If I Had Known It Was Harmless Pillow

At the wheel of his slow car, Bob Arctor forgot theoretical matters and did a rerun of a moment that had impressed them all: the dainty and elegant straight girl in her turtleneck sweater and bell-bottoms and trippy boobs who wanted them to murder a great harmless bug that in fact did good by wiping out mosquitoes – and in a year in which an outbreak of encephalitis had been anticipated in Orange County – and when they saw what it was and explained, she had said words that became for them their parody evil-wall-motto, to be feared and despised: IF I HAD KNOWN IT WAS HARMLESS I WOULD HAVE KILLED IT MYSELF.