for John Delin

oh the moon is bright tonight along the Wabash . I sang in a high pure voice

for the adults. I had a different meaning. in myself. 

and it said.

the moonlight is on grass and haystacks and still river and over 

on the opposite bank is the pointless white building with all the rooms 

where I’ll be happy and make things right.

I said it to myself but didn’t quite

hear. I sang very clearly and well in those 

on these. long afternoons.

from dead poem rising

the dead in the night

in the rain. and it's wet and the air is full of fine

damp. the dead rain. the earth is sweet and wet. the cyclamen. the old

lilies were dead but they clutched in the ground and

came up in the furled whiteness

the womanly raw

strength.  speaking speaking

the dead come dressed in borrowed clothes

flat and immense.

the dead speak would speak.

and here's one in my room and there's

one swaying in the marsh light.

from as a matter of fact

to be filled with the roll of

the twilight as if

the bulk of the shapes

were come up in a pushing

of blood up the arm you

know

warning sighs of twilight speak

my name it’s not

a painting

or

my name at all

or bit of music

not the cat unless or pocket’s

silver change.

the change is silver.

how

nice the feel but maybe maybe

name is hanging

off the poem

no

it isn’t see me dangle rocking

in ocean bring two ponds of eye

to bear the dance

on polished floors’

tableaux mortant receding

bozos snares delusions little

tables each

with oysterettes

and waiter hates us all but what

the hell his scribbles

tumble off

his pad and dance away the night

in clacking Lullaby

of Broadway

dead musicians on the stand

and fingers draped with lake

in park of night where all

the boats are all

the thoughts go rowing

nightly as

will come this twilight

rings the doorbell

all the boats

gone stirring tremble

blow this pop stand says the moon

comes bumping up the sky and nudges

moon aside

with bright credential

boats on air they go to bare

our empty names

to real.

For Bread and Milk                                                                                                                            

by J. B. Hogan

harles,” Dora Evans called to her husband from the kitchen, where she held open the refrigerator, “we need bread and milk.”

“We don’t have any left?” Charles said loudly, without turning away from the late evening news.

“Just enough for breakfast, dear,” Dora answered, taking out a piece of chocolate pie and then closing the refrigerator door. “Do you want a snack?”

“No, no,” Charles declined.

“I think it’s supposed to snow tomorrow,” Charles commented, as Dora rejoined him in the living room. He sat at one end of a large, green couch that rested heavily and directly in front of the television set. Dora sat beside the couch in a well-padded wicker chair. “Should you be having that? Your cholestrol.”

“The weather will be on next,” Dora said, ignoring Charles’ warning. “They’ll tell us if it will snow or not.”

“Wish we still had the car,” Charles said. “I hate being old.”

“No you don’t,” Dora laughed. “It gives you license to complain about everything and no one ever contradicts you.”

“You do,” Charles groused.

“That’s my job,” his wife smiled.

“I still wish we had the car,” Charles repeated. “We could zoom right through the snow.”

“The last car we had couldn’t ‘zoom’ through anything,” Dora reminded her husband. “It was two-wheel drive and slid on anything even remotely wet or slick.”

“Hmph,” Charles grunted. “You shouldn’t have that pie this late.”

“Please,” Dora sighed, rolling her eyes. “I don’t believe it matters at our age whether we sneak an extra piece of pie or not. Besides as skinny as you are, you should eat more anyway.”

“Bah,” Charles grumbled again.

Charles and Dora had been married over fifty years. Neither could recall much of life prior to their time together. They had met in college and fallen in love, passionate love. But after fifteen childless years, they had hit a sour patch. Charles strayed a few times and Dora considered divorce. But no sooner had the patch developed, than it ended. Charles rediscovered his commitment to Dora and they passed over the rough spot. They concentrated on their university careers, his as a professor of math, she as a Victorian specialist in the English Department.

Finally, after thirty years together they had settled into a comfortable life of mostly companionship and mutual support. They attended academic functions together, traveled abroad, enjoyed their lives as a well-respected couple on campus. And they grew into a relaxed old age, a warm, golden time highlighted by pleasant company and easy friendship. When they retired from the university they became each other’s constant companions with the matronly Dora’s calm personality the perfect counterpoint to scrawny Charles’ occasional grumpy frumpiness.

These days, as the couple approached their eighties, life had become quiet, almost still. The parties were mostly a thing of the past, old students seldom came by anymore, and the couple relied more and more on each other’s company. They breakfasted, puttered around the house or out in the garden in good weather, walked up the hill to the little store where they bought their groceries. All in all, they had found a level of contentment that worked for both of them.

“The weather’s starting,” Charles said, waving his arms as if Dora couldn’t see the set six feet in front of her.

“They never get it right anyway,” Dora said, dismissing the chunky, pseudo-meteorologist who appeared on screen with a smile wide enough to perhaps endanger the muscles in his cheeks and jaws.

“Hush,” Charles told her.

“We’ll see how the weather is in the morning anyway,” Dora said, burping loudly at the end of her sentence.

“See,” Charles said, pointing at her. “I told you not to eat that pie.”

“You hush,” Dora said, but she put a hand over her mouth to hide another belch. “I’d better get some orange juice to wash this down with.”

“Be better off with a 7-Up,” Charles said.

“You be quiet,” Dora said, rising. She rubbed her chest when she was out of Charles’ sight and made her way back to the kitchen for the orange juice.

*                    *                    *

When Charles and Dora got up the next morning the sky was gray with snow clouds heavy with moisture. Dora made them a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and milk and they read the morning paper as they ate, Dora hiding her continued indigestion behind the entertainment and travel pages.

“We still going to the store?” Charles asked, setting the sports section down on the table by his dirty plate.

“We need to,” Dora said, belching quietly into her paper.

“It’ll be cold,” Charles noted the obvious. “You just had bronchitis for cryin’ out loud.”

“Worry wart,” Dora countered.

“Doctor says you should take it easy,” Charles warned.

“Doctor doesn’t live here, does he?” Dora smiled.

“Hmph,” Charles grunted. “That makes a lot of sense. I wish we still had the car.”

“Walking is good for us at our age,” Dora said, folding the newspaper and setting it on the table. She collected all the dishes and took them out to the kitchen.

“I don’t know,” Charles said when she returned to the dining area.

“Oh, come on,” Dora said with a smile, “it’ll be an adventure.”

“It may snow,” Charles declared.

“It is snowing,” Dora replied, looking out the living room window, “apparently for awhile, too. But it doesn’t look like there’s much wind and it’s not terribly cold.”

“How would you know that?” Charles wanted to know.

“It’s never terribly cold when it snows,” Dora explained, “at least not around here.”

“Oh,” Charles said. “Well, we should at least protect our heads.”

“I have my scarf and you have your hat,” Dora told him.

“Better than that,” Charles insisted.

“All right,” Dora said agreeably, “we’ll take the umbrellas.”

“Umbrellas?” Charles asked, shaking his head. “It’s not raining, it’s snowing.”

 “They’ll be perfect,” Dora assured her husband.

“Hmph,” Charles grumbled, but he let Dora collect the umbrellas from a tall, metal cannister where they were kept in a closet by the front door. They kept their coats and boots in the same closet and Dora drew those out as well.

“Here,” she said, handing Charles his coat, boots, and one of the umbrellas.

“This isn’t my umbrella,” he said. “Mine’s black.”

“That is black,” she assured him, unsnapping the cover strap on her umbrella, “mine’s dark blue.”

“If you say so….” Charles began. Suddenly he grabbed Dora’s arm and umbrella. “Don’t open that indoors,” he cried, “that’s bad luck. Don’t do that.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Dora sniffed, “don’t be silly.”

“Don’t do it,” Charles insisted. “It’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.”

“Very well,” Dora said, setting the umbrella down while they put on their coats and boots.

“Ready?” Charles said, when Dora had buttoned his coat around the collar for him.

“Ready,” she said.

Charles exited the house first, Dora following behind. She began loosening her umbrella as she crossed the threshold and let it pop completely open out on the front porch.

“It’s really snowing,” Charles said, stepping onto the porch steps.

The snow fell hard, in big beautiful flakes, and it was accumulating rapidly. There was about three inches on the ground and the heavy sky promised much more in the hours to come.

“We’d better get going, then,” Dora said, suddenly having to repress another heavy belch.

As they walked down the street, snow crunching pleasantly beneath their winter boots, the elderly couple was quiet for awhile. They had been together so long that at times they had no need of conversation; they communicated their closeness and caring without words, by simply being together. For all his grumpiness, Charles had no idea what he would do without Dora, and she had been his friend and helpmate for so long she could not imagine a world in which Charles was not there either.

As they began the climb up the hill to Dawson ’s Grocery Store, the snow was really plummeting down. It was falling so hard, the Evans’ were beginning to slog instead of walk. Charles began to grumble about not having the car again but his grousings went unanswered as Dora was really struggling up the incline. She was having trouble catching her breath and what breath she caught didn’t seem to be quite enough. There was even a tightening in her chest.

“At least we brought these umbrellas,” Charles complained out loud, but mostly to himself.

Dora’s reply was a loud belch. She stopped and put the back of her hand to her head.

“Are you okay,” Charles said, turning back when he realized his wife was no longer alongside him.

“I’m fine,” Dora wheezed, “just indigestion.”

“Still?” Charles asked, scowling.

“I’ll be okay,” Dora reassured him. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s this damnable snow,” Charles said, waiting for Dora to reach him. “We shouldn’t have come. I ….”

“Oh,” Dora groaned in Charles’ mid-sentence.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked, reaching for her.

“I’m light-headed,” Dora said, “can’t breathe….”

Suddenly, Dora simply sat down in the snow in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Oh,” she moaned.

Charles was quickly at her side, helping her sit up next to the curb. He took her umbrella and held his over her head.

“Breathe slowly, sweetheart,” he said.

“I feel so weak,” Dora said softly.

“I’ll get help,” Charles said.

“Please don’t leave me,” Dora pleaded.

“I won’t,” he said.

At that moment, a lady, not so different in age from the Evans, came out her front door to see what was the matter.

“Please, ma’am,” Charles called to her. “Please call for help. Call 911.”

The lady hurried back inside her house. Charles turned back to Dora.

“Stay with me, Dora,” he said gently, “please stay.”

Charles knelt beside Dora then, let her rest her body against his. Her breathing was erratic and difficult. He kept his umbrella over them. The snow kept falling, heavily.

In less than ten minutes, the paramedics arrived. A young man and young woman, both of them strong, bright-faced, and very efficient, immediately took charge of the situation. They did their best to stabilize Dora, to control her breathing, to make her comfortable. When they had gotten her into their vehicle they laid her down on an emergency cot, put a warm blanket around her, and hooked an oxygen mask to her face. The young woman helped Charles up into the vehicle for the ride to the hospital.

“What were you folks doing out on a day like today?” the emergency room doctor who attended to Dora asked Charles after Dora had been hooked up to all the proper monitoring devices and was resting comfortably. “This was hardly the day for an early morning stroll.”

“We were going to the store for bread and milk,” Charles explained. “We don’t have a car.”

“Couldn’t someone have gone for you?” the doctor asked.

He was fresh out of med school and was filled with a righteous desire for people to take good care of themselves. It was the cornerstone of a good healthy life, he believed. Seeing these old people out doing something so foolish as walking in a heavy snow, seemed pretty peculiar to him – and counterproductive to their health.

“My wife likes to walk,” Charles said, “and we had our umbrellas.”

“Umbrellas in the snow?” the doctor said, controlling as best he could an ironic smile. Then seeing Charles’ sad, concerned expression, he softened. “Well, when it’s bad weather like this just be more careful.”

“Uh, huh,” Charles nodded.

“Your wife will be fine,” the doctor told Charles, putting a youthfully paternal arm around the elderly man’s shoulder. “We’ll need to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure her breathing gets nice and smooth and we’ll take some tests of her heart. She should make a full recovery. I’ll have our nutritionist recommend a better diet perhaps and a slow lead-in to an exercise program. At least in good weather she may be able to try that hill again. But not for awhile.”

“No,” Charles agreed, “not for awhile.”

“I’ve had the front desk call a taxi for you, Mr. Evans,” the doctor said. “The snow isn’t letting up any and you’ll need a ride home I’m sure.”

“Yes, thank you,” Charles said.

“There is a service in town that gives elderly folks rides,” the doctor went on. “I’ll have our people call them for you if you’d like. That way you can come in whenever you wish over the next couple of days to see your wife. I would imagine you might want to come back in the morning. We’d like her to rest by herself tonight.”

“Yes, yes,” Charles said. “That will all be fine.”

“Very well, then,” the doctor said as they reached the front desk, “our people will take care of all that for you, sir.”

“Thank you,” Charles said.

A young woman at the desk smiled patronizingly at him and the doctor hurried back to his work. Charles sighed.

*                  *                   *

Charles stood on the front porch knocking the snow off his boots before entering the house. He shook the moisture off the umbrellas, closed, and snapped their straps shut. Then he went inside. In the long hallway leading into the house, he paused and listened. It was so quiet and empty within that he thought for a moment he would cry.

He prayed to whatever power there was that he would precede Dora in death. He could see no way in which he could stand this terrible silence of nothing. He knew that without her, life would have neither purpose nor meaning.

Opening the hall closet, Charles prepared to put away the umbrellas. He knew that carrying those damnable things had been a bad idea – it was just plain bad luck. Unceremoniously, he deposited them in their tall metal storage cannister. He was glad to be rid of them. He wouldn’t use umbrellas in the snow again. Not as long as he lived.

Re-enactment                                                                                                            

by Eric D. Lehman

 im Boothby’s parents didn’t know much about Branlee Village before they visited one lazy July day.  They were completely unprepared for the reaction of their third, often sickly, son.  Tim was seven years old, just enough to retain the sense of childhood magic, but old enough to comprehend that Branlee was a recreation and not a genuine 19^th century village.

            As Tim was led along the gravel paths of the village square, he was astonished by the fresh white clapboard buildings, so unlike those in his worn-out suburb.  The inhabitants of Branlee strolled the streets, dressed in period clothing, going about their daily business of wool-dyeing, tinsmithing, and pottery.  Cows and sheep grazed in the pastures that surrounded the town.  Tim watched swallows flit into a barn and feed their young, who cried from little wattled nests.  He smelled the dry July earth and the smart punch of dung.  For lunch at the dark wood tavern, a hoop-skirted woman handed him maple beans and a a small pot pie, washed down with his first ginger beer, so much richer and fuller than the soft drinks he was used to.  He ran his hands along the snake rail fences, and peeked into the chipmunk kingdoms of antique stone walls.

            Amidst Tim’s wonder and excitement, his hot, tired parents let him lead the way into the sizzle of the blacksmith shoppe.  The smith was a tall, gray-bearded man, with twinkling green eyes and a pot belly.  He ran the bellows and stoked the fire absentmindedly, while keeping up a steady stream of chatter to another family, who was watching the demonstration intently.  They thanked the smith and left, and Tim pressed close to the rail.  Just then, his two brothers scampered out the open doorway.  “I’ll kill you!” one shouted, and his father ran out after them.  Tim’s mother stood at the door, watching out, completely oblivious to the smith, who turned his attention to her third son.

            “Well lad, and what do ye know about the smithy trade?”

            “Nothing.”  Tim shook his head.

            “Well, then, ‘tis my job to teach ye now, ain’t it?”

            “I guess.”

            “My name is Carl Brownstone, and I was a third son, as well.”

            Tim stared.  How did this man know?

            “I’ve seen yer brothers just run outside, lad.”  The smith laughed, turning a glowing piece of iron in the white center of the forge.  “I can’t say I think much of them, but you lad, have promise.”

            Tim only nodded, thinking that the smith Brownstone might be the wisest person he ever met.  He had been trying to convince his parents of that fact for years.  “But you’re not really a smith,” he countered the thought with a childish negation.  “Maybe your name isn’t even Carl.”

            The smith tapped his hammer on the anvil, and then proceeded to bend the soft metal into a wicked hook.  “That’s where yer wrong, lad.  My name is Carl Brownstone, and I am indeed a smith.”  He held up the hook as proof.  “Perhaps yer referring to all this?” He waved his arms to indicate the antiquated surroundings.  “Well, of course yer right, lad.  You’re a smart one.  But do ye want to know a secret?”

            Tim nodded again, and stood on the bottom rung of the slatted railing that kept him from the smith, who now sidled forward, his twinkling eyes getting closer and closer.  “ Branlee Village may be all for the tourists like yer family out there. But for me, it’s real.”

            Tim goggled.  “What do you mean?”

            “What do I mean?  Why I once lived in a town just like yours, and went to work, just like yer father does.”

            “My father lost his job,” Tim interrupted.

            “Did he?” The smith glanced at Tim’s mother, who was shouting across the green to her errant boys and husband.  “Well now, I did, too!  But you see, I knew a trade.”  He held up the hammer.  “And I thought, what better way to spend me life than here at Branlee!  I get to wear these stylish clothes.”  He fingered his sooty peasant shirt.  “And ply my trade, and bring some joy into the hearts of those who visit.  Now, lad, can ye think of a better job than that?”

            Tim thought hard, and couldn’t.  Just then, his father and brothers reappeared, and the smith stepped back.  “Now, folks, have ye ever seen a fire as hot as this?  Nay, of course not!”

            Tim watched the rest of Carl Brownstone’s demonstration, entranced.  His mind was made up.  He would make it the goal of his life to work here, at the very best job in the entire world.  When he told his parents later that day over a Yorkshire pudding and a second ginger beer, they laughed.  His brothers punched his thin shoulders.  “You’re stupid, only stupid people work at places like this!”  Tim shrugged.  They could think what they liked.

            When Tim told his junior high school guidance counselor that he wanted to work at Branlee Village , the short, roundish man spent nearly twenty minutes telling him why that wasn’t a “solid career choice.”  From then on, Tim just talked about “majoring in history” at college, while nurturing his secret plan.  His parents were in fact delighted when he applied and was accepted for a summer job at Branlee without any prompting from them.  But of course they had no idea of the level of Tim’s commitment.

            For the next four years, Tim learned the ins and outs of the Village, sweeping animal dung, cleaning out the barns, and building fences.  He never complained and was endlessly curious about every function of the place.  Carl Brownstone helped him for the first few years, before retiring to travel the country in a recreational vehicle.  He kept in touch with Tim by letter, sending him postcards from various historical sites and museums.  The letters stopped just before Tim graduated, but he never found out what had happened.  He assumed that the old blacksmith had died, but he could just as well have settled down into some new life at a Renaissance Faire or a National Historical Park , finding new meaning in the re-creation of the old.

            Tim was forced to apply to various colleges, but the only one he wanted was in the nearby town.  It did not have a good reputation, but it was cheap, and Tim’s parents gladly let him choose it.  The only reason, of course, was to keep working at Branlee, which he did for four more years, apprenticing in the various trades of weaver, potter, and tinsmith.  He settled on tinsmith, finally, liking the way that thin sheets of metal transformed into useful items.  He became the fastest tinsmith at Branlee, punching out candle-holders and cookie-cutters, before moving on to cake pans.  Finally, the summer before he graduated from college with a degree in general studies, Tim created his first chandelier, which sold almost immediately at the Village Gift Shoppe, sealing his future with the village.  They hired him straight after graduation, giving him a small salary and a living space in the period dormitories year-round, though most of the other re-enactors lived there only in the summer. 

            Every day, Tim strolled out onto the village green and breathed the fresh country air, smiling broadly and greeting his fellow workers, who treated him with a mix of admiration and head-shaking wonder.  He almost never broke character, and consistently helped bring up all the younger apprentices, whatever their trade.  He pitched in whenever a building was being restored, and gave free demonstrations of tinsmithing at local elementary schools and libraries.  He was the perfect employee, and the only fault that the administrators ever found with him was a tendency to inaccuracy.  Once, his apprentice had complained about an incident with a school group.  “You see that grist mill over there?”  Tim pointed to the building by the burbling stream.  “That’s where they grind corn for the cornbread in the tavern!”  The children nodded appreciatively, unaware that Tim had exaggerated.  The grist mill was used one time for such a purpose, on a special day four years earlier.  But the cornmeal that Branlee turned into bread for the tavern had always been imported from Mexico .  Another time, he had been accused by an angry history major of “glossing over the evils of history” when giving a lecture on what life had been like in the early 19^th century.

            Tim did not know of the struggles the administrators had selling themselves as “authentic” to the critics, who often wrote in the city newspapers that Branlee “confused and denigrated actual heritage” and “seemed more an idealized Disney suburb than a working village of early America .”  So, his own actions could have led to a penalty, but luckily the administrators didn’t care, and shooed the apprentice and history major away.  What matter a few small untruths, when this young man had given them so much for so little?  And what matters the snide remarks and pooh-poohing of history professors and architects, when the children kept coming to see outrageous characters like Tim Boothby?

            On Tim’s thirtieth birthday, a skinny teenage boy came into the tinsmith shoppe alone, prompting Tim to give a little speech, in honor of the blacksmith and all that had been granted by him.  “Well, young man, yer just about the age I was when I first decided to come to Branlee!”

            “What?”  The boy wrinkled his nose, and poked a tin sheet.

            “Why, a blacksmith named Carl Brownstone told me the secret of the village and I decided to stay here.”

            “Why did you do that?”

            “Well, I’ll tell you.  Much like yerself, I thought that this village was just a fun place to come for an afternoon, until Mr. Brownstone told me the secret.”

            “What is it?”

            “All this is real, if you only believe it so.”

            “Wow.”  The skinny boy seemed impressed.

            “Perhaps some day, if ye work very hard, ye could come here to live and work, my boy.”   Tim turned to punch a few more holes in the rim of a pie crust pan.

            “But it’s all fake.”

            “What’s that?”  Tim turned around.

            “You’re telling me to be a phony.  I don’t think that’s a very nice thing to do, mister.”

            Tim stared at the boy.  “Nay, lad…”

            “Stop talking like that.  I know it’s just for fun, but you’re not fun anymore.”

            “Well, I’m not sure that everyone would agree.”

            “I don’t care.  I know you’re an actor or something, but you shouldn’t tell kids it’s real like that.  And anyway, no one wants to work here – it’s just a job for people who can’t get other jobs.”

            “I beg to differ.”

            “Well, my dad told me never to talk to strangers,” the boy stated pompously, and walked out.

            Tim Boothby turned back to his shoppe.  He had five milk pails to finish by lunch time, and later was his birthday party at the tavern, complete with authentic butter cake and beeswax candles.  Thinking fondly of the ghost of Carl Brownstone, Tim smiled and bent to his work.  He hoped that the lad would reconsider, but didn’t care much.  Of course the youngster was right.  Of course it was a lie.  He grabbed his needlenose pliers and wrenched the soft metal into place.

Fruit, Friend, Foreigner                                                                          

by Eric G. Müller  

e were lucky!  She didn’t see us, and now we sat in the cherry tree, well hidden within the green canopy of the uppermost branches, eating one juicy red cherry after another.  They were hanging in thick clusters all around us like little ruby hearts.  For generations already her old cherry tree had been a favorite destination for mildly wayward boys and girls.  She was just the next in line whose job it was to chase them away.
 
Joachim was tough and street wise.  We were only in eighth grade, but he was a little man and I was a big boy.  He spat, smoked Gaulois cigarettes – unfiltered, wore imported cowboy boots and carried Mao Tse Tung’s Little Red Book with him wherever he went, reading it surreptitiously during class at school.  He had a girlfriend in Yugoslavia and he showed me a pack of condoms to prove it.  That didn’t stop him from groping the breasts of some of the budding girls from our class who “wanted it” – or so he claimed.  He went to see the Rolling Stones when they rolled through Stuttgart on their European tour, and was surprised that my parents wouldn’t let me go.  He was fearless and recklessly did whatever struck his fancy – the notorious bad-boy of the class.  Teachers were incredulous that I’d become friends with him, and my parents were duly warned.  But I liked him.  He was the only one who really showed an interest in me – new boy that I was.  We’d just arrived in Germany from Zululand, South Africa, and I’d left all my friends and an entirely different lifestyle behind me.  With Joachim, at least, something was always going on.
 
“Hey, don’t eat too much, the best is yet to come,” he warned as I gorged on the red delight.
 
“Better than this?”
 
“Come, I’ll prove it.”  He popped one more cherry into his mouth and climbed down.  As we jumped from the tree, the old woman spotted us through her kitchen window.
 
“I can see you,” she shouted. “I know who you are.  I’m going to call your parents.”
 
“And she will,” Joachim said, “but my Dad used to steal cherries here when he was a boy.  He doesn’t care.”  He laughed and vaulted effortlessly over the wooden fence. “Just wait till you taste the strawberries.”
 
He was right. The strawberries were even better.  But the strawberry patch exposed us and Joachim warned that the farmer was no pushover like the old crone.  “He’ll shoot if he sees you.”  The thrill of the forbidden stimulated my taste buds and each strawberry became Eve’s greatest gift.  We moved quickly along the long rows, our fingers deftly digging around the little green plants, spotting one perfect shaped heart after another.  I’d gorged on the cherries, but the strawberries made a glutton of me.  When the church bells tolled six Joachim stopped and said, “Must get back.  I promised Dad to help him unload the truck.”  His father was a truck driver.
 
Dinner was already on the table when we got back.  I didn’t think I could eat another morsel, but it wouldn’t be polite to refuse a meal.  I was relieved to hear it was only chicken soup, even though I was a vegetarian.  However, I had not bargained at the kind of chicken soup I’d be presented with.  I was used to a very thin broth, which even I slurped down when feeling sick.  But this was an entirely different matter.  The soup was filled with chicken hearts – perfectly intact little chicken hearts. 
 
“You must be really hungry after playing around outside all afternoon long,” Joachim’s mother said, smiling, filling my bowl.  There were about twenty of the little hearts floating in the brew.  I thought of refusing, but I never liked to make a fuss – and it was always such a bother to justify my reason for being a vegetarian.  I just don’t like meat – that’s all.  Nothing esoteric or otherwise!  I was surprised, however, to see Joachim slurp his soup down with such gusto.  He’d eaten just as much as me.
 
Tentatively I put one heart into my mouth.  It felt slippery and smooth, like a cherry, except for the little arteries and aortas sticking out.  I bit down with my teeth.  It popped like a cherry, but tasted like its salty, evil doppelganger.  I almost retched as I chewed the compact bundle of undercooked meat – the flesh, soft and bloody.  Nineteen more to go!  The concept sickened me.  One by one I forced down this terrible fruit – grotesque caricatures of cherries and strawberries.  I swallowed each one whole – unable to burst another fleshy piñata with my teeth.  With effort I swallowed each one into a place where nothing more would fit.  And still I had about twelve more to go. 
 
I pressed them down, one after the other, like I was pushing my foot firmly on the trash to get more into the can.  It became a diabolical countdown, all midst smiling and content faces.  The little hearts looked up at me with dull, bleary, bloodshot eyes.  But I had to keep my composure; I was the guest, after all.  Oblivious of my state they asked me all sorts of questions:  “What was South Africa like?  Did you see many elephants, lions and tigers? (No tigers, but there are leopards)  What about snakes?  Is it dangerous?  Did you have to hunt for your food?  What are the natives like?  Are there cannibals?”  And I’d try to answer as best I could while popping heart after heart into my mouth – full up and still filling! 
 
Three more to go; surely I could leave them without offending anybody.  But all the others had emptied their soup plates, even the cute younger sister.  I could hardly talk – the word ‘bursting’ took on new meaning.  Yet, I persevered till the end.  Done! Yes!  Finally!
 
A second later Joachim’s mother entered from the kitchen.  “Here’s the desert,” she sang, placing a big bowl of fruit topped with cream on the table.  Appalled, I looked over at Joachim.  Surely he must be as overstuffed as me.
 
Unaware of my pleading look, he grabbed his spoon, drummed on the table and said, “Yum, I can never get enough of strawberries and cream!”

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A Genuine Heart                                                                           

by Quentin Poulsen

e should hit the beach today,” Jonika said brightly. “It’s gorgeous outside!”
 
I was like an excited kid as we prepared our picnic lunch. We were going to be spending the whole day together. It seemed way to good to be true for the likes of me..
 
Just a short walk from the city centre, the beach was inevitably crowded by the time we got there, though we managed to find a spot for ourselves behind the life guard’s tower. Only trouble was, we couldn’t go swimming together, as one of us needed to remain on the beach to keep an eye on our things. Jonika insisted I go first, so I stripped down to my old rugby shorts and went charging in. I wanted to show off and let her see what a great swimmer I was, but when I looked back from the water she was obscured by the crowd. Suddenly I was eager to be back on the warm sand beside her, rather than swimming around in this cold, murky water by myself. 
 
As I waded ashore, I noticed a bunch of guys sitting on the concrete wall directly above our spot, all chuckling among themselves and peering down toward Jonika. I still couldn’t see her but supposed, from the way those guys were gawking, that she was lying there in her bikini. The idea filled me with excitement, for I was going to be the guy who got to lie down next to her, while those others could only watch.
 
Only when the people in front of her moved did I see just why she was receiving so much attention, and I could scarcely believe my eyes. Jonika was topless! Women almost never went topless in this city. You might have seen it in Auckland or other parts of the world, but this was Wellington, and on the rare occasion a woman was brave enough to go topless in this city she invariably had to put up with some bunch of guys like those on the wall hanging around her.
 
So there I was; with the only topless woman on the beach (in the city, probably), a slight swagger in my gait as I took those last few strides toward her. Hell, the guys on the wall must have been thinking I was a real stud. Of course, the irony in this did not escape me. I didn’t even have a girlfriend, let alone Jonika, who was way out of my class.
 
She flipped over and asked me to rub some lotion onto her back. I tried to act casual about it but was so nervous I fumbled the bottle into the sand. Rubbing it in wasn’t quite so thrilling as I’d imagined, however. She was all sweaty and the lotion felt greasy between my fingers; sort of dirty. The round curve or her backside beneath the yellow bikini bottom did more for  me, though I was careful not to look directly at it in case anyone thought me a pervert.
 
Afterward I asked if she’d mind doing my back. She could hardly have refused, after all. But that wasn’t as thrilling as I’d imagined either. Her hands were hard and she rubbed it in fairly quickly, like she just wanted to get it over with. I’d hoped for more of a slow, vigorous massage.
 
We lay there on the beach for another hour or so, then sat up to have our picnic lunch. Jonika fastened on her bikini top, no doubt for modesty, while I pulled my T-shirt on to avoid sunburn. Afterward I went for another brief dip. Jonika herself never did go into the water, however.  
 
On the way home she stopped outside this pet store. “Oh, just look at the little darlings! Aren’t they cute?”
 
At first I saw only my reflection gazing back at me from the window. But then my vision adjusted and I was able to see them just inside it; all these fluffy, bright-eyed kittens darting and tumbling around in a cage.
 
“I want one a these,” she cooed. “Do ya think Abraham’d mind?”
 
I had a good chuckle about that. “I doubt Abraham’d mind if you brought an eight ton African elephant home. In fact, he prob’ly wouldn’t even notice.”
 
“Well, I’ve got my degree an’ will soon ‘ave a good job. I think it’s the right time to get a pet.”
 
It sounded fine to me. If she was going to be taking a kitten back to Abraham’s, she couldn’t have been in any big hurry to leave the place. And I hoped she’d stay for years; just for the company.
 
Around half an hour later we were walking out of the pet store together with a tiny tabby kitten crawling around in a cardboard box in Jonika’s arms. It had taken her that long to make up her mind which one she wanted – or rather, which ones she was going to have to leave behind.
 
As we walked along she wanted to play with it and lifted it out of the box now and then. It ended up on me at one point and almost fell off my shoulder, except that it managed to save itself by sticking its sharp little claws into my flesh. Jonika doubled up with laughter about that, and I wondered in a moment of bitterness how amusing she would have found it if the little demon had stuck its dagger-like claws into her.

                                                                                    ***

I was lying on the couch playing with Jonika’s kitten when she came into the living room and asked me if I’d like to join them. It seemed an after-thought. I’d overheard them up in her bedroom talking about it earlier and suspected her friends wouldn’t want me tagging along. Besides, I wasn’t much of a movie fan, and ‘The Cancer Patient’s Mother’ hardly sounded too thrilling. I was, nonetheless, being invited along by Jonika herself, and if I didn’t accept I knew I’d spend the rest of the night on the couch alone, feeling utterly miserable.
 
So I put on some better clothes and followed them out the door. It was a warm night, and they were all dolled-up, so that I felt quite inadequate in my light sweatshirt and jeans. At the bus stop they lit cigarettes and talked about movies while we waited. It was clear the movies were a very important part of their lives.
 
When the bus came Veronica and Melissa took the front seat on the left, Maureen and Jonika the one adjacent, facing the aisle, leaving me the choice of sitting on the other side of the bus or behind them. If we’d all gone down the back, I observed, we could have sat together. But, what the hell, they were only talking about movies anyway.
 
It was into a long, eerily quiet street in the middle of the city that we stepped down from the bus. No shops nor pubs, only office blocks. That accounted for the absence of people. It was, nonetheless, with a strange sense of abandonment that I followed, across the empty road and down a narrow alley.
 
Soon enough we found ourselves on the teeming sidewalks of the city centre, surrounded by noise and traffic.
 
“Come on,” Jonika called over her shoulder as they clacked along ahead of me.
 
I was lagging behind a little, fearful that if I walked among them her friends would suspect me of showing off; ‘the dude with his harem,’ or something like that. But now I hastened to catch up.
 
“That’s better,” she admonished me. “We’ll need you to keep the creeps at bay.”
 
I chuckled sheepishly, flattered by the idea and mindful of the irony. There I was, supposing I was the one they didn’t want around. As we continued along, I saw no sign of any creeps, however. and much to my own disappointment, for I would have relished the opportunity to come to Jonika’s rescue.
 
Last time I’d come to this cinema, as a teenager a decade before, the queue had extended halfway down the street. The movie that night had been ‘Friday the 13th.’ But there wasn’t much of a queue outside the cinema this time. A film about a cancer patient’s mother was hardly likely to be a box office smash after all.
 
As we bought our tickets I glanced over at the kiosk and had a sudden brainstorm. Here was my opportunity to get on better terms with Jonika’s friends.
   
All but Jonika herself frowned back at me when I approached them with five snow-freezes in my hands – each with its own chocolate flake sticking out the side. With a light giggle Jonika accepted hers, and Maureen followed. But when it became apparent Veronica and Melissa were not going to take theirs, Maureen gave hers back.
 
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t ya like ice-cream?”
 
“It’s fattening,” she replied, with a groper-like rolling of the eyes. “I’m sposed to be on a diet.”
 
I turned an appealing gaze upon the remaining two, who merely shook their heads, unwilling to communicate verbally with me, evidently, even as I offered them these ice-creams.
 
“Okay!” I chuckled. “I’ll eat all four. You watch!”
 
So it was that with my hands full of snow-freezes I accompanied them into the cinema and down the dark aisle. I felt a bit foolish, for sure, and some of the people already in there tittered as I passed them by. Then behind me I distinctly heard one of the girls - Veronica, I fancied - mutter to the others, “God, he’s like a child!’
 
The ushers were both at work elsewhere, as we saw by the their torch lights, and in the darkness we were unable to locate our seats. The best we could manage was to find four together in the row we were supposed to be in, but not in the right place. Somebody was going to miss out, and I decided it wasn’t going to be me.
 
They all stopped and glanced at each other when I sat down, their profiles silhouetted by the screen - at that time showing still-frame confectionary advertisements. It was clear they weren’t happy.
 
Veronica pointed at the row behind us. “Look, thuz four seats there,” she said.
 
And with that they made their way out of the row we were in and occupied the four places she had found. This I could only observe with a mixture of disbelief and humiliation. So I was going to be watching the film on my own! And neither was my mood lightened any by the sound of that familiar giggle above me.
 
“You alright down there?” Jonika inquired. “I mean, ya don’t mind, do ya?”
 
“Course not,” I said flatly, almost brusquely, and she giggled again.
 
In fact, she must have felt sorry for me or something, because a few minutes later she came back down and sat beside me. That was nice of her, and I started to feel a little better about the whole thing - even though she did go back to the row behind us midway through the movie. She, at least, was a decent sort; one of those rare creatures with a genuine heart. But ‘creatures’ wasn’t the right word to use, because of all the creatures in the world, a genuine heart was rare only among our own.

                                                                ***

Barely two month’s after moving in, Jonika gave me the news: “We’ve found a place. It’s absolutely gorgeous, right on the sea, an’ within walking distance a the city centre. We’re so lucky!”
 
So she was moving out, after just a couple of months. I had to turn away to hide my disappointment. Of course, I should have seen it coming. Why would someone like Jonika want to stick around with a sap like me? It had always been too good to last.
 
“It’s two bedrooms,” she went on. “We’re converting the sunroom into a bedroom for me. It’ll be just like my own studio, with big windows overlooking the harbour. I’ll save on bus fares. An’ it’ll be our place. We’ll be able to have friends over, host parties an’ go for midnight swims!” She laughed gaily.
 
I couldn’t even pretend to be happy for her. And there was something else: Pets were not allowed. Jonika tried very hard to persuade Abraham to keep her kitten but he was surprisingly firm in declining. No one should take a pet that they didn’t have time to care for, he said. So Jonika tried to talk me into it, and I understood then that, nice as she’d always been to me, she took me for a sap.
 
Jonika must have hoped either Abraham or I would develop some attachment to the kitten and change our minds, because she left it with us regardless; albeit with the promise to come and collect it within a week or two and return it to the pet store. This, naturally, did not occur. I could see Abraham was a little upset about it too, since it managed to damage something or another almost every day, and it still used the carpet as a toilet more often than its kitty litter. It was a constant attention-seeker, and there we were, all of us, trying to rid ourselves of the responsibility of looking after it.
 
Somehow it made me profoundly sad, this forlorn creature that everyone had rejected. Thus it was with a vague sense of heroism that I took it back to the pet store myself.

Of Innocence and Reprisal                                                                            

by Tom Sheehan

'll have to tell the story because I am the one most at fault here. I should have known better, I’m the new generation type. Even on the way home from the cemetery, going back to the house with my mother, my two younger brothers and my sister, it was me who should have known better. Lots of things should have tipped me off; instead of bigger, having more room with a body gone from it, the house was smaller. It felt smaller, it smelled smaller, the corners were tighter, and the air was cooler. I swore, after spending my first twenty-two years in it, it did not have its hand out for me.

My father’s name was Ivan Stille. He was a writer of sorts, and once had been a Marine. The writing bit began in his late years. He had retired early; what had obviously built up in him for most of his life (us included) had somehow gathered into form and was finding a way out of the sepulcher he had devised over those years to hold his material. I don’t know how many times I had heard him say to my mother, in those explosive years after he had found the computer, “Hey, Alice, you ought to read this piece I just finished.”

He’d say it once, you could count on that, and then you could picture him waiting for the minute or so of silence. You’d hear the promise of exasperation from my mother, “There’s plenty of time, Ivan. I’ve things to do now. I’ll get to it bye and bye.” There was sewing to be done, cooking, the work on her afghan for the Ladies Society. She didn’t have a lazy bone in her body.

But then, in that small aftermath, a chair would creak, he’d swing it back in place in front of the computer, push a key, start again. That happened a lot of times those days. I can hear the weak echo of her words; I can hear the creak of his chair. All that day, all those days, he would not say another word, at least not vocally. It was the routine for most of the recent years. And there were so many mornings, before me and Teddy and Gus, and Janny last, had moved out of the house, that Ivan Stille, the late bloomer, the early riser, would be at the computer at three o’clock in the morning.

I’d come home for a quick visit from clear across the country. He’d beg me to make a CD of his material. It was, for me of course, a piece of cake. I did it in seconds. I did it every time I came home, which was at least three or four times a year. I never read what he had written. I was a technocrat, a new generation guy who loved the computer in my own way. It was not the memorial way of years that my father was carrying on with.

Teddy was a salesman and was damn good at his work. He came by every month or so, would stay for a few days in the old bedroom, do a few odd errands or maintenance chores, paint a hallway or wallpaper or hang some curtains, and move on. He was making lots of money and kept at it. Gus, driving his special bus for a big-time sports personality, rarely ever came home. Not even at Christmas. When he did drop by, there’d be a crowd of people gathering because they all recognized the big-time coach’s bus, and Gus was able, in his own way, to get a few perks worked off for his folks. Janny had four kids of her own and tried, really tried, but it was tough to get home from Oregon where her husband Charlie, after years in the Navy, settled down. It was too expensive.

But, as it happened, none of us were readers. And we had all heard, growing up, some of the old gent’s stories, Ivan Stille Stuff as we and some neighbors had come to call it, the pleasant parts of some late evenings on the porch or in the kitchen hunched over a few pops of coke or beer. It was old hat to us. And it was a shame that we had not listened more closely. But isn’t that what we learn in life, and usually when it’s too damn late.

So the day came, and the day was announced with a thunderstorm and me in a plane and the captain sounding nervous. I promised I’d get home before the day was gone to say hello. The promise stuck. I came around the corner late at night in a rental car and saw the flashing lights of an ambulance and the companion fire truck. It was Ivan’s heart. He didn’t make a big race out of it. Just took himself into a final silence, and was gone.

All of us were there the next day, Janny coming last and Gus picking her up at the airport. My mother made only one demand when we came back from the cemetery. “Now, while I have the help, get all of his clothes out of here and gone to Goodwill or the homeless of one sort or another. I don’t care where they go as long as someone can get use from them.” She added, as a small token of explanation, “It’s what he’d really want.”

We did all that in short order, did it in green bags and dumped them in a collection point. Useless, worn clothes and all kinds of underwear and socks by the dozens we threw out in the trash. Mom pushed us. “I don’t have the hands I used to have. Nor the legs. It has to go now. Give those old coats and those jackets to the homeless. Every last one of them. Those old hats of his and baseball caps by the absolute dozens. His winter boots and fishing boots and his fishing poles. Give them to Harry next door. Give Harry his tools too if you don’t want them. I’ll never use them.” She was practical, and realistic, down to the last handkerchief in one of his drawers, the last pair of pliers on a shelf.

That full day we moved as a team. The house, I’m afraid to say, started to grow again. Rooms leaped in size. Corners gleamed a gleam they had not shown in years. The cellar and garage grew themselves two or three times over. Space seemed to triple up in an hour’s time. It was a kind of new-birth glory. It happened all the more every time a corner came back from where it had been hidden for years, and a one-time crawl space came exposed and a section of the garage she had never been in showed itself off.

Then, after all that acute labor had been expended on the house, to free up what one might call the debris of a lifetime, there remained only the small room he called the study. It was where his third generation computer rode the edge of his desk, the one I had bought him and shipped home from one of my trips. His first computer was stuffed under a supply desk in a corner, its innards frozen for all time. The second one, one that I had worked on a few times and glimpsed but a few lines of his work, also went astray the day he got the latest one I sent, the one with the narrow console he thought was the next wonder of the ages. He had leaped at that one. I had made him CDs for of all his stuff. He told me he wanted a title printed on it. “Ivan Stille’s Stuff Most Memorable.” I had softly smiled to myself, loving his ideas, but not listening really… I was a CD maker, cut and dried! A tool merely. I knew my place in all of it.

In one corner of the room, in a closet, on packed shelves, stacks of papers had gathered and grown over the years. He must have spent all pre-computer days doodling on those papers.

Mom said, “What about all this stuff?” She looked at me for the answer.

I said, “He said it was all on the CDs I made. He had me transfer everything. There’d been a whole bunch of files. A whole bunch. I don’t know how long it took him to do it all, but it’s all on the CDs.” I smiled, “We had about a dozen CDs. I made one of his whole system every time I came home. So much repetition, duplication, but he didn’t want to miss a word.”

The judgment was quick. “Get some bags, boxes, anything,” she said. “Move it all. We can decode, decipher, read the CDs some other time.”

We swung into action. The room leaped into life. Walls loomed in clear patches where piles of paper had hidden them for years. Teddy promised to paint and wallpaper his next trip. We moved a history of a man into bags and boxes and into barrels. We rushed. Mom kept looking at her watch. “It’s trash day. It can all go now if we hurry.” It was near three o’clock in the afternoon, destiny calling.

It was done. Outside the gears of the trash truck groaned in concert with weights. The grinding mill of its hydraulic gears swung the overhead crusher into the life-spill of papers. A piece of 8 1/2x11 paper flew on the quick breeze and landed in Harry’s yard. He had been watching his friend being moved out. He picked up the piece of paper, looked at it, shrugged his shoulders and put it into his empty barrel. Toward the back of his house he walked, toting the barrel in one hand.

While the others were outside, watching the truck move away, I plugged the first CD in. There was one message. I have nothing memorable. The CD was empty. The same message came up on each of the twelve CDs. I have nothing memorable. I was shocked. Turning, I looked at the other computers. The emptiness fell down through me. The weight of years and piles of paper and powerful gears and awesome forces pushed down through my whole body. Oh, this awful retribution, this reprisal.

I knew. Oh, I knew. If I mentioned it to my mother she’d raise a hand and say, “Today’s not the day. Time for that later, in the bye and bye.”

I heard the echoes. I heard the chair squeak, the key being punched. I didn’t say a word. There’d be time for that later on.

It was four or five months later. I was heading out of Waylom Village deep in the tip of Michigan. I was passing a gasoline or oil truck with a flat tire. A small service truck was parked behind the big truck. Sun glinted on the bumpers. Two men were talking. The sun was also descending a hillside, tossing shadows aside. I could smell, not oil or gasoline, but honeysuckle or new cut grass or the edge of a barn’s existence, a birthing of one kind or another. Perhaps it was promise itself. A flock of birds was a small cloud against the sun, but only for a second. The radio was on and the man I occasionally listen to when I am in this part of the country was talking:

I swear I never heard his name before, but I know all of you will hear of it someday. I found these pieces in a new, small magazine. Some of the finest, grandest writing I have ever seen. We have to get this man here. We have to listen to what he says. It is most remarkable. It is brilliance itself. These three pieces are all I have. I hope I can get more. I hope I can get all of it, these things he called My Memorable Stuff by Ivan Stille. Does anybody out there know him? Call me at this number….

Lunch With President Ford                                                                                            

by Frederick Sievert

1

ne Monday morning, while sitting in my office finishing my coffee and going over the schedule for the week, I noticed there was an entry in my calendar for the next day that simply read, “Lunch with the President.” Wondering why my assistant hadn’t listed the name of the associated company, and slightly perplexed at having no memory of an appointment with any corporate presidents, I called her in and asked her to follow up. In a few short minutes, our public relations officer was in my office, looking flustered and apologizing profusely for not notifying me about this meeting ahead of time. She sat me down and informed me that I was to attend a lunch with former President of the United States, Gerald Ford. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
 As it turned out, New York Life was the sole sponsor of the PBS television series The Presidents, and as a result, I was going to have the honor of meeting several of the then-living Presidents of the United States. Well, I was excited by this opportunity and looked forward to it with great anticipation. I wondered if I might even get the opportunity to speak with the President. As vice chairman, I was third in command at New York Life, but assumed this would be a relatively large group (perhaps fifty or sixty top officers and guests), and that I wouldn’t be placed at the President’s table. Certainly our chairman and our CEO would be seated with the President, and I would be entertaining a table of other visitors in the President’s entourage. In any event, I wanted to be prepared, so I spent a few hours that evening researching the key events of Ford’s presidency.

On the Tuesday in question, about an hour before the luncheon, the public relations officer reappeared at my door to let me know that I would be hosting the luncheon because the chairman and CEO were both out of the office, and that it would now be an intimate group of five. Attending would be President Ford, Hugh Sidey (a presidential historian), and three of us from New York Life: the human resources officer, the public relations officer, and me.

Needless to say, I panicked, realizing I would now be expected to make opening remarks and then carry the conversation. I thought through a few possible questions garnered from my research the prior evening, and called two of my direct reports at New York Life, who were great conversationalists and well-versed on recent history, to ask for help. I then framed some opening remarks welcoming the President, providing some background on New York Life and its involvement in the PBS production and expressing our gratitude for the honor of his visit.  One of the many questions I thought to ask related to my earlier interest in the Kennedy assassination. For several years, I had read everything I could get my hands on relating to the assassination, including much of the encyclopedic twenty-six-volume report of the Warren Commission. In Volume Five of that report was the transcript of a meeting that took place with Jack Ruby in his Dallas prison cell that was attended by President Ford, who was then a U.S. Congressman and a member of the Warren Commission, and Lee Rankin, the Commission’s general counsel.
 In the transcript, Ruby indicated that he knew much more than he was revealing about the assassination, but insisted that he didn’t feel safe in Dallas and asked to be taken to Washington, where he promised to reveal much more. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, given the vast resources of the federal government, they did not take Ruby to Washington, and instead left him in the Dallas prison where he would die of cancer a few months later.

 I was excited to have an opportunity to ask President Ford why he didn’t have Ruby transported to Washington. Following the assassination, there was much conjecture about Ruby’s association with the mob and his possible prior relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald. Many thought the killing of Oswald was far more than the crazed act of a bereaved citizen seeking revenge for the President’s assassination. And there were some journalists and authors who felt that the Warren Commission wanted to rush the judgment against Oswald as the sole assassin, preferring not to hear any evidence to the contrary. To be in a position to ask this question of a key governmental player in the post-assassination drama, one who had actually interviewed Ruby face-to-face, was a Kennedy assassination buff’s dream, and I was ready and eager to pose the question at the first opportune moment.
 The luncheon, to my pleasure, went extremely well. I made my planned opening remarks without the use of notes and relatively smoothly. Throughout the two-hour luncheon, President Ford was extremely gracious and congenial. He spoke freely about his years in the White House, about his family, and about Betty Ford’s formation of the alcohol treatment center. The time passed quickly for all five of us in the room as we found ourselves hearing the inside story of the presidency from a man who was once in the most powerful role on the world stage. 
 During the whole luncheon, I was looking for an opportunity to jump in with my burning question of the day, but when I thought I’d found just the right time to jump in, historian Hugh Sidey preempted me by asking the following: “Mr. President, as the only surviving member of the Warren Commission, what are your thoughts now about the single-bullet theory?”
 For those of us familiar with the assassination, this was a very compelling case that was supported by the audio and video evidence of the event. The timing of the shots suggested either that there was more than one assassin or that a single bullet did remarkable damage to both President Kennedy and Governor Connelly, and was the bullet later found in pristine condition on the Governor’s stretcher.

Prior to this question, the President was quite relaxed, and had been leaning back in his chair conversing as if he were chatting with friends at a country club. But upon hearing this question, he became animated and agitated. He leaned forward, looked glaringly into Mr. Sidey’s eyes, and surprised all of us as he punctuated his words by pounding his fist on the table three times while he said, “That Oswald was a lunatic, he did it alone, and I never saw any evidence to the contrary!”
 After observing his reaction to the single-bullet theory question, and out of respect for the office of the presidency and for perhaps the most honored guest ever to visit New York Life, I realized immediately that I could not pose my probing question about the Jack Ruby jail cell interview. I had missed my opportunity, but I must say, I don’t regret my decision to move on to less controversial matters.

The discussion returned easily to a more congenial tone for another twenty-five to thirty minutes. During the final minutes of the luncheon, I never once reconsidered raising the question about Ruby, but it did occur to me that President Ford’s term on the Warren Commission was a source of some stress for him, and I surmised that he had often been asked questions about his role on the Commission and about his true personal feelings about its published conclusions. Perhaps even then, more than thirty years after the assassination, he felt obligated to fully support the Warren Commission’s conclusions irrespective of his own possible personal doubts.

None of us wanted this delightful experience to end, and we were astonished when the President looked at his watch and apologized for keeping us so long. He thanked us for the delicious meal and for our hospitality, and I made some brief closing remarks, thanking the president for joining us and for providing us with some fascinating insights into the life and challenges of the presidency. It was my first encounter with a U.S. president, and I surprised myself by how comfortable I felt in his presence.

When President Ford died some years later, it occurred to me that he went to his grave with very few people being aware of the interview with Jack Ruby in Volume Five of the Warren Commission report; fewer still would have had the opportunity to ask him about it. I still wonder, but will never know, how he would have answered my million-dollar question.

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The Outlaws                                                             

by Barnali Saha

Conclusion  
                                                                                                                                                                          

  rang the bell, there was no answer. I rang it again, the dog barked this time, but no one opened the door. I moved the door-knob and the door opened. The dog snared at me, and baring its teeth in the most violent manner began to growl. I did not care; I was once a volunteer for the local humane society and have handled those aggressive fellows before. The thing one has to remember during aggressive encounters with quadrupeds is to not run away and provoke the beast. One has to learn not to dread the bare fangs of the animal. You need to keep the upper hand in such circumstances; I mean to say, the key to survival in such situations would be to show the beast that you are not scared of it. The action, however, does require a certain amount of tact, which I, thankfully, possessed. 
 
 I walked in to a house which was very much like my own. Showing complete disregard to the growling animal, I went to the living room and shouted, "Mr. Eisenbart, this is Kathy Heinz; I need to speak to you. Mr. Eisenbart, Debra. Hello!" There was no answer. I looked around me: piles of unopened cardboard boxes, empty soda bottles, pizza boxes and paper plates lay astray; a heap of unlaundered, smelly clothes sat on the leather couch, the only furniture that stood in the room. On a stand at a corner stood a keyboard, and next to it, on the ground, lay an electric guitar, a bass guitar, a couple of drums, a boom box and four microphones and their stands. Posters of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple adorned the sidewalls. I felt disgusted. I shouted once more. The dog walked in snarling and growling more violently than before. It evidently took me as a threat to its family and had vouched to drive me out. Its burning eyes froze my blood. "Shoo, shoo" I said. It barked once more and began walking towards me. I sensed danger in the air. Chanting pleasantries to the beast, I slowly began walking out of the room. It followed me. I walked in short back steps to the half-opened egress. The animal gave me a surprised, almost bewildered look as if it had not expected me to find the right exit. I stepped out, softly, still chanting pleasantries to the flabbergasted animal.  It seemed a bit softened now because he did not protest anymore, on the contrary, began wagging its tail. I did not wish to entertain the animal any longer. I shut the door and began to walk in the direction of a safe haven recently rendered unsafe on account of a series of unforeseen mishaps.  I walked in the direction of my house.
 
The whole day I stationed myself at the window of my room looking intently for a sign of the Eisenbart bunch; there sadly, weren’t any. Not a strip of their spiked hair was seen. Dejected, around noon I decided to leave the window and think of a clever plan to teach the weirdoes a lesson, or, perhaps, a way to drive them out of the neighborhood. But first I needed a healthy lunch. I cooked 'Oeufs en Croustades a la Hollandaise' — a perfect fodder for my old brain before putting the thinking cap on. 
 
After lunch I seated myself in the study to try and sort out my options. I had a number of choices: I could inform the management; but that won't do me any good since the bulk population of our county (including Mr. Thompson, the property manager) was deaf in the ears, noises never affected them. Still, that was a valid option. I could call the police too; I was sure that they would heed my plea for help because they rarely had an opportunity to use their cop-powers on account of Jackson County being a perfect county with almost no criminal history.  And finally, there was this drastic option; I could set the Eisenbart house on fire. 
 
With the ball on my court, I was completely at ease. Around four in the afternoon, I went out for a little stroll in the park. It was a holy hour for me since at this time, almost everyday, my usual neighbors, the lords and the ladies of the area, went out for a healthy walk in the park. It was the best time to catch them and whine a little about the big, bad Eisenbart bunch. They might show me some compassion if they manage to understand what I said. You see, since the majority of my neighbors, the men mostly, were war heroes who lost their hearing in some great war, they boasted about the flaw instead of regretting it. It was a beloved scar that they fondly treasured, and if you asked them why they did not do anything for their ears, they would go on and on and on with their war stories and would eventually bore you to death. They seldom wore their hearing aids because they had a special way of communicating with their other deaf and semi-deaf mates and rarely needed any hearing aid to do the job. Their wives, whose once perfect hearing abilities were too partially impaired by the intensely high volume of the television sets and their daily dealings with their deaf husbands, also seldom needed to put hearing aids on to decipher their jargon. I was among the very few hearing persons in the neighborhood. That was an important reason why they regarded me with such great respect. Overtime, I had learned to skillfully interact with them: the trick is to shout and speak every word distinctly. I helped them in their communication with the outer world, at the post-office, or when they needed to hear a radio broadcast, and other things of that sort. You may understand at this point that I was an important part of my community, and any problem of mine was ought to be regarded as the problem of the community. 
 
I put on my running shoes and hopped out of my apartment. I cast a look at the Eisenbart dwelling; there still weren’t any sign of them. At the park I met Mr. Wesley sitting on the bench licking an orange pop. Mr. Wesley was a kind, hearing, happy gentleman, blue eyed and bald and always keen on listening to the newest gossip of the community. Seeing me, he showed his leftover teeth and an orange tongue. "Hello there," he said cheerfully. "What's up?" Mr. Wesley was not one of my targeted audiences since he was given to slandering, but every little bit helps, and since I needed so badly a shoulder to cry on, even this orange-tongued Wesley seemed like an angel to me. I sat beside him like an exhausted, overburdened donkey. Because of the excessive summer heat the park was not as full as it usually was at that hour. I saw handful of old lads and ladies jogging at a distance. Adjacent to the bench, under a huge tree, the laughing club was in session and a group of old gentlemen and ladies like a bunch of Santa Clauses were laughing in an animated chorus. They paid me no attention and went on with their laughing. Finding no other option at hand, I began to sing my tale of distress to Mr. Wesley. The old bloke rolled his eyes as he listened, frequently chanting words like, "Oh, no" "Good Lord!" and so forth to display his sense of surprise. When I finished my sad tale, he got up, as if he remembered something and wishing me a hurried goodbye almost ran out of the park. I sat on the bench for a short while and watched the laughing goons. At the moment it seemed that they were all laughing at me, at my hopeless condition, at my inadequacy of valid options to teach the Eisenbarts a lesson, and, ultimately, at my worthless life in a deaf community. I felt sad, and got up to leave the park. 
 
I came back home and spent an hour rallying my thoughts. It occurred to me, rather unexpectedly, that may be the Outlaws had left their house. Despite that being a remote possibility since their belongings and their dog were still at home, yet, somehow, that thought came as a much needed respite for my overwrought mind. I debated with my previously contemplated options and decided to wait one more night before taking any drastic measures like calling the police or enflaming the house.  Around seven in the evening I had my dinner, and having nothing else to do watched television for an hour or something and then, around eight thirty, went to bed. I peeped out of my bedroom window to have a last look at the Eisenbart residence and finding the house still seeped in darkness, went to bed in peace.
 
An earsplitting explosion woke me up. A catenation of eccentric noises like the crash of a thousand cars, like the explosion of a million volcanoes, like the denotation of a zillion war-bombs rocked the entire world around me in the most violent manner. The metallic ectophony threw me out of my bed. The edacious noises began to consume me like a tidal wave. Stupefied, shell-shocked, I cried for help in an eroded dsypneal voice. No one came. The bang of the drums, the clang of the electric and bass guitars, the boom of the surround sound system, and the horrendous, cacodemonic voices of four creatures from hell together with numerous strident cries of applaud roared from wall to wall of my room. Burning with anger and calling the Outlaws all the names I had knowledge of, I walked out of the room and picked up the telephone to dial 911. The operator could not hear what I said, and I could not hear what she said either. I banged the receiver then picked it up again to call Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone lived a few houses away, he was a police officer. I dialed his number, but nobody picked up. Mad with rage, and almost at the point of tearing away my hair with vexation, I decided to go to the Eisenbart home, immediately. I stormed out of the house in my nightgown and walked in audacious, vehement steps toward the Outlaw home. The deafening noises rolled and gathered violent strength, the metallic crashes were more agonizing, but I did not stop. The noises did not bother me anymore. For a moment I thought I was as deaf as the other neighbors. Hissing a series of maledictions under my breath, I marched on. 
 
The door was unlocked as it had been in the morning and the ghastly beast wasn’t around. I rallied in, screaming," In the name of Mercy, stop this thing you are doing." They did not hear me. Fulminating anathemas I approached the living room. A newer and more brutal shock awaited me. The previously half-empty living room now resembled a concert hall which held a loud and noisy crowd of almost one hundred people. The men and women reveling inside were people I know: they were my neighbors! They were the same old, edentulous, deaf and half-deaf bunch that lived in the neighborhood. The noises that were driving me crazy no doubt came to them as soothing notes, and they seemed to enjoy whatever reached their impaired ears. There was everybody. I saw Mr. Stone, the police officer, clapping like a hysteric. He wasn’t deaf, yet he too seemed to like the frenzied sounds very much. No doubt I did not find him at home. He was too busy merrymaking with the Eisenbarts to care for his cop-duty. Imagine my shock, no, no, my consternation when I saw those toothless fellows dressed in gory, ornate outfits cupping their ears with their palms for better hearing and nodding their antediluvian heads to the hellish notes of the jumping Outlaws! Imagine my flabbergastation when I saw the old blighters who should be thinking about the afterlife dancing with their ladies to the outrageous, energumenical tunes, explosive and unharmonious notes of the Outlaws! The room looked like a wild undergrad party with the Eisenbart bunch skipping like four big, fat frogs in their leathery outfits and spiked hairdos cupping their microphones and singing riotously. Mr. Esienbart holding the microphone and violently shouting indecipherable words into it seemed like a sweaty Halloween pumpkin badly curved. The electric guitar— that accursed musical instrument, hang from his neck, and he was occasionally putting the microphone on its stand to strum the devilish device. The passion on his face and his body gestures— the rolling of hips, the swaying, the moving of his hands, almost made him look like Led Zepplin's specter. And the other three, God! They seemed, this time I was sure, creatures from another planet. You should have looked at the twins, the way they somersaulted and banged on the drums, wildly. Their sticky red faces burning with musical passion and what not. And Debra— I could never forget the bass guitar she played and the way she danced and sang. All together, her eccentric activities not only made her look like an otherworldly creature, but also like an otherworldly creature that had lost its head completely and needed an immediate visit to the sanitarium. Standing on the makeshift stage -- an upside down plastic box, with her heavily mascaraed eyes, her over-blushed cheeks, her painted black lips, she was a drag queen, an apparition of the ugliest human being. I was so terrified of her scary face that I almost fainted in fear. 
 
Such was my shock; such was my astonishment that I almost forgot why I had come in the first place to that house. I think I stood flabbergasted at the living room entrance for almost an hour, but they did not notice me. On regaining my composure, I thought the safest and the sanest option for me at that point was to take immediate egress and not stand any longer. As I was preparing to leave the place, the Eisenbart twins caught a glance of me. They looked a little bewildered at first and tapped their father on his thigh; he, however, was in seventh heaven, so he did not heed them. Then they looked at each other and shrugged. Then, suddenly, their faces lit up in a most mischievous manner and they turned towards me still standing next to living room door and stuck out their tongues like a couple of ill-behaved monkeys. Almost at the same time the dog, yes, that animal from hell materialized from somewhere and began snarling. Terrified, I jumped. The boys began to giggle; their red faces mocked me in the most inhumane manner. The animal began growling, aggressively. Its bare teeth and reproachful eyes were directed at me. I needed to escape, somehow. I began to run. I began to run faster than the fastest runner in this world. The dog chased me, but before it could catch me, I had reached my home and locked the door. 
 
The dreadful music continued to ring in the background. I made up mind. I began packing my luggage and with the approach of the first light of dawn, I left the house never to return again to that outlawed community ever again in my life. 

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The King's Cock

by William Gladys                                           

  royal story of imagination and moral legitimacy.

The origin of the story that I am about to relate to you came from a person who was employed at one of  Britain’s Royal Establishments for a number of years.

This person, and as it transpired eventual very close friend, was the recently deceased Birdie; not his real name. I recall when he first  told me about a distasteful and undemocratic employment contract he had to sign which ensured that any outrageous sexual, financial and behavioral shenanigans his royal employers got up to, would remain securely locked and protected from public scrutiny until decades after their deaths. For him, signing the document was a rejection of his own beliefs, ‘an act of personal as well as public betrayal and a mute denunciation of genuine democracy.  I had to protect this bunch of hollow scoundrels who pocketed millions of pounds of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash each year as they shamefully continued to lead a life of luxury on never-ending State handouts. On the other hand as I was married with a wife and child to support and in urgent needs of employment - jobs were in short supply at the time, - I had little choice but to act the hypocrite and grudgingly   sign along the dotted line.’

Indeed as Birdie confirmed to me on a number of occasions; ‘this compulsory signing raised many questions: why on earth for instance should members of this mentally inert hereditary privileged dynasty be the subject of so much secrecy and subterfuge? What credible reason was there for the media and government to continue with such high-handed protection unless as a means of keeping an unelected anachronistic dynasty in power in order that they  could continue to bamboozle and unashamedly deceive a gullible population for evermore’?

For many years, Birdie and I met on a regular basis at a popular watering hole in the city of London , which happened by chance to be only four stops on the underground from where he lived on his own in retirement. His wife had died just over five years ago and he had lost touch with his only daughter twenty years earlier when she moved away to live in the north of England. Consequently, he welcomed the traditional and convivial comradeship that was part of a well-managed London pub.

‘Because of the king’s habitual stutter’ he explained, ‘he was unceremoniously referred to by the staff as either G-Gee-Gee or Gibber; not necessarily with malice I might add, although there were moments of restrained merriment in reaction to his impediment. Even now years later when I call to mind some of the comic episodes then I cannot help smiling to myself’, Birdie told me.

In addition, he continued somewhat providentially as it turned out, ‘in time, the general public will become more alert to the needlessness of the royals and the money gobbling, class divisive institution of Monarchy which the general public in its ignorance unconsciously sustains. Indeed, with the inevitable damaging disclosures and progressive decline in the popularity of these disquieting self-serving people, it would not surprise me at all, if in the years to come a group of fawning monarchist propagandists undertook to  prop up the royals waning popularity, by writing a play or producing a film that focused on a monarch’s speech impediment.  What is more, a small but highly influential group of people in Britain determinedly seek to convince the public to pander to its baser instincts, emotional insecurity and institutional implanted gullibility, vis-à-vis royalty.

Indeed, it was because of the unwarranted and enormous attention lavished on a noticeably inept stuttering King that drove me to visit a number of libraries in the city for additional information. I was astonished to discover that many exceptionally gifted people also had speech impediments, Aristotle, Lewis Carroll, Charles Darwin, Napoleon the 1st. Isaac Newton and Virgil to name a few.’ Birdie’s emphasis on the words exceptionally gifted people, effectively spoke volumes about his royal paymaster’s intellectual ineptitude.   

‘It was beyond belief’ he went on, ‘that no researcher or historian had decided to investigate the matter further. And yet each personality was a gifted and commendable member of their own society and deserving of praise and attention, unlike the regal nonentity who was elevated to his position of power in Britain simply because of hereditary birth.’

I remember it was on a cold November evening, as the log fire crackled in the inglenook and we downed further pints of our favorite bitter that he related the tale of The King’s Cock. ‘It could be classified as an intriguing, pulsating story of sexual exploits, deranged dedication and sudden death in the sheltered acres of a stately abode’ he chuckled.

‘Moreover the tale of The King’s Cock was just one of countless other blameworthy incidents I witnessed, that absurdly had to be kept secret from the tax paying populace,’ he murmured. Moreover, while shaking his head in disbelief, he went on ‘but in one sense I have overcome my disgust and hypocrisy and the illogicality of decades of enforced silence, by jotting down crucial revelations in my copious collection of notebooks. As you know, I have left all twenty copies to you in my will, on the principled understanding that you release the facts into the public domain after my death. Regretfully however, it is a foregone conclusion that the media in this country closeted up the back end of the royals, will lack the courage to publish them. If, as I anticipate the Establishment in this pseudo democratic country of Britain declines to discharge its duty and make known the contents of my notebooks, then you will have my blessing to offer them to any media liberated countries, which honestly refuse to toady to such foolhardy and anachronistic imprudence. Moreover, to safeguard my original notes I have copied the contents in duplicate. It is vital, my dear friend that the original notebooks are never removed from your possession, or given willingly, until all the factual details are in the public domain, and that no item will be subject to censorship in any form whatsoever. That is why the media must only see a copy after the original is in a safe place known only to you and a trusted lawyer.

I assure you’ he went on, ‘that there will be incensed and unrelenting pressure from the royals and their army of tedious toadies in the media and government, anxious to suppress the details. Blackmail will take many forms; chequebook threats, a pledge of action in the courts and so on. What is more they will seek by all means to stop publication, but I know that whatever obstacles are put in your way’ he finished rather dramatically, ‘you will follow the courage of your convictions and determine to win through for the ultimate democratic benefit of the people’.

After a minute or two of silence as we sipped our beers, he went on. ‘It was a couple of years earlier that Gibber developed an impulsive obsession for a particular breed of fowl: The Rhode Island Red – Gallus Gallus Domesticus.

Where this ardor came from no one knew for sure; but it is thought to have originated from his early childhood when holidaying on the royal estate at Sandringham , Norfolk . Nevertheless, whatever the reason for or cause of his new found zeal, dozens of books on the subject of poultry keeping were quickly purchased from book shops in the city of London and elsewhere. It was the remit of Meadows – not his real name - the king’s singular flunkey, to place the designated orders and arrange delivery to the staff entrance at the back of the royal establishment.

At the time of ordering the fowls, Meadows stipulated on behalf of the king that they should be at least twenty weeks old; this increased the likelihood that each hatchling prior to delivery had reached sexual maturity.

In no time at all, or so it seemed to me’ he continued, ‘a consignment of nails, wire netting, timber, and a handsome Western Red  cedar coop, along with vital accoutrements arrived for the attention of Meadows. Within a week, everything had been prepared for the arrival of a swaggering cock and his four recipient hens. A few days later in the midst of much expectancy, an excitable king with a suitably deferential Meadows at his side, took delivery of four Rhode Island Red hens and one proud upstanding Rhode Island Red cock.

Some time before the arrival of the cock, Meadows and the king had discussed the possibility of objectionable noise that an early morning rooster could bring to its immediate environment. Oddly enough as it happened, the king’s unease regarding excessive noise was unwarranted.

The next day after the sun had risen; the worrying and anticipated clamor from a lusty young cock failed to materialize. It was with dread and foreboding’, Birdie told me, ‘that Meadows and a tremulous king softly made their way to the pen, half expecting to see a lifeless cock lying prostrate before them. But when they reached the outside of the enclosure’, Birdie commented as he took another swig of beer from his glass. ‘The cock was standing with head erect; but not emitting an innate loud cock-a doodle-doo, as would be expected, but an embarrassing tentative croak – a throaty stutter that produced a most unnatural Cer,Cer,Cer,Ceroo. The incongruity and irony of the moment so apparent to Meadows only dawned on the king the next morning after his customary long regal night’s sleep. It was after the hazy epiphany that the king and his cock developed a natural harmony. Undeniably, it was this awareness, which caused him to sit for hours, fascinated by his cock, as it scratched and strutted, and trod the hens in a frenzy of mating. To cynical royal onlookers the vigorous action of G-Gee-Gees cock was a bizarre indicator of the king’s own well-recorded corporal inadequacies and unfulfilled desires.

Coinciding with Gibbers newest craze - he had indulged in many others in the past - was a mania for food with eggs as the major constituent. Accordingly, multiplicities of egg dishes were soon appearing before the king on the rich mahogany dining table. Mundane items as eggs boiled, eggs scrambled, eggs poached and eggs fried, as well as huge quantities of assorted omelet’s; mushroom, herb, ham, potato, parsnip, cheese, garlic, parsley, chicken, pheasant, partridge, oyster, venison, lamb, beef, lobster, crab, caviar and several types of fresh and sea water fish omelet’s too abundant  to record here. However much to the consternation of the king’s private chef, his insatiable appetite and craving for egg diversity appeared inexhaustible and was tedious in the extreme.

To be sure it became apparent that Gibbers egg crammed food fad could not be satisfied by a small flock of  four hens; his resolute flunky Meadows therefore had to resort to artifice in order that the king’s overriding desire for eggs ‘by royal command’, he winked, ‘could be satisfied’. Moreover, when as predicted, the royal homegrown egg stock had cruelly diminished, the intrepid Meadows unbeknown to the king, ventured out in the city streets before the sun was up on his trusty Raleigh bike accompanied by the reassuring dynamo humming in his ears. Meadows, a man of unrelenting sanguinity was convinced that G-Gee–Gees voracious culinary needs could only be fulfilled by a plentiful supply of eggs from the local market, and this was proved correct’, Birdie remarked with a smile.

‘To achieve this end, he artfully placed the ‘market’ eggs in the coop with the king’s cock and hen’s hours before the king rose from his bed, and before Gibber  made   his ritual morning visit and usual roll call; an eccentric but brief military type of ceremony that only the king’, ‘by royal decree’, Meadows sniggered, ‘was allowed to perform.’

As Meadows continued, I found the unraveling story ever more intriguing. ‘It was two weeks after the king’s upstanding red cock had established his dominant role within the hen hierarchy’ he continued, ‘that a beautifully constructed English oak bench and English oak garden bower arrived at the palace. On specific instructions from the king, Meadows positioned them facing the pen, so that the king could observe his beloved poultry in fine or inclement weathers, without unwarranted interference from any of the   dozens of servants detailed to serve him.  

Moreover as Birdie confided in  me on that chilly November evening, ‘the king according to Meadows  was  anxious to acquire his very own private breathing space, distanced to some extent from the  wearisome  call of duty stuff as well as the sickly candy floss imminence of his out and out toffee-nosed and imperious spouse  Liz’.

Continuing in the same vein he remarked, ‘she was a dramatic and narcissistic woman, who was observed on a number of occasions performing her regal part in front of any mirror close at hand. Whether waiving that pitifully condescending right hand or tilting her head at a ‘proper’ angle of spurious obeisance; ending  the whole charade with her well practiced stomach-churning conceited frothy smile and customary haughty phrase of further deceit: ‘that is enough  to keep the hoi polloi in my pocket.’  

‘Moreover, this officious vainglorious woman’, he went on, ‘was utterly averse to the king’s newly acquired leisure pursuit, and let her antipathy be known to everyone on a number of occasions. It was in response to her bad humor and in a way a laudable defense of the king that Meadows quickly devised two bold but rather apt nicknames, Ginny & Gin rummy. Both names were in response to her early penchant for alcohol, which became a severe problem for everyone, as she grew older. Ginny because of her over fondness for gin, and appropriately, Gin rummy a Meadows neologism which integrated her dependency on booze with her other lavish recreation – gambling. Unsurprisingly, both nicknames stuck, like lice to a scalp and were soon adopted and habitually used by those who thoroughly disliked her. She was the frequent subject of discussion’ he said as he took another pleasurable mouthful of beer.

It was in this public house atmosphere of sporadic soft murmur and loud noise; like the ebb and flow of a changing sea, but incongruously mixed with the gathering smoke from a seemingly incessant sucking and puffing of cigarettes, cigars and pipes, that Birdie fed me an amusing anecdote.

‘Meadows’, he said, ‘was generally accepted by those he worked for as suitably deferential; a person who knew his ‘correct position’ in royal society, and  being physically endowed with a slight but permanent hunch to his shoulders, was able to  effectively lower his head before any royal he addressed, conveying an innate but false air of habitual servitude. Beneath his cheerless obsequious demeanor and sharp facial characteristics, however there smoldered a biting wit. Although clean shaven, he had a splendid pair of snowy white eyebrows that induced admiration in all those who confronted him; it implied old age and experience to many observers, but in reality he was one of natures’ ‘freaks’; born with a curious oddity. His hair by contrast, was largely black but with an inch wide stripe of white in the middle running from front to back. This stripe complimented his white eyebrows as well as his conspicuous lucid blue eyes. He rarely smiled, but his inherent self deprecating manner allowed him to issue outrageous comments without fear of denigration or ridicule; an attribute that enabled him to ask impertinent questions which efficiently obscured a mischievous and crushing wit.’

This was evident when Birdie recalled an earlier anecdote between the king’s consort, Elizabeth , and Meadows. ‘Meadows knew from experience how to treat her ladyship, as she insisted on being called, and was able to judge her moods accurately; knowing  when it was appropriate  to submit an ambiguous question or conversely, when not to. It was just after 4pm. ’ he continued, with a grin that lifted the corners of his mouth into an expression of rare glee, ‘when Gibber, having spent hours observing his beloved cock, returned to the palace for tea and biscuits. As the king exited the kitchen area, an edgy Elizabeth with brightly flushed cheeks entered by another door and demanded ‘where is the king, surely, he is not still admiring his cock?’ Whereupon Meadows, answering with much aplomb and a face as straight as a chamber pot in a pawnshop replied ‘that HRH had just retired for tea in the primrose with drawing room, wickedly adding in response to her question and palpable discomposure, ‘do you not like his cock my lady’? Her reply; unflinchingly acerbic, hardly raised an eyebrow with Meadows or any other member of staff present who were familiar with her verbal sourness. ‘No Meadows’ she hissed, ‘I have never liked his cock and from the very first moment I set eyes on it I knew I never would’; after which she huffed and puffed her way imposingly out of the room plainly intent on confronting and berating her long-suffering darling yet again.

‘In the meantime’ Meadows continued, ‘a relaxed HRH was observed with what can only be described as a far away look in his eyes, as he contentedly slurped his Jackson’s of Piccadilly Lapsang Souchong tea while blithely munching on his Harrods’s of Knightsbridge buttery shortbread’.

Moreover, with shaking shoulders a highly amused and irrepressible Birdie exclaimed, ‘the following day, and I offer my heartfelt apologies dear friend for the puffed up phrase, the servant’s quarters were awash with titillating merriment’.

‘In the months that followed, G-Gee-Gee, in an uncharacteristic defiance of his wife’s bothersome  demands, and much to her displeasure, spent more and more time with his beloved cock. He made copious notes about its behavior; the number of times the hens were mounted or trod to use the correct term, the number of times his cock crowed, albeit with that discomforting and bizarre stammer. As the weeks passed the king noted that after his cock had finished treading the hens in an orgy of sexual pleasure, it habitually stood with feet wide apart; head thrust back, and emitted a preposterous but nonetheless proud croaking of Cer, Cer, Cer, Cer, Ceroo.

‘I must admit’, Meadows confided in Birdie, ‘it was strangely appealing to hear the king’s cock doing its best to qualify its natural instinct of full blown crowing, but failing miserably. On the other hand, his cock did not appear discouraged, but carried on with its virulent treading. However, within a few days’ Birdie gasped, as another cloud of smoke settled about his head, ‘the king made a significant decision to alleviate his cock’s disability if possible by acting as a  human speech therapist might and attempt to establish  a proper cock-a-doodle-doo within his dearly loved cock.

The king’s devotion’, Birdie added, ‘was to be much-admired but comic. To hear him conversing with his cock in the hope that it would mimic the individual sound of cock-a-doodle-doo was sidesplitting but also sad; especially when the king standing with his feet wide apart and head raised heavenwards, called like a loon to the moon. What is more’ Birdie said, ‘the absurdity of the situation was magnified’, as he exorcised a persistent itch behind his ear, ‘when one of the chambermaids spotted HRH fiercely shaking his head from side to side. Likewise an extraordinary gobble gobble gobble sound like that of an apprehensive Christmas turkey aware of its fate’, issued from the king’s lips he said.

Unhappily, the king’s determination came to nothing as two days later tragedy struck

It was shortly past ten in the morning after Gee-Gee had breakfasted well on his usual platter of eggs, sausages, bacon, tomatoes and fried bread that Meadows rushed outside, alerted by the spectacle of the king galloping full pelt from the direction of his cock’s pen; arms flailing like a windmill and mouth agape like a man possessed.

‘MmmmmMmmmeadows’, the king stuttered, ‘ccccome qqquickly, mmmmy ccccock is ddddead;’ whereupon Meadows with the king fast at his heels scampered towards the pen where they found the king’s cock prostrate on the cold earth, wilted, lifeless and undeniably dead.

In one corner of the pen, the furthest from the coop lay the blood-spattered hens; all four were headless. At the side of the fence not visible from the royal residence, a deep hole burrowed below the wire still had a cluster of red hair on it, enabling the fox to get in and satisfy his inborn blood lust.

‘And what happened to Gibber and his cock’ I asked, as Bertie standing up swayed to the bar for two more pints. Before continuing, he took another large mouthful from his tall glass. ‘Oh the king was devastated as you’d expect and as we all knew he would be; it was common knowledge that he adored playing with his proud cock on a daily basis. Indeed, he was so distressed at the sight of his treasured cock lying lifeless on the cold earth that he was unable to leave his bedroom for over two months.   In the meantime, he gave strict instructions to Meadows to give away the pen, the garden seat and the bower to anyone who required them.

Predictably, one of his posh ‘mates’ took the lot and even had the temerity to charge for removal and delivery to his country estate in the Home Counties’, he remarked sarcastically while lifting his  expressive eyebrows heavenwards; a mannerism that said it all.

‘Of course the king’s cock had to be buried the same day’ he continued, ‘and this was completed by the resolute Meadows after Gibber had returned to his bedroom. The king’s orders were explicit: which area of the garden was to be set aside for internment, the depth of the grave and the materials used in the coffin’, coughed Birdie as the cigarette smoke settled like a persistent fog around us yet again.

Moreover, after Birdie had returned from an outside break from the perilous smoke haze in the saloon bar, he continued, ‘it was a few weeks later that a splendid bronze plaque arrived. Emblazoned upon it were these words’.  

Here rests the King’s cherished cock.

A prized & rampant specimen that will

Never stand erect again.