DeLancey's Stapler
Love, Lust, Duty, Doom, Rage, Revelation and Pizza
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
He looked like a grasshopper, but they called him The Gnat.
"I don't care if you call him The Great American Whooping Crane," said DeLancey, a sophomore English major and intermittent advocate of Aesop. "He still fiddles while the sun shines."
The Gnat's forehead was broad and his chin pointed. His face was triangular. Lithe lips inscribed his mouth, large nostrils articulated the end of his nose, and insanity burned in his jade-green eyes.
Osborn mulled over DeLancey's remark and said: "What does The Gnat have to do with whooping cranes?"
"Extinction." DeLancey was wearing a green eyeshade and sitting at his desk working on his model airplane, the Phoenix. "His grades are down the toilet. His draft board is closing in."
During the fall semester it had become apparent that it was possible to get by if you were a good student who occasionally studied or a bad student who studied like hell. The best example of a good student who also studied was Poohead, but nobody liked him. The Gnat, however, was a bad student who never studied, and on top of that his draft board had changed his 'II-S' student deferment status back to 'I-A.'
Dear Sir: Because of your registration in a rural district with a small population base, you are subject to reclassification as often as required to meet the on-going quotas established by the Federal Government. Very Truly Yours, Orvil W. Baster (Clerk of the Board).
"One foot on a banana peel," DeLancey said, "and the other in Nam."
The irony of The Gnat's misfortune was that he was hairless in his private parts. His loins were those of a cherub, but the University was no Olympus and Nam no picnic. It was no laughing matter in either case.
"Of all the dicks to be cut off," he shuddered, "mine will be the only one without hair."
Unfortunately, other than survival The Gnat's only ambition was to drive a red sports car with a beautiful girl beside him in the front seat. Just thinking about it his eyes glittered, his chin trembled and his nostrils dilated with impressive intensity. But no one owned a red sports car except Mad Russkie Molotov of the Jock House. And every beautiful girl, based on the archetype of the White Canadian Snow Goose, turned away.
"Why did she turn away?" he moaned.
"That was Shelley Wenceslas, Gnat."
"So?"
"So she's well known to be crazed."
"And," said DeLancey, eyebrow raised, "your balls are bald."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Spring 196-, on the campus of the U of C and D--, in crumbling World War II barracks foreshadowing Vietnam -- incoming freshman are driven by testosterone, fear, and a dim sense of obligation to become "men."
Draft boards close in. Beautiful co-eds drift doe-eyed under the pine trees on the Quadrangle, circled by upper-class Jocks like so many sharks. Professors profess from the pulpits of various disciplines, a neon mermaid throbs in the night sky at the apex of the L-shaped business district, and the latest Girl of the Month appears like clockwork in brazen glory on the wall above Roger Osborn's Love Candle.
In the midst of such perils, what chance has a late bloomer like The Gnat? A budding misanthrope in a black raincoat like Martin Calihan? An accidental housemother like nubile Susan Thurlby -- or a neurotic maiden like lissome Shelley Wencelas, running against her will for Exhibit Day Queen -- or Osborn himself, the reluctant Jock transformed by ruthless publicity into The Freshman Whiz?
Osborn doesn't know, but he's determined to think of something -- after all, human relationships are his specialty. And the jungle is waiting. And life. Or death.
While nearby, steadfast in his quest for order in the midst of chaos, armed by the concept of duty, his green eyeshade and his trusty stapler, lurks Lawrence DeLancey ...
About the Author
Dave Veith is retired and lives with his wife in Northern California. They have four children and two grandchildren..