The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle Read Free Book Online Page B

bus. It’s sad in a way, man. But I realize now, man, that instead I should buy a used mail truck.

Chapter 11
The Mad Dialer
    Back in New York City again, man, coming up out of the subway into the Lower East Side with swamp mud in my shoes and pussy willows up my pants leg. It is nighttime in the city, man. Another typical Horse Badorties day has gone by, man. I had to walk ten miles through a swamp, I missed my Love Chorus rehearsal, and I have got to make a hundred phone calls immediately. Here is my favorite phone booth, man, on First Avenue, and here is my special mercurized dime, man, which allows me to call again and again, without paying anything.
    “Hello, man … there’s a shipment of organic carrots on the way, man, are you interested in a few bunches… .”
    “Hello, man, will you get out your
I Ching
, man, and look up this hexagram I just threw, number fifty-one, nine in the fourth place, what is it …
shock is mired
? Right, man, I’m hip, I lost my school bus in a swamp… .”
    “Hello, baby, this is Horse Badorties … sing this note for me will you, baby, I need to have my tympanic cavity blown out: Boooooooooooooooooooop”
    The night is going by, man, passing on starless and deep, with millions of people going around here and there, and the Fearless Phoner is calling every one of them.
    “Hello, Mother, this is Horse. Did I, by any chance, on my last visit leave a small container of Vitamin C tablets, little white tablets in an unmarked bottle … yes, I did? Good, I’ll be up to get them soon, man, but don’t under any conditions take one of them.”
    “Hello, man … is this Dial-A-Chicken? … tell me something, man, do you deliver to phone booths?”
    “Hello, man, Horse Badorties here … listen, man, I’m sorry I didn’t get over to your pad with the Swiss chard, man, but I was unavoidably derailed for three days, man. I was walking along, man, and I saw these kids, man, in the street, playing with a
dead rat
, man. I had to go back to my pad to get a shovel and bury it, man. You understand, man, kids must not be imprinted with such things. Look, man, I’ll be over soon, I’ll be there at … hold on a second, man, just a second… .”
    Coming directly down First Avenue toward this telephone booth, man, is Sundog the fiddler. I don’t want to see the cat, man. It’s not that I don’t dig him, man, but I cannot stand the sight or sound of a violin, man, it makes the most horrible noises on the face of the earth, man, combining a cat’s gut and a horse’s tail to produce fiendish screeching, so I must therefore utilize the famous Aleister Crowley black magician make-myself-invisible-to-all-others-technique, man, whereby I can walk right through an Arabian marketplace, man, and not be seen by a single person. It is all in the willpower, man, and I am now crunching myself up in the phone booth and at the same time forming a psychic screen around myself so that as Sundog the fiddler walks by, man, I will be rendered completely invisible to his gaze.
    “Hey, Horse, man, what are you doing curled up in the phone booth, man?”

    “I’m making a thousand phone calls, man, and am passing out in the process.”
    “You’re in luck, man, I happen to have a bit of brandy in my fiddle case.”
    “DON’T OPEN THAT FIDDLE CASE, MAN, UNTIL I HAVE CLOSED MY EYES! Alright, man, go ahead, my eyes are shut.”
    “Here you go, Horse, in this flask.”
    “Thanks, man. I need something to set my cells on fire and numb my brain … good stuff, man, lot of bite in it, where did you get it?”
    “I know this old guy, man, lives out in the New Jersey woods, man. He makes the stuff himself. Puts all kinds of things into it, man. Puts a piece of rat’s tail in it, man, it’s just the very tip of a female rat’s tail.”
    “Man, you’re kidding me.”
    “I wouldn’t kid you, Horse. I’ve watched him make it. I’ve got to split, man, you want another snort before I go?”
    “No, man, one