In which the yo-yo string is revealed as a state of mind

 

 I

 The passage to Malta took place in late September, over an Atlantic whose  sky never showed a sun. The ship was Susanna Squaducci, which had figured  once before in Profane's long-interrupted guardianship of Paola. He came  back to the ship that morning in the fog knowing that Fortune's yo-yo had  also returned to some reference-point, not unwilling, not anticipating, not  anything; merely prepared to float, acquire a set and drift wherever Fortune  willed. If Fortune could will.

A few of the Crew had come to give Profane, Paola and Stencil bon voyage;  those who weren't in jail, out of the country or in the hospital. Rachel had  stayed away. It was a weekday, she had a job. Profane supposed so.

He was here by accident. While weeks back, off on the fringes of the  field-of-two Rachel and Profane had set up, Stencil roamed the city exerting  "pull," seeing about tickets, passports, visas, inoculations for Paola and  him, Profane felt that at last he'd come to dead center in Nueva York; had  found his Girl, his vocation as watchman against the night and straight man  for SHROUD, his home in a three-girl apartment with one gone to Cuba, one  about to go to Malta, and one, his own, remaining.

He'd forgotten about the inanimate world and any law of retribution.  Forgotten that the field-of-two, the twin envelope of peace had come to  birth only a few minutes after he'd been kicking tires, which for a  schlemihl is pure wising-off.

It didn't take Them long. Only a few nights later Profane sacked in at four,  figuring to get in a good eight hours of Z's before he had to get up and go  to work. When his eyes finally did come open he knew from the quality of  light in the room and the state of his bladder that he'd overslept. Rachel's  electric clock whined merrily beside him, hands pointing to 1:30. Rachel was  off somewhere. He turned on the light, saw that the alarm was set for  midnight, the button on the back switched to ON. Malfunction. "You little  bastard"; he picked the clock up and heaved it across the room. On hitting  the bathroom door the alarm went off, a loud and arrogant BZZZ.

Well, he got his feet in the wrong shoes, cut himself shaving, token he had  wouldn't fit into the turnstile, subway took off about ten seconds ahead of  him. When he arrived downtown it was not much south of three and  Anthroresearch Associates was in an uproar. Bergomask met him at the door,  livid. "Guess what," the boss yelled. It seemed an all-night, routine test  was on. Around 1:15, one of the larger heaps of electronic gear had run  amok; half the circuitry fused, alarm bells went off, the sprinkler system  and a couple of CO2 cylinders kicked in, all of which the attendant  technician had slept through peacefully.

"Technicians," Bergomask snorted, "are not paid to wake up. This is why we  have night watchmen." SHROUD sat over against the wall, hooting quietly.

Soon as it had all come through to Profane he shrugged. "It's stupid, but  it's something I say all the time. A bad habit. So. Anyway. I'm sorry."  Getting no response, turned and shuffled off. They'd send him severance pay,  he reckoned, in the mail. Unless they intended to make him cover the cost of  the damaged gear. SHROUD called after him:

Bon voyage.

"What is that supposed to mean."

We'll see.

"So long, old buddy."

Keep cool. Keep coal but care. It's a watchword, Profane, far your side of  the morning. There, I've told you too much as it is.

"I'll bet under that cynical butyrate hide is a slob. A sentimentalist."

There's nothing under here. Who are we kidding?

The last words he ever had with SHROUD. Back at 112th Street he woke up  Rachel.

"Back to pounding the pavements, lad." She was trying to be cheerful. He  gave her that much but was mad with himself for going flabby enough to  forget his schlemihl birthright. She being all he had to take it out on,

"Fine for you," he said. "You've been solvent all your life."

"Solvent enough to keep us going till me and Space/Time Employment find  something good for you. Really good."

Fina had tried to shove him along the same path. Had it been her that night  at Idlewild? Or only another SHROUD, another guilty conscience bugging him  over a baion rhythm?

"Maybe I don't want to get a job. Maybe I'd rather be a bum. Remember? I'm  the one that loves bums."

She edged over to make room for him, having now those inevitable second  thoughts. "I don't want to talk about loving anything," she told the wall.  "It's always dangerous. You have to con each other a little, Profane. Why  don't we go to sleep."

No: he couldn't let it go. "Let me warn you, is all. That I don't love  anything, not even you. Whenever I say that - and I will - it will be a lie.  Even what I'm saying now is half a play for sympathy."

She made believe she was snoring.

"All right, you know I am a schlemihl. You talk two-way. Rachel O., are you  that stupid? All a schlemihl can do is take. From the pigeons in the park,  from a girl picked up on any street, bad and good, a schlemihl like me takes  and gives nothing back."

"Can't there be a time for that later," she asked meekly. "Can't it wait on  tears sometime, a lovers' crisis. Not now, dear Profane. Only sleep."

"No," he leaned over her, "babe I am not showing you anything of me,  anything hidden. I can say what I've said and be safe because it's no  secret, it's there for anybody to see. It's got nothing to do with me, all  schlemihls are like that."

She turned to him, moving her legs apart: "Hush . . ."

"Can't you see," growing excited though it was now the last thing he wanted,  "that whenever I, any schlemihl lets a girl think there is a past, or a  secret dream that can't be talked about, why Rachel that's a con job. Is all  it is." As if SHROUD were prompting him: "There's nothing inside. Only the  scungille shell. Dear girl -" saying it as phony as he knew how -  "schlemihls know this and use it, because they know most girls need mystery,  something romantic there. Because a girl knows her man would be only a bore  if she found out everything there was to know. I know you're thinking now:  the poor boy, why does he put himself down like that. And I'm using this  love that you still, poor stupe, think is two-way to come like this between  your legs, like this, and take, never thinking how you feel, caring about  whether you come only so I can think of myself as good enough to make you  come . . ." So he talked, all the way through, till both had done and he  rolled on his back to feel traditionally sad.

"You have to grow up," she finally said. "That's all: my own unlucky boy,  didn't you ever think maybe ours is an act too? We're older than you, we  lived inside you once: the fifth rib, closest to the heart. We learned all  about it then. After that it had to become our game to nourish a heart you  all believe is hollow though we know different. Now you all live inside us,  for nine months, and when ever you decide to come back after that."

He was snoring, for real.

"Dear, how pompous I'm getting. Good night. . ." And she fell asleep to have  cheerful, brightly colored, explicit dreams about sexual intercourse.

Next day, rolling out of bed to get dressed, she continued. "I'll see what  we've got. Stand by. I'll call you." Which of course kept him from going  back to sleep. He stumbled around the apartment for a while swearing at  things. "Subway," he said, like the hunchback of Notre Dame yelling  sanctuary. After a day of yo-yoing he came up to the street at nightfall,  sat in a neighborhood bar and got juiced. Rachel met him at home (home?)  smiling and playing the game.

"How would you like to be a salesman. Electric shavers for French poodles."

"Nothing inanimate," he managed to say. "Slave girls, maybe." She followed  him to the bedroom and took off his shoes when he passed out on the bed.  Even tucked him in.

 

Next day, hung over, he yo-yoed on the Staten Island ferry, watching  juveniles-in-love neck, grab, miss, connect. Day after that he got up before  her and journeyed down to the Fulton Fish Market to watch the early-morning  activity. Pig Bodine tagged along. "I got a fish," said Pig, "I would like  to give Paola, hyeugh, hyeugh." Which Profane resented. They moseyed by Wall  Street and watched the boards of a few brokers. They walked uptown as far as  Central Park. This took them till mid-afternoon. They dug a traffic light  for an hour. They went into a bar and watched a soap opera on TV.

They came rollicking in late. Rachel was gone.

Out came Paola though, sleepy-eyed, benightgowned. Pig began to shuffle  furrows in the rug. "Oh," seeing Pig. "You can put coffee on," she yawned.  "I'm going back to bed."

"Right," Pig muttered, "right you are." And glaring at the small of her  back, followed zombielike to the bedroom and closed the door behind them.  Soon Profane, making coffee, heard screams.

"Wha." He looked into the bedroom. Pig had managed to get atop Paola and  seemed linked to her pillow by a long string of drool which glittered in the  fluorescent light from the kitchen.

"Help?" Profane puzzled. "Rape?"

"Get this pig off of me," Paola yelled.

"Pig, hey. Get off."

"I want to get laid," protested Pig.

"Off," said Profane.

"Up thine," snarled Pig, "with turpentine."

"Nope." So saying, Profane grabbed the big collar on Pig's jumper and pulled.

"You are strangling me, hey," said Pig after a while.

"True," said Profane. "But I saved your life once, remember."

Which was the case. Back in the Scaffold days, Pig had long announced, to  anybody in ship's company who'd listen, his refusal ever to don a  contraceptive unless it was a French tickler. This device being your common  rubber ornamented in bas-relief (often with a figurehead on the end) to  stimulate female nerve ends not stimulated by the usual means. From Kingston  Jamaica last cruise Pig had brought back 50 Jumbo the Elephant and 50 Mickey  Mouse French ticklers. The night finally came when Pig ran out, his last  having been expended in the memorable battle with his onetime colleague  Knoop, LtJG, a week before on the Scaffold's bridge.

Pig and his friend Hiroshima the electronics technician had a going thing on  the beach with radio tubes. ET's an a destroyer like the Scaffold keep their  own inventory of electronic components. Hiroshima could therefore finagle,  which as soon as he'd found a discreet outlet in downtown Norfolk he  proceeded to do. Every so often Hiroshima would heist a few tubes and Pig  would stow them in an AWOL bag and run them ashore.

One night Knoop had OOD watch. All an OOD usually does is stand on the  quarterdeck and salute people going on and off. He is also a sort of  monitor, making sure that everybody leaves with their neckerchief straight,  fly zipped and wearing their own uniform; also that nobody is swiping  anything from the ship or bringing anything on board they shouldn't. Lately  old Knoop had been getting hawkeyed. Howie Surd the drunken yeoman, who had  two grooves worn bare in the hair of his leg from adhesive-taping pints of  various booze under one bellbottom by way of providing the crew with  something tastier than torpedo juice, had almost made it the two steps from  quarterdeck to ship's office when Knoop like a Siamese boxer fetched him an  agile kick in the calf. And there stood Howie with Schenley Reserve and  blood running over his best liberty shoes. Knoop of course crowed in  triumph. He'd also caught Profane trying to take over 5 pounds of hamburger  swiped from the galley. Profane escaped legal action by splitting the loot  with Knoop who was having marital difficulties and had somehow come up with  the notion that 2-1/2 pounds of hamburger might serve as a peace-offering.

So only a few nights after that Pig was understandably nervous, trying  simultaneously to salute, produce ID and liberty cards, and keep one eye on  Knoop and another on the tube-laden AWOL bag.

"Request permission to go ashore, sir, hey," said Pig.

"Permission granted. What is in the AWOL bag."

"In the AWOL bag."

"That one, yes."

"What is in it." Pig pondered.

"Change of skivvies," suggested Knoop, "douche kit, magazine to read, duty  laundry for Mom to wash -"

"Now that you mention it, Mr. Knoop -"

"Radio tubes, also."

"Wha."

"Open the bag."

"I would like, I think," said Pig, "maybe to just dash in ship's office  there for a minute to read the Naval Regulations, sir, and see if maybe what  you are ordering me to do might not be a little, how would you say it,  illegal . . ."

Grinning horribly, Knoop made a sudden leap in the air and came down square  on the AWOL bag, which went crunch, tinkle in a sickening way.

"Aha," said Knoop.

Pig came up for captain's mast a week later and got restricted. Hiroshima  was never mentioned. Normally larceny of this sort is rewarded with a  court-martial, the brig, a dishonorable discharge, all of which strengthen  morale. It seemed however that the Scaffold's old man, one C. Osric Lych,  commander, had gathered round him an inner circle of enlisted men, all of  whom you could call habitual offenders. This troupe included Baby Face  Falange, the machinist mate striker, who periodically would put on a  babushka and let the members of the A gang line up in the compartment to  pinch his cheek; Lazar the deck ape who wrote foul sayings on the  Confederate monument downtown and was usually brought back off liberty in a  strait jacket; Teledu his friend who one time avoiding a work detail had  gone to hide in a refrigerator, decided he liked it and lived there for two  weeks on raw eggs and frozen hamburger until the master-at-arms and a posse  dragged him away; and Groomsman the quartermaster, whose second home was  sick bay, being as how he was constantly infested by a breed of crabs which  unhappily only thrived on the chief corpsman's super-formula crab-killer.

The captain, having seen this element of the crew at every mast, came to  look on them fondly as His Boys. He pulled strings and indulged in all  manner of extra-legal procedure to keep them in the Navy and on board the  Scaffold. Pig, being a charter member of the Captain's (so to speak) Own  Men, got off with no liberty for a month. Time soon hung heavy. So it was of  course toward the crab-ridden Groomsman that Pig gravitated.

Groomsman was the agent in Pig's near-fatal involvement with the airline  stewardesses Hanky and Panky, who along with half a dozen more of their  kind, shared a large pad out near Virginia Beach. The night after Pig's  restriction ended, Groomsman took him out there after stopping by a state  liquor store for booze.

Well, it was Panky Pig went for, Hanky being Groomsman's girl. Pig after all  had a code. He never did find out their real names, though did it make any  difference? They were virtually interchangeable; both unnatural blondes,  both between twenty-one and twenty-seven, between 5' 2" and 5' 7" (weights  in proportion), clear complexions, no eyeglasses or contact lenses. They  read the same magazines, shared the same toothpaste, soap and deodorant;  swapped civilian clothes when off duty. One night Pig did in fact end up in  bed with Hanky. Next morning he pretended to've been drunk out of his mind.  Groomsman was apologized to easily enough, having it turned out hit the sack  with Panky under the same misapprehension.

Things cruised along all idyllic; spring and summer brought hordes to the  beach and Shore Patrolman (now and again) to chez Hanky Panky to quell  riots and stay for coffee. It came out under incessant questioning by  Groomsman that there was something Panky "did" during the act of love which  turned Pig, as Pig put it, on. What this was nobody ever found out. Pig, not  normally reticent in these matters, now acted like a mystic after a vision;  unable, maybe unwilling, to put in words this ineffable or supernal talent  of Panky's. Whatever it was it drew Pig out to Virginia Beach all his  liberty and a few duty nights. One duty night, Scaffold bound, he wandered  down to C&O compartment after the movie to find the quartermaster swinging  from the overhead whooping like an ape. "After-shave lotion," Groomsman  yelled down to Pig, "is the only thing that gets to the little bastards:"  Pig winced. "They get drunk on it and fall asleep:" He descended to tell Pig  about his crabs, having lately developed the theory that they held barn  dances among the forest of his pubic hair on Saturday nights.

"Enough," said Pig. "What about our Club." This was the Prisoners-at-Large  and Restricted Men's Club, formed recently for the purpose of hatching plots  against Knoop, who was also Groomsman's division officer.

"One thing," Groomsman said, "that Knoop cannot stand is water. He can't  swim, he owns three umbrellas."

They discussed ways of exposing Knoop to water, short of throwing him over  the side. A few hours after lights out Lazar and Teledu joined the plot  after a blackjack game (payday stakes) in the mess hall. Both had been  losers. As were all the Captain's Men. They had a fifth of Old Stag conned  from Howie Surd.

Saturday Knoop had the duty. At sundown the Navy has this tradition called  Evening Colors, which around the Convoy Escort Piers in Norfolk is  impressive. Looking at it from any destroyer's bridge you would see all  motion - afoot and vehicular - stop; everyone come to attention, turn and  salute the American flags going down on dozens of fantails.

Knoop had the first dog watch, 4 to 6 P.M., as OOD. Groomsman was to pass  the word "Now on deck attention to colors." The destroyer tender U.S.S.  Mammoth Cave, alongside which the Scaffold and its division were moored, had  recently acquired a trumpet player from shore duty in Washington, D. C., so  tonight there was even a bugle to play retreat.

Meanwhile Pig was lying on top of the pilot house, a pile of curious objects  beside him. Teledu was down at the water tap aft of the pilot house, filling  up rubbers - among them Pig's French ticklers - and passing them to Lazar  who was putting them next to Pig.

"Now on deck," said Groomsman. From over the way came the first note of  Taps. A few tin cans down the line, jumping the gun, started lowering their  own flags. Out on the bridge came Knoop to supervise. "Attention to colors."  Splat, went a rubber, two inches from Knoop's foot. "Oh, oh," said Pig. "Get  him while he's still saluting," Lazar whispered, frantic. The second rubber  landed on Knoop's hat, intact. From out of the corner of one eye Pig saw  that great nightly immobility, dyed orange by the sun, grip the entire C.E.  Piers area. The bugle knew what he was doing, and played Taps clear and  strong.

The third rubber missed completely, going over the side. Pig had the shakes.  "I can't hit him," he kept saying. Lazar, exasperated, had picked up two and  fled. "Traitor," Pig snarled and threw one after him. "Aha," said Lazar from  down among the 3-inch mounts, and lobbed one back at Pig. Bugle blew a riff.  "Carry on," said Groomsman. Knoop brought his right hand smartly to his side  and with his left removed the water-filled rubber from his hat. He started  calmly up the ladder on the pilot house after Pig. The first person he saw  was Teledu, crouching by the water tap, still filling rubbers. Down on the  torpedo deck Pig and Lazar were having a water fight, chasing each other  among the gray tubes now highlighted vermilion by the sunset. Arming himself  with the stockpile Pig had abandoned, Knoop joined the struggle.

They ended up drenched, exhausted and swearing mutual fealty. Groomsman even  named Knoop to honorary membership in the PAL and Restricted Men's Club.

The reconciliation came as a surprise to Pig, who'd expected to get the book  thrown at him. He felt let down and saw no other way to improve his outlook  but to get laid. Unfortunately he was now afflicted by  contraceptivelessness. He tried to borrow a few. It was that horrible and  cheerless time just before payday when everybody is out of everything:  money, cigarettes, soap, and especially rubbers, much less French ticklers.  "Gawd," moaned Pig, "what do I do?" To his rescue came Hiroshima, ET3.

"Didn't anybody ever tell you," said this worthy, "about the biological  effects of r-f energy?"

"Wha," said Pig.

"Stand in front of the radar antenna," said Hiroshima, "while it is  radiating, and what it will do is, it will make you temporarily sterile."

"Indeed," said Pig. Indeed. Hiroshima showed him a book which said so.

"I am scared of heights?" said Pig.

"It is the only way out," Hiroshima told him. "What you do is, you climb up  the mast and I will go light off the old SPA 4 Able."

Already tottering, Pig made his way topside and prepared to climb the mast.  Howie Surd had come along and solicitously offered a shot of something murky  in an unlabeled bottle. On the way up, Pig passed Profane swinging like a  bird in a boatswain's chair hooked to the spar. Profane was painting the  mast. "Dum de dum, de dum," sang Profane. "Good afternoon, Pig." My old  buddy, thought Pig. His are probably the last wards I will ever hear.

Hiroshima appeared below. "Yo, Pig," he yelled. Pig made the mistake of  looking down. Hiroshima gave him the thumb-and-index-finger-in-a-circle  sign. Pig felt like vomiting.

"What are you doing in this neck of the woods," Profane said.

"Oh, just out for a stroll," said Pig. "I see you are painting the mast,  there."

"Right," said Profane, "deck gray." They examined at length the subject of  the Scaffold's color scheme, as well as the long-standing jurisdictional  dispute which had Profane, a deck ape, painting the mast when it was really  the radar gang's responsibility.

Hiroshima and Surd impatient, started yelling. "Well," said Pig, "good-bye  old buddy."

"Be careful walking around on that platform," Profane said. "I robbed some  more hamburger out of the galley and stowed it up there. I figure on  sneaking it off over the 01 deck." Pig, nodding, creaked slowly up the  ladder.

At the top be latched his nose over the platform like Kilroy and cased the  situation. There was Profane's hamburger all right. Pig started to climb on  the platform when his ultra-sensitive nose detected something. He lifted it  off the deck.

"How remarkable," said Pig out loud, "it smells like hamburger frying." He  looked a little closer at Profane's cache. "Guess what," he said, and  started backing quickly down the ladder. When he got level with Profane he  yelled over: "Buddy, you just saved my life. You got a piece of line?"

"What are you going to do," said Profane, tossing him a piece of line: "hang  yourself?"

Pig made a noose on one end and headed up the ladder again. After a  couple-three tries he managed to snare the hamburger, pulled it over,  dragged off his white hat and dumped the hamburger in it, being careful all  the time to stay as much as he could out of any line-of-sight with the radar  antenna. Down at Profane again he showed him the hamburger.

"Amazing," Profane said. "How did you do it?"

"Someday," Pig said, "I will have to tell you about the biological effects  of r-f energy." And so saying inverted the white hat in the direction of  Hiroshima and Howie Surd, showering them both with cooked hamburger.

"Anything you want," Pig said then, "just ask, buddy. I have a code and I  don't forget."

"OK," Profane said a few years later, standing by Paola's bed in an  apartment on Nueva York's 112th Street and twisting Pig's collar a little  "I'm collecting that one now."

"A code is a code," Pig choked. Off he got, and fled sadly.

When he was gone, Paola reached out for Profane, drew him down and in  against her.

"No," said Profane, "I'm always saying no, but no."

"You have been gone so long. So long since our bus ride:"

"Who says I'm back."

"Rachel?" She held his head, nothing but maternal.

"There is her, yes, but . . ."

She waited.

"Anyway I say it is nasty. But I'm not looking for any dependents, is all."

"You have them," she whispered.

No, he thought, she's out of her head. Not me. Not a schlemihl.

"Then why did you make Pig go away?"

He thought about that one for a few weeks.

 

II

 All things gathered to farewell.

One afternoon, close to the time Profane was to embark for Malta, he  happened to be down around Houston Street, his old neighborhood. It was  cooler, fall: dark came earlier and little kids out playing stoop ball were  about to call it a day. For no special reason, Profane decided to look in on  his parents.

Around two corners and up the stairs, past apartments of Basilisco the cop  whose wife left garbage in the hallway, past Miss Angevine who was in  business in a small way, past the Venusbergs whose fat daughter had always  tried to lure young Profane into the bathroom, past Maxixe the drunk and  Flake the sculptor and his girl, and old Min De Costa who kept orphan mice  and was a practicing witch; past his past though who knew it? Not Profane.

Standing before his old door he knocked, though knowing from the sound of  it (like we can tell from the buzz in the phone receiver whether or not  she's home) that inside was empty. So soon, of course, he tried the knob;  having come this far. They never lacked doors: on the other side of this one  he wandered automatic into the kitchen to check the table. A ham, a turkey,  a roast beef. Fruit: grapes, oranges, a pineapple, plums. Plate of knishes,  bowl of almonds and Brazil nuts. String of garlic tossed like a rich lady's  necklace across fresh bunches of fennel, rosemary, tarragon. A brace of  baccale, dead eyes directed at a huge provolone, a pale yellow parmigian and  God knew how many fish-cousins, gefulte, in an ice bucket.

No his mother wasn't telepathic, she wasn't expecting Profane. Wasn't  expecting her husband Gino, rain, poverty, anything. Only that she had this  compulsion to feed. Profane was sure that the world would be worse off  without mothers like that in it.

He stayed in the kitchen an hour, while night came along, wandering through  this field of inanimate ............