The Peaceful Affair: Chapter 15
At the very heart of Silly Con Valley lies a small, picturesque village whose existence is known only to a hand full of people (the hand in question belonging to one Nag Brobding). And no more than two fingers are aware that this hamlet is responsible for the pinnacles of human achievement: compound interest, the full stop, the crescent shape of bananas, the number 47, trite clichés, using a headache as an excuse, the remote control’s “off” button, declaring curling a sport, the haircut, the no-smoking sign, round wheels, movie trailers, the sensitive man, deadlines, isms, hot dogs, and cold cats (this latter splendor most regrettably lost to humanity due to a disastrous typo, leaving mankind with but ersatz cuts); they had even invented themselves (an exploit they consider rather minor).
Among the villagers’ numerous feats of inventiveness one may count (if one is possessed of a sufficient number of fingers and toes) the PhonY, a device made of highly advanced materials such as plastic cups and string, enabling two people to converse in a completely secure manner. No respectable entrepreneur, military magpie, football coach, or ballerina would be caught dead without one (and the few unfortunates deceased sans, had come back to life immediately, procured the device in question, and resumed their pastoral death).
General Private General was no exception to this rule.
“ACE is here,” boomed the secretary’s voice over the PhonY’s secure string. (Outside the window, a rather mediocre poetry vendor was declaring her wares:
General sighed,
Lamented
He could not hide,
And,
Like midnight’s high tide,
Ordered the man outside
To slide
Inside.)
A shortish man wearing a wide blue cape with red lining entered General’s office. “Monsieur,” he said in a charming Québécois accent, “please — draw me a ship.”
“Cut it out, ACE,” snorted General General. “I’m in no mood for your silly games.”
“By dint of symmetry,” Antoine Cent Eccent — aka ACE — began evenly, “cutting out and cutting in are equivalent.” His foreign accent had gone down the brain quite magically. “Now, in order to cut out, I must be in, but in order to be in I must cut in — or out. There’s a nice one for you.” The blue cape quavered lightly in the wind of wisdom.
“That’s a catch-11!” roared General. “A chick can cut out of its shell, without ever having cut in. YOU KNOW HOW I HATE CATCH-11s!” The San Andreas Fault faulted. General’s attack gaze beelined toward ACE at the speed of fight. “Report, Agent Antoine!”
Cent Eccent cleared his throat, straightened his posture, raised his head skyward, and related the tale with a dreamy look in his eyes. “Mac and Professor Gates were en route to Montreal when their plane crashed in McDesert — where I picked up their trail. I proceeded to follow them closely, managing to stick to them like goo,” he said proudly, “by disguising myself as a Large Fry.”
“Cut to the chase,” grumbled General impatiently.
“But my dear general,” retorted ACE in mock bewilderment, “it is precisely the saga of the chase which I bespeak.” General emitted a sound that would have been produced by the offspring of an enterprising hyena and a melancholy rhinoceros — were the amorous pair to finally hit it off.
Without warning, ACE then climbed upon a chair, and — grasping with both hands an ashtray he’d picked up from General’s desk — enunciated, “You love me! You really love me! I wish to thank my parents, the director, my coactors, and all members of the academy for bestowing this great honor upon me. Thank you, all!”
He stepped off the chair, mumbling, “Sorry, I’ve got a rare disease called Wild Oscar that causes these sporadic episodes.”
As if nothing had just happened, ACE continued relating his tale to a dumbfounded General. “I followed the two all the way to their meeting with General de la Fesse — and then bore witness to the arms deal that took place. End of story.”
“Dealing with de la Fesse, huh? I had a bad feeling about that Mac fellow,” declared General. “A bad feeling. And what has Professor Gates got to do with this business?”
“He’s married to Dorothy Gates, our esteemed National Security Advisor,” commented Cent Eccent deadpan.
“Great Scotch.” General lifted both his hands majestically in a heroic attempt to part the Red Sea. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
ACE stopped the intense activity in which he was engaged, said, “His name hasn’t always been Fenestra Gates,” and resumed his thumb sucking.
“Well,” prodded General, “who was he?”
“I have no idea what name his great aunt Maggie had given him at birth,” began ACE gravely, “however, I managed to place him in England several years ago, living under a different name.”
“That name being?” General was holding on to his patience with an iron grip.
“Oh, sorry,” Cent Eccent mumbled, and pulled himself away from the very important task of cleaning out his volcanoes. “In England Fenestra Gates called himself Lewis Dodgson.”
“Who the hell is Dodgson?” yowled General.
“Beats me,” said ACE and resumed his sweeping.
“Mommy, Mommy,” cried little Billy, “Lona hit me!”
“Did not!” shouted three-year-old Barcelona.
“Did to!” yelped five-year-old Billy back.
Ceasing breakfast preparation in the kitchen, Dorothy Gates somersaulted out of the frying pan into the living-room fire. “Lona,” she said in that special mommy-to-Barcelona tone, “how many times do I have to tell you not to hit your older brother? He’s bigger than you. And besides, we do not tolerate violence in this house.”
Barcelona Gates gazed at her mother pensively for a moment, blurted, “Intolerance is the tool of tyranny”, and ran over to the kitchen, her feet tapping lightly over the carpet-shaped Persian rug. Fenestra Gates was sitting at the table reading the Washington Most, drinking a burlesque cup of coffee.
“No running in the kitchen without sneakers, young lady,” he said, lifting his head for a flitting instant. Hot on the trail of the young lady, Mrs. Gates ran into the kitchen; she was wearing sneakers. And, still pouting angelically, Billy jumped in on his pogo stick, to complete the blissful family scene.
Professor Gates lifted his head from its burial site inside Page Three. The I-Told-You-So smile was splattered across his face. “I hate to say ‘I told you so’ — ” he began.
“No you don’t,” pole-vaulted Dorothy Gates as if her husband had just said, “I hate to say ‘I told you so’.”
“ — but I was right.” Fenestra Gates finished what he’d began (just like Dad always told him). He was pointing to a short article delineating the latest developments on the American-Canadian front. “De la Fesse executed Mac’s moves to the letter. Haughty buttock or not, the man’s unimaginativeness is harder than diamond.”
Dorothy Gates was about to comment on the lamentable state of her own jewels when the sound of a knock on the front door was heard, probably due to a knock on the front door, leading to a plethora of speculations amidst all family members.
“Santa Claws!” cried the boy in delight.
“Batman!” shouted his sister euphorically.
“Milkman!” whooped her mother expectantly.
“Mrs. Buttercup-Latrine!” yelled her husband.
“Mrs. Buttercup-Latrine?” quizzed his wife, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“My third-grade teacher in sixth grade,” explained her husband, whereupon he jumped down and up, raised his right hand, and shouted, “Me! Me! I know the answer!” His wife rolled her left eye.
They all rushed to the front door, tore it open, and stood speechless before the sight revealed.
“My God!”
“It’s so beautiful!”
For a very long minute (lasting all of sixty seconds) they could not avert their gaze from the splendid sparrow, perched upon a green branch, the sunrays highlighting its grayish wings in a manner that could only be described as illuminating.
Eventually, Mrs. Gates regained a tad of her composure and welcomed Jennifer Love inside.
“Aunt Jenny! Aunt Jenny!”
Overjoyed at the arrival of Love, Billy and Barcelona would not afford the woman an opportunity to gain a foothold.
“Billy and Lona,” said Dorothy sternly, “you are to step off Aunt Jenny’s feet right this instant.” Turning to Love she motioned, “Do come in Jennifer, we’re just having breakfast. Care to join us?”
“Thanks, a hot drink would be much appreciated,” smiled Love. A moment later, with a hot cup of hot coffee she asked, “Have you seen today’s Most?”
“Sure have,” boasted Fenestra Gates vaingloriously.
“We mustn’t get too cocky,” said Love solemnly. “Hoo’s departure most certainly had a hand in our small gains.”
“Whatever …” mumbled Fenestra. “Anyway, are you ready?”
“In a minute,” smiled Love. “Just let me finish caffeinating myself.”
Ten minutes later, a presidential press assistant and a computer-science professor were seated in a moving car headed toward a highly secret air base, whose very existence was known to no more than two or three million people. They were on their way to The Cold.
“I’ve come to hate flying,” growled Gates, as he and Love seated themselves in Air Force 5, “especially when the Jacuzzi is on the fritz.” Sadly eyeing the waterless gape sporting an “Out of Order” sign, Love placed a fatherly hand on Gates’s shoulder and remarked, “It’s okay Fenestra, we’ll get through this somehow.”
A tall stewardess wearing very flat boots came over and asked them to buckle up. Seeing their futile attempts at complying with her request, the tall stewardess kindly suggested that Fenestra abandon his position atop Love’s lap. A few tears and a couple of sighs later the two were sitting side by side, each sipping a thick glass of milk they’d received from the tall stewardess as a reward for their brave conduct. In no time at all the plane was where it belonged — in the sky.
An hour later they crashed in the middle of a snowfield.
Inside the plane wreck, Love commented, “I believe I’ve come to share your dislike of flying, Fenestra.” The tall stewardess came over and helped them unbuckle, saying, “Your ride should be here any minute now.”
“Does this happen often?” Gates asked angrily.
“You mean the Jacuzzi’s being out of order?” questioned the tall stewardess.
“No.” Gates was trying hard to maintain a modicum of self-control. “I was referring to your not landing in the appointed landing site.” Unfortunately, presence of mind had just fled the coop. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LAND IN AN AIRPORT!”
The tall stewardess regarded Gates with equanimity through pale black eyes. “No, we do not often experience so successful a landing. Why, only last week — ” The story was cut short by the sound of an engine, followed by the sight of the engine-bearer. It was a long sleek school bus. Love and Gates bade the tall stewardess farewell, the wretchedness of not being able to hear the end of her story evident in their eyes. Dejectedly, they climbed into the bus, where a very short stewardess — not at all like the one they’d grown to admire — told them to buckle up. Once they were securely in place, the bus shot forward, into the Great White.
A former tour guide, the driver could not help commenting on the snowscape unfolding outside the window. “If you take a look to your left, folks,” he kept saying cheerfully, “you’ll behold what we locals here call white snow.” The snores did not bother him one bit. “And to your right, folks, you can see a magnificent view, which we locals here call white snow.” This went on for close to two hours, until the bus arrived at its destination.
Gates nudged Love, who stopped snoring the moment she woke up, and the two sighed in relief as their gazes fell upon the sign above the large portal: No Smoking in Lavatories.
“Wrong sign,” smiled Love.
“Right sign,” pointed Gates with his finger toward the horizon. That sign read:
The Cold: Top-Secret Base
Do Not Tell About Us
Not Even To Your Best Friend Dougie
“Finally,” announced Love festively, to which Gates responded with a shout, “I’LL BE BACK!” hurrying away to tend to an urgent call of nature. Moments later, a relieved smirk festooning both cheeks, he came back to learn that — the Chief of Security being quite the cinephile — he’d inadvertently shouted the day’s password.
The two were ushered silently into The Cold.
