that it will not, once again, flash through the seven-oclock-in-the-evening air? What we are attempting to determine is simple: Under what conditions do you wish to live? Yes, he "nervously twiddles the stem of his wineglass." Do you wish to watch him do so on into the last quarter of the present century? I dont think so. Let him take those mannerisms, and what they portend, to Borneo, they will be new to Borneo. Perhaps in Borneo he will also nervously twiddle the stem of, etc., but he will not be brave enough to manufacture, there the explosion of which this is a sign. Throwing the roast through the mirror. Thrusting a belch big as an opened umbrella into the middle of something someone else is trying to say. Beating you, either with a wet, knotted rawhide, or with an ordinary belt. Ignore that empty chair at the head of the table. Give thanks.
Fathers are like blocks of marble, giant cubes, highly polished, with veins and seams, placed squarely in your path. They block your path. They cannot be climbed over, neither can they be slithered past. They are the "past," and very likely the slither, if the slither is thought of as that accommodating maneuver you make to escape notice, or get by unscathed. If you attempt to go around one, you will find that another (winking at the first) has mysteriously appeared athwart the trail. Or maybe it is the same one, moving with the speed of paternity. Look closely at color and texture. Is this giant square block of marble similar in color and texture to a slice of rare roast beef? Your very fathers complexion! Do not try to draw too many conclusions from this; the obvious ones are sufficient and correct. Some fathers like to dress up in black robes and go out and give away the sacraments, adding to their black robes the chasuble, stole, and alb, in reverse order. Of these "fathers" I shall not speak, except to commend them for their lack of ambition and sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of the "franking privilege," or the privilege of naming the first male child after yourself: Franklin Edward Aalbiel, Jr. Of all possible fathers, the fanged father is the least desirable. If you can get your lariat around one of his fangs, and quickly wrap the other end of it several times around your saddle horn, and if your horse is a trained roping horse and knows what to do, how to plant his front feet and then back up with small nervous steps, keeping the lariat taut, then you have a chance. Do not try to rope both fangs at the same time; concentrate on the right. Do the thing fang by fang, and then you will be safe, or more nearly so. I have seen some old, yellowed, six-inch fangs that were drawn in this way, and once, in a whaling museum in a seaport town, a twelve-inch fang, mistakenly labeled as the tusk of a walrus. But I recognized it at once, it was a father fang, which has its own peculiarly shaped, six-pointed root. I am pleased never to have met that father. . .
Butator
Bathor
Patricide: Patricide is a bad idea, first because it is contrary to law and custom and second because it proves, beyond a doubt, that the fathers every fluted accusation against you was correct: you are a thoroughly bad individual, a patricide! -- member of a class of persons universally ill-regarded. It is all right to feel this hot emotion, but not to act upon it. And it is not necessary. It is not necessary to slay your father, time will slay him, that is a virtual certainty. Your true task lies elsewhere.
Then they attacked him with sumo wrestlers, giant fat men in loincloths. We countered with loincloth snatchers -- some of our best loincloth snatchers. We were successful. The hundred naked fat men fled. I had rescued him again. Then we sang "Genevieve, Oh, Genevieve." All the sergeants gathered before the veranda and sang it, and some enlisted men too -- some enlisted men who had been with the outfit for a long time. They sang it, in the twilight, pile of damp loincloths blazing fitfully off to the left. When you have rescued a father from whatever terrible threat menaces him, then you feel, for a moment, that you are the father and he is not. For a moment. This is the only moment in your life you will feel this way.
Bualu
Bludon
The color of fathers: The bay-colored father can be trusted, mostly, whether he is standard bay, blood bay, or mahogany bay. He is useful (1) in negotiations between warring tribes, (2) as a catcher of red-hot rivets when you are building a bridge, (3) in auditioning possible bishops for the Synod of Bishops, (4) in the co-pilots seat, and (5) for carrying one corner of an eighteen-meter-square mirror through the citys streets. Dun-colored fathers tend to shy at obstacles, and therefore you do not want a father of this color, because life, in one sense, is nothing but obstacles, and his continual shying will reduce your nerves to grease. The liver chestnut-colored father has a reputation for decency and good sense; if God commands him to take out his knife and slice through your neck with it, he will probably say "No, thanks." The dusty-chestnut father will reach for his knife. The light-chestnut father will ask for another opinion. The standard-chestnut father will look the other way, to the east, where another ceremony, with more interesting dances, is being held. Sorrel-colored fathers are easily excitable and are employed most often where a crowd, or mob, is wanted, as for coronations, lynchings, and the like. The bright-sorrel father, who glows, is an exception: he is content with his glow, with his name (John), and with his life membership in the Knights of the Invisible Empire. In bungled assassinations, the assassin will frequently be a blond-sorrel father who forgot to take the lens cap off his telescopic sight. Buckskin-colored fathers know the Law and its mangled promise, and can help you in your darker projects, such as explaining why a buckskin-colored father sometimes has a black stripe down the spine from the mane to the root of the tail: it is because he has been whoring after Beauty, and thinks himself more beautiful with the black stripe, which sets off his tanned deer-hide color most wonderfully, than without it. Red roan-colored fathers, blue roan-colored fathers, rose gray-colored fathers, grulla-colored fathers are much noted for bawdiness, and this should be encouraged, for bawdiness is a sacrament which does not, usually, result in fatherhood; it is its own reward. Spots, paints, pintos, piebalds and Appaloosas have a sweet dignity which proceeds from their inferiority, and excellent senses of smell. The color of a father is not an absolute guide to the character and conduct of that father but tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because when he sees what color he is, he hastens out into the world to sell more goods and services, so that he may keep pace with his destiny.
Bird
