TORNADOES a Midwestern Boyhood by David Foster Wallace

M E M 0 R

TENNIS, TRIGONOMETR~ TORNADOES A Midwestern boyhood By David Foster Wallace

. '~en I left the boxed township of Between the ages of twelve and fif- truer than most girls my age. What I Illinoisfarmland where I grew up to at- teen I was a near great junior tennis could do-in the words of my town- tend my dad's alma mater in the lurid, player. I cut my competitive teeth ship's juniors' coach, a thin guy who jutting Berkshires of western Mas- beating up on lawyers' and dentists' chewed Red Man and spat into a Fol- sachusetts, I right away developed a kids at little Champaign and Urbana gers can-was "Play the Whole jones for mathematics. I'm starting to country club events, and was soon Court." This was a tennis cliche that see why this was so. College math killing whole summers being driven could mean any number of things. In evokes a Midwesterner's sickness for through dawns to tournaments all over my case, it meant I knew my limita- home. I'd grown up inside vectors, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. At four- tions and the limitations of the courts lines and lines athwart lines, grids- teen I was ranked seventeenth in the I played on, and adjusted thusly. I was and, on the scale of horizons, broad United States Tennis Association's at my best in bad conditions. curving lines of geographic force, the Western Section ("Western" being Now, conditions in Central Illinois weird topographical drain-swirl of a the creakily ancient USTA's designa- are from a mathematical perspective whole lotof ice-ironed flatland that tion for the Midwest;farther west were interesting and from a tennis point of sits and spins atop plates. I could plot the Southwest, Northwest, and Pa- view bad: summer heat and wet-mit- by eye the area behind and below cific Northwest sections), fourth in ten humidity; moths and crap gnats these broad curves at the seam of land the state of Illinois, and around one forming an asteroid belt around each and sky way before I came to know hundredth in the nation, having flown tall lamp at night, the whole lit court anything as formal as integralsor rates in 1976, at the regional association's surface aflutter with spastic little shad- of change. Calculus was, expense, to the U.S. National Junior ows; mosquitoes that spawn in the quite literally, child's play. Hardcourt Championships in Kala- fields' furrows and in the conferva- mazoo,Michigan,'where in the second chocked ditches that box each field; In late childhood I learned how to round I got my rural ass handed to me and, most of all, wind. play tennis on the blacktop courts of by a California kid named Scott Davis, The people I know from outside it a small public park carved from farm- who's now a marginal figure on the distill the Midwest into blank flat- ness, black land and fields of green land. This was in my home of Philo, pro circuit. My flirtation with tennis excellence fronds or five o'clock stubble, gentle Illinois, a tiny collection of corn silos had way more to do with a weird pro- swells and declivities that make the and war-era Levittown homes whose clivity for intuitive math, and with topology a sadistic exercise in plot- . native residents did little but sell crop the township where I learned and ting quadrics, highway vistas so same insurance and nitrogen fertilizer and trained, than with athletic talent. and dead they drive motorists mad. herbicide, and collect property taxes Even by the standards ~f junior com- Those from Indiana, Wisconsin, and from the young academics at nearby petition, in which everybody's a tight northern Illinois think of their Mid- Champaign-Urbana's university, bud of pure potential, Iwas a pretty west as agronomics and commodities . whose ranks swelled enough in the untalented tennis player. My hand- futures and corn-detasseling and bean- flush late 1960s to make an outlying eye was okay, but I was neither large walking and seed-company caps, ap- oxymoron like "farm and bedroom nor quick, had a near concave chest ple-cheeked Nordic types, cider and community" lucid. and wrists so thin I could bracelet slaughter and football games with David Foster \Vallace is afiction writer living them with a thumb and pinkie, and white fog banks of breath exiting hel- in Boston. could hit a tennis ball no harder or mets. But in the odd central pocket

68 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 1991 that is Champaign-Urbana, Rantoul, nesses. Because the land seems so always sweated so much that I stayed Philo, Mahomet-Seymour, Mattoon, even, designers of clubs and parks fairly well ventilated in all weathers. and Tolono, Midwestern life is in- rarely bother to roll it flat before lay- Oversweating seems an ambivalent formed and deformed by wind. To the ing the asphalt for tennis courts. The blessing, and it didn't exactly do won- west, between us and the Rockies, result is usually a slight list that only ders for my social life in high school, there is basically nothing tall, and a player who spends a lot of time on but it meant I could play for hours on weird zephyrs and stirs join breezes the courts will notice. Since tennis a Turkish-bath July day and not flag a and gusts and thermals and down- courts are for sun-and-eye reasons al- bit so long as I drank water and ate drafts and whatever out over Nebras- wayslaid lengthwise north-south, and salty stuff between matches. I always ka and Kansas, and move east like since the land in Central Illinois ris- looked like a drowned man by about streams into rivers and jets and mili- es very gently as one moves east to- game four, but I didn't cramp, vomit, tary fronts that gather like avalanch- ward Indiana, the court's forehand or pass out, unlike the gleaming Peo- es and roar in reverse ria kids whose hair never down pioneer ox trails to- even lost its part right up ward our own unsheltered until their eyesrolled up in asses. Nobody I knew in their heads and they Philo combed his hair be- pitched forward onto the cause why bother. shimmering concrete. The worst was spring, A bigger asset still was boys' high school tennis that I felt extremely com- season, when the nets fortable inside straight would stand out stiff as lines. This was environ- proud flags and an errant mental. Philo is a cock- ball would blow clear to eyed grid: nine north- the easternmost fence, south streets against six interrupting play on the nort h east-sout hwest, next several courts. dozens and dozens of gor- Summers were manic geous slanted-cruciform and gusty, then often, corners (the east and west around August, deadly intersection-angles' tan- calm. The wind would gents could be evaluated just die, some days, in integrally in terms of their August, and it was no re- secantsl) around a three- lief at all; the cessation intersection central town drove us nuts. We real- common, Most of my ized afresh how much memories of childhood, the wind had become whether of furrowed part of the soundtrack . acreage or a' harvester's to life in Philo. The sentry duty along R.R. sound of wind had be- l04W or the play of sharp come, for me, silence. shadows against the Le- When it went away, I gion Hall softball field's was left with the squeak of the half, for a rightie facing north, always dusk, I could now reconstruct on de- blood in my head and the aural seems physically uphill from the back- mand with an edge and protractor. glitter of all those little eardrum hand. The same soil that's so full of I liked the sharp intercourse of hairs quivering like a humus farmers have to be bought off straight lines more than the other kids T drunk in withdrawal. to keep markets unflooded splits as- I grew up with. I think this is because phalt courts open with the upward they were natives, whereas I wasan in- .0 your average 'outsider, Central pressure of broadleaves whose pio- fantile transplant from Ithaca, New Illinois looks ideal for sports. The neer-stock seeds are unthwarted by a York, where my dad had Ph.Di'd. So' ground, seen from the air, strongly half-inch cover of sealant and stone. I'd known, even as a baby, horizon- suggests a board game: anally precise So all but the very best maintained tally and semiconsciously, something squares of dun or khaki cropland all courts in the most affluent Illinois dis- different, the tall hills and serpentine cut and divided by plumb-straight tar tricts are their own little rural land- one-ways of upstate New York. I'm roads. From ground level, the arrayed' scapes, with tufts and cracks and pretty sure I kept the amorphous mush fields of feed corn and soybeans look underground-seepage puddles being of curves and swells as a contrasting laned like sprint tracks or Olympic part of the lay that one plays. backlight somewhere down in the pools, replete with the angles and al- Tennis-wise, I had three preternat- lizardy part of my brain, because the leys of serious tennis. ural gifts to compensate for not much Philo children I fought and played The terrain's strengths are its weak- physical talent. The first was that I with, kids who knew and had known

Illustration by Cary Bartholomew MEMOIR 69 nothing else, saw nothing stark or totiller, a rented, wheelbarrow-shaped, basement. It was a sort of nasal green, new-worldish in the township's planar gas-driven thing that roared and snort- black-speckled, vaguely hirsute. layout, prized nothing crisp. ed and bucked and seemed to propel Worse, the patch of mold looked in- My first reallydetailed memory is all its mistress rather than vice versa, her complete, gnawed on; some nauseous sharp edges. I was helping a neighbor feet leaving drunken prints in the stuff was smeared around the little kid help his mother till a new veg- earth. In the middle of the tilling my kid's mouth. "I ate this," he started etable garden out in their backyard friend's baby brother, maybe like four crying as his mother shut down the one April. The garden's outline was a at the time and wearing some kind of tiller and came to him. My friend and perfect square, with five quincunx fuzzyred Pooh-wear, came tear-assing I were grossed out as only kids can get subareas-the center for hallowed zuc- out into the backyard crying, holding grossed out by smaller kids' repulsive chini-laid out in an H of popsicle something really unpleasant-looking snafus. But the little kid's mother, who sticks and twine. We little boys re- in his upturned palm. It turned out to now that I think about it disappeared moved rocks and hard clods from the have been a rhomboid patch of mold under vague medical circumstances a lady's path as she worked the Ro- from some exotic comer of their damp couple years later, went utterly nuts: "Help! My son ate this!" she yelled, over and over, holding the speckled patch aloft, running around and around the garden's quadrants while my neighbor and I gaped at our first re- al adult hysteria, the sobbing little kid forgotten by all of us. "Help! My son ate this! Help!" she kept yelling, running in tight com- plex little patterns just inside the H of string that marked the garden's quin- cunx; and I remember noting, and be- ing alone in noting, how even in trauma her flight lines were plumb, her footprints Native American- straight, her tums, inside the ideogram of string, crisp and martial. She ran and yelled and turned and yelled and ran. My friend's dad, who had a pipe sticking out of his face, had to go get the hose. Unless you're just a mutant, a vir- tuoso of raw force, you'll find that competitive tennis, like money-pool, requires geometric thinking, the abil- ity to calculate not merely your own angles but the angles of response to your angles. Tennis is to artillery and air strikes what football is to infantry and attrition. Because the expansion of response possibilities is quadratic, you are required to think n shots ahead, where n is a hyperbolic func- tion limited by (roughly) your oppo- nent's talent and the number of shots in the rally so far. I was good at this. What made me for a while near great was that I could also admit. the dif- ferential complication of wind into my calculations. Wind did massive damage to many Central Illinois ju- nior players, particularly in the peri- od between April and July when it needed lithium badly, tending to gust without pattern, swirl and backtrack EMEMBER Inclined to Work and die and rise, sometimes blowing in one direction at court level and in the19OO'si another altogether ten feet overhead. "t! Remember the The best planned, best hit ball often net worth of just blew out of bounds, was the ba- Donald Trump per pound: sic unlyrical problem. It drove some "t! Rememberthe aver- kids near mad with the caprice and age number of corporate mergers per business unfairness of it all, and on real windy day during the 1980's. days these kids, usually with talent "t! Rememberhow many It's no accident that artists and draftsmen out the wazoo, would have their first children said that work on inclined surfaces. It lessensfatigue apoplectic racket-throwing tantrum in Pee-wee Herman was and increases productivity. So why don't about the match's third game and by "highly qualified" to be president. professional readers and writers use the end of the first set would have inclined surfaces? They should, and with lapsed into a kind of sullen coma, bit- ~GetHARPER'S INDEXTOTHE19l1l's. our new Editor's Desk, they can. a special, expanded version of Harper's terly expecting to get screwed over Index that sums up the last decade. This Its 14 "-by-25 " writing surface slopes at the by wind, net, tape, sun. I, who was listing of more than eighty surprising num- ideal angle for writing (19 degrees), while affectionately known as Slug because bers, facts, figures, and rankings Originally the bookrest above holds reading matter at appeared in the January issue of Harper's I was so lazy in practice, located my Magazine. Illustrated full-color reprints are the perfect distance and angle. Try one biggest tennis asset in a weird robot- now available. and you'll never labor over a flat desk ic detachment from whatever unfair- YES! send me__ reprint(s) of HARPER'S again. Made in America of solid ha'rd rock nesses of wind and weather I couldn't INDEXTO THE1980's.$4first copy; $3each addi- maple. Comes partially assembled. plan for. I couldn't begin to tell you tional copy. Includes postage & handling. ~Ale~foite: $99 (Regularly $129) + $8.75 I've enclosed $ _ how many tournament matches l.won shipping via UPS ground between the ages of twelve and fif- Name _ MCNISNAMEXJCheck' Florida add 6% teen against bigger, faster, more co- Address _ Money-Back Guarantee' Catalog on Request 800-544-0880 or 407-276-4141 ordinated, and better coached op- City/State/Zip _ ponents simply by hitting balls un- Mail your check payable to Harper's Magazine and this LEVENGER imaginatively back down the middle coupon to: Promotion Department, Harper's Magazine TOOLS FOR SERIOUS READERS of the court in schizophrenic gales, 666 Broadway, NY, NY 10012 975 S. Congress Ave., Code HED4, Delray, FL 33445 letting the other kid play with more verve and panache, waiting for enough of his ambitious balls aimed near the lines to curve or slide via wind outside the green court and white stripe into the raw red territo- ry that won me yet another ugly point. It wasn't pretty or fun to watch, and even with the Illinois wind I nev- er could have won whole matches this way had the opponent not even- tually had his small nervous break- This holiday season. delight your favorite Francophile with a gift of Champs-Elysees, the monthly audiomagazine for down, buckling under the obvious people who love France and the French language. Produced injustice oflosing to a shallow-chest- in Paris by Georges Lang, one of Europe's best-known broad- ed "pusher" because of the shitty ru- casters, each hour-long edition brings you interviews, music, ral courts and rotten wind that and conversation about current events, travel, and the arts. A rewarded cautious automatism instead word-for-word transcription comes with each tape. complete with a French-English glossary and cultural notes. Study of verve and panache. I was an un- supplements. priced separately, help build listening comprehen- popular player, with good reason. But sion with exercises based on selected program segments. to say that I did not use verve or imag- ination was untrue. Acceptance is its Money Ba,ck Guarantee: Take 30 days to review your first tape, If you 're not completely satisfied with the program. call for a full refund. own verve, and it takes imagination for a player to like wind, Send check or money order to Charnps-Elysees. Inc. Dept. HF2. P.O. Box 158067. Nashville. TN 37215-8067 and I liked wind. o I'd like to subscribe for o 5 editions ($69) 0 11 editions ($11 B) Istarted to win a lot. At twelve, I o Study supplement ($20) 0 Study supplement ($44) began getting entry to tournaments Tennessee residents add 7.75 % sales tax beyond Philo and Champaign and Danville. I was driven by my parents or by the folks of Gil Antitoi, son of a Quebecois-history professor from City/State/ZIP _ German and ttetten programs also available.

I: • Urbana, to events like the Central just forever, sending back moon balls IORIGIN--;:"L--- Made ~erman~ Illinois Open in Decatur, a town built baroque with ornate spins. Antitoi, I . I and owned by the A. E. Staley pro- uncomplicated from the git-go, hit I I cessing concern and so awash in the the holy shit out of every round ob- I I stink of roasting com that kids would ject that came within his ambit, aim- play with bandannas tied over their' ing always for a backcourt corner. I I mouths and noses; like the McDon- When he was "on," having a good I ald's Junior Open in the serious-com day, he varnished the court with me. I town of Galesburg, way out west by When he wasn't at his best (and the I the river, where in 1974 Antitoi so hours we spent-David Hurst from I pummeled Hans Block, son of a pros- Bloomington, Kirk McKenzie and I 51/Z"long perous hog farmer who was later to Steve Moe of Danville, and I-in I The ScIIuco that drives to the ~rink. ht neYert.m~les in! become the most hated man in the meditation and seminar on what vari- Introduced by Schuco in 1939 as the "Wonder Auto." an inge- I nious pivot wheel mechanism prevents this car from driving Midwest as Reagan's secretary of agri- ables of diet, sleep, romance, car ride, offthe edge. Placed against the side of an immobile surface. it culture, that Hans Block, ranked and even sock color factored into the I circles the object as if it were steered by some unseen hand! I Modeled after a streamlined '30's classic Maybach sedan. eighth in Illinois in Twelve and Un- equation of Antitoi's mood and lev- Features include: long running clockwork motor. formed all ders, was never seen on a court again; el day to day), he and I had great I metal body and chassis. Shipped $89 like the Prairie State Open in Pekin, matches, real marathon wind-suckers. in facsimile of original box. limited 50 I to 1.000 units. In red or bright blue. insurance hub and home of Caterpil- Of the eleven finals we I Shipping $6 ea. In NVadd 6% tax. Satisfaction Guaranted. Pay by: Visa. MasterCard. American Express or check. lar tractor; like the Midwest Junior played in 1974, I won two. I Liliput Motor Co. Ltd. P.O. Box 447. Yerington. NV89447 Clay Courts at a chichi private club in ~~.800.TIN.TOY~46-8697) Fax: 415-986'201~ Peoria's pale version of Scarsdale. Midwest junior te~nis was my Over the next four summers I got to early initiation into true adult sad- see way more of the state than is nor- ness. I had, by thirteen, developed a mal or healthy, albeit most of this see- sort of Taoist hubris about my ability ing was at a blur of travel and crops, to control via non-control. I'd found looking between nod-outs at sunrises a way not just to accommodate but f@!I abrupt and terribly candent over the to employ the heavy summer winds crease berween fieldsand sky,riding in in matches. No longer just mooning station wagons' backseats through Sat- the ball down the center to allow plen- urday dawns and Sunday sunsets. I got ty of margin for error and swerve, I steadily better; Antitoi, unfairly as- was now able to use the currents the sisted by an early puberty, got radi- way a pitcher uses spit. I could hit cally better. curves way out into crossbreezesthat'd By the time we were fourteen, An- drop the ball just fair; I had a special titoi and I were the Central Illinois wind serve that had so much spin the cream of our age bracket, usually ball turned oval in the air, curved lefr seeded one and two at area tourna- to right like a smart slider, and then re- ments, able to beat all but a couple of versed its arc on the bounce. As a ju- even the kid'sfrom the Chicago sub- nior tennis player, I was for a time a urbs who, together with a contin- citizen of the concrete physical world gent from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in a way the other boys weren't. usually dominated the Western Sec- My betrayal came at around fifteen, tional rankings. Antitoi and I ranged when so many of these single-minded over the exact same competitive ter- flailing boys became abruptly man- ritory; he was my friend and foe and nish and tall, with sudden sprays of bane. Though I'd started playing two hair on their thighs and wispson their years before he, he was bigger, quick- lips and ropy arteries on their fore- LIBlOO er, and basically better than I by arms. My fifteenth summer, kids I'd Erotica For People about thirteen, and I was soon losing been beating easily the year before all Who Like To Read to him in the finals of just about ev- of a sudden seemed overpowering. In • Quarterly. ery tournament I played. So differ- 1977 I lost in the semifinals of two Via first cum mail ent were our appearances and ap- tournaments that I'd beaten Antitoi in In the U.S., $26 proaches and general gestalts that we the finals of in 1976. The other boys Canada - $36 (U.S.) had something of a modest epic ri- sensed something was up with me, Europe -$46 valry from 1974 through 1977. I had smelled some breakdown in the odd Asia, Australia and gotten so prescient at using surface, detente I'd had with the elements. South America - $56 sun, and gusts that I was regarded as I felt, as I became a later and later a kind of physical savant, a medicine bloomer, alienated not just from my P.O. Box 146721, Chicago, IL 60614 boy of wind and heat, and could play own recalcitrant glabrous little body

7Z HARPERS MAGAZINE/ DECEMBER 1991 ------_. but in a way from the whole ele- to accommodate the absence of dis- mental exterior I'd come to see as my abilities to accommodate. Puberty- co-conspirator. I knew, somehow, that angst aside, my Midwest tennis career "One ofrnyfavorite magaaines. the call to height and hair came from plateaued the moment I If you want stroke literature, outside, from whatever apart from saw my first windscreen. look elsewhere; if you want an appreciation of the won- Monsanto and Dow made the corn ders of love and sex and peo- grow and the hogs rut. My vocation till strangely eager to speak of the S ple, look here. The joy in YS ebbed. I felt uncalled. I experienced weather, let me say that my township, comes from the skillful the same resentment toward what- in fact all of east-central Illinois, is a imagery in poem, prose, and ever children abstract as Nature that proud part of what meteorologists call art. Gentle, loving, egalitari- I knew Steve Moe felt when a sound- Tornado Alley. I personally have seen an, steamy, and fun, and a ly considered approach shot down two or three on the ground and five fine read. And the artwork is the forehand line was blown out by aloft, trying to assemble. The gro- more beautiful than ever." a gust. I began, very quietly, to re- tesque frequency of tornadoes around Mike Gunderloy sent my physical place in the great my township is,I'm told, a function of Factsheet Five schema. the same variables that causeour civil- It's also true that my whole Mid- ian winds: We are a coordinate where west tennis career matured and then fronts and air masses converge. Most I degenerated under the aegis of the days between late March and June I I Peter Principle. In and around my there are Tornado Watches somewhere township, where the courts were rural in our TV stations' viewing area. and budgets low and conditions ex- Watches mean conditions are right ! r~II6WSlUlJ treme, I was truly near great: I could and so on and so forth-big deal. It's ~URNAL OF EROTIC ARTS . Play the Whole Court; I was In My only the rarer Tornado Warnings, I I Element. But the more important which require a confirmed sighting by I I I tournaments, the events into which somebody with reliable sobriety, that I my rural excellence was an easement, make the civil defense sirens go. The I ~ were played in a real different world: siren on top of the Philo Elementary '"z

The courts' surfaces were redone ev- School was a different pitch and cycle ~z -e ery spring at the Arlington Tennis from the one off in the south part of '":: Club, where the National Junior Qual- Urbana, and the two used to weave ~ ifier for our Section was held; the in and out of each other in a god-aw- green of these courts' fair territory was ful threnody. When the sirens blew, so vivid as to distract, its surface so the native families went to their can- bare of flaw, tilt, crack, or seam as to ning cellars or fallout shelters (no kid- be scary and disorienting. Playing on ding); the academic families in their a perfect court was for me like tread- bright prefab houses with new lawns ing water out of sight of land: I never and foundations of flat slab went with knew where I wasout there. The 1976 whatever good-luck tokens they could Chicago Junior Invitational was held lay hands on to the very most central at the Lincolnshire Bath & Tennis point on the ground floor after open- Club, whose huge warren of courts ing every single window to thwart im- "All persuasions; no brutality." was enclosed by these troubling green plosion from precipitouspressuredrops. plastic tarps attached to all the fences, For my family, the very most central Bharati Mukherjee. William Kotz- with little archer-slits in them at eye point was a hallway between my dad's winkle· Marge Piercy' David Mamet level to afford some parody of specta- study and a linen closet, with a repro- • Jessica Hagedorn. W.S. Merwin· tion. These tarps, developed by some duction of a Flemish Annunciation Mayumi Oda • Eric Gill • Marilyn windophobe in the early 1970s, cut Hacker • Gary Soto • Judy Dater scene on one wall and a bronze Aztec • Octavia Paz • Ntozake Shange • down the worst of the unfair gusts, sunburst hanging with guillotinic mass Jane Hirshfield • Ivan ArgUelles but they also seemed to rob the court on the other; I always tried to ma- Susan Griffin· Robert Silverberg space of new air: Competing at Lin- neuver my sister under the sunburst. colnshire was like playing at the bot- If there was an actual Warning tom of a well. I just wasn't the same, when you were outside away from YS, P.O. Box 6374, Albany CA 94706 somehow, without deformities to play home, say at a tennis tournament in $30/year • Quarterly around. I'm thinking now that the some godforsaken public park at some N-'tM[ wind and bugs and chuckholes formed city fringe zoned for sprawl, you were ADDRESS for me a kind of inner boundary, my supposed to lie prone in the deepest own personal set of lines. Once I hit depression you could locate. Since the OUTSIDE U.S., ADD S6/SURf.4.CE, a certain level of tournament facilities, only real depressions around most S20/AIR PER YEAR. U.S. FUNDi I was disabled because I was unable tournament sites were the irrigation

MEMOIR 73 Srarernenr Required 1;.,.J\) U.S.C. J685 showing the ownership, roan- agerncnr. end circulation ~l(Harper' s. ruh!isheJ monthly [rwleve issues per Yl,",u). Date ,If filing: September 17, 1991. Publication No. 514-410. An- nualsubscrtption price: $10.00. and runoff ditches that bordered cul- Complete mailing address of known ,1f{ic •.•l'ipubllcatlorc 666 Broa.Iwav. New York. NY roou. tivated fields-ditches icky with con- Complete rnailing address otheadquarters Il(general busiress otfce d Pub- lisher: 666 BnJaJ •••."y. \lew York. NY Il'l(ll Z. ferva and mosquito spray and always Publisher: J~lhnR. MtcArthur. 666 Broadway. New York. NY 100 12; Ed- ito,lf: Lewis H. Lapham. 666 &..'laJway. N~' York, NY 10012; Managing Ed- heaving with what looked like con- itor: Ellen Rosenbush, 666 Brcadwav, New York. NY 10011. Known l-..'Odh.llJers. m~\rtgagt'e5.and other security holders owning or ventions of copperheads and just ba- hl\lJing 1percent or roore Iithe rota: amount uf bonds, mortgages, or orb- sically places you don't want to lie er secueines. Nooe. Changes during rhe preceding twelve months in the ruTJ"OH'. fuocrton, prone in under any circumstances-in and nonprofit srarusot the Harper's Megarine Foundation and [he exempt status for Federal income tax purposes: None. practice at Warned tournaments you zipped your rackets into their covers Extent and nature ci circulation: and ran to find your loved ones or

Average number o( Actual number of even your liked ones and just milled COrle: each issue copies of smgle during precedrng issue published around trying to look like you weren't twelve months nearest to filing terrified. dale A) T oral number of Tornadoes were a real part of my copies printed 184.945 2S9.054 B) Paid circulanon: Midwest childhood, because as a little I) Sales through dealers and kid I was obsessed with dread over carners.srreet Use your PC to Master verdors and them. My earliest nightmares were counter sales: 34.401 33.600 Japanese and Chinese about shrieking sirens and dead white 2) ~'lail subscription: 184357 185,477 C) T oral paid circulation: 118.758 219.C77 skies, a slender monster on the Iowa 0) Free distribution ~. njoy learning Asian languages with mail. carrter.or orher ES7TUJ.rl Characters for Students»- word horizon jutting lessphallic than sauri- means (samples. conpl.menrarr, ani processor and vocabulary ~ an from the lowering sky, whipping other free copies): 6.000 5,144 tutor for PCs. Handyon- E) Toral disrrtbunon: 224,758 m.m line references, diction- back and forth with such frenzy that it F) Copies not distributed: I) Office use.Ietr over, aries, vocabulary drills, almost doubled on itself, trying to eat unaccounted for, and furigana speed reading ~ its own tail, throwing offchaff and dust spoiled after printing: 1.92; and writing. Learn and use kanji Z) Returns from and chairs. It never came any closer news agents: and hanzi rapidly and effectively rr= 53.162 H833 G) Total: 284.945 289.054 while creating your own composi- than the horizon; it didn't have to. tions and vocabulary lessons. Just I stayed obsessed as I aged, and I $79.95. Call or write for a free brochure. I cerrifr that [he srarerner.ts made by me above art correct and complete. know why: Tornadoes, for me, were a Apropos Customer Service, 8Belknap Street, (Signed) John R. MacArthur transfiguration. Like all serious wincls, Arlington, Massachusetls02174. 800 676-4021 they were the z-coordinate for our lit- tle stretch of plain, a move up from the Euclidian monotone of furrow, road, SOLUTION TO THE C H I P P E W A A R N I C A axis, and grid. We studied tornadoes in NOVEMBER PUZZLE A L N E F F A N D N a a a a junior high: A Canadian high straight- N I L M E R M A I D D R Y a lines it southeast from the Dakotas; a C L U E P L A U S I B L Y W moist warm mass drawls on up north R S S P H I N X H R I B I a from Arkansas. The result was not a E T A P R 0 M P I A Z Z A S Greek x or even a Cartesian axis but T I G L o N U A E S S E N E an alchemical circling of the square. E G E S T U R S A T P A T E Tornadoes were, in our part of Central D E S H I P P a G R I F F N Illinois, the dimensionless point at E R G a C B H S L a T R a D which parallel lines met and whirled J a U R N E Y M E N S a B a A R C S a A M I N a T A U R and blew up. They made no sense: V A C E N T A U R M a I L S Houses blew not out but in. Brothels U N I C a R N M A Y P a L E were spared while orphanages next NOTES FOR "CROSSES" door bought it. Dead cattle were found three miles from their silage ACROSS: 1. CH·I-PP-EWA(rev.): 6. ARNICA,anagram; 11. ALONE,hidden; 13. OF-FAN-DON;15. NI- L; 16. Y-RODreversed; 17. CLUE,odd lerters; 18. PLAUSIBLY,anagram; 19. O(RIB)-I; 20. IT A(I); 21. rr"' without a scratch on them. PROM(iscuicy); 23. P(I)AZZA; 24. ESSEN(c)E; 25. E(conomic)-GEST; 26. U(... R)SA); 27. PATE(nt); 32. ERGO, two meanings; 34. (ho)TROD; 35. JOU(R ... )NEYMEN, anagram; 38. SO-B, "bawl"; 39. SCRA(tch) reversed; 40. M(O)ILS; 41. UNICORN, anagram; 42. MAY-POLE.DOWN: 1. CO-NCRETE • he only time I ever got caught in (anagram); 2. HA(IL)S; 3. ILL-USAGES,anagram; 4. po(reversal)-ME; 5. (b)EER; 7. RADIOASTRONOMY, what might have been one was in June anagram; 8. IDOLIZE,"idle eyes"; 9. CORYBANT(e), anagram; 10. ANYWISE,anagram; 12. NEPHROTIC, 1978 on a tennis court at Hessel Park anagram; 14. FA(U... lX-PAS (reversal); 22. MURPHY,anagram; 26. uPB(anagram)-EAT(anagram); 27. POTS-TIP reversed; 28. A-FRO; 29. ENDORSE,hidden; 30. DE(JAva)U, anagram of DUE; 31. OSMIUM, in Champaign, where I was drilling anagram ofMI(as)Mous; 33. GUCCI, "G U 2 cs I"; 36. O-RAN; 37. NO(i)NO reversed. one afternoon with Gil Antitoi. SOLUTION TO NOVEMBER DOUBLE ACROSTIC (NO. 107). ALMADENNY:BUSTIN'OUT ALL Though a contemptible and despised RIGHT.What is so rare as a day in [oon / Wid absolutely nuttin' doon? / Nobody bein' graduated, / tournament opponent, I was a covet- bon voyaged or welcome-gated) / Nobody bein' birthday-feted, testimonialized, or mated? / [oon's okay but we'd like it better / Widdout such a lot of gertin' togedder. ed practice partner because I could CONTEST RULES: Send the quotation, the name of the author, and the tirle of the work, transfer balls to wherever you wanted together with your name and address, to Double Acrostic No. 108, Harper's Magazine, 666 Broad- them with the tireless consistency of way, New York, N.Y. 10012. If you already subscribe to Harper's, please include a copy of your lat- a machine. This particular day it was est mailing label. Entries must be received by December 8. Senders of the first three correct solutions opened at random will receive one-year subscriptions to Harper's Magazine. The solution will be printed in the January 1992 issue. Winners of Double Acrostic No. 106 are Ralph Gerber, Miami, Florida; Linda Fink, Grand Ronde, Oregon; and Aileen Creighton, Corpus Christi, Texas. supposed to rain around suppertime, were no depressions except a sapro- and a couple of times we thought we'd genic ditch along the field of new com heard the tattered edges of sirens out. just west. What could we have done? west toward Monticello, but Antitoi I think we thought it would rain at and I drilled religiously every after- worst and that we'd play till it rained noon that week on the slow clayish and then go sit in Antitoi's parents' Har-Tru of Hessel, trying to prepare for station wagon. We were both in the a beastly clay invitational in Chicago. fugue-state that exhaustion through We were doing butterflies, a real un- repetition brings on, a fugue-state I've pleasant drill where his cross-courts decided that my whole time on tennis alternated with my down-the-lines. was spent chasing, a fugue-state I as- Butterflies are primarily a condition- sociate too with plowing and seeding ing drill: Both players have to get from and detasseling and spreading herbi- If you've been reluctant to purchase one side of the court to the other be-. cides back and forth in sentry duty sensual products through the mail, we tween each stroke, and once the ini~ along perfect lines, up and back, or would like to offer you three things that tial pain and wind-sucking is over, military marching on flat blacktop, might change your mind. assuming you're a kid who's in absurd hypnotic, a mental state at once flat 1. We guarantee your privacy. shape because you spend countless and lush, numbing and yet exquisite- Everything we ship is plainly and se- mindless hours jumping rope or run- lyfelt. We were young, we didn't know curely wrapped, with no clue to its con- ning laps backward or doing straight when to stop. I was mad at my body tents from the outside. All transactions sprints back and forth along the per- and wanted to hurt it, wear it down. are strictly confidential, and we never fect furrows of bean fields each morn- Then the whole knee-high field to sell, rent or trade any names. ing, once the first pain and fatigue of the west along Kirby Avenue all of a 2. We guarantee your satisfaction. butterflies are got through, if both sudden flattened out in a wave com- If a product is unsatisfactory simply re- guys are good enough so that there ing toward us as if the field were get- turn it for replacement or refund. are few unforced errors to break up ting steamrolled. Antitoi went wide 3. We guarantee that the product the rally, a kind of fugue-state opens west for a forehand cross and I saw you choose will keep giving you up inside you and your concentration the com get laid down in waves and pleasure ... Should it malfunction, sim- ply return it to us for a replacement. telescopes toward a still point and you the sycamores lining the ditch point lose awareness of your limbs and the our way. There was no funnel. Either What is the Xandria Collection? soft shush of your shoe's slide and it had just materialized and come It is a very special collection of sen- whatever's outside the lines of the down or it wasn't a real one. The big sual products, including the finest and court, and pretty much all you know heavy swings on the industrial swing most effective products from around the then is the bright ball and the octan- sets took off, wrapping themselves in world. It is designed for both the timid gled butterfly outline of its path across their chains around and around the and the bold. For anyone whose ever the court, and at Hessel Park the court top crossbar; the park's grasslaid down wished there could be something more to was such a deep piney color that the the same way the field had. It all hap- their sensual pleasures. flights of the fluorescent balls stayed pened very fast: field, trees, swings, The Xandria Gold Collection ... on one's visual screen for a few extra grass, then the feel like the lift of the a tribute to closeness and communica-' seconds, leaving trails. world's biggest mitt, the nets sudden- tion. Celebrate the possibilities for plea- We had one just endless rally and ly and sexually up and out straight as sure we each have within us. Send for the I'd left the planet in a silent swoop flags, and I seem to remember whack- Xandria Collection Gold Edition Cata- when the court and ball and butterfly ing a ball out of my hand at Anritoi to logue. It is priced at just $4.00 which is trail all seemed to surge brightly and watch its radical west-east curve, and applied in full to your first order. glow as the daylight just plain went for some reason trying to run after this Write today. You have absolutely out in the sky overhead. Neither of us ball I'd just hit, but I couldn't have nothing to lose. And an entirely new had noticed that there'd been no wind tried to run after a ball I had hit, but world of enjoyment to gain. blowing the familiar grit into our eyes I remember the heavy gentle lift at for several minutes-a bad sign. There my thighs and the ball curving back IThe Xandria Coliection~Dept~1291 -I was no siren. Later they said the civ- closer and my passing the 'ball and I P.O. Box 31039, San Francisco, CA 94131 I Please send me, by first class mail, the Xandria Collection 1 il defense alert network had been out beating the ball in flight over the hor- 1 Gold Edition Catalogue. Enclosed is my check or money of order. The temperature dropped so izontal net, my feet not once touching 1 order for $4.00 which will be applied towards my first I purchase. ($4 us. CAN., £ 3 U.K.) fast you could feel your hairs rise. the ground over fifty-odd feet, and 1 Name I There was no thunder; no air stirred. then there was chaff and crud in the 1 Address______I I could not tell you why we kept hit- air all over and both Antitoi and I City______ting. Neither of us said anything. were blown pinwheeling for I swear it I I State Zip___ 1 There was no siren. It was high noon; must have been fifty feet to the fence I I am an adult over 21 years of age. there was nobody else on the courts. one court over, the easternmost fence, 1------1 The riding mower at the softball field we hit the fence so hard we knocked I (signature required) 1 was still going back and forth. There Continued on page 78 Xandria, 874 Dubuque Ave., South San Francisco 94080 LV~w~e~~ed by=: -.J Continued from page 75 CLASSIFIED it halfway down, and it stuck at 45°, Antitoi detached a retina and had to Penfriends: England-U.S.A. Make lasting Asian/Caribbean girls desire friendship wear those funky ]abbar retina-gog- friendships. Send age, interests. Free reply. and marriage. Photo magazine with 1,000 gles for the rest of the summer, and the Harmony, Box 82295H, Phoenix, Ariz. addresses: $35. Dateline, Box 55, Station B, 85071. Ottawa, Ontario KIP 6C3, Canada. fence had two body-shaped indenta- tions like in cartoons where the guy's Scandinavia-Russia-Great Britain, etc.s A 150-color-photo catalogue of marriage- Sincere individuals worldwide seek corre- able Thai women: $5. Weekly tours to meet face leaves an imprint in the skillet spondence for friendship, romance, mar- Thai ladies. Honolulu, Hawaii 96828- that hit him, two catcher's masks of riage. Scanna International (since 1980), 0495(H). (808) 734-0099. fence, we both got deep quadrangular P.O. Box 4-HP, Pittsford, N.Y. 14534. (800) Beautiful Latin, Asian ladies seek friend- lines impressed on our faces, torsos, 677-3170. ship, marriage. Free 24-page photo cata- legs' fronts, from the fence, my sister Make friends in England. Free details. logue. Latins, Box 1716-HR, Chula Vista, said we looked like waffles, but neither Transatlantic Penfriends, Box 2176-H, San Calif. 91912-1716. (619) 425-1867. Pedro, Calif. 90731. of us got badly hurt, and no homes Meet beautiful women. We supply photos, got whacked-either the thing just Penfriends! U.S. and worldwide. Free names, addresses. Send for free details. Merit, ascended again for no reason right af- descriptions, photos. Ladies, men. Friend- Box 74758-H, Los Angeles, Calif. 90004. ship League, Box 5637-HM, Reno, Nev. ter, they do that, they obey no rule, Thailand-marriageable ladies waiting. 89513. 225-photograph brochure: $3. Tours. Club follow no line, hop up and down at Meet Christian singles. Nationwide phone Thai, Box 974(H) Miami, Fla. 33233. something that might as well be will, or mail introductions. No fees, donations or else it wasn't a real one. Antitoi's only. Write: Box 90-20-WE, Van Nuys, Pretty American, Latin, and Oriental tennis continued to improve after that, Calif. 91409. ladies. Free photos and photo catalogue. Aurora Introductions, P.O. Box 692-HM, but mine didn't. _ Christian singles. Nationwide introduc- Aurora, Colo. 80040. tions. Personalized, inexpensive. Free details. Rush age/interests. Serenity, Box 232, Deer Park, N.Y 11729. COMING SOON! December Index Sources Pen pals worldwide for lasting friendships, 1 JerusalemMedia Communications Center maybe more. Free sample photos. Hermes, (Israel); 2 Yedioth Ahronoth (Tel Aviv); 3 Box 110660/H, Berlin 11, Germany. U.S. Agency forInternational Development; HARPER'S 4 Harper's research; 5 Center for Respon- Meet women worldwide. Free 32-page cat- sive Politics (Washington); 6 U.S. Federal alogue. America's most respected corre- MARKETPLACE Reserve/New YorkClearing House Associa- spondence service. Cherry Blossom, 190 tion (N.YC.)/National Automated Clear- HR Rainbow Ridge, Kapaau, Hawaii 96755. his special advertising feature is de- ing House Association (Alexandria, Va.): (808) 961-2114. Anytime. 7,8 U.S. Federal Reserve;9 InvestmentDeal- signed especially for corporations, Life counselor. Business, relationships, ers Digest (N.Y..C.);10 Donald Straszheim, universities, and non-profit/literary changes, ventures, direction, negotiations. T Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.); 11 U.S. Depart- List questions, be specific! One-hour tape: organizations to advertise their executive ment of Commerce, Bureau of Economic $60. E Ontiveros, 2500 Houma Boulevard, positions, academic seminars, exchange Analysis; 12 PlanEcon (Washington); 13 Metairie, La. 70001. programs, and writing workshops at a spe- Institute forEconomics(Cologne,Germany): ciallow price. 14,15 Der Spiegel (Hamburg, Germany); 16 Nationwide singles photo magazine, free. Department of Peace and Conflict Research Send name, address, age. Exchange, 1817 Harper's Magazine reaches an estimated (Uppsala, Sweden)/Human Rights Watch Welton, ;<1580, Denver, Colo. 80202. (N.Y.C.)/U.S. Department ofState; 17 Cen- half a million affluent and well-educated ter for Defense Information (Washington); Traditional Oriental wives. Correspon- readers who want to expand their intel- dence; marriage. Dignified presentations 18 U.S. Department of Defense; 19 Jean lectual as well as professional horizons. Dreze and Haris Gazdar, London School of since 1984. Asian Experience, Box 1214- Economics (England); 20 Pizza Hut (Wi- JA, Novato, Calif. 94948. (415) 897-2742. Demographic profile: chita, Kans.)/Chinese Consulate (N.Y.C.); Lonely? Single ladies/gents in your area ~ hold college degrees: 87.5% 21 Pizza Hut (Wichita, Kans.): 22 John want to write you. Free photo brochure. ~ hold post-graduate degrees: 49.7% Parker, The Economist (Moscow); 23 Catholic Information Service (Washington); Truematch, Box 14567-HA, Las Vegas, ~ average HHI: $79,600 Nev. 89114. (800) 521-8192. 24 U.S. Bureau of the Census/Mattel (EI ~ hold professional and managerial Segundo,Calif.), 25 Esquire (N.Y.C.)and Be- Asian women desire romance. Overseas, positions: 80.7% ta Research Corporation (Syosset,N.Y.);26 sincere, attractive. 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N.Y.C.); 37 Perdue Farms (Salisbury, Simpatica, #825, 1377 K Street, Washing- For information, contact Ann Clifford, Md.)/Harper's research; 38 Land 0' Lakes ton, D.C. 20005. (215) 886-1728. Harper's Magazine, 666 Broadway, New (Arden Hills, Minn.): 39 Collin Street Bak- ery (Corsicana, Texas)/CRC Handbook of Asian girls. Information: $2. J.w., P.O. Box York, NY 10012. (212) 614-6538. Chemistry and Physics (CRC Press,Boca Ra- 2329, Jakarta, Pusat, Indonesia. ton, Fla.).

78 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 1991