OCR Text |
Show Anting Alone Page 282 all the other people on this bus shocked and dismayed, but secretly fascinated by me and my language? All she gave him in return was a bored, mildly disappointed expression. Next he was probably going to challenge God the Father to prove His problematic existence by shooting this bus down with a lightning bolt, frying everyone inside, including this mighty, courageous Dr. Edwine. Shanny was right. He could get tiresome at times. But he was strangely innocent and sweet under all that burden of affected decadence. Something about the way he mouthed phrases like Blessed Menses precluded any serious impiety. His only serious sin was gluttony, and his only appetite was for pure vowels and consonants and diphthongs. Polycarpana decided that she liked him and wanted to help him somehow. She would go to the bathroom as soon as it was unoccupied, to use one of her Kotex on herself, and to get away from this man long enough to figure out how she could possibly like him, and how help him. When she got up he wrenched himself into amazing contortions to allow her to pass by his legs. He bellowed, for all to hear, "Don't stick your hand in the ashtray and genuflect in the aisle, sister!" Several people were laughing as she disappeared into the restroom and closed the door behind her. Ironic that she should be the butt of an outburst of relatively rare nun-ridicule on the eve of her exclostration. Not that she minded: it |