In which Rachel gets her yo-yo back, Roony sings a song, and Stencil1 calls on Bloody2 Chiclitz
Profane3, sweating in April's heat, sat on a bench in the little park behind the Public Library, swatting at flies with rolled-up pages of the Times classified. From mental cross-plotting he'd decided5 where he sat now was the geographical6 center of the midtown employment agency belt.
A weird7 area it was. For a week now he'd sat patient in a dozen offices, filling out forms, having interviews and watching other people, especially girls. He had an interesting daydream8 all built up, which went: You're jobless, I'm jobless, here we both are out of work, let's screw. He was horny. What little money he'd saved from the sewer9 job had almost run out and here he was considering seduction. It kept the time moving right along.
So far no agency he'd been to had sent him anywhere for a job interview. He had to agree with them. To amuse himself he'd looked in Help Wanted under S. Nobody wanted a schlemihl. Laborers10 were for out of the city: Profane wanted to stay in Manhattan, he'd had enough of wandering out in the suburbs. He wanted a single point, a base of operations, someplace to screw in private. It was difficult when you brought a girl to a flophouse. A young kid with a beard and old dungarees had tried that a few nights ago down where Profane was staying. The audience, winos and bums11, had decided to serenade them after a few minutes of just watching. "Let me call you sweetheart," they sang, all somehow on key. A few had fine voices, some sang harmony. It may have been like the bartender on upper Broadway who was nice to the girls and their customers. There is a way we behave around young people excited with each other, even if we haven't been getting any for a while and aren't likely to very soon. It is a little cynical12, a little self-pitying, a little withdrawn13; but at the same time a genuine desire to see young people get together. Though it springs from a self-centered concern, it is often as much as a young man like Profane ever does go out of himself and take an interest in human strangers. Which is better, one would suppose, than nothing at all.
Profane sighed. The eyes of New York women do not see the wandering bums or the boys with no place to go. Material wealth and getting laid strolled arm-in-arm the midway of Profane's mind. If he'd been the type who evolves theories of history for his own amusement, he might have said all political events: wars, governments and uprisings, have the desire to get laid as their roots; because history unfolds according to economic forces and the only reason anybody wants to get rich is so he can get laid steadily14, with whomever he chooses. All he believed at this point, on the bench behind the Library, was that anybody who worked for inanimate money so he could buy more inanimate objects was out of his head. Inanimate money was to get animate15 warmth, dead fingernails in the living shoulderblades, quick cries against the pillow, tangled16 hair, lidded eyes, twisting loins . . .
He'd thought himself into an erection. He covered it with the Times classifed and waited for it to subside17. A few pigeons watched him, curious. It was shortly after noon and the sun was hot. I ought to keep looking, he thought, the day isn't over. What was be going to do? He was, they told him unspecialized. Everybody else was at peace with some machine or other. Not even a pick and shovel18 had been safe for Profane.
He happened to look down. His erection had produced in the newspaper a crosswise fold, which moved line by line down the page as the swelling gradually diminished. It was a list of employment agencies. O.K., thought Profane, just for the heck of it I will close my eyes, count three and open them and whatever agency listing that fold is on I will go to them. It will be like flipping20 a coin: inanimate schmuck, inanimate paper, pure chance.
He opened his eyes on Space/Time Employment Agency, down on lower Broadway, near Fulton Street. Bad choice, he thought. It meant 15 cents for the subway. But a deal was a deal. On the Lexington Avenue downtown he saw a bum lying across the aisle21, diagonal on the seat. Nobody would sit near him. He was king of the subway. He must have been there all night, yo-yoing out to Brooklyn and back, tons of water swirling22 over his head and he perhaps dreaming his own submarine country, peopled by mermaids23 and deep-sea creatures all at peace among the rocks and sunken galleons24; must have slept through rush hour, with all sorts of suit-wearers and high-heel dolls glaring at him because he was taking up three sitting spaces but none of them daring to wake him. If under the street and under the sea are the same then he was king of both. Profane remembered himself on the shuttle back in February, wondered how he'd looked to Kook, to Fina. Not like a king, he figured: more like a schlemihl a follower25.
Having sunk into self-pity he nearly missed the Fulton Street stop. Got the bottom edge of his suede26 jacket caught in the doors when they closed; was nearly carried that way out to Brooklyn. He found Space/Time Employment down the street and ten floors up. The waiting area was crowded when he got there. A quick check revealed no girls worth looking at, nobody in fact but a family who might have stepped through time's hanging arras directly out of the Great Depression; journeyed to this city in an old Plymouth pickup27 from their land of dust: husband, wife and one mother-in-law, all yelling at each other, none but the old lady really caring about a job, so that she stood, legs braced28, in the middle of the waiting area, telling them both how to make out their applications, a cigarette dangling29 from and about to burn her lipstick30.
Profane made out his application, dropped it on the receptionist's desk and sat down to wait. Soon there came the hurried and sexy tap of high heels in the corridor outside. As if magnetized his head swiveled around and he saw coming in the door a tiny girl, lifted up to all of 5' 1" by her heels. Oboy, oboy, he thought: good stuff. She was not, however, an applicant31: she belonged on the other side of the rail. Smiling and waving hello to everyone in her country, she clickety-clacked gracefully32 over to her desk. He could hear the quiet brush of her thighs33, kissing each other in their nylon. Oh, oh, he thought, look at what I seem to be getting again. Go down you bastard34.
Obstinate35, it would not. The back of his neck began to grow heated and rosy36. The receptionist, a slim girl who seemed to be all tight - tight underwear, stockings, ligaments, tendons, mouth, a true windup woman - moved precisely among the decks, depositing applications like an automatic card-dealing machine. Six interviewers, he counted. Six to one odds37 she drew me. Like Russian roulette. Why like that? Would she destroy him, she so frail-looking, such gentle, well-bred legs? She had her head down, studying the application in her hand. She looked up, he saw the eyes, both slanted the same way.
"Profane," she called. Looking at him with a little frown.
Oh God, he thought, the loaded chamber38. The luck of a schlemihl, who by common sense should lose at the game. Russian roulette is only one of its names, he groaned39 inside, and look: me with this bard40 on. She called his name again. He stumbled up from the chair, and proceeded with the Times over his groin and he bent41 at a 120 degree angle behind the rail and in to her own desk. The sign said RACHEL OWLGLASS.
He sat down quickly. She lit a cigarette and cased the upper half of his body. "It's about time," she said.
He fumbled42 for a cigarette, nervous. She flicked43 over a pack of matches with a fingernail be could feel already gliding44 across his back, poised45 to dig in frenzied46 when she should come.
And would she ever. Already they were in bed; he could see nothing but a new extemporized47 daydream in which no other face but this sad one with its brimming slash-slash of eyes tightened48 slowly in his own shadow, pale under him. God, she had him.
Strangely then the tumescence began to subside, the flesh at his neck to pale. Any sovereign or broken yo-yo must feel like this after a short time of lying inert49, rolling, falling: suddenly to have its own umbilical string reconnected, and know the other end is in hands it cannot escape. Hands it doesn't want to escape. Know that the simple clockwork of itself has no mare need for symptoms of inutility, lonesomeness, directionlessness, because now it has a path marked out for it over which it has no control. That's what the feeling would be, if there were such things as animate yo-yos. Pending any such warp50 in the world Profane felt like the closest thing to one and above her eyes began to doubt his own animateness.
"How about a night watchman," she said at last. Over you? he wondered.
"Where," he said. She mentioned an address nearby in Maiden51 Lane. "Anthroresearch Associates:" He knew he couldn't say it as fast. On the back of a card she scribbled52 the address and a name - Oley Bergomask. "He hires." Handed it to him, a quick touch of fingernails. "Come back as soon as you find out. Bergomask will tell you right away; he doesn't waste time. If it doesn't work out we'll see what else we have."
At the door he looked back. Was she blowing a kiss or yawning?
II
Winsome53 had left work early. When he got back to the apartment he found his wife, Mafia sitting on the floor with Pig Bodine. They were drinking beer and discussing her Theory. Mafia was sitting crosslegged and wearing very tight Bermuda shorts. Pig stared captivated at her crotch. That fella irritates me, Winsome thought. He got beer and sat down next to them. He wondered idly if Pig were getting any off of his wife. But it was hard to say who was getting what off Mafia.
There is a curious sea story about Pig Bodine, which Winsome had heard from Pig himself. Winsome was aware that Pig wanted to make a career someday of playing male leads in pornographic movies. He'd get this evil smile on his face, as if he were viewing or possibly committing reel on reel of depravities. The bilges of the radio shack54 of U.S.S. Scaffold - Pig's ship - were jammed solid with Pig's lending library, amassed55 during the ship's Mediterranean56 travels and rented out to the crew at 10 cents per book. The collection was foul57 enough to make Pig Bodine a byword of decadence58 throughout the squadron. But no one suspected that Pig might have creative as well as custodial59 talents.
One night Task Force 60, made up of two carriers, some other heavies and a circular screen of twelve destroyers, including the Scaffold, was steaming a few hundred miles east of Gibraltar. It was maybe two in the morning, visibility unlimited60, stars blooming fat and sultry over a tar-colored Mediterranean. No closing contacts on the radars61, everybody on after steering62 watch asleep, forward lookouts63 telling themselves sea stories to keep awake. That sort of night. All at once every teletype machine in the task force started clanging away, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Five bells, or FLASH, initial contact with enemy forces. It being '55 and more or less peacetime, captains were routed out of bed, general quarters called, dispersal plans executed. Nobody knew what was happening. By the time the teletypes started up again the formation was scattered64 out over a few hundred square miles of ocean and most radio shacks65 were crowded to capacity. The machines started to type.
"Message follows." Teletype operators, com officers leaned forward tense, thinking of Russian torpedoes66, evil and barracudalike.
"Flash." Yes, yes, they thought: five bells, Flash. Go ahead.
Pause. Finally the keys started clattering67 again.
"THE GREEN DOOR. One night Dolores, Veronica, Justine, Sharon, Cindy Lou, Geraldine and Irving decided to hold an orgy . . ." Followed, on four and a half feet of teletype paper, the functional69 implications of their decision, told from Irving's point of view.
For some reason Pig never got caught. Possibly because half the Scaffold's radio gang, also the communications officer, an Annapolis graduate named Knoop, were in on it and had locked the door to Radio as soon as GQ was called.
It caught on as a sort of fad70. The next night, precedence Operational Immediate71, came A DOG STORY, involving a St. Bernard named Fido and two WAVES. Pig was on watch when it came over and admitted to his henchman Knoop that it showed a certain flair72. It was followed by other high-priority efforts: THE FIRST TIME I GOT LAID, WHY OUR X.O. IS QUEER, LUCKY PIERRE RUNS AMOK. By the time the Scaffold reached Naples, its first port of call, there were an even dozen, all carefully filed away by Pig under F.
But initial sin entails73 eventual74 retribution. Later, somewhere between Barcelona and Cannes, evil days fell on Pig. One night, routing the message board, he went to sleep in the doorway75 of the executive officer's stateroom. The ship chose that moment to roll ten degrees to port. Pig toppled onto the terrified lieutenant76 commander like a corpse77. "Bodine," the X.O. shouted, aghast. "Were you sleeping?" Pig snored away among a litter of special-request chits. He was sent down on mess cooking. The first day he fell asleep in the serving line, rendering78 inedible79 a gunboat full of mashed potatoes. So the next meal he was stationed in front of the soup, which was made by Potamos the cook and which nobody ate anyway. Apparently80 Pig's knees had developed this odd way of locking, which if the Scaffold were on an even keel would enable him to sleep standing81 up. He was a medical curiosity. When the ship got back to the States he went under observation at Portsmouth Naval82 Hospital. When he returned to the Scaffold he was put on the deck force of one Pappy Hod, a boatswain's mate. In two days Pappy had driven him, for the first of what were to be many occasions, over the hill.
Now on the radio at the moment was a song about Davy Crockett, which upset Winsome considerably83. This was '56, height of the coonskin hat craze. Millions of kids everywhere you looked were running around with these bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbols on their heads. Nonsensical legends were being propagated about Crockett, all in direct contradiction to what Winsome had heard as a boy, across the mountains from Tennessee. This man, a foul-mouthed louse-ridden boozehound, a corrupt84 legislator and an indifferent pioneer, was being set up for the nation's youth as a towering and cleanlimbed example of Anglo-Saxon superiority. He had swelled85 into a hero such as Mafia might have created after waking from a particularly loony and erotic dream. The song invited parody86. Winsome had even cast his own autobiography87 into aaaa rhyme and that simpleminded combination of three - count them - chord changes:
Born in Durham in '23,
By a pappy who was absentee,
Was took to a lynching at the neighborhood tree,
Whopped him a nigger when he was only three.
[Refrain]:
Roony, Roony Winsome, king of the decky-dance.
Pretty soon he started to grow,
Everyone knew he'd be a loving beau,
Cause down by the tracks he would frequently go
To change his luck at a dollar a throw.
Well he hit Winston-Salem with a rebel yell,
Found his self a pretty Southron belle88
Was doing fine till her pappy raised hell
When he noticed her belly89 was beginning to swell19.
Luckily the war up and came along,
He joined the army feeling brave and strong,
His patriotism90 didn't last for long,
They put him in a foxhole91 where he didn't belong.
He worked him a hustle92 with his first C.O.,
Got transferred back to a PIO,
Sat out the war in a fancy chateau93,
Egging on the troops toward Tokyo.
When the war was over, his fighting done,
He hung up his khakis and his Garand gun
Came along to Noo York to have some fun,
But couldn't find a job till '51.
Started writing copy for MCA
It wasn't any fun but it was steady pay,
Sneaking94 out of work one lovely day
He met him a dolly called Mafi-yay.
Mafia thought he had a future ahead,
And looked like she knew how to bounce a bed
Old Roony must've been sick in the head
Cause pretty soon, they up and they wed68.
Now he's got a record company,
A third of the profits plus salary,
A beautiful wife who wants to be free
So she can practice her Theory.
[Refrain]
Roony, Roony Winsome, king of the decky-dance.
Pig Bodine had fallen asleep. Mafia was in the next room, watching herself undress in the mirror. And Paola, Roony thought, where are you? She'd taken to disappearing, sometimes for two- or three-day stretches, and nobody ever knew where she went.
Maybe Rachel would put in a word for him with Paola. He had, he knew, certain nineteenth-century ideas of what was proper. The girl herself was an enigma95. She hardly spoke96, she went to the Rusty97 Spoon now only rarely when she knew Pig would be somewhere else. Pig coveted98 her. Concealing99 himself behind a code which only did officers dirty (and executives? Winsome wondered), Pig he was sure envisioned Paola playing opposite him in each frame of his stag-movie fantasies. It was natural, he supposed; the girl had the passive look of an object of sadism, something to be attired101 in various inanimate costumes and fetishes, tortured, subjected to the weird indignities102 of Pig's catalogue, have her smooth and of course virginal-looking limbs twisted into attitudes to inflame103 a decadent104 taste. Rachel was right, Pig - and even perhaps Paola - could only be products of a decky-dance. Winsome, self-proclaimed king of it, felt only sorry it should ever have happened. How it had happened, how anybody, himself included, had contributed to it he didn't know.
He entered the room as Mafia was bent, stripping off a knee sock. College girl attire100, he thought. He slapped her hard on the nearest buttock; she straightened, turned, and he slapped her across the face. "Wha," she said.
"Something new," said Winsome. "For variety's sake." One hand at her crotch, one twisted in her hair, he lifted her like the victim she wasn't, half-carried, half-tossed her to the bed where she lay in a sprawl105 of white skin, black pubic hair and socks, all confused. He unzipped his fly. "Aren't you forgetting something," she said, coy and half-scared, flipping her hair toward the dresser drawer.
"No," said Winsome, "not that I can think of."
III
Profane returned to the Space/Time agency convinced that if nothing else Rachel was luck. Bergomask had given him the job.
"Wonderful," she said. "He's paying the fee, you don't owe us anything."
It was near quitting time. She started straightening things on her desk. "Come home with me," she said quietly. "Wait out by the elevator."
But he remembered, leaning against the wall out in the corridor: with Fina it had been like that too. She'd taken him home like a rosary found in the street and convinced herself he was magic. Fina had been devoutly106 R.C. like his father. Rachel was Jewish, he recalled, like his mother. Maybe all she wanted to do was to feed him, be a Jewish mother.
They rode down in the elevator crowded together and quiet, she wrapped serenely107 in a gray raincoat. At the turnstile in the subway she put in two tokens for them.
"Hey," said Profane.
"You're broke," she told him.
"I feel like a gigolo." He did. There'd always be some 15 cents, maybe half a salami in the refrigerator - whatever she'd feed him.
Rachel decided to lodge108 Profane at Winsome's place and feed him at her own. Winsome's was known to the Crew as the West Side flophouse. There was floor space there for all of them at once, and Winsome didn't mind who slept on it.
The next night Pig Bodine showed up at Rachel's at supper time drunk and in search of Paola, who was away God knew where.
"Hey," Pig addressed Profane.
"Buddy109," Profane said. They opened beer.
Soon Pig had dragged them down to the V-Note to hear McClintic Sphere. Rachel sat and concentrated on the music while Pig and Profane remembered sea stories at each other. During one of the breaks she drifted over to Sphere's table and found out he'd picked up a contract with Winsome to do two LP's for Outlandish.
They talked for a while. Break ended. The quartet drifted back to the stand, fiddled110 around, started off with a Sphere composition called Fugue Your Buddy. Rachel returned to Pig and Profane. They were discussing Pappy Hod and Paola. Damn, damn, to herself, what have I brought him to? What have I brought him back to?
She woke up the next morning, Sunday, mildly hung over. Winsome was outside, pounding at the door.
"It is a day of rest," she growled111. "What the hell."
"Dear father-confessor," he said, looking as if he'd not slept all night, "don't be angry."
"Tell it to Eigenvalue." She stomped112 to the kitchen, put coffee on. "Now," she said. "What is your problem?"
What else: Mafia. Now this was all deliberate. He had put on the day before yesterday's shirt and neglected to comb his hair that morning to put Rachel in the mood. If you wanted a girl to go pimping for her roommate you didn't come right out and say so. There were subtleties113 to be gone through. Wanting to talk about Mafia was only an excuse.
Rachel wanted to know naturally enough if he'd spoken to the dentist at all and Winsome said no. Eigenvalue had been busy lately holding bull sessions with Stencil. Roony wanted a woman's point of view. She poured coffee and told him the two roommates were gone. He closed his eyes and jumped in:
"I think she's been slipping around, Rachel."
"So. Find out and divorce her."
They drained the coffeepot twice. Roony drained himself. At three Paola came in, smiled at them briefly114, disappeared into her room. Did he blush a little? His heartbeat had speeded up. Dingy115 damn, he was acting116 like a young blood. He rose. "Can we keep talking about this?" he said. "Even small-talk."
"If it helps," she smiled, not believing it for a minute. "And what's this about a contract with McClintic? Don't tell me Outlandish is putting out normal records now. What are you getting, religion?"
"If I am," Roony told her, "it's all I'm getting."
He walked back to his apartment through Riverside Park, wondering if he'd done right. Maybe, it occurred to him, Rachel might think it was herself he wanted, not her roommate.
Back at the apartment he found Profane talking with Mafia. Dear God, he thought, all I want to do is sleep. He went in to the bed, assumed the foetal position and soon, oddly enough, did drift off.
"You tell me you are half-Jewish and half-Italian," Mafia was saying in the other room. "What a terribly amusing role. Like Shylock, non a vero, ha, ha. There is a young actor down at the Rusty Spoon who claims to be an Irish Armenian Jew. You two must meet."
Profane decided not to argue. So all he said was: "It is probably a nice place, that Rusty Spoon. But out of my class."
"Rot," she said, "class. Aristocracy is in the soul. You may be a descendant of kings. Who knows."
I know, Profane thought. I am a descendant of schlemihls, Job founded my line. Mafia wore a knit dress of some fabric117 that could be seen through. She sat with her chin on her knees so that the lower part of the skirt fell away. Profane rolled over on his stomach. Now this would he interesting, he thought. Yesterday Rachel had led him in by the hand to find Charisma118, Fu and Mafia playing Australian tag-teams minus one on the living room floor.
Mafia bad squirmed to a prone119 position parallel to Profane. Apparently she had some idea of touching120 noses. Boy I'll bet she thinks that's cute, he thought. But Fang121 the cat came tearing in and jumped between them. Mafia lay on her back and started scratching and dandling the cat. Profane padded to the icebox for more beer. In came Pig Bodine and Charisma, singing a drinking song:
There are sick bars in every town in America,
Where sick people can pass the time o' day.
You can screw on the floor in Baltimore,
Make Freudian scenes in New Orleans,
Talk Zen and Beckett in Keokuk, Ioway.
There's espresso machines in Terre Haute, Indiana
Which is a cultural void if ever a void there be,
But though I've dragged my ass4 from Boston, Mass.
To the wide Pacific sea,
The Rusty Spoon is still the bar for me,
The Rusty Spoon is the only place for me.
It was like bringing a little bit of that gathering-place in among the proper facades122 of Riverside Drive. Soon without anyone realizing it there was a party. Fu wandered in, got on the phone and started calling people. Girls appeared miraculously123 at the front door, which had been left open. Someone turned on the FM, someone else went out for beer. Cigarette smoke began to hang from the low ceiling in murky124 strata125. Two or three members got Profane off in a corner and began to indoctrinate him in the ways of the Crew. He let them lecture, and drank beer. Soon he was drunk and it was night. He remembered to set the alarm clack, found an unoccupied corner of a room and went to sleep.
IV
That night, April 15, David Ben-Gurion warned his country in an Independence Day speech that Egypt planned to slaughter126 Israel. A Mideast crisis had been growing since winter. April 19, a cease-fire between the two countries went into effect. Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco the same day. The spring thus wore on, large currents and small eddies127 alike resulting in headlines. People read what news they wanted to and each accordingly built his own rathouse of history's rags and straws. In the city of New York alone there were at a rough estimate five million different rathouses. God knew what was going on in the minds of cabinet ministers, heads of state and civil servants in the capitals of the world. Doubtless their private versions of history showed up in action. If a normal distribution of types prevailed they did.
Stencil fell outside the pattern. Civil servant without rating, architect-by-necessity of intrigues128 and breathings-together, he should have been, like his father, inclined toward action. But spent his days instead at a certain vegetation, talking with Eigenvalue, waiting for Paola to reveal how she fitted into this grand Gothic pile of inferences he was hard at work creating. Of course too there were his "leads" which he hunted down now lackadaisical129 and only half-interested, as if there were after all something more important he ought to be doing. What this mission was, however. came no clearer to him than the ultimate shape of his V-structure - no clearer, indeed than why he should have begun pursuit of V. in the first place. He only felt (he said "by instinct") when a bit of information was useful, when not: when a lead ought to be abandoned, when hounded to the inevitable looped trail. Naturally about drives as intellectualized as Stencil's there can be no question of instinct: the obsession130 was acquired, surely, but where along the line, how in the world? Unless he was as he insisted purely131 the century's man, something which does not exist in nature. It would be simple in Rusty Spoon-talk to call him contemporary man in search of an identity. Many of them had already decided this was his Problem. The only trouble was that Stencil had all the identities he could cope with conveniently right at the moment: he was quite purely He Who Looks for V. (and whatever impersonations that might involve), and she was no more his own identity than Eigenvalue the soul-dentist or any other member of the Crew.
It did bring up, however, an interesting note of sexual ambiguity132. What a joke if at the end of this hunt he came face to face with himself afflicted by a kind of soul-transvestism. How the Crew would laugh and laugh. Truthfully he didn't know what sex V. might be, nor even what genus and species. To go along assuming that Victoria the girl tourist and Veronica the sewer rat were one and the same V. was not at all to bring up any metempsychosis: only to affirm that his quarry133 fitted in with The Big One, the century's master cabal134, in the same way Victoria had with the Vheissu plot and Veronica with the new rat-order. If she was a historical fact then she continued active today and at the moment, because the ultimate Plot Which Has No Name was as yet unrealized, though V. might be no more a she than a sailing vessel135 or a nation.
Early in May Eigenvalue introduced Stencil to Bloody Chiclitz, president of Yoyodyne, Inc., a company with factories scattered careless about the country and more government contracts than it really knew what to do with. In the late 1940's Yoyodyne had been breezing along comfortably as the Chiclitz Toy Company, with one tiny independent-making shop on the outskirts of Nutley, New Jersey136. For some reason the children of America conceived around this time a simultaneous and psychopathic craving137 for simple gyroscopes, the kind which are set in motion by a string wound around the rotating shaft138, something like a top. Chiclitz, recognizing a market potential there, decided to expand. He was well on the way to cornering the toy gyroscope market when along came a group of school kids on tour to point out that these toys worked on the same principle as a gyrocompass. "As wha," said Chiclitz. They explained gyrocompasses to him, also rate and free gyros. Chiclitz remembered vaguely139 from a trade magazine that the government was always in the market for these. They used them on ships, airplanes, more lately, missiles. "Well," figured Chiclitz, "why not." Small-business opportunities in the field at the time were being described as abundant. Chiclitz started making gyros for the government. Before he knew it he was also in telemeter instrumentation, test-set components140, small communications equipment. He kept expanding, buying, merging141. Now less than ten years later he had built up an interlocking kingdom responsible for systems management, airframes, propulsion, command systems, ground support equipment. Dyne, one newly hired engineer had told him, was a unit of force. So to symbolize142 the humble143 beginnings of the Chiclitz empire and to get the idea of force, enterprise, engineering skill and rugged144 individualism in there too, Chiclitz christened the company Yoyodyne.
Stencil toured one plant out on Long Island. Among instruments of war, he reasoned, some clue to the cabal might show up. It did. He'd wandered into a region of offices, drafting boards, blueprint145 files. Soon Stencil discovered, sitting half hidden in a forest of file cabinets, and sipping occasionally at the coffee in a paper cup which for today's engineer is practically uniform-of-the-day, a balding and porcine gentleman in a suit of European cut. The engineer's name was Kurt Mondaugen, he had worked, yes, at Peenemunde, developing Vergeltungswaffe Eins and Zwei. The magic initial! Soon the afternoon had gone and Stencil had made an appointment to renew the conversation.
A week or so later, in one of the secluded146 side rooms of the Rusty Spoon, Mondaugen yarned147, over an abominable149 imitation of Munich beer, about youthful days in South-West Africa.
Stencil listened attentively150. The tale proper and the questioning after took no more than thirty minutes. Yet the next Wednesday afternoon at Eigenvalue's office, when Stencil retold it, the yarn148 had undergone considerable change: had become, as Eigenvalue put it, Stencilized.
收听单词发音 |
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stencil
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| v.用模版印刷；n.模版；复写纸，蜡纸 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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8
daydream
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| v.做白日梦，幻想 | |
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9
sewer
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| n.排水沟，下水道 | |
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10
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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11
bums
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| n. 游荡者，流浪汉，懒鬼，闹饮，屁股 adj. 没有价值的，不灵光的，不合理的 vt. 令人失望，乞讨 vi. 混日子，以乞讨为生 | |
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12
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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13
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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14
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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15
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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16
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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17
subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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18
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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19
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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20
flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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21
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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22
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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23
mermaids
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| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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24
galleons
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| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
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25
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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26
suede
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| n.表面粗糙的软皮革 | |
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27
pickup
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| n.拾起，获得 | |
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28
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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29
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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30
lipstick
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| n.口红，唇膏 | |
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31
applicant
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| n.申请人，求职者，请求者 | |
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32
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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33
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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34
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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35
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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36
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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37
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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38
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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39
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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40
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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41
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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42
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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43
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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44
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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45
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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46
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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47
extemporized
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| v.即兴创作，即席演奏( extemporize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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49
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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50
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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51
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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52
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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53
winsome
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| n.迷人的，漂亮的 | |
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54
shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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55
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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57
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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58
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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59
custodial
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| adj.监护的，照管的 | |
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60
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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61
radars
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| n.雷达( radar的名词复数 )；雷达装置 | |
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62
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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63
lookouts
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| n.寻找（ 某人/某物）( lookout的名词复数 )；是某人（自己）的问题；警戒；瞭望台 | |
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64
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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65
shacks
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| n.窝棚，简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
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66
torpedoes
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| 鱼雷( torpedo的名词复数 )； 油井爆破筒； 刺客； 掼炮 | |
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67
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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68
wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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69
functional
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| adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的 | |
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70
fad
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| n.时尚；一时流行的狂热；一时的爱好 | |
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71
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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72
flair
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| n.天赋，本领，才华；洞察力 | |
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73
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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74
eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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75
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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76
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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77
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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78
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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79
inedible
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| adj.不能吃的，不宜食用的 | |
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80
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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81
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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82
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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83
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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84
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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85
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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86
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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87
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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88
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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89
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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90
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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91
foxhole
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| n.（军）散兵坑 | |
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92
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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93
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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94
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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95
enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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96
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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97
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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98
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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99
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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100
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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101
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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102
indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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103
inflame
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| v.使燃烧；使极度激动；使发炎 | |
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104
decadent
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| adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的 | |
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105
sprawl
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| vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延 | |
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106
devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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107
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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108
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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109
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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110
fiddled
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| v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动 | |
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111
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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112
stomped
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| v.跺脚，践踏，重踏( stomp的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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114
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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115
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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116
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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117
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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118
charisma
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| n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力 | |
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119
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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120
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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121
fang
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| n.尖牙，犬牙 | |
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122
facades
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| n.（房屋的）正面( facade的名词复数 )；假象，外观 | |
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123
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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124
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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125
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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126
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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127
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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128
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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129
lackadaisical
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| adj.无精打采的，无兴趣的；adv.无精打采地，不决断地 | |
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130
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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131
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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132
ambiguity
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| n.模棱两可；意义不明确 | |
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133
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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134
cabal
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| n.政治阴谋小集团 | |
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135
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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136
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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137
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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138
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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139
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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140
components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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141
merging
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| 合并（分类） | |
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142
symbolize
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| vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表 | |
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143
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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144
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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145
blueprint
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| n.蓝图，设计图，计划；vt.制成蓝图，计划 | |
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146
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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147
yarned
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| vi.讲故事（yarn的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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148
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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149
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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150
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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