The book he had was English Literature for Advanced High-School Students as Passed by the American Medical Association. Book One. The Complete, Rewritten and Abridged Works of Charles Dickens. It was a quarter of an inch thick and had large type. Heller, in his customary show-off way, demolished it, turning the pages faster than I could see what the page numbers were. It took him about one minute. He turned the book over, seemingly puzzled that there was no more book there. Then he took out an erasable Voltarian pen — he’s always so NEAT, it really gets on your nerves! — and marked the date and the Voltarian mathematical symbol that means “equation completed pending next stage.”
He put the book aside and got another one, book two of the same series, The World’s One Hundred Greatest Novels Complete, Rewritten and Abridged. It was also a quarter of an inch thick with large type. It took him another whole minute. He marked the date and the Voltarian symbol.
There was no book three so he opened a notebook and wrote High-School English Literature. And then the Voltarian mathematical symbol for “operation complete.”
This must have made him feel good for he looked around. Most of the students were in classes, apparently, for there were only a couple of girls loafing along, maybe graduate students. They waved, he waved.
He found another book. It was English Literature I for First Year College as Passed by the American Medical Association. The Complete Significances You Should Get Out of Literature and What You Should Think About It. He demolished that.
I was getting so dizzy watching the screen blur with turning pages that it was with some horror that I realized the worst. He was writing in his notebook, First Three Years College English Literature and the same Voltarian math symboclass="underline" “equation completed pending next stage.”
I verified it twice on my watch. Only ten minutes had gone by!
Oh, I know disaster when I see it. (Bleep) him. When he went to get tutored on English literature he would just make a vulgar gesture with his thumb and say, “Yah, yah, yah!”
Bang-Bang came back. “I planted them.”
“What took you so long?”
“I had to stop by the college store and get another hat. I couldn’t work in your cap.” And he had on a tasselled, black mortarboard. He gave Heller back his baseball cap, lay down on the Voltarian ground sheet and promptly went to sleep.
Heller had started on journalism, an unlikely subject that had been on his grade sheet. The book was College Journalism First Year. Essential Basic Fairy Tales of Many Lands. I was glad to see that it was taking him longer. He wasn’t reading so fast. He seemed to be enjoying something, so I split the screen and still-framed the other one so I could read it. My Gods, it was the story of the lost continent of Atlantis!
He dawdled along and it took him a half hour to finish College Journalism. Then he saw that he was supposed to have written a sort of end-of-course paper. He got out his bigger notebook, the one he doodled in. He wrote,
Circulation today was boosted by the timely event of a continent vanishing. Publishers ecstatic.
The event was further heightened by a conflict of opinion by leading experts.
However, an unknown expert leaked to this paper-sources cannot be disclosed despite Supreme Court rulings — that all was not known about this event.
The unidentified expert, who shall be nameless, declared that this colony had been founded by an incursion from outer space under the command of that sterling revolutionary and nobleman of purpose and broad vision, none other than Prince Caucalsia from the province of Atalanta, planet of Manco.
Some of the survivors, who emigrated immediately to the Caucasus, which is behind the Iron Curtain and human beings can’t usually go there, were incarcerated by the KGB. Deportation soon followed and they arrived maybe in New York.
The public will be kept informed.
Heller punched Bang-Bang. “Read this.”
“Why me?” said Bang-Bang, groggy in what must have been a warm morning.
“Well, somebody has got to read it and pass it. It’s the end-of-course paper in Journalism. If nobody reads it and passes it, I can’t have the credit for it.”
Bang-Bang sat up. He read it with lip movement. “What’s this word incarcerated?”
“Put in the slammer,” said Heller.
“Oh, yeah. Hey, that’s a good word. ‘Incarcerpated.’ ”
“Well, do I pass?”
“Oh, hell, yes. Anybody that knows that many big words is a genius. Hey, I got to get going. Time for another line of charges!” Bang-Bang raced off, tassel of his mortarboard streaming in the wind.
Heller wrote, College Journalism. Passed with In-the-Field Citation.
Two more girls drifted by. They stopped to pass the time of day. “What’s your major?” one asked Heller.
“It was Journalism. But I just passed it with Battle Honors. What’s yours?”
“Advanced Criticism,” said one.
“See you around,” said Heller.
After a while, Bang-Bang came back. “First charges picked up. Second series laid.” He went back to sleep.
Frankly, they were driving me nuts! What were they doing? Why didn’t I hear some explosions as buildings went up?
Heller demolished a couple more subjects and passed himself in his notebook. Bang-Bang had come back again and was once again fast asleep.
Now Heller had gotten into high-school chemistry. But this time he was really tangled. I could tell. He was yawning and yawning. Tension! In fact, it was evidently too much for him for he laid it aside and picked up a text on high-school physics. He read for a while, yawning. Then he picked up the chemistry text again and began looking from it to the physics text.
“Hey,” he told the texts. “Agree amongst you on something, will you?”
A clear-cut case of animistic fixation, his habit of talking to things. No wonder he couldn’t understand clear-cut texts.
He finished up the chemistry including the college texts on it and then got going once more on physics. He kept going back earlier and looking again.
And then, I couldn’t believe it! He started to laugh. He always was sacrilegious. Little spurts of laughter kept erupting. And then he read some more and he laughed some more. And then he got to laughing harder and harder and rolled off the backrest and beat at the ground with his fists!
“What the hell is going on?” said Bang-Bang, waking up. “You reading comic books or something?”
Heller got control of himself and it was time he did! “It’s a text on primitive superstitions,” said Heller. “Look, it’s almost noon. Pick up those last charges and we’ll have some lunch.”
Ah, they were threatening the school! Demanding ransom?
Heller had everything gathered up and they went off and bought sandwiches and pop from a mobile lunch wagon.
“Operation right on schedule,” said Heller.
“We made our beachhead,” said Bang-Bang.
They enjoyed the view of girls as they strolled around. Heller bought a couple of papers. Then, “Time!” said Heller sternly. And Bang-Bang raced off again. When he came back, Heller had the command post all set up and Bang-Bang went to sleep.
If they weren’t blowing things up, and I had heard no explosions, this was about the strangest way to go to college I had ever seen. You’re supposed to go and sit down and listen to lectures and take notes and hurry to another class…
Heller was halfway through trigonometry when Bang-Bang said, “I’ll pick up the last series and lay the next. But then I got to go report to the Army and you’ll have to take over.”