Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth

Author:John Barth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Published: 2011-12-05T14:21:43+00:00

7.

One growled, "Sure we will."

"No police brutality, Jake," the other cautioned, and said to me more pleasantly as each took an elbow: "We'll all see the Chancellor soon, bud. First we got to get some nice clothes on, don't we?"

"I'm okay," I declared. Following Max's advice I reminded them that I had done the unexampled in passing the Trial-by-Turnstile and was therefore a fully matriculated Candidate -- not for any paltry Certification of Proficiency but for bonafide Graduation -- who ought to be ushered at once into the Chancellor's presence.

"Sure you are," the first guard said. "Wouldn't surprise me if you was the Grand Tutor Himself. Come along nice, there won't be no brutality."

"Fact is," said the other, more cordially, "everybody comes through the Gate has got to be okayed by the Health Office before he registers. Ain't that so, Jake?"

Jake agreed it was, adding that without Dr. Sear's stamp on the Matric Card (as the ID-card was called after formal admission) not even a Harold Bray could schedule course-work in the College. At mention of that former name I consented to go with them -- which was just as well, since in any case they propelled me strongly up the Gatehouse steps into a large room striped with desks and tables. Men and women working over card-files stood to nudge one another and stare as we came in.

"That'll be okay," I was saying. "I know Dr. Sear."

Jake nodded gravely. "Figured you might, son." To the onlookers he cried, "Okay, back to work, folks; this ain't any vaudyville show." And the other guard cleared our way past long tables over which hung signs -- LIBERAL ARTS; ENGINEERING; BURSAR; HAVE RECEIPTS READY -- to a side-room marked X rays. Hustled in without ceremony, I saw Dr. Sear himself turn angrily from a large machine on whose glass face a singular spectacle glowed: the lower torso of a transparent woman, large as life, her bones and organs darkly visible inside her. What's more, she was alive: before our eyes her phalanges toyed with something not far from her pubic symphysis, and her voice continued a rhythmic murmur for some seconds after our entry, as if she had been singing to herself.

"Get out of here!" Dr. Sear cried, hurrying towards us. "I'm examining a patient, for Founder's sake!"

The guards apologized but pled the unusual nature of the situation -- no more able than I to turn their eyes from the startling screen. The hand and voice there quit now; the pelvis turned away, and from a curtained stall behind the machine emerged a woman -- middle-aged, untransparent -- tying a white-cotton gown about her waist.

"Crashed through the Turnstile," the guard not named Jake was explaining. "Some kind of nut. You better handle him..."

"Just wait outside!" Dr. Sear said crossly. He frowned at my nakedness as he herded them doorwards, and was too discomposed to return my greeting or even acknowledge yet that he knew me. But the woman's eyes unsquinted now, and crowing, "It's the Goat-Boy, Kennard!" she lurched in my direction.

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