Free The Magic Christian by Terry Southern

“Of course most of the nasty little people around don’t feel a thing! Not a single thing!”
    “Interesting you should bring that up,” said Guy, reaching in his coat pocket and withdrawing a small memo-book, which he thumbed through as he continued:
    “Fellow I met on the train—I won’t mention his name if you don’t mind, because the thing is still pretty much on the drawing board, so to speak . . . but I can tell you this: he’s one of the top-brass along ‘Publishers’ Row’—well, we got to talking, one thing and another, and he offered to let me in on a new scheme of his. How sound it is I don’t know, but he’s willing to let me in on the ground floor—at second-story prices, of course—” added Guy with a good-natured chuckle. “And there’s your old six-and-seven again, but, still and all, that’s to be expected in the investment game. Well, his scheme—and I’d like to put out a feeler on it—is to issue a series of Do-It-Yourself Portables . . . the Do-It-Yourself Shakespeare, the D.H. Do-It-Yourself Lawrence, and so on.”
    “What on earth—” Ginger began crossly.
    “His idea,” said Guy, “—and I don’t pretend to know how sound it is—is to issue the regular texts of well-known works, with certain words, images, bits of dialogue, and what have you, left blank . . . just spaces there, you see . . . which the reader fills in.”
    “Well, I never—” said Ginger irately.
    “Oh yes, here we are,” said Grand, evidently finding the place he was looking for in the memo-book, “Yes, now here’s some of his promotional copy . . . rough draft, mind you . . . let’s see, yes, this is for Kafka’s Do-It-Yourself Trial. Goes like this:
‘Now you too can experience that same marvelous torment of ambiguity and haunting glimpse of eternal beauty which tore this strange artist’s soul apart and stalked him to his very grave! Complete with optional imagery selector, master word table and writer’s-special ball-point pen, thirty-five cents.’”
    Ginger Horton made a gurgling sound of anger preparatory to speaking, but Guy was quick to press on:
    “And here we are for the Look Homeward (Yourself) Angel:
‘Hey there, reader-writer—how would you like to spew your entrails right out onto a priceless Sarouk carpet?!? Huh? Right in the middle of somebody’s living room with everyone watching? Huh? Well, by golly, you can, etcetera, etcetera.’
    “As I say, it’s rough-draft copy, of course—needs tightening up, brightening up—but what’s your feeling on it, Ginger? Think it might spell ‘blast-off’ in the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch?”
    “What? Well I wouldn’t put a . . . a single cent into it!” said Ginger with considerable emphasis.
    “Oh it’s just too dreadful, Guy,” exclaimed Agnes. “You mustn’t.”
    “Hmm. I suppose you’re right,” said Guy, “. . . hard to say really. Might catch on—might not . . . just wanted to put out a feeler or two on it. Always best to keep an open mind in the investment game.”
    Grand had a bit of fun when he engaged a man to smash crackers with a sledge-hammer in Times Square.
    The stout fellow arrived with his gear—a box of saltine crackers and a sixty-pound sledge—at precisely 9 A.M . and “set up shop,” as Guy expressed it, just outside the subway entrance on Forty-Second Street, the busiest thoroughfare in the world at this particular hour.
    Dressed in khaki and wearing a tin hat, the curious man forged his way through the deluge of people pouring out of the subway, and then in the very midst of the surging throng, opened the brass-studded pouch attached to his belt, extracted a single saltine cracker, and stooped over to place it carefully on the sidewalk.
    “Watch yourself!” he shouted as he stood up, gesturing impatiently. “Keep clear! Mind your step!” And then, raising the hammer to shoulder height, he brought it down in one horrendous blow on the cracker—not only smashing it to dust,