Free Snow White by Donald Barthelme Page B

I do notdoubt it. But even with these preliminary accomplishments, empanelment of shower-curtain
     critics, from far and near, census of shower-curtain-hanging homes, the quarter-finals,
     the semi-finals, the finals, we would not be out of the woods yet. For would the decision,
     broadcast over all media, published throughout the land, not be taken as diddled,
     in view of the fact that the Olympiad was staged by us, backers of the no doubt winning
     shower curtain? There was another solution: destruction of the esthetician, who had
     made the original remark. This thought sighed amongst us, seven heads turned as one
     to regard the eighth, that of the esthetician, sweating in his velvet collar, there
     in the rotten bathroom. But destruction of the esthetician, however attractive from
     a human point of view, would not also ensure destruction of his detritus, his remark.
     The remark would remain in memory, in our memories. We would then be forced to wipe
     ourselves out also, a step which we would hesitate to take waiting as we are for the
     Last Day and God’s mercy. And how could we be sure after all that he had not made
     the same remark to someone else, someone not of our circle, some stranger unknown
     to us? Known to him but unknown to us? And that the remark would not remain unwiped
     in the brain of this stranger? And how could we be sure that thisstranger was not, even as we were standing there, in the rotten bathroom, relaying
     the remark to some other, even less reputable stranger? And that this second stranger
     did not have friends, all of an even filthier repute than himself, to whom he intended
     babbling the remark, at the first opportunity? And that we might not expect a quorum
     of undesirables, sitting in the cathouse square, to be rubbing and smearing this piece
     of intelligence with their ruin before six p.m. by the cathouse clock, this very day?
     We trembled, there in the rotten bathroom, thinking these thoughts.
    “I ADMIRE you, Hogo. I admire the way you are what you are, rocklike in your immutability.
     I also admire the way you use these Pontiac convertible seats for chairs in your house.
     But mine is uncomfortable. Only because I am glued into it with several pounds of
     epoxy glue. Oh I know I laughed when you brushed it onto my hips on Wednesday, saying
     it was honey and I was honey-hipped. I laughed then. But I am not laughing now. Now
     it has hardened, like your heart toward me, Hogo.” “It was honey-colored I said. No
     more than that. It is because I want you near me Jane for some strange reason I don’t
     even understand myself. It must be atavistic. It must be some dark reason of the blood
     which the conscious mind does not understand. That is the stinking truth, God’s Body
     but I wish it were not.” “Stop it Hogo stop it lest I forget who is the glued party
     here. Stop it and get me some hot water.” The ape-fingers of Jane’s familiars penetrated
     the chain-link-fence walls of Hogo’s house. Looking through the walls, past the apes,
     one could see Jane and Hogo, having a talk. “Hogo this house is an architectural masterpiece
     in a certain sense.” “What sense is that.” “In the sense that you get a sense of ‘chain’
     from these chain-like-fence walls that is entirely appropriate to your enterprise.
     I mean the enterprise of being a bad fellow. And to make theceiling of General Motors advertising was a brilliant stroke. When one bears in mind
     that General Motors is Pontiac, and Pontiac is your middle name.” “He was an Indian
     chief Jane, hero of a famous conspiracy, the conspiracy that bears his name in fact.”
     “I know that Hogo. Every schoolboy knows that, and many schoolgirls too, thanks to
     the democratization of education in our country. How fitting that your ceiling should
     be named for a . . .” “I thought it fitting.” “What is to become of us, Hogo. Of you
     and me.” “Nothing is to become of us Jane. Our becoming is