The Peaceful Affair: Chapter 19
“Don’t be such a whining wino,” Doggy Dougie had said earlier that day in the tree residency. “It’s not dangerous at all.” Like any run-of-the-mill neighborhood, theirs too harbored the standard spooky-house-with-weird-old-man-and-scraggy-dog-Scoopy. The two boys had been holding The Argument at a frequency of about once a week for the past year or so — and both knew the argument’s maintenance would soon become prohibitively expensive, what with the rise in costs and all.
“If Old Man Crown doesn’t get us,” ten-year-old Private would invariably pet his pet theory with ardor and compassion, “then that snappy snoopy Scoopy will!”
Usually the debate would end at this point, the jury needing no more than five or six seconds to hand in their verdict of “Not Guilty by Reason of Inanity”. That day, however, perhaps due to his lifted spirits at having successfully pulled on both of Chatty Patty’s pigtails, Doggy Dougie refused to give in, give up, give out, nor — for that matter — would he afford any give-and-take. The ten-year-old stood his ground and refused to let it sit back down again.
“Old Man Crown is just an old man wearing a crown on his head,” the boy reasoned with cutting-edge, razor-sharp logic. When the object of their rhetoric had first taken up residence in the neighborhood, Private had suggested they call him Antediluvian Mortal Diadem. The suggestion was vetoed by Doggy Dougie, and since he had entered this fine world three whole months and one broken month before Private, the latter had been in no position to veto the veto. Argue he would, though.
“But Doggy Doo — ” began Private.
“No more ‘buts’,” decreed his friend with such finality it left their ears ringing.
And so, here they were, on the verge of the greatest adventure known to boykind. Slowly, Doggy Dougie climbed the electric fence, making a sizzling sound as he landed on the other side.
“Well done!” whispered Private.
“Medium rare,” corrected Doggy Dougie, just as he heard a hound sound.
“Scoopy! It’s Scoopy!” shouted Private very loudly. “Doggy Doo, you’ve got to get out now!”
His rare friend began to climb the fence frantically, but the dog was gaining on him rapidly. Private kept shouting, furiously shifting his head from Doggy to Scoopy and back.
Scoopy was getting closer.
Closer.
Closer.
A middle-aged man wearing a crown appeared at the front door of the house, shouting something unintelligible, and pointing upwards. Private and Doggy Dougie both raised their heads and momentarily lost their ability to inflect irregular verbs.
A micro-tornado was descending upon the enclosure.
Private shouted, “Doggy Doo! Doggy Doo! Doggy Doo!” while his friend continued to clamber over the fence.
Too late.
The tempestuous tornado came down like a storm, lasting all of three seconds, leaving in its aftermath a clamorous Private standing next to a big empty field of poppies.
Dog, Doggy Doo, and Old Man Crown had disappeared without a trace.
“Doggy Doo! Doggy Doo! Doggy Doo!”
General woke with a start from his favorite reverie, still crying after his long lost friend. He stretched his arms, kicked the naughty desk, and clicked on the intercom. “Coffee!” he barked.
“Two sugars!” meowed his secretary.
“Coming right up!” bit General. A nap, a pleasant daydream, preparing a nice cup of coffee for your secretary — the afternoon was becoming a major contender for perfection. During the next hour or so he deliberated deeply upon the ancient enigma of java versus cappuccino, until enlightenment eurekaed eurhythmically. Humming and bumming, with a shiny lightbulb shining over his head, General invented the Five-Star Blend. It was a coughy moment.
As soon as Hermes the messenger had left with the steaming mug, General returned to perusing the dossier at the head of the big bad pile: a recommendation to confer the Medal O’Connor on Captain Michael One and Lieutenant Joe Kowolski, awarded in the name of the Congress for conspicuous intrepidity at the risk of wife, in action with an enemy meathead. In a show of magnificent sluggish resolve, the general lifted his left foot and approved the request by boot force.
The intercom perched on General’s cold shoulder and buzzed in a brazen French accent, “Ze secretary, she is wanting to speak wis you. O la la, so very pretty. I tell you, mon general, one day — ”
“That’s what I get for enlisting an intercom to do the job of a noncom,” muttered General, and threw the lip on his shoulder back into the ranks.
“Dr. Total is here,” the secretary finally managed to doctor a good word, as a consequence of which a cheerful humor immediately crash-landed on the general. Not a single elephant had survived the crash, initial reports had claimed, only to be rescinded later upon confirming the wedded status of all concerned but one.
“Aris!” cried General at the sight of a roving dental chair whizzing into the office like a tequila sunrise with a vengeance. The vehicle was driven by a gaunt man of impeccable credentials, who wore a white robe nameplated Dr. Total — Philosophical Dentist.
“Good day, Private?” the doctor questioned socratically, as he stepped off the rover.
Unfazed, General applied the dialectical training he had received with the Hegel Brigades, and discoursed, “Are you referring to ‘good’ as a conceptual delineation of that which may, or indeed is, antonymous or antagonistic to the notionality of ‘bad’, or do you imply an ideational magnification of core goodness in a manner reflecting a certain pre-Socratic canon?”
“Can one employ such a loose canon in earnest?” Total totaled General’s superb albeit bad reasoning.
“My dear Aris,” laughed General good-humoredly, “I always end up as canon fodder with you.”
The gaunt man shifted his rotund body in an existential gesture, and motioned the general to the roving chair. “Now, Private,” he said metaphysically, once the more military of the two had entered a state of phenomenological idealism, “you remember my dictum?”
“Dentito, ergo sum,” chanted General.
“I dent, therefore I exist,” repeated Total in the King’s English, His Majesty having lent it to the doctor for the day. “So, what will it be: a filling of immaterialism, Sartrean bridgework, or perhaps a mere Cartesian flossing?”
“I would Ockham’s Razor could be applied to denture,” sighed General stoically. “The veracity of the matter is I need analytic root canal.”
Hypothetically, Dr. Total extracted the paraphernalia of his profession: drills, tweezers, paradigms, and a slew of ethics. He then proceeded to perform the delicate operation, all the while singing in a lanky voice,
Plato and Descartes
Rolling on a cart,
Bump into Lao-tzu
Surmising in the loo,
Wisdom teeth disperse
Like deconstructive verse,
Along comes Dr. Total
Riding Antidotal,
La la la la la,
Floss before you gnaw.
Deeper and deeper the analytic procedure proceeded, through twig and bough, stem and trunk, branch and brunch, until finally alighting on the root of all things rooted.
General stepped off the roving chair in an epiphanous mood, expounding, “Mac’s deal is bogus. It looks perfectly perfect a priori, but,” here he tucked in his butt and inhaled deeply, “a posteriori — it stinks like rotten quintessence.”
Dr. Total was rearranging his tools, taking particular care to wrap each ethic with a constitutional amendment. “Shall I send you my bill by buffalo, as usual?” he asked as the rover zoomed past the door in a touching display of logical positivism.
“Yes, yes,” replied General absentmindedly, already cogitating the meaning of it all.
“You look like Schmidt,” said ACE, as he stormed into General’s office, delighted to seek refuge from the raging evening outside.
“I underwent analytic root canal this afternoon,” explained General experimentally, bits of Bacon still dangling from his mouth. The operation notwithstanding, he was in a good mood, having established in no certain terms the meaning of awl: a pointed tool for marking surfaces or piercing small holes.
“Poor devil,” commiserated ACE. “When I need to query tooth and nail, I prefer consulting with the tooth fairy. Such a nice lady, if somewhat long in the tooth.”
A fickle debate was teething, Cent Accent having begun to set General’s teeth on edge. “Yeah, yeah,” said the general rashly, his personal good mood evaporating with alarming alacrity. “Anyway, where were you all day?”
“I went to sea,” responded ACE with an answer.
“See what?” General put forth a question, ending it with a mark.
“See gulls,” came the reply.
“Gulls? Gulls? Gulls?” complained General in triplicate.
“They’re birds,” elaborated ACE, not wanting any misunderstanding to be missed.
“Birds, birds,” muttered General, aching to break his record of ten questions. “Do they fly?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered ACE.
“Are they small?”
“No.”
“Are they large?”
“Yes.”
“Are they colored?”
Gravely, ACE replied, “You know the bylaws as well as I: Questions concerning race are strictly forbidden. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to count that one.”
“Doh!” dohed General and brooded silently for several minute minutes.
“Do they have wings?” he continued.
“Yes.”
“Do they use them?”
“Yes.”
A feeling of triumph was slowly invading General by employing a flanking maneuver. “Do they use their wings when they fly?”
“Yes.”
“Do they use their wings when they fly over the sea?”
“Yes.”
“Do they use their wings when they fly over the sea in the daytime?”
“Yes.”
General was ecstatic. “I know the answer!”
ACE performed the ritual countdown. “Five … Four … Three … Two … One!”
“Gulls!” yelled General, and jumped out of the boiling cauldron.
Smiling, ACE said, “You’re absolutely right. Nine questions — I believe that’s a personal record?”
“It is,” grinned General gloomily, reflecting upon how close he had been to a perfect score of eight.
Tenderly tuning in the general’s happy sadness, Antoine Cent Eccent nodded softly, “I’ve got something on Lewis Dodgson for you.”
General perked up in a flash, which momentarily blinded the poor agent. “You know who he is?”
“I,” replied ACE once his I sight had returned, “told you that this morning. Lewis Dodgson is the name Fenestra Gates had worn in England.”
“Yes, yes,” came the impatient retort. “And I asked you” — General flipped through the morn minutes and quoted — “ ‘Who the hell is Dodgson?’.”
“ ‘Beats me’ was my answer,” recited ACE from memory.
“Who the hell is Dodgson?” hollered General.
“Beats me,” Cent Eccent replicated his replete reply.
“Then why the Gehenna are you wasting my time!?” the general asked demonically.
The agent answered unflinchingly, “I know the name of Dodgson’s son.”
Just as General was about to snap a reply, a hail of italicized nursery rhymes showered the two. They rhymed:
That’s so silly,
His name is Billy.
True to the core,
But there is one more.
My, what a joy.
Now, don’t be coy,
Do tell me of this other boy.
He has no dolls,
He likes not balls,
He does not even carry shawls.
The boy appalls!
And that is why
They call him Charles.
Who is this jack?
What luck I lack,
I’ve ended in a cul-de-sac!
Do not be
So quick to quack,
For you are on
The fastest track.
You’re out of whack!
How much you yak!
Do not attack!
Let’s cut the slack,
I need a snack,
I tell you,
Charles —
is really Mac!
Thwack.
All this time, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jefferson — General’s aide-de-camp — had been listening in.
Smack.
Through the crack.
