The Frumious Bandersnatch

apartment. So it all got down to where they should sleep on any given night.

Because of the kidnapping, and because Kling had to report in at seven-forty-five tomorrow morning, they had planned to spend that Sunday night in his apartment. But at sevenA.M. tomorrow, before she went to the office in Rankin Plaza, Sharyn had to be at St. Mary Magdalene’s in Calm’s Point, where three cops were in the Burn Unit after a blazing building collapsed on them.

So here they were.

“Strawberry or chocolate swirl?” she asked Kling.

“Is that a trick question?” he asked.

She was looking into the freezer compartment of her refrigerator.

“The chocolate swirl is low-fat,” she said.

“I’ll have the strawberry,” he said.

“Racist decision,” she said, and at that moment, one of the talking heads on television said, “The lyrics are racist right from the last word in the second line.”

Sharyn took her head out of the refrigerator.

Kling looked up from the Sunday newspaper in his lap.

“Which word are you referring to?” the hostess of the show asked. She was a white woman, one of innumerable blondes with long straight hair who proliferated on American cable television like amoebae in a petri dish. She called herself Candace Odell. Her guests called her Candy. The guest she was talking to was Jennifer O’Malley, also white, a redheaded columnist for one of the Chicago newspapers.

“The word I’m referring to is ‘wabe,’ ” Jennifer said.

“How do you find that word racist?” Candace asked.

Her two other guests were black, one male, one female. The man’s name was Halliday Coombs. He was a radio commentator in Albany, New York. The woman’s name was Lucy Holden. She was a writer for a magazine based in Los Angeles. So many names to remember, so many people to keep track of. But America was a big country. And Candace was good with names. Besides, the screen was divided into four equal segments, so that a viewer could see either all four participants at the same time, or just the one the director decided to zoom in on. The camera was on all four of them just now. Made it easier to remember their names and faces.

Sharyn carried a little bowl of strawberry ice cream into the living room, and then sat down next to Kling with her own bowl of low-fat chocolate swirl.

“Think about it,” Jennifer said slyly. “ ‘Wabe.’ ”

Three of the heads seemed to be thinking furiously. Jennifer’s head appeared to be smirking.

“Let’s watch ‘Sex and the City,’ ” Sharyn said.

“Shhh, this is about ‘Bandersnatch,’ ” Kling said.

“Bander-who?”

“The kidnapping, shhhh.”

“How do black people pronounce the word ‘wave’?” Jennifer asked.

“I pronounce it ‘wave,’ ” Lucy said.

“So do I,” Halliday said.

“So do I,” Sharyn said.

“But I must admit…”

“You never heard the joke with the punch line, ‘Oberlookin’ d’ribber’? For ‘Overlooking the river’?”

“That’s a racist joke,” Candace said.

“Tell me about it, Blondie,” Sharyn said.

“How come you never callme Blondie?” Kling asked.

“You want me to call you Blondie?”

“I know that joke,” Halliday said, nodding. “And itis racist, yes. But I must admit I can also see a covert connection between ‘wabe’ and ‘wave.’ ”

“I can’t,” Lucy insisted.

“Neither can I,” Sharyn said. “How about you, Blondie?”

“Let me taste that chocolate swirl,” Kling said.

“Uh-uh.”

“Why not?”

“Cause once you taste black, ain no goin back,” Sharyn said.

Lucy Holden had her arms folded across her breasts now, clear and unmistakable body language.

“I’ll bet Blondie thinks that’s a stroke of pure genius,” Sharyn said. “Inviting a redheaded Irish girl to find all the racist references while the beautiful sistuh with attitude takes the high road.”

“The same sort of black English has its echoes in the word ‘raths,’ ” Jennifer said. “Go to any ghetto in America, you’ll hear African-Americans calling rats ‘raths.’ The same way they’ll use the word ‘mens’ for ‘men.’ Or ‘underwears’ for ‘underwear.’ ”

“I have never in my life called a rat arath, ” Lucy said.

“Have you ever in your life evenseen a rat?” Jennifer shot back.

“Who do you find more attractive?” Sharyn asked. “The redhead or the sistuh with attitude?”

“Is that another trick question?” Kling asked.

“The one place I really detect clear racism is in the use of the words ‘Jubjub bird,’ ” Halliday said. “ ‘Beware the Jubjub bird.’ That is clearly a racist warning.”

Lucy Holden rolled her eyes.

“How do you find that racist?” Candace asked.

“Well, Candy, I don’t know what I’m permitted to say on the air here.”

“This is cable, go right ahead.”

“I’m sure the Jubjub bird refers to the Johnson.”

“Thewhat! ” Sharyn said, and burst out laughing.

“Uh-huh,” Candace said. “Do you agree, Jennifer?”

“Absolutely.”

“That the words ‘Jubjub bird’ as used in the song, refer…”

“Actually, those words arecode for the Johnson,” Halliday said.

“Jennifer?”

“Code words for the Johnson, yes,” Jennifer agreed, nodding.

“And whatis a Johnson?” Candace asked, and smiled encouragement.

Sharyn was leaning forward now, clasping her knees, her eyes wide, her mouth virtually hanging open. There was a long hesitation. The screen was split into two parts now, showing Jennifer’s face on one half and Candace’s on the other. Jennifer’s face was blank. It suddenly occurred to Sharyn that neither of these two erudite white women knew what a Johnson was. She kept watching the screen, waiting. This was the highest suspense she’d seen on television since the O. J. Simpson white Bronco chase out there in the wilds of Los Angeles.

The camera came in on Halliday again. He looked seriously concerned. “Well,” he said, “as I said earlier, I don’t know what I’m permitted to say here.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Lucy’s voice erupted, and suddenly the screen was filled with her face alone. “The Johnson is a man’spenis! ” she shouted in closeup. “As in the expression ‘Slobber the Johnson,’ which means ‘Kiss the…’ ”

“We have to break now,” Candace said at once, her smiling face suddenly filling the entire screen. “We’ll be back in just a moment to pursue the question raised by Tamar Valparaiso’s new video and CD. Is it ‘Race or Rape’? You decide! Stay with us.”

“You want to stay with these fools, Blondie?” Sharyn asked. “Or you want me to take off my unner’wears and slobber yo ole Jubjub bird?”

Kling got up to turn off the television set.

WILLIS FIGURED317 Byrd Street was six or seven blocks away from the spot on the Ship Canal where two detectives from the Three-One had allegedly drowned a pair of prostitutes who’d accused them of complicity in their illegal evil sex deeds. In a city of contrasts, the newly gentrified Byrd glistened like a rare jewel in a tarnished brass setting. Here there were the coffee houses and the elegant restaurants, the crafts shops and boutiques, the