End Zone

smash them into the boards. It surprises them. A bodycheck is something they can't interpret with their normal uncanniness of knowing exactly how to retaliate, with whatever exact giveandtake, the way only women can do, giving back tenfold but with a genius that makes it seem even steven.'

'But why would you marry somebody like that?'

'She loves me. I'm the only person she's ever loved. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the whole world she's capable of loving. She calls me longdistance every other day. I jump with joy every time the telephone rings. She's three inches taller than I am but why quibble over inches when you're involved in matters of eternal import. Speaking of tall and short, notice the length of my scarf. Little men like to wear long scarfs. The reason for this is lost in the mists of time. But to return to love. Love is a way of salvation. It makes us less imperfect and draws us closer to immortality. I want to stir up ecstasy in my soul. I want to ascend to the world of forms. Love basically is the suspension of gravity. It's an ascent to higher places. The very existence of her love will stir me to deep ecstasy. I'll begin to climb. Notice the selfish element in my scheme.'

'You mentioned salvation,' I said. 'What kind of salvation?'

'I believe in the remission of sins,' Zapalac said. 'The world's, the nation's, the individual's sins. Do penance and they shall be forgiven. Salvation consists in the remission of sins. Whatever penances can be performed. Whatever denials or offerings up.'

'Are you serious?'

'The nation's sins,' he said.

'That was the administration bunding.'

'I'm going in the back way. It's part of my overall schemata. I like to turn up behind people's backs. Suddenly there I am, at their shoulder blades, ready to be a friend to the enemies of injustice.'

I walked back to Staley Hall. In the dining room I saw Bloomberg sitting with Spurgeon Cole. I put some corn flakes on a tray and joined them.

'How's Coach?' Spurgeon said.

'He's progressing as anticipated.'

'I have a feeling,' Bloomberg said, 'that's he's about ready to shuffle off these mortal coils, as they say in show business.'

'How does it feel being captain, Gary?'

'I get to go out for the coin toss. I've always wanted to be part of that. It's tremendously ceremonial without being too pompous.'

'He's wearing the dark glasses again,' Spurgeon said. 'He hasn't worn them in months. Now he's wearing them.'

'I know all about it. I have no comment.'

'It must mean something, Gary. Dark glasses indoors in the dead of winter.'

'It doesn't mean anything. Look at Steeples. Steeples is going around with a gold glove on his hand. What the hell does that mean?'

'Steeples has some kind of infection. It's ugly as hell apparently. He was exposed to something. It's a sort of burn plus a sort of infection. He just wants to keep it hidden.'

'Is that all you're eating?' Bloomberg said to me.

'It contains vitamin B, iron and niacin.'

'I'm up to threeosix,' he said. 'The new mind expands with the old body. I feel more alert every day. I feel revitalized.'

Bing Jackmin came over and sat down. His tray held baked ham, mashed potatoes, salad and pound cake. He was looking at me intensely.

'Did you talk to Coach?'

'Give me time,' I said.

'There is no time.'

'Can't you start growing it and then either keep it going or terminate it when I find out what the word is?'

'Terminate what?' Spurgeon said.

'His excess hair. He wants a beard. Does anybody know what the prevailing attitude is on excess hair?'

'Excess hair is acceptable if it doesn't exceed accepted standards,' Spurgeon said.

'There's your answer, Bing.'

'I am interested in certain aspects of global violence,' Bloomberg said.

'Pass the salt,' Bing said.

'This meat,' Spurgeon said. 'There's something wrong with this meat.'

Bloomberg cleared his throat.

'I am an anguished physicist. I take long walks in the country. From time to time I have second thoughts about the supermegaroach aerosol bomb which can kill anything that moves on the whole earth in a fraction of a microsecond and which I alone invented and marketed. As I walk the peaceful country lanes of the Institute for Abstract Speculation and Sneak Attacks way out there in an unmarked site somewhere in the Pacific Northeast, a television crew films my every step. The director asks me to gaze up over the treetops and to squint slightly into the late afternoon sun. At such moments I think of my roachbomb and I am filled with a sense of deep humility and also with a feeling of fantastic bloodsucking power. And I am reminded of the comforting words of the famed celestial song of the Hindus. What is this crime I am planning, O Krishna? So you see, my friends, I am not without a sense of history nor of personal responsibility. I have a human side and I love the classics. As I smoke my pipe and play a quiet game of chess with my lovely wife, the mother of three fine boys by a previous marriage, I like to ruminate on the nature of man. What brought us forth from the primordial slime? Whither are we headed? What is the grand design? And pondering these vast questions over cheese and port, I come to the realization that one terminal bomb more or less makes small difference in this everexpanding universe of ours.'

'Would somebody please pass the salt,' Bing said.

'I am interested in the violent man and the ascetic. I am on the verge of concluding that an individual's capacity for violence is closely linked with his ascetic tendencies. We are about to rediscover that austerity is our true mode. In our future meditations we may decide to seek the devil's death. In our silence and terror we may steer our technology toward the metaphysical, toward the creation of some unimaginable weapon able to pierce spiritual barriers, to maim or kill whatever dark presence envelops the world. You will say this seems an unlikely matter to engage the talents of superrational man. But it is precisely this kind of man who has been confronting the unreal, the paradoxical, the ironic, the satanic. After all, the ultimate genius of modern weapons, from the purely theoretical standpoint, is that they destroy the living. We can go on from there to frame any number of provocative remarks but we will resist the temptation. We all know that life, happiness, fulfillment come surging out of particular forms of destructiveness. The moral system is enriched by violence put to positive use. But as the capacity for violence grows in the world, the regenerative effects of specific violent episodes become less significant. The capacity overwhelms everything. The mere potential of one form of violence eclipses the actuality of other forms. I am interested in these things. I am also interested in the discontinuation of contractions. Medial letters are as valid as any others. I have already begun to revise my speech patterns accordingly.'

We were all laughing, not knowing exactly why. Maybe we thought Bloomberg was crazy. Or maybe we laughed because it was the only reaction we could trust, the only one that could keep us at a safe distance. Anatole, replying to the laughter, tapped his spoon against the plastic tray to his right. I finished my corn flakes and proceeded, as arranged, to the library.

Myna was sitting alone in one of the rooms downstairs. Her table was covered with books, all abandoned there, many left open (a breach in their solemnity), massive volumes in tiny lines of print. Beyond the table were long high stacks, reeking a bit of perspiration (presumably human), the 900 series, history in its smelliest caparisons, each dark aisle boobytrapped with a metal stool or two. It was fairly pleasant to be there, the library as womb, fluorescent refuge from chaos or rain. Myna was reading Zap Comix. I sat next to her, then reached across the table and pulled a book toward me. It was a dictionary, opened to facing pages that began with Kaaba and ended with kef. Myna looked different somehow. I hadn't seen her in about a week and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that her face was much more clear, almost completely blotchless. She leaned toward the dictionary. We read the definitions to each other for a while. Some of them were extremely funny. Then we selected certain words to read aloud. We read them slowly, syllable by syllable, taking