SEETHEDOGBOWBOWGOESTHEDOG DOYOUWANTTOPLAYDOYOUWANT TOPLAYWiTHJANESEETHEDOGRUNR Once there was an old man who loved things, for the slightest contact with people produced in him a faint but persistent nausea. He could not remember when this distaste began, nor could he remember ever being free of it. As a young boy he had been greatly disturbed by this revulsion which others did not seem to share, but having got a fine education, he learned, among other things, the word misanthrope. Knowing his label provided himith both comfort and courage, he believed that to name an evil was to neutralize if not annihilate it. Then, too, he had read several books and made the acquaintance of several great misanthropes of the ages, whose spiritual company soothed him and provided him with yardsticks for measuring his whims, his yearnings, and his antipathies. Moreover, he found misanthropy an excellent means of developing character when he subdued his revulsion and occasionally touched, helped, counseled, or befriended somebody, he was able to think of his behavior as generous and his intentions as noble. When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples As in the case of many misanthropes, his disdain for people led him into a profession designed to serve them. He was engaged in a line of work that was dependent solely on his ability to win the trust of others, and one in which the most intimate relationships were necessary. Having dallied with the priesthood in the Anglican Church, he abandoned it to become a caseworker. Time and misfortune, however, conspired against him, and he settled finally on a profession that brought him both freedom and satisfaction. He became a Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams. It was a profession that suited him well. His hours were his own, the competition was slight, the clientele was already persuaded and therefore manageable, and he had numerous opportunities to witness human stupidity without sharing it or being compromised by it, and to nurture his fastidiousness by viewing physical decay. Although his income was small, he had no taste for luxuryhis experiencen the monastery had solidified his natural asceticism while it developed his preference for solitude. Celibacy was a haven, silence a shield All his life he had had a fondness for thingsnot the acquisition of wealth or beautiful objects, but a genuine love of worn objects a coffee pot that had been his mothers, a welcome mat from the door of a rooming house he once lived in, a quilt from a Salvation Army store counter. It was as though his disdain of human contact had converted itself into a craving for things humans had touched. The residue of the human spirit smeared on inanimate objects was all he could withstand of humanity. To contemplate, for example, evidence of human footsteps on the matabsorb the smell of the quilt and wallow in the sweet certainty that many bodies had sweated, slept, dreamed, made love, been ill, and even died under it. Wherever he went, he took along his things, and was always searching for others. This thirst for worn things led him to casual but habitual examinations of trash barrels in alleys and wastebaskets in public places.... All in all, his personality was an arabesque intricate, symmetrical, balanced, and tightly constructedexcept for one flaw. The careful design was marred occasionally by rare but keen sexual cravings He could have been an active homosexual but lacked the courage. Bestiality did not occur to him, and sodomy was quite out of the question, for he did not experience sustained erections and could not endure the thought of somebody elses. And besides, the one thing that disgusted him more than entering and caressing a woman was caressing and being caressed by a man. In any case, his cravings, although intense, never relished physical contact. He abhorredlesh on flesh. Body odor, breath odor, overwhelmed him. The sight of dried matter in the corner of the eye, decayed or missing teeth, ear wax, blackheads, moles, blisters, skin crustsall the natural excretions and protections the body was capable ofdisquieted him. His attentions therefore gradually settled on those humans whose bodies were least offensivechildren. And since he was too diffident to confront homosexuality, and since little boys were insulting, scary, and stubborn, he further limited his interests to little girls. They were usually manageable and frequently seductive. His sexuality was anything but lewd his patronage of little girls smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness. He was what one might call a very clean old man A cinnamoneyed West Indian with lightly browned skin. Although his given name was printed on the sign in his kitchen window, and on the business cards he circulated, he was called by the townspeople Soaphead Church. No one knew where the Church part came fromperhaps somebodys recollection of his days as a guest preacherthose reverends who had been called but who had no flock or coop, and were constantly Visiting other churches, sitting on the altar with the host preacher. But everybody knew what Soaphead meantthe tight, curly hair that took on and held a sheen and wave when pomaded with soap lather. A sort of primitive process He had been reared in a family proud of its academic accomplishments and its mixed bloodin fact, they believed the former was based on the latter. A Sir Whitcomb, some decaying British nobleman, who chose to disintegrate under a sun more easeful than Englands, hadntroduced the white strain into the family in the early 1800s. Being a gentleman by order of the King, he had done the civilized thing for his mulatto bastardprovided it with three hundred pounds sterling, to the great satisfaction of the bastards mother, who felt that fortune had smiled on her. The bastard too was grateful, and regarded as his lifes goal the hoarding of this white strain. He bestowed his favors on a fifteenyearold girl of similar parentage. She, like a good Victorian parody, learned from her husband all that was worth learningto separate herself in body, mind, and spirit from all that suggested Africa to cultivate the habits, tastes, preferences that her absent fatherinlaw and foolish motherinlaw would have approved They transferred this Anglophilia to their six children and sixteen grandchildren. Except for an occasional and unaccountable insurgent who chose a restive black, they married up, lightening the family complexion and thinning out the family features With the confidence born of a conviction of superiority, they performed well at schools. They were industrious, orderly, and energetic, hoping to prove beyond a doubt De Gobineaus hypothesis that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help, and that a society is great and brilliant only so far as it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it. Thus, they were seldom overlooked by schoolmasters who recommended promising students for study abroad. The men studied medicine, law, theology, and emerged repeatedly in the powerless government offices available to the native population. That they were corrupt in public and private practice, both lecherous and as civious, was considered their noble right, and thoroughly enjoyed by most of the less gifted population As the years passed, due to the carelessness of some of the Whitcomb brothers, it became difficult to maintain their whiteness, and some distant and some not so distant relatives married each other. No obviously bad effects were noticed from these illadvised unions, but one or two old maids or gardener boys marked a weakening of faculties and a disposition toward eccentricity in some of the children. Some flaw outside the usual alcoholism and lechery. They blamed the flaw on intermarriage with the family, however, not on the original genes of the decaying lord. In any case, there were flukes. No more than in any other family, to be sure, but more dangerous because more powerful. One of them was a religious fanatic who founded his own secret sect and fathered four sons, one of whom became a schoolmaster known for the precision of his justice and the control in his violence. This schoolmaster married a sweet, indolent halfChinese girl for whom the fatigue of bearing a son was too much. She died soon after childbirth. Her son, named Elihue Micah Whitcomb, provided the schoolmaster with ample opportunity to work out his theories of education, discipline, and the good life. Little Elihue learned everything he needed to know well, particularly the fine art of selfdeception. He read greedily but understood selectively, choosing the bits and pieces of other mens ideas that supported whatever predilection he had at the moment. Thus he chose to remember Hamlets abuse of Ophelia, but not Christs love of Mary Magdalene Hamlets frivolous politics, but not Christs serious anarchy. He noticed Gibbons acidity, but not his tolerance, Othellos love for the fair Desdemona, but not Iagos perverted love of Othello. The works he admired most were Dantes those he despised most were Dostoyevskys. For all his exposure to the best minds of the Western world, he allowed only the narrowest interpretation to touch him. He responded to his fathers controlled violence by developing hard habits and a soft imagination. A hatred of, and fascination with, any hint of disorder or decay
schoolmaster, whitcomb, misanthrope, human, elihue