I thought we could all use a little culture.
PORCUPINES AT THE UNIVERSITY
by Donald Barthelme
And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart, the Dean said.
His pretty wife, Paula, extended her long graceful hands full of Negronis.
A scout burst into the room, through the door.
Porcupines! he shouted.
Porcupines what? the Dean asked.
Thousands and thousands of them. Three miles down the road and comin fast!
Maybe they wont enroll, the Dean said. Maybe theyre just passing through.
You cant be sure, his wife said.
How do they look? he asked the scout, who was pulling porcupine quills out of his ankles.
Well, you know. Like porcupines."
Are you going to bust them? Paula asked.
Im tired of busting people, the Dean said.
Theyre not people, Paula pointed out.
De busti bus non est disputandum, the scout said.
I suppose Ill have to do something, the Dean said.
Meanwhile the porcupine wrangler was wrangling the porcupines across the dusty and overbuilt West.
Dust clouds. Yips. The lowing of porcupines.
Git along theah lil porcupines.
And when I reach the great porcupine canneries of the East, I will be rich, the wrangler reflected. I will sit on the front porch of the Muehlebach Hotel in New York City and smoke me a big seegar. Then, the fancy women.
All right you porcupines step up to that yellow line.
There was no yellow line. This was just an expression the wrangler used to keep the porcupines moving. He had heard it in the Army. The damn-fool porcupines didnt know the difference.
The wrangler ambled along reading the ads in a copy of Song Hits magazine. Play Harmonica in 5 Mins.!, and so forth.
The porcupines scuffled along making their little hops. There were four-five thousand in the herd. Nobody had counted exactly.
An assistant wrangler rode in from the outskirts of the herd. He too had a copy of Song Hits magazine, in his hip pocket. He looked at the head wranglers arm, which had a lot of little holes in it.
Hey Griswold.
Yeah?
Howd you get all them little holes in your arm?
You ever try to slap a brand on a porky-pine?
Probably the fancy women will be covered with low-cut dresses and cheap perfume, the wrangler thought. Probably there will be hundreds of them, hundreds and hundreds. All after my medicine bundle containing my gold and my lucky drill bit. But if they try to rush me I will pull my guitar. And sing them a song of prairie virility.
Porcupines at the university, the Deans wife said. Well, why not?
We dont have facilities for four or five thousand porcupines, the Dean said. I cant get a dial tone.
They could take Alternate Life Styles, Paula said.
Weve already got too many people in Alternate Life Styles, the Dean said, putting down the telephone. The hell with it. Ill bust them myself. Singlehanded. Lye.
Youll get hurt.
Nonsense,, theyre only porcupines. Id better wear my old clothes.
Bag of dirty shirts in the closet, Paula said.
The Dean went into the closet.
Bags and bags of dirty shirts.
Why doesnt she ever take these shirts to the laundry?
Griswold, the wrangler, wrote a new song in the saddle:
Fancy woman fancy woman
How come you dont do right
I oughta rap you in the mouth for the way you acted
In the porte-cochere of the Trinity River Consolidated
General High last Friday Nite.
I will sit back and watch it climbing the charts, he said to himself. As recorded by Merle Travis. First, it will be a Bell Ringer. Then, the Top Forty. Finally a Golden Oldie.
All right you porcupines. Git along.
The herd was moving down a twelve-lane trail of silky-smooth concrete. Signs along the trail said things like NEXT EXIT 5 Mi. and RADAR IN USE.
Griswold, some of them motorists behind us is gettin awful edgy.
Im runnin this here porky-pine drive, Griswold said, and I say we better gettum off the road.
The herd was turned onto a broad field of green grass. Green grass with white lime lines on it at ten-yard intervals.
The Ed Sullivan show, the wrangler thought. Well, Ed, how I come to write this song, I was on a porky-pine drive. The last of the great porky-pine drives you might say. We had four-five thousand head wed fatted up along the Tuscalora and we was headin for New York City.
The Dean loaded a gleaming Gatling gun capable of delivering three hundred and sixty rounds a minute. The Gatling gun sat in a mule-drawn wagon and was covered with an old piece of canvas. Formerly it had sat on a concrete slab in front of the R.O.T.C. Building.
First, the Dean said to himself, all they see is this funky old wagon pulled by this busted-up old mule. Then, I whip off the canvas. There stands the gleaming Gatling gun capable of delivering three hundred and sixty rounds a minute. My hand resting lightly, confidently on the crank. They shall not pass, I say. Us ne passeront pas. Then, the porcupine hide begins to fly.
I wonder if these rounds are still good?
The gigantic Gatling gun loomed over the herd like an immense piece of bad news.
Hey Griswold.
What?
Hes got a gun.
I see it, Griswold said. You think Im blind?
What we gonna do?
How about vamoosing?
But the herd
Them lil porcupines can take care of their own selves, Griswold said. God damn it. I guess we better parley. He got up off the grass, where he had been stretched full length, and walked toward the wagon.
What say potner?
Look, the Dean said. You cant enroll those porcupines. Its out of the question.
That so?
Its out of the question, the Dean repeated. Weve had a lot of trouble around here. The cops wont even speak to me. We cant take any more trouble. The Dean glanced at the herd. Thats a mighty handsome herd you have there.
Kind of you, Griswold said. Thats a mighty handsome mule you got.
They both gazed at the Deans terrible-looking mule.
Griswold wiped his neck with a red bandanna. You dont want no porky-pines over to your place, is that it?
Thats it.
Well we dont go where we aint wanted, the wrangler said. No call to throw down on us with that... machine there.
The Dean looked embarrassed.
You dont know Mr. Ed Sullivan, do you? Griswold asked. He lives around here somewheres, dont he?
I havent had the pleasure, the Dean said. He thought for a moment. I know a booker in Vegas, though. He was one of our people. He was a grad student in comparative religion.
Maybe we can do a deal, the wrangler said. Whichaway is New York City?
Well? the Deans wife asked. What were their demands?
Ill tell you in a minute, the Dean said. My mule is double-parked.
The herd turned onto the Cross-Bronx Expressway. People looking out of their cars saw thousands and thousands of porcupines. The porcupines looked like badly engineered vacuum-cleaner attachments.
Vegas, the wrangler was thinking. Ten weeks at Caesars Palace at a sock 15 Gs a week. The Ballad of the Last Drive. Leroy Griswold singing his smash single, The Ballad of the Last Drive.
Git along theah lil porcupines.
The citizens in their cars looked at the porcupines, thinking: What is wonderful? Are these porcupines wonderful? Are they significant? Are they what I need?
PORCUPINES AT THE UNIVERSITY
by Donald Barthelme
And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart, the Dean said.
His pretty wife, Paula, extended her long graceful hands full of Negronis.
A scout burst into the room, through the door.
Porcupines! he shouted.
Porcupines what? the Dean asked.
Thousands and thousands of them. Three miles down the road and comin fast!
Maybe they wont enroll, the Dean said. Maybe theyre just passing through.
You cant be sure, his wife said.
How do they look? he asked the scout, who was pulling porcupine quills out of his ankles.
Well, you know. Like porcupines."
Are you going to bust them? Paula asked.
Im tired of busting people, the Dean said.
Theyre not people, Paula pointed out.
De busti bus non est disputandum, the scout said.
I suppose Ill have to do something, the Dean said.
Meanwhile the porcupine wrangler was wrangling the porcupines across the dusty and overbuilt West.
Dust clouds. Yips. The lowing of porcupines.
Git along theah lil porcupines.
And when I reach the great porcupine canneries of the East, I will be rich, the wrangler reflected. I will sit on the front porch of the Muehlebach Hotel in New York City and smoke me a big seegar. Then, the fancy women.
All right you porcupines step up to that yellow line.
There was no yellow line. This was just an expression the wrangler used to keep the porcupines moving. He had heard it in the Army. The damn-fool porcupines didnt know the difference.
The wrangler ambled along reading the ads in a copy of Song Hits magazine. Play Harmonica in 5 Mins.!, and so forth.
The porcupines scuffled along making their little hops. There were four-five thousand in the herd. Nobody had counted exactly.
An assistant wrangler rode in from the outskirts of the herd. He too had a copy of Song Hits magazine, in his hip pocket. He looked at the head wranglers arm, which had a lot of little holes in it.
Hey Griswold.
Yeah?
Howd you get all them little holes in your arm?
You ever try to slap a brand on a porky-pine?
Probably the fancy women will be covered with low-cut dresses and cheap perfume, the wrangler thought. Probably there will be hundreds of them, hundreds and hundreds. All after my medicine bundle containing my gold and my lucky drill bit. But if they try to rush me I will pull my guitar. And sing them a song of prairie virility.
Porcupines at the university, the Deans wife said. Well, why not?
We dont have facilities for four or five thousand porcupines, the Dean said. I cant get a dial tone.
They could take Alternate Life Styles, Paula said.
Weve already got too many people in Alternate Life Styles, the Dean said, putting down the telephone. The hell with it. Ill bust them myself. Singlehanded. Lye.
Youll get hurt.
Nonsense,, theyre only porcupines. Id better wear my old clothes.
Bag of dirty shirts in the closet, Paula said.
The Dean went into the closet.
Bags and bags of dirty shirts.
Why doesnt she ever take these shirts to the laundry?
Griswold, the wrangler, wrote a new song in the saddle:
Fancy woman fancy woman
How come you dont do right
I oughta rap you in the mouth for the way you acted
In the porte-cochere of the Trinity River Consolidated
General High last Friday Nite.
I will sit back and watch it climbing the charts, he said to himself. As recorded by Merle Travis. First, it will be a Bell Ringer. Then, the Top Forty. Finally a Golden Oldie.
All right you porcupines. Git along.
The herd was moving down a twelve-lane trail of silky-smooth concrete. Signs along the trail said things like NEXT EXIT 5 Mi. and RADAR IN USE.
Griswold, some of them motorists behind us is gettin awful edgy.
Im runnin this here porky-pine drive, Griswold said, and I say we better gettum off the road.
The herd was turned onto a broad field of green grass. Green grass with white lime lines on it at ten-yard intervals.
The Ed Sullivan show, the wrangler thought. Well, Ed, how I come to write this song, I was on a porky-pine drive. The last of the great porky-pine drives you might say. We had four-five thousand head wed fatted up along the Tuscalora and we was headin for New York City.
The Dean loaded a gleaming Gatling gun capable of delivering three hundred and sixty rounds a minute. The Gatling gun sat in a mule-drawn wagon and was covered with an old piece of canvas. Formerly it had sat on a concrete slab in front of the R.O.T.C. Building.
First, the Dean said to himself, all they see is this funky old wagon pulled by this busted-up old mule. Then, I whip off the canvas. There stands the gleaming Gatling gun capable of delivering three hundred and sixty rounds a minute. My hand resting lightly, confidently on the crank. They shall not pass, I say. Us ne passeront pas. Then, the porcupine hide begins to fly.
I wonder if these rounds are still good?
The gigantic Gatling gun loomed over the herd like an immense piece of bad news.
Hey Griswold.
What?
Hes got a gun.
I see it, Griswold said. You think Im blind?
What we gonna do?
How about vamoosing?
But the herd
Them lil porcupines can take care of their own selves, Griswold said. God damn it. I guess we better parley. He got up off the grass, where he had been stretched full length, and walked toward the wagon.
What say potner?
Look, the Dean said. You cant enroll those porcupines. Its out of the question.
That so?
Its out of the question, the Dean repeated. Weve had a lot of trouble around here. The cops wont even speak to me. We cant take any more trouble. The Dean glanced at the herd. Thats a mighty handsome herd you have there.
Kind of you, Griswold said. Thats a mighty handsome mule you got.
They both gazed at the Deans terrible-looking mule.
Griswold wiped his neck with a red bandanna. You dont want no porky-pines over to your place, is that it?
Thats it.
Well we dont go where we aint wanted, the wrangler said. No call to throw down on us with that... machine there.
The Dean looked embarrassed.
You dont know Mr. Ed Sullivan, do you? Griswold asked. He lives around here somewheres, dont he?
I havent had the pleasure, the Dean said. He thought for a moment. I know a booker in Vegas, though. He was one of our people. He was a grad student in comparative religion.
Maybe we can do a deal, the wrangler said. Whichaway is New York City?
Well? the Deans wife asked. What were their demands?
Ill tell you in a minute, the Dean said. My mule is double-parked.
The herd turned onto the Cross-Bronx Expressway. People looking out of their cars saw thousands and thousands of porcupines. The porcupines looked like badly engineered vacuum-cleaner attachments.
Vegas, the wrangler was thinking. Ten weeks at Caesars Palace at a sock 15 Gs a week. The Ballad of the Last Drive. Leroy Griswold singing his smash single, The Ballad of the Last Drive.
Git along theah lil porcupines.
The citizens in their cars looked at the porcupines, thinking: What is wonderful? Are these porcupines wonderful? Are they significant? Are they what I need?