Mau Mauing the Flackcatchers (Excerpt)

By Tom Wolfe

The Flak Catcher (a government official whose job is to take the blame for mismanaged programs) is still staring at them, and his... grin is getting worse. It‘s like he knows the worst is yet to come... Goddamn... that one in front there... that Pineapple Brute...

"Hey, Brudda," the main man says. He has a really heavy accent. "Hey, Brudda, how much you make?"

"Me?" says the Flak Catcher. "How much do I make?"

"Yeah, Brudda, you. How much money you make?"

Now the man is trying to think in eight directions at once. He tries out a new smile. He tries it out on the Bloods, the Chicanos, and the Filipinos, as if to say, "As one intelligent creature to another, what do you do with dumb people like this?" But all he gets are the glares, and his mouth shimmies back into the terrible sickening grin, and then you can see that there are a whole lot of little muscles all around the human mouth, and his are beginning to squirm and tremble... He‘s fighting for control of himself….. It’s a lost cause...

"How much, Brudda?"

Ba-ram-ba-ram-ba-ram-ba-ram - - they keep beating on the floor.

"Well," says the Flak catcher, "I make $1,100 a month."

"How come you make so much?"

"Welllll" - - grin, the last bid for clemency.., and now the poor man‘s eyes are freezing into little round ice balls, and his mouth is getting dry - -

Ba-ram-ba-ram-ba-ram-ba-ram