Gravity's Rainbow

by Thomas Pynchon

Above Slothrop, at eye level, is a terrace, and espaliered peach trees in milky blossom. As he crouches, hefting the bag, French windows open and someone steps out on this terrace for some air. Slothrop freezes, thinking invisible, invisible. . . . Footsteps approach, and over the railing leans—well, this may sound odd, but it’s Mickey Rooney. Slothrop recognizes him on sight, Judge Hardy’s freckled madcap son, three-dimensional, flesh, in a tux and am-I-losing-my-mind face. Mickey Rooney stares at Rocketman holding a bag of hashish, a wet apparition in helmet and cape. Nose level with Mickey Rooney’s shiny black shoes, Slothrop looks up into the lit room behind—sees somebody looks a bit like Churchill, lotta dames in evening gowns cut so low that even from this angle you can see more tits than they got at Minsky’s . . . and maybe, maybe he even gets a glimpse of that President Truman. He knows he is seeing Mickey Rooney, though Mickey Rooney, wherever he may go, will repress the fact that he ever saw Slothrop.