I laughed.

"Something's funny?"

"Pay no attention when I laugh," I begged him. "I'm a notorious pervert in that respect."

"Are you laughing at me?" I shook my head.

"No."

"Word of honor?"

"Word of honor."

"People used to make fun of me all the time."

"You must have imagined that."

"They used to yell things at me. I didn't imagine _that_."

"People are unkind sometimes without meaning to be," I suggested. I wouldn't have given him my word of honor on that.

"You know what they used to yell at me?"

"No."

"They used to yell at me, 'Hey, X-9, where you going?'"

"That doesn't seem too bad."

"That's what they used to call me," said Frank in sulky reminiscence, "'Secret Agent X-9.'"

I didn't tell him I knew that already.

"'Where are you going, X-9?' "Frank echoed again.

I imagined what the taunters had been like, imagined where Fate had eventually goosed and chivvied them to. The wits who had yelled at Frank were surely nicely settled in deathlike jobs at Genera! Forge and Foundry, at Ilium Power and Light, at the Telephone Company. .

And here, by God, was Secret Agent X-9, a Major General, offering to make me king . . . in a cave that was curtained by a tropical waterfall.

"They really would have been surprised if I'd stopped and told them where I was going."

"You mean you had some premonition you'd end up here?" It was a Bokononist question.

"I was going to Jack's Hobby Shop," he said, with no sense of anticlimax.

"Oh."

"They all knew I was going there, but they didn't know what really went on there. They would have been really surprised--especially the girls--if they'd found out what _really_ went on. The girls didn't think I knew anything about girls."

"What _really_ went on?"

"I was screwing Jack's wife every day. That's how come I fell asleep all the time in high school. That's how come I never achieved my full potential."

He roused himself from this sordid recollection. "Come on. Be president of San Lorenzo. You'd be real good at it, with your personality. Please?"

Only One Catch 90

And the time of night and the cave and the waterfall--and the stone angel in Ilium . . .

And 250,000 cigarettes and 3,000 quarts of booze, and two wives and no wife . . .

And no love waiting for me anywhere . . .

And the listless life of an ink-stained hack . . .

And _Pabu_, the moon, and _Borasisi_, the sun, and their children . . .

All things conspired to form one cosmic _vin-dit_, one mighty shove into Bokononism, into the belief that God was running my life and that He had work for me to do. And, inwardly, I _sarooned_, which is to say that I acquiesced to the seeming demands of my _vin-dit_.

Inwardly, I agreed to become the next President of San Lorenzo.

Outwardly, I was still guarded, suspicious. "There must be a catch," I hedged.

"There isn't."

"There'll be an election?"

"There never has been. We'll just announce who the new President is."

"And nobody will object?"

"Nobody objects to anything. They aren't interested. They don't care."

"There _has_ to be a catch!"

"There's kind of one," Frank admitted.

"I knew it!" I began to shrink from my _vin-dit_. "What is it? What's the catch?"

"Well, it isn't really a catch, because you don't have to do it, if you don't want to. It _would_ be a good idea, though."

"Let's hear this great idea."

"Well, if you're going to be President, I think you really ought to marry Mona. But you don't have to, if you don't want to. You're the boss."

"She would _have_ me?"

"If she'd have me, she'd have you. All you have to do is ask her."

"Why should she say yes?"

"It's predicted in _The Books of Bokonon_ that she'll marry the next President of San Lorenzo," said Frank.

Mona 91

Frank brought Mona to her father's cave and left us alone. We had difficulty in speaking at first. I was shy. Her gown was diaphanous. Her gown was azure. It was a simple gown, caught lightly at the waist by a gossamer thread. All else was shaped by Mona herself. Her breasts were like pomegranates or what you will, but like nothing so much as a young woman's breasts.

Her feet were all but bare. Her toenails were exquisitely manicured. Her scanty sandals were gold.

"How--how do you do?" I asked. My heart was pounding. Blood boiled in my ears.

"It is not possible to make a mistake," she assured me. I did not know that this was a customary greeting given by all Bokononists when meeting a shy person. So, I responded with a feverish discussion of whether it was possible to make a mistake or not.

"My God, you have no idea how many mistakes I've already made. You're looking at the world's champion mistake-maker," I blurted--and so on. "Do you have any idea what Frank just said to me?"

"About _me?_"

"About everything, but _especially_ about you."

"He told you that you could have me, if you wanted."

"Yes."

"That's true."

"I--I--I . . ."

"Yes?"

"I don't know what to say next."

"_Boko-maru_ would help," she suggested.

"What?"

"Take off your shoes," she commanded. And she removed her sandals with the utmost grace.

I am a man of the world, having had, by a reckoning I once made, more than fifty-three women. I can say that I have seen women undress themselves in every way that it can be done. I have watched the curtains part in every variation of the final act.

And yet, the one woman who made me groan involuntarily did no more than remove her sandals.

I tried to untie my shoes. No bridegroom ever did worse. I got one shoe off, but knotted the other one tight. I tore a thumbnail on the knot; finally ripped off the shoe without untying it.

Then off came my socks.

Mona was already sitting on the floor, her legs extended, her round arms thrust behind her for support, her head tilted back, her eyes closed.

It was up to me now to complete my first--my first--my first, Great God . . .

_Boko-maru_.

On the Poet's Celebration of His First Boko-maru 92

These are not Bokonon's words. They are mine.

Sweet wraith,

Invisible mist of . . .

I am--

My soul--

Wraith lovesick o'erlong,

O'erlong alone:

Wouldst another sweet soul meet?

Long have I

Advised thee ill

As to where two souls

Might tryst.

My soles, my soles!

My soul, my soul,

Go there,

Sweet soul;

Be kissed.

Mmmmmmm.

How I Almost Lost My Mona 93

"Do you find it easier to talk to me now?" Mona inquired.

"As though I'd known you for a thousand years," I confessed. I felt like crying. "I love you, Mona."

"I love you." She said it simply.

"What a fool Frank was!"

"Oh?"

"To give you up."

"He did not love me. He was going to marry me only because 'Papa' wanted him to. He loves another."

"Who?"

"A woman he knew in Ilium."

The lucky woman had to be the wife of the owner of Jack's Hobby Shop. "He told you?"

"Tonight, when he freed me to marry you."

"Mona?"

"Yes?"

"Is--is there anyone else in your life?"

She was puzzled. "Many," she said at last.

"That you _love?_"

"I love everyone."

"As--as much as me?"

"Yes." She seemed to have no idea that this might bother me.