Read Online Every Third Thought by John Barth - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Barth
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dodge-ball-playing classmates were yet again invoking what they’d come to call “the B.B.B. poem” (Brinsley/ Burlesque/Brassiere), “shouldn’t it go ‘ But when the boys began to cheer’ instead of ‘ And when the boys’ et cetera?” Not only because but adds yet another b to the line and the poem, he went on to explain, but because but (“Three more B ’s, guys, get it?”) better suits the sense of the situation: She “sneaks into”
the burlesque show; she sits “way back in the very last row,” not to be noticed— but the popping of her bra-snaps blows her cover.
“Not his exact words, of course,” G. said now: “He and I are only eleven years old here, and people didn’t ‘blow their cover’ back in 1941, and who remembers anyhow? What I do remember is that ‘and/but’ business, and agreeing that he was Right On (as we didn’t say yet back then) about both the sense of the line and the alliteration—although of course we didn’t know that term yet.”
“In short,” offered Ever-Helpful Spouse, “Fledgling Author and Fledgling Critic sprout their first feathers. I wish I’d had fifth-grade pals like you guys.”
“Fledgling O.F.F. and about-to-fledge Capital-A Author,” in her husband’s opinion, “who alas had his wings clipped early. I wish I’d been your fifth-grade pal.”
“Likewise. But when you were in fifth grade I was just getting conceived, and didn’t know from bra hooks yet. I think I’m supposed to ask now: If that was your late buddy’s Second Thought about your maiden literary effort (which I gather soon became your-and-his collaboration), what was his Third?”
Thanks for asking. If nipped-in-the-bud-novelist Ned Prosper were alive today to hear about George Newett’s recent post-equinoctial vision and subsequent solstitial illumination, one can imagine his proposing on Third Thought that whatever else G.’s well-deserved fifth-grade paddle-whacks might be said to signify, they echoed also the five platform-stops of our
birthday fire-tower climb back in first-grade days, of which the fifth and last before the tower-top had been declared to mark the inauguration of their friendship. “What he said at the time, however—unless I’m just dreaming all this?—was something like ‘On third thought, Gee, that’s the last time I’m getting paddled for being the damned Reader. From now on, whether I get whacked or whoopeed, I want it to be for my own scribbles, not somebody else’s.’ End of quote, paraphrase, misrecollection, whatever.”
“And none too soon, in your helpmeet’s helpful opinion. But if you’re really doing this whatever-it-is, you might as well mention that that particular Third Thought of his was the first we’ve heard so far that’s also one of those Last Things that you say he liked to make note of, if that happens to be the case. Excuse all those that s.”
“May your grateful husband kiss your hand?”
“Whatever anatomical item he pleases. And before she washes her hands of this dubious enterprise, pray tell your ever-less-patient Reader what further relevance, if any, this extended naughty-poem recollection has to anything?”
Relevance? Ah yes, that . Well: Eight or nine years later, when Ned Prosper is a flourishing undergrad here at StratColl, and G. I. Newett is hanging on by his fingernails over at Tidewater State, and both are pretty much persuaded that their Capital-C Calling is the writing of Capital-L Literary fiction, Ned will enjoy maintaining that future lit-historians will trace the pair’s epoch-making careers back to that initially
humiliating but eventually inspiring day in Miss Brinsley’s fifth grade, which introduced them to both the pains and the pleasures of literary creation. In his retrospective opinion, it will have been the B.B.B.-poem’s subsequent notoriety, as it passed from furtively scrawled note into jointly revised and raucously repeated Playground Oral Tradition, that really fired both
the burlesque show; she sits “way back in the very last row,” not to be noticed— but the popping of her bra-snaps blows her cover.
“Not his exact words, of course,” G. said now: “He and I are only eleven years old here, and people didn’t ‘blow their cover’ back in 1941, and who remembers anyhow? What I do remember is that ‘and/but’ business, and agreeing that he was Right On (as we didn’t say yet back then) about both the sense of the line and the alliteration—although of course we didn’t know that term yet.”
“In short,” offered Ever-Helpful Spouse, “Fledgling Author and Fledgling Critic sprout their first feathers. I wish I’d had fifth-grade pals like you guys.”
“Fledgling O.F.F. and about-to-fledge Capital-A Author,” in her husband’s opinion, “who alas had his wings clipped early. I wish I’d been your fifth-grade pal.”
“Likewise. But when you were in fifth grade I was just getting conceived, and didn’t know from bra hooks yet. I think I’m supposed to ask now: If that was your late buddy’s Second Thought about your maiden literary effort (which I gather soon became your-and-his collaboration), what was his Third?”
Thanks for asking. If nipped-in-the-bud-novelist Ned Prosper were alive today to hear about George Newett’s recent post-equinoctial vision and subsequent solstitial illumination, one can imagine his proposing on Third Thought that whatever else G.’s well-deserved fifth-grade paddle-whacks might be said to signify, they echoed also the five platform-stops of our
birthday fire-tower climb back in first-grade days, of which the fifth and last before the tower-top had been declared to mark the inauguration of their friendship. “What he said at the time, however—unless I’m just dreaming all this?—was something like ‘On third thought, Gee, that’s the last time I’m getting paddled for being the damned Reader. From now on, whether I get whacked or whoopeed, I want it to be for my own scribbles, not somebody else’s.’ End of quote, paraphrase, misrecollection, whatever.”
“And none too soon, in your helpmeet’s helpful opinion. But if you’re really doing this whatever-it-is, you might as well mention that that particular Third Thought of his was the first we’ve heard so far that’s also one of those Last Things that you say he liked to make note of, if that happens to be the case. Excuse all those that s.”
“May your grateful husband kiss your hand?”
“Whatever anatomical item he pleases. And before she washes her hands of this dubious enterprise, pray tell your ever-less-patient Reader what further relevance, if any, this extended naughty-poem recollection has to anything?”
Relevance? Ah yes, that . Well: Eight or nine years later, when Ned Prosper is a flourishing undergrad here at StratColl, and G. I. Newett is hanging on by his fingernails over at Tidewater State, and both are pretty much persuaded that their Capital-C Calling is the writing of Capital-L Literary fiction, Ned will enjoy maintaining that future lit-historians will trace the pair’s epoch-making careers back to that initially
humiliating but eventually inspiring day in Miss Brinsley’s fifth grade, which introduced them to both the pains and the pleasures of literary creation. In his retrospective opinion, it will have been the B.B.B.-poem’s subsequent notoriety, as it passed from furtively scrawled note into jointly revised and raucously repeated Playground Oral Tradition, that really fired both
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