"Some layout, huh?" he calls. "Pretty good food!" Conversation has fallen
nearly silent. Politely curious faces are turning. Flames leap in the pit.
They are not all sensitive flames, but if they were they might be able now to
detect the presence of Brigadier Pudding. He is now a member of the
Counterforce, courtesy of Carroll Eventyr. Courtesy is right. Seances with
Pudding are at least as trying as the old Weekly Briefings back at "The White
Visitation." Pudding has even more of a mouth on him than he did alive. The
sitters have begun to whine: "Aren't we ever to be rid of him?" But it is
through Pudding's devotion to culinary pranksterism that the repulsive
stratagem that follows was devised.

"Oh, I don't know," Roger elaborately casual, "I can't seem to find any snot
soup on the menu, . . . "

"Yeah, I could've done with some of that pus pudding, myself. Think there'll
be any of that?"

"No, but there might be a scum soufflé" cries Roger, "with a side of --
menstrual marmalade!"

"Well I've got eyes for some of that rich, meaty smegma stew!" suggests
Bodine. "Or howbout a clot casserole?" “I say," murmurs a voice, indeterminate
as to sex, down the table.

"We could plan a better meal than this," Roger waving the menu.

"Start off with afterbirth appetizers, perhaps some clever little scab
sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off of course . . . o-or booger biscuits!
Mmm, yes, spread with mucus mayonnaise? and topped with a succulent bit of
slime sausage . . . "

"Oh I see," sez Commando Connie, "it has to be alliterative. How about . . .
um . . . discharge dumplings?"

"We're doing the soup course, babe," sez cool Seaman Bodine, "so let me just
suggest a canker consommé, or perhaps a barf bouillon."

"Vomit vichyssoise," sez Connie.

"You got it."

"Cyst salad," Roger continues, "with little cheery-red squares of abortion
aspic, tossed in a subtle dandruff dressing." There is a sound of well-bred
gagging, and a regional sales manager for ICI leaves hurriedly, spewing a long
crescent of lumpy beige vomit that splatters across the parquetry. Napkins are
being raised to faces all down the table. Silverware is being laid down,
silver ringing the fields of white, a puzzling indecision here again, the same
as at Clive Mossmoon's office . . .

On we go, through fart fondue (skillfully placed bubbles of anal gas rising
slowly through a rich cheese viscosity, yummm), boil blintzes, Vegetables
Venereal in slobber sauce . . .

A kazoo stops playing. "Wart waffles!" Gustav screams.

"Puke pancakes, with sweat syrup," adds Andre Omnopon, as Gustav resumes
playing, the Outer Voices meantime having broken off in confusion.

"And spread with pinworm preserves," murmurs the cellist, who is not above a
bit of fun.

"Hemorrhoid hash," Connie banging her spoon in delight, "bowel burgers!"

Frau Utgarthaloki jumps to her feet, upsetting a platter of stuffed sores --
beg pardon, no they're deviled eggs -- and runs from the room, sobbing
tragically. Her suave metal husband also rises and follows, casting back at
the troublemakers virile stares that promise certain death. A discreet smell
of vomit has begun to rise through the hanging tablecloth. Nervous laughter
has long embrittled to badmouth whispering.

"A choice of gangrene goulash, or some scrumptious creamy-white leprosy loaf,"
Bodine in a light singsong "le-pro-sy [down a third to] loaf," playfully
hounding the holdouts, shaking a finger, c'mon ya little rascals, vomit for
the nice zootster . . .

"Fungus fricassee!" screams Roger the Rowdy. Jessica is weeping on the arm of
Jeremy her gentleman, who is escorting her, stiff-armed, shaking his head at
Roger's folly, away forever. Does Roger have a second of pain right here? Yes.
Sure. You would too. You might even question the worth of your cause. But
there are nosepick noodles to be served up buttery and steaming, grime gruel
and pustule porridge to be ladled into the bowls of a sniveling generation of
future executives, pubic popovers to be wheeled out onto the terraces stained
by holocaust sky or growing rigid with autumn.

"Carbuncle cutlets!"

"With groin gravy."

"And ringworm relish!"

Lady Mnemosyne Gloobe is having a seizure of some kind, so violent that her
pearls break and go rattling down the silk tablecloth. A general loss of
appetite reigns, not to mention overt nausea. The flames in the pit have
dwindled. No fat to feed them tonight. Sir Hannibal Grunt-Gobbinette is
threatening, between spasms of yellow bile foaming out his nose, to bring the
matter up in Parliament. "I'll see you two in the Scrubs if it kills me!" Well
. . .

A gentle, precarious soft-shoe out the door, Bodine waving his widebrim
gangster hat. Ta-ta, foax. The only guest still seated is Constance Flamp, who
is still roaring out dessert possibilities: "Crotch custard! Phlegm fudge!
Mold muffins!" Will she catch hell tomorrow. Pools of this and that glitter
across the floor like water-mirages at the Sixth Antechamber to the Throne.
Gustav and the rest of the quartet have abandoned Haydn and are all following
Roger and Bodine out the door, kazoos and strings accompanying the Disgusting
Duo:

Oh gimme some o' that acne, a-la-mode, Eat so much-that Ah, jes' ex-plode! Say
there buddih you can chow all nite, on Toe-jam tarts 'n' Diarrhea Dee- lite .
. .

-- Graviity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon