Snow White by Donald Barthelme Read Free Book Online Page B

window. “Seems like some hair comin’ outa that winda there,” one said. “Yes it
     looks like hair to me,” his companion replied. “Seems like there oughta be somethin’
     to be done about it.” “Yes, seems like it oughta be punished with a kiss or something.”
     “Well we’re too old for all that. You need a Paul or Paul-figure for that sort of
     activity. Probably Paul is even now standing in the wings, girding his pants for his
     entrance. So I guess I’ll go along to the hiring hall, where I hear there might be
     some work.” “I’ll go along with you,” the other man said, “because even though I ain’t
     a A.B., I am a B.A., and maybe in the dimness the one thing will be taken for the other, and we
     can ‘ship out’ together.” “I hate to go away and leave all that hair hanging there
     unmolested as it were,” the first man said, “but we have a duty to our families, and
     to the country’s merchant fleet, some vessels of which are now languishing at their
     berths doubtless, down at Pier 27 and Pier 32, for the lack o’ the likes of us. So
     farewell, hair! Fare thee well, and if forever, still forever, fare thee well!”
    Reaction to the hair: Fred the rock-and-roll bandleader addressed his men. “Men, something happened to
     me today on Monument Street. I saw a wall of hair black as ebony falling from a high
     window. A girl, a look . . . Men, everything is changed. I am changed. I am no longer
     the Fred of former times. And I say that things must be different with you, too, because
     you are my men, and I am your leader. Now it is quite clear to me that you men wish
     to play the buffalo music of your forefathers rather than the rock-and-roll we have
     patented, amplified, advertised and been paid for. Now I want to say right now, that
     that’s all right with me, the buffalo music I mean. From this day forward, until the
     end of time, it will be nothing but buffalo music, in all the dromes of the world.
     I don’t care a rap, that’s how all right it is with me, this freedom that I freely
     grant you, that our gray hides have been hankering for. Now that, with a look, this
     mysterious dark beauty has changed my life, which needed to be changed, we are, in a strange way, opened to ourselves, and to buffalo music,
     until the red slag of the nooisphere descends to cover everything with the salty finality
     of love. So go forth now with your amplifiers and all, and revise your lives upward,
     as I have revised mine. Put the question mercilessly: Where have the buffalo gone?”
     Fred’s menexchanged silent looks. “It’s always like this,” the looks said, “in the spring. It’s
     always this way, when the green comes again. Our leader suffers a spiritual regeneration,
     from a bad man into a good man. It’s always some girl, who looks at him, at which
     he falls into her power absolutely. We are tired of having for a leader one who is
     nothing else than a damned fool. Let’s go down to the union hall, now, and write out
     the specifications for a grievance against him, under Section Four, the grievance
     section, of our union constitution. And we can think of other things, too, to add
     to the list of charges. That will be amusing, writing out the charges.”
    Reaction to the hair: “Well, that is certainly a lot of hair hanging there,” Bill reflected. “And it seems
     to be hanging from our windows too. I mean, those windows where the hair is hanging
     are in our house, surely? Now who amongst us has that much hair, black as ebony? I
     am only pretending to ask myself this question. The distasteful answer is already
     known to me, as is the significance of this act, this hanging, as well as the sexual
     meaning of hair itself, on which Wurst has written. I don’t mean that he has written on the hair, but rather about it, from prehistory to the present time. There can be
     only one answer. It is Snow White. It is Snow White who has taken this step, the meaning