The Emperor of Woodcroft!

It was early morning, and I hope you remember that early is a relative thing. I was enjoying a steaming cup of holiday blend when a figure appeared in the doorway of Dulce Cafe wearing a hat that only someone from the South End would consider sporting. 

It was the Emperor of Woodcroft, as beneficent a tyrant as you can find nowadays. I joined him in line feeling that if one cup was good then another would be even better.

"Ho!" he said in the manner of an English copper. I didn't like it. The tone was all wrong. "Swilling cocktails, eh?" he said.

I could make nothing of this. "I fail to understand you," I said. "Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the hour one might expect to hear, 'Good morning?"

"Out on the tiles to all hours?" he said.

I bridled at the accusation, at least I think I bridled. I'm not sure of the word's meaning but it sounds good and I've heard it used under similar circumstances.

"You will have to provide more detail," I said while correcting my posture and smoothing the gig line of my shirt to show that I was above all his jibber-jabber. "And I look forward to hearing the explanation. I'm sure it will hold me spellbound."

"I mean you were probably out carousing, getting home just before dawn and waking the entire neighborhood. That's what I mean, Mr. Hoitie-Toitie."

This remark got me hotted up to near incandescent. The nerve! The impertinence! Again, not sure of the definition but I'm pretty sure it's in the neighborhood of my meaning.

"It could scarcely have been later than two when I got home and I was seeing an old friend off to spend the holiday in the Catskills." And I'm sure I said it with topspin to qualify for hauteur.

"Did you have a cold shower this morning?" he asked giving me the full effect of one eye.

"I have hot water," I said.

"Did you do Swedish exercises before breakfast?"

"I'm Danish," I said, "and we don't indulge in such excess. At least my grandfather was Danish and I believe that entitles me to make the same claim."

"Then why do you look like something from the chorus of a touring revue?" he said.

"Ah," I said, "that's easy enough to answer. I just need a second cup of Jah's mercy. That's why I'm in line."

He seemed to consider this but after a few seconds, his inward gaze looked out again and settled in the vicinity of the lower portions of my map. His expression was one generally found on someone who has just found caterpillars in the salad.

"Ho!" he said, "what's that?"

"What?" I said, passing a hand across my face.

"You don't wear a beard," he said in the tone of an accusation."

"I don't wear a beard and I'm happy about it. Too many beards taking up space now. I haven't seen so many beavers since the days of Edward the Confessor."

"Ho!" he said. "Real men wear beards and your face would benefit from a mustache as well."

"I wore a mustache for years when younger," I said, and it looked horrible, much like a soup stain."

"What does Ms. Wonder think of it?" he said.

"Of what? My shaving?"

"I'm sure a bit of facial hair would provide much-needed relief to someone who spends more than a few minutes in your presence."

"What does it matter what others think?" I said and I was now aware that others were listening and I felt the conversation was becoming a bit sticky. I was ready to change the subject.

"That's good. She doesn't like it. You'll have to grow some hair. Take a few days off and get away is my advice. You'll probably look like Rasputin until the stuff grows in."

I will not stop shaving," and I'm finished with this conversation.  J'y suis, j'y reste about sums it up for me. The barista is waiting for your order.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Up to you, of course, if you want to be an eyesore."

"An eyesore!"

"Eyesore is what I said."

I suddenly felt the need to practice the three deep breaths. First breath, power, and balance to be ready for whatever life brings my way. Second breath to remind me that I am enough for the present circumstances. Third breath to recognize that there is more good than bad at this moment.

"Ho!" he said, "what's that on your chin?"

But this is where you came in I believe.

Original and Catchy

I arrived at the Den of the Secret Nine before any of the other members of the Organization. I wasn't surprised because traffic can be formidable in the Renaissance during the season of commercial orgy. I sat at the regular table and before I'd disconnected myself from iPhone life support, the Duck Man entered and sat next to me.

"I'll tell you my story," he said. "I'll tell you my story and you will sympathize because I can tell by looking at your face that you're sympathetic. You have a sympathetic face. My story is the story of a man's tragedy. It is the story of a blighted life. It is the story of a woman who could not forgive. It is the story..."

"I have to leave at 8:30," I said, "and if it's the story about the monkey and the coconuts, I've heard it and it's vulgar."

"Sympathy," he said. "A man who has suffered the tragedy that I have asks only for a little sympathy."

"Let your days be full of joy," I said and I was pretty bucked about it too because I'd heard this gag only the night before. The timing was perfect. And it feels good to bewilder someone who is attempting to flummox you. Don't you agree? I continued with the little saying all the way to the punchline.

"Love the child that holds your hand," I said. "Let your wife delight in your embrace. For these alone are the concerns of man." 

I may have paraphrased the little thing but I was confident that I'd non-plussed him anyway. But it wasn't so. Perhaps a quote from Wicked might have had more impact.

"I have no children," he said, "and I've lost the woman who means all the world to me."

I knew he'd led me to the top of the slippery slope and immediate steps were required to avoid disaster. 

"Listen," I said.

"Sure," he said taking a sip of his coffee.

"I walk the face of the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water," I began.

"Do ants walk on water," he asked?

I raised a hand as this was no time for side issues.

"As if the slightest misstep might send me straight through the surface and into the depths below. Not the depths of the ocean but the innermost depths of my mind."

At this point, I paused to look him hard in the eye and tap my finger on the side of my head. 

"It's dark and scary in there," I said.

"What's so scary about it?"

"I'll tell you," I said. "Just yesterday, I was thinking about the rising tide of heinous skulduggery and political weasel-osity in the nearby kingdom of the United States. I was thinking about how the people living there need more compassion and goodwill."

He nodded and his face wore the expression of someone considering my comments to the fullest extent of consideration.

"And as I mused on those thoughts," I said, "a cargo van of grief and anger came careening around a corner in my mind and plowed through a row of garbage cans. The driver came out swinging and shouting..."

"Hmm," he said, you don't see that every day--almost as rare as Taylor showing up at a Chief's game during an Eras tour. But so what?"

"That driver was me," I said.

"Ah," he said. And then placing a hand on my arm, and looking at his phone, he said, "Sorry, gotta go. I have a 9:00 appointment and it's almost 8:30 now."

He walked away and left me wishing that I had closing remarks for situations like this. I used to wish people a nice Mayan apocalypse on such occasions, but that ship sailed and is long forgotten. I need to come up with something original and catchy.

Modern Life and Cats

"Modern life is not a lot of fun if left to its own devices," I said to Ms. Wonder and I felt it to the core.

"You seem low-spirited," she said and I think I've made it pretty clear that it was so. I was as low-spirited as I could stick even though Uma, Queen of Cats and Empress of Chatsford Hall lay at my feet doing an impersonation of an eel out of water in the hope, no doubt, of receiving a treat for the effort.

Empress Uma Maya 

"No, Poopsie, modern life is not much fun at all. Consider how Napoleon must have felt when Nelson sailed the British fleet into Cairo Bay and burned the French navy. Couldn't have been pleasant for him."

Sagi (Sagitarius) M'tesi

"It must have been much the same for Peter II when Catherine the soon to be Great, led the Russian army to the Winter Palace where he was in residence. No," I said, " modern life is just one damned thing after another, just as Shakespeare told us."

She gave me a quizzical look and I realized that she was about to interrupt my soliloquy with some drivel about Shakespeare but I wasn't done yet. I continued.

Beignet Lafayette

"But instead of searching for the silver lining of life's muddle-headedness, do you know what most people do? They get all hotted up and the pressure builds until they start leaking at the seams. You can find them grinding teeth and clenching fists and giving passersby a look that could open oysters at 20 paces. Only makes things worse, if you ask me."

I waited for her response, one that would make me feel that we commiserated if that's the word I'm looking for, but she didn't say anything, just gave me what passes with her as a compassionate look.

Lucy Lucille Lupe 

I remember thinking that brown eyes do a better job of portraying compassion than green eyes, but then it isn't her fault that she has the eyes of an elf, and besides, I knew what she meant. 

"Something really should be done before it's too late," I said.

"Done?" she said. "You mean something to change the general attitude of people you meet? Do you think that's possible?"

"Thank you for asking," I said. "I really would like to see people sweeten up a bit and I think I have the perfect antidote to whatever it is that poisons their outlook."

"Go on," she said.

"P.G. Wodehouse," I said. "It's imperative, the way I see it, that modern man, and woman too if she cares to join us, read Wodehouse to learn the importance of aunts, or rather, the importance of avoiding them."

Abbie (Abracadabra) Hoffman 

"But not cats," she said, always having her finger on the nub. "People must realize the importance of socializing with cats."

"Cats to be sure," I said. "Of what value would life be without cats? I mean, what's the point?"

We began to discuss the Wodehouse cannon and the relative importance of aunts and cats but somewhere along the way, and I'm not sure exactly where it occurred, I began talking about my own writing, and my hope that perhaps I could help supply some relief to pedestrians as they navigate life's potholes.

Eddy Spaghetti 

"I've paid my dues, the way many writers do, and I feel it's time I give back some of what I've learned," I said. "I shall stick to writing about what I know, which is normal life, or in the words of George Costanza, nothing at all, because that's what I know best. 

I'm as apolitical as an oyster but I'm not naive, at least I don't think so. I hope that I can follow in the great man's footsteps--I allude again to P.G.--and produce quality work in my latter years, just as he produced in his. Neither he nor I peaked early."

"I hope you consider offering spiritual guidance to your readers," she said.

"Not as such," I said. "My stories will be in the context of my own spiritual outlook but I will not be explicitly spiritual. I don't care to be preached at and I don't intend to engage in the practice. I have some knowledge of the Bible due simply to the age in which I grew up. We memorized and quoted Bible versus in primary school and I can nail down an allusion as quickly as Jael, the wife of Heber, who was always driving spikes into the coconuts of overnight guests.

"The plots I prefer are much the same as those of Shakespeare's comedies. The foibles of love and the antics of those trying to win or escape from love's embrace. There will be a scarcity of mothers and fathers, only because of my own upbringing, but a pile of aunts, uncles, and cousins, of which I had so many that laid end to end would stretch from here to the next presidential election."

"And cats," she said as Abbie Hoffman, who had just wandered into the room, and apparently decided that the number of felines in attendance exceeded the fire marshal's recommendations. He left the way he came.

"Absolutely cats," I said. "Cats add value to any subject and the absence of cats wounds even the best literature."

We both mused on this concept for several minutes, cats being a deep subject and a wide one too.

"I shall attempt to apply what I have learned from the master," I continued, "and use metaphor to the fullest extent. From bees fooling about in the flowers to the stars being God's daisy chain. I hope I can do it. I've certainly marinated myself in his works--not God's but Wodehouse's. I do hope so. These are truly troubling times we live in and we must battle the powers of darkness before we are undone."

"Excellent plan," she said. "I can't wait to see where this new path leads."

"Me too," I said and I meant it like the dickens!

Your Morning Update

I woke this morning nearly pain free and, if not in mid-season form, then near enough for time trials. I don't suppose I've ever come closer to singing, "Tra-la-la." When Ms Wonder came into the boudoir with a steaming cup of Bohea I said, "Poopsie, I feel good this morning."

"I wouldn't worry about it," she said, "it's probably a normal feeling for most people."

"What's the day like?" I asked.

She said it was very clement or some guff like that.

"You mean the sky is blue, the sun smiling, hot and cold running water? The usual amenities?"

"Domestic offices," she suggested but for me it was another near misses and I let it go.

"Then I think I'll take myself out for an airing," I said.

"Don't forget we're meeting Tiger and Wild Bill for breakfast at 9:30."

I had forgotten all about this tryst as it came suddenly on the heels of my having to cancel a dinner engagement with these two love birds. I quickly climbed into the outer crust of the Durhamite weekender: Thai fisherman pants and Steve Miller Band tee--the 1999 Last Call tour--and the Aldo boaters, sans socks, which adds just a hint of diablerie, and I think you will agree that I need all the diablerie I can get.

Finally upholstered, I emerged and found two waiting for me on the porch attired in feminine fabric. Not the porch but the two waiting for me. Ms Wonder bunged herself into the sports model and Mom, still standing on the porch, waved us off like an Archbishop blessing the pilgrims.

I'm not much for chatting in traffic and remained strong and silent, the lips tight, the eye ever vigilant, until we were out off the Chatsford estate and sailing down the highway. Then I got down to a subject that has troubled me for some time.

"Poopsie," I said, "there is something about the pairing of these two that has troubled me for some time."

"Wild Bill and Tiger," she said, "they're a perfect couple. A match made in Heaven."

"Oh, I agree," I said. "Nice work if you want my opinion. I  think they're both on to something good and should push it along with the utmost energy. Why wait until December, get married tomorrow is my suggestion. No, it's not that I object to either of them. Both are the soundest of eggs. None sounder. It's just that they both fell in love at first sight."

She said something about people who don't believe in love at first sight but it was, in my opinion, a side issue and should not divert us from the subject at hand.

I explained that I would expect nothing less of Bill. After all, strong men before him had been smitten with Jenny to an alarming degree. Wonder interrupted me to say that it probably had something to do with her profile. I agreed that it might possibly be the profile as seen from the right.

"From the left too," she said.

"Well, I suppose in a measure from the left too but you can't expect men in this hectic age to take time to dodge around a girl trying to see her from all sides."

I readily understood why Bill fell for Jenny for she is liberally supplied with oomph. He, on the other hand, a good egg, none better, but he's one of us, or that is to say, he has the face that you grow into.

"But he's no Brad Pitt," I said.

"Well," she said, "you're no Brad Pitt," as if that had anything to do with it.

Sometimes I wonder about this Poopsie, descendent of Count Alexei Orlov who helped Catherine the Great ascend to the throne. Give that one some thought and I think you will agree that there is reason for concern.

"Would I look a little like B Pitt if I had hair?"

"No."

"If I had a chin?"

"Nope."

"I suppose I must look like Beaker, the Muppet."

"Beaker had hair," she said.

"A bald Beaker," I said.

"A very cute bald Beaker," she said giving my head a nubbing.

This give and take left me feeling better about things and I would have carried on but we were nearing our destination and I was required to twiddle the wheel to avoid a passing tree and then we arrived at William's Gourmet Kitchen. We decanted ourselves and went inside to break the fast with the aforementioned friends.

I do hope this update answers all questions about the whereabouts of this post. It is here like that mountain we hear so much about. Once there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was. Now there is.

Get With the Program

It was the year that Blue Bottle won the Preakness. A good year for her, without a doubt, but not good for the Genome. I had busted. Wile E. Coyote notwithstanding, one does not remain aloft after running off the edge of the world. When I crashed, I held nothing back.

Everyone gave up on me, including me, everyone but my best friend, Poopsie Wonder. Ms. Wonder reasoned that as long as there was breath in my body, something in the wind might stir me; as long as there was moisture in my cells, the sea might have some telling wisdom; as long as the temperature was close to 98.6, a spark might remain to be fanned into flame. 

In other words, as long as I was alive, there was hope. I know! Imagine that! Talk about stalwart resolution. I later learned that it's hard-coded into the descendants of the Russian steppes.

Poopsie knew that if anyone in Houston could speak the word in season, it was Cowboy Dan, a devotee of Wen, The Eternally Surprised. Dan condensed his life into a 20-minute verbal documentary and a miracle occurred as I sat listening. Well, two miracles all told. The first was that I listened. The second was that I forgot my hopelessness and began to be grateful that I had escaped the destruction that had plagued Dan. 

Talk about a smash-up! But Dan had found a way to turn his life around and his new life was just what I wanted for myself. I began to wonder how this was possible.

"How is this possible," I asked Dan. "How did you do it?"

"It's simple," said Dan. "Anyone can do it."

"Do you think that I can do it?" I asked.

"I know you can," he assured me. "The fact is," Genome, "you just don't have to live that way anymore."

"Will you help me?" I asked.

"I'll offer you some guidance," he said, "but there are conditions."

"Anything," I said.

He mused. He pursed the lips and moved them this way and that. It's a technique that seems to help people think but it's never worked for me. Perhaps you use it, perhaps not, but that's what he did. Then he spoke.

"OK, here are the conditions," he said. "I will not be your teacher but I will attempt to guide you. You must be willing to try anything that I suggest. If I think you are not willing, I will stop working with you. Agreed?"

"You mean you want me as an apprentice?" I asked, overjoyed that there might be hope for me yet.

"Of course not," he said, "Don't be silly. Why would I want that? Just be over at my place tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM. We've got a lot of work to do and the sooner we begin, the better."

Next morning, I was up early--with the larks and snails apparently--and I got to his place on time with the book he'd loaned me. I didn't know it then but we were people of the book too but unlike all the other people of the book, we were allowed to improve ours from time to time. To update it as it were.

I was anxious to begin and drank the first cup of Jah's Mercy.

"Ready to begin?" he asked.

"I am," I said.

"Come over here with me," he said and I followed him to a small closet in the corner of the kitchen.

"Lesson number one," he said, handing me a broom and then taking out a second for himself.

"One hand here and the other here," he said. "People never get it right. Smooth even strokes," he said demonstrating the move. "Let the broom do the work. Just a small amount each time--like that. Don't try to get all the dirt in one go, you just wind up spreading it around."

I gave him a look. It felt questioning to me but it must have come across differently to him.

"Don't worry," he said, "no one gets it right the first time. It takes practice to get really good."

And that's how I became an apprentice of Wen, The Eternally Surprised. Since mastering the broom, I have added the fan and the umbrella to my accomplishments. I'm now working on the walking cane. Life just gets better and better in the Program. I hope you have one.