Mating by Norman Rush Page B

I thought it was pointlessly combative or provocative. I even got a pang when I realized that only an objectively goodlooking presence could transcend the implications of such a costume. Later on when I discovered that he was dressed that way for a perfectly good reason I felt callow. He was acting as a manikin. Everything he was wearing or carrying represented something the people in his project were producing. He was even taking orders for things. All his accessories were from the workshops at Tsau, including a peculiar spade-shaped cowhide sidebag and some hideous leather bracelets. Not only was his costume defensible, it was self-sacrificial. But for the time being I took comfort from my snap judgment that, at least in this, he was a bit of a fool.
A Great Reckoning in a Little Room
    What was my attitude? So far Denoon was impressing me with his performance of absolute repose in the midst of turbulence. We had arrived during a break. The audience was pure agitation—guys machinating, exchanging greetings, checking the time, organizing couriers for more drinks. It was the usual male smokefest, but no cigarettes for him. He was at rest even though he was standing up. He was leaning on one palm against a window frame, gazing out into the night. He was roughly my height or a little under, which was fine because I regard caring about height as a kind of fetishism, which is easy for me to say, I recognize, being tall myself. He looked very strong and I know why: I associate big wrist and elbow knobs with unusual physical strength. Actually it was Nelson who elucidated that to me about myself, in the life to come. The light was fluorescent, very harsh. No matter what he thought he could stand on the basis of his dark complexion, he was getting too much sun,in my humble opinion. But had he noticed that his wife had entered the room? In fact, where was she? Had he taken the lost-in-thought pose he had in order not to have to interact, or was everything accidental?
    Grace had found the only place to hide that there was. She was sitting on a camp stool behind a big potted arboricola near the door. Since I owed my entrée to this scene entirely to her, I went over. She waved me off, violently, but keeping her movements tight. I tried again and produced what I can only call a paroxysm, so I stopped. She put her head back against the wall, which lifted her tiny nostrils once again into my field of vision. The effect conveyed was of unspeakable refinement. I left her alone. All I wanted next was to hear Denoon speak. I am apparently voice activated. I judge inordinately by the voice. And there was the promo his voice had been given by Whoreen.
    This might be good, I thought as I studied the crowd. There were several definitely intelligent guys present, not strobe-light intellects but people who could make you uncomfortable in a debate if you got too much beyond what you absolutely had the facts on. My preference is always for hanging out with the finalists, and there were some there. What did I want? I wanted Denoon either to turn out to be the definitive elusive great man or I wanted him to turn out to be an open-and-shut fraud—that is, mediocre—so I could go on with my lifelong headlong flight from the unintelligentsia and all its works. I don’t know which I wanted more, although I’ve thought about it. I was well aware this was chapter nine thousand in the supremely boring unfinished comic opera
The Mediocre and Me,
and also aware there was nothing so superlative about me as to justify my stupid elitism. But there it was, crazing me as usual. The psychogenesis of this is not a mystery to me.
    I loved the averting of eyes my presence seemed to stimulate.
    I finally found a couple of people willing to overlook my interloping and talk to me. One was an Ethiopian underling at UNDP. I love Ethiopians for their almond eyes. And they remind me of Siamese cats, they’re so sinuous. I gathered from him that the left was fairly joyous