The Peaceful Affair: Chapter 20
Bartholomew Skypie was a lofty seagull who could and — upon the slightest provocation — would trace his lineage to a single-celled organism by the name of Joe Kaminski who’d had a solid reputation for being an asex maniac. Skypie had recently abandoned his west-coast abode and had moved to New York, after losing a prolonged trial against a flock of eagles in the matter of copyright ownership of the hit song Nest California. At present, the seagull was flying gloomily within the city skyline, surveying his new home, trying very hard to remember what his mother had always —
Bump.
Bump.
The double encounter with the large glass frame jogged the seagull’s memory. Never knock a window twice, Skypie remembered his mother’s words as he slid down the glass, utterly failing to convey his keen sense of aesthetic pain to the group of people conversing on the other side of the pane.
“As I was moralizing before the gull hit the hull,” Myx continued the speech he had begun as soon as the regulars had assembled in his apartment that morning, “we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall flight in Manhattan, we shall flight on the seas and oceans, we shall flight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall descend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall flight on the beaches, we shall flight on the landing grounds, we shall flight in the fields and in the streets, we shall flight in the hills; we shall never surrender!”
The room was in a state of uproar — particularly the chairs.
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat!” shouted Lipps convincingly as she raised the flag.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning,” Doe said quietly.
The small giant nodded gravely. “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, in a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour’.”
“Never in the field of human confiture was so much owed by so many to so few,” the tall dwarf ended the outburst of patriotic poppycock.
Silently, they all lined up, exited the apartment single file, and descended onto the fourth floor, which harbored Church Hill, the Roman-Equine House of Worship.
“Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, and Octavius,” Myx said delightedly the moment they entered the temple, “I’m so very pleased to see you all again.”
The seven steeds he was addressing neighed in unison. They received very few visitors since the nasty business with the Sacred Forest temple several years previously, an affair still discussed at length in various literary semicircles. The temple had been accused of appropriating the steeds’ likeness in order to create pictures that move. And although Church Hill had won the legal cattle eventually, they were not at all pleased with their sheepish attorney. Myx was one of their rare friends, with whom the seven would converse in detached concert, clearly lacking a conductor.
“Noro,” Mike nursed.
“To,” Mike raved.
“See,” Mike shied.
“Nice,” Mike sputtered.
“You,” Mike yawned.
“So,” Mike griped.
“Too,” Octavius duped.
“Are you ready?” Myx asked them, and — wishing to avoid another broken harmony — added immediately, “It’s okay, no need to answer. I can see you are indeed at full readiness.”
Without further adieu, Myx mounted Mike, Doe mounted Mike, Lipps mounted Mike, the small giant mounted Mike, and the tall dwarf mounted Mike. Mike and Octavius were to stay behind and hold the fort, which of late had begun voicing its solid desire to play either hooky or hockey.
With all contestants regally astride, Myx blew the traditional Horn of Plenty and delivered the cornucopian speech.
“Gums galore?” He bespoke.
“Galore!” came the ritual reply.
“Geese aplenty?”
“Aplenty!”
“So be it. May the best ma’am win!”
“May the best ma’am win!” bounced the echo.
Riders and ridden marched ceremoniously toward the elevator and descended to the ground floor. As they exited the building, each to follow his own path, Myx added spiritedly, “Go gum them down!”
The wild-goose chase had begun.
The heavyset goose was seated in a small circular café engrossed by an article in the Financial Primes about seventeen, a lucrative prime number that could only be divided by itself and by one, although the one in question was still missing, presumed red. The goose was taking a sip of his tall caffe latte when Lipps accosted him.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” she asked, as Mike furtively leafed through the journal until finding the Prime Comics. The steed was enamored of Batprime, mild-mannered nineteen by day, transformed into superhero eleven by night.
“Well,” said the goose, wistfully whiffing an imported cigarette, “take a left over there by the corner, then go straight until you reach the fourth intersection.”
“Thank you,” said Lipps, manifestly disappointed at the goose’s cultivation. She was about to direct Mike onward when the goose extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray and said, “Wait, I’m not done. When you reach the intersection you take a left, then a right, left again, another right.” Here the goose jumped onto the table, and sang, “left, right, cha, cha, cha, left, right, cha, cha, cha — ”
“We’ve got a wild one!” yelled Lipps joyfully and gummed him down with two large-caliber bubble gums and one stick of chewing gum.
Mike and Mike had been duetting in their gruff voices for the past several minutes, when the small giant and the tall dwarf bade them stop the hoarse play.
“I think I saw something,” the tall dwarf divulged her innermost thought concerning a possible sighting.
“I think I heard something,” the small giant disclosed her most intimate cerebration regarding a potential hearing.
It was a sight for soar eyes: A formally attired goose was slowly descending in a magnificent display of synonyms. He canted, slanted, heeled, inclined, listed, reclined, sloped, tilted, and tipped, ultimately alighting in a heartbreaking display of American-British divide as he both leaned and lent. The goose eyed the ladies and their steeds with suspicious equanimity, and proceeded to quote Frost warmly:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Tipping his bowler hat, the goose sat on the park bench and carefully arranged his long black umbrella. “Methinks I sojourn in a most celestial garden,” he said coolly. “Such loveliness.”
“Thank you,” blushed the small giant.
Ignoring the gratitude, the goose added, “Such fine beasts.”
“How dare you — ” began the tall dwarf.
“I think he was referring to the steeds,” the small giant placated her colleague.
“Damn,” damned the tall dwarf. “We’ve landed an English goose.”
The small giant sighed. “It’s so hard to find a wild one these days.”
“Come,” said her comrade, “let’s move on. This goose gives me the bumps.”
Taking not the slightest notice of feathers ruffled, the English featherhead continued his unabashed Frosty recital:
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
“What do you think,” Jane Doe asked Mike at the crossroads, seeking advice from the horse’s mouth, “where shall we begin our search?”
Nodding solemnly, Mike answered, “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
“Thank you,” thanked Doe. “As always, your advice is very helpful.”
The two took the street left of the intersection, which harbored a small shop boasting a large sign that read “BEG-INNING”. As they passed the establishment, they could hear a man in a baseball uniform imploring, “I beseech you, just one inning. Just one!”
They continued marching (steed) and sitting (ma’am) for a while, until arriving at a fountain that bore witness to a somewhat delicate domestic scene.
“I’m telling you, my feathered delight,” a gander was clamoring passionately, “I did not look at her for one second! Why, I don’t even like ducks!”
Not to be mollified so easily, the goose replied with distaste, “You ganders are all the same.”
“I swear — I never laid a feather on her!” He was obviously winging it.
“Sure, that’s what you say now. But my friend Margie saw you two at The Quail yesterday.” Dolorously, the goose added, “How could you? That used to be our place.”
“It still is, my swooning swan. It still is!”
“Well …”
Doe and Mike were quite overjoyed to witness the beautiful reconciliation that ensued, even though it meant there would be no gumming down here. As they turned to leave, the gander gave a brilliant performance of that fine male blunder known as ‘Saying Too Much’.
“Ah, my dear Peking duck — ”
“Aha! I knew you were lusting after that Chinese wench! You foul fowl!” With that, the goose took off and flew to her mother’s.
The tall dwarf was dispirited. “We haven’t gummed down a single wild goose.”
“Cheer up,” replied her friend. “We shall prevail. The opera ain’t over till the fat lady stops singing.”
As if to prove providence was providing, they heard a round of applause emanating from within the parochial opera house by which they were standing.
“You see,” groused the tall dwarf, “the fat lady has just stopped singing.”
“Let’s go inside,” suggested the small giant. “Maybe we’ll get to hear the encore.”
The tall dwarf shrugged her shoulders. “What the hell, we’ve lost anyways. Might as well fatten our ears.”
They pointed Mike and Mike toward the musical institution and strode inside, totally ignorant of Sir Fortuity’s decision to intervene. As the lights came on in the auditorium, the small giant cried, “Look! Over there!” The tall dwarf’s gaze swept toward the stage and landed on Mother Goose, the internationally renowned opera singer.
The spectators were on their feet, madly clapping their wings, and getting wilder by the minute.
“It’s a good thing we’ve brought enough ammo,” the small giant commented jubilantly.
“Enough talking,” replied her mate. “Let’s start gumming down these wild geese.”
On the waterfront point wherein 1st and 2nd Avenues merge into one, before the austere entrance to Club 22, the contenders all gathered at noontime. The steeds had already returned to their church, where Mike was scheduled to conduct the bar mitzvah of young Prince, an up-and-coming stallion with a humble yet illustrious pedigree.
“I see that determining the winning party has been rendered facile,” announced Myx, pointing to the smoking gum held by the tall dwarf.
Doe was comforting a fuming Lipps. “There, there. Second place is nice, too.”
“Pooh,” shouted Lipps, “I am second to none.”
“So,” sowed Myx and motioned the champs inside, “it is with great pleasure I invite the victors to follow me.”
With an ounce of trepidation the small giant and the tall dwarf trailed the detective in a silent walk through the ascetic halls of the celebrated club. After what seemed to them like ages they reached the plaque reading God Created The World In The Midst Of A Triple Somersault. Salto S. Trampoline, 1927.
“It’s the Trampoline Room,” whispered the small giant reverently. Before her colleague could opine the preferential status of silence, Jabberwock Myx appeared. “Welcome, welcome. Do come in. How was the chase?”
“Fine,” the tall dwarf managed to utter.
“We won,” added the small giant.
“Indeed, indeed,” the elder Myx indeeded.
“Shall we tramp?” his younger brother asked somewhat impatiently.
“Lemon is best served with a slice of patience,” his older sibling replied, non sequiturs having run in the family since their great-great-great-great-grandfather had married Louise Sequitur, and — after years of study — had perfected the art of conversing with his wife.
The four mounted the Great Trampoline and proceeded to bounce, spring, and bob. When Jabberwock Myx demonstrated his famous scissors, cutting short the tall dwarf, she knew instinctively that the only possible course of action was to count her blessings. To her utmost regret, she had to stop at ten, given the difficulty of using one’s toes on the rebound.
Eventually, the tramping subsided and they all climbed off the wondrous contraption.
“Well,” said Jabberwock energetically, “this has been immensely enjoyable. We must do it again sometime soon.”
“It was amazing. I felt like a baboon,” voiced the tall dwarf elatedly.
“Did you see me go up like a balloon?” cried the small giant.
“Let’s go — time for lunch. Why, it’s past noon,” declared Noro.
“A most agreeable platoon,” Jabberwock whispered to his brother, as the small giant and the tall dwarf marched ahead. “By the way,” he added, “one of your friends dropped this.” Jabberwock handed Noro a small worn-out medallion made of gold and silver.
Turning the object in his hand, the detective examined it carefully, and finally remarked, “There’s an inscription on one side.”
“May I see it?” asked Jabberwock curiously, whereupon Noro passed the item back to him.
“Curious,” commented the elder Myx monosyllabically after a curt examination. Inscribed in golden letters were twelve Latin characters arranged rectangularly in four groups of three:
MWM
MWW
WWD
DWM
