The Free-Lance Pallbearers (9 page)

“You see,” Aboreal Hairyman explained, “I was in attendance at the public cinema viewing some film of the uprising from which our leader emerged victorious and this young man debated some rabble who were speaking ill of the faith. I've not seen such a display of valor in all my years.”

I was taken aback by all this notoriety and before I knew it I was bobbing on two shoulders as two of the men began to carry me through the streets. One of them pulled out a rusty trumpet and began to play the Marseillaise. Two others ran to the head of the procession and unfurled a banner which read “Buy Victory Bonds. The Nuns are Raping the Huns,” and each holding an end they began to goose-step through the streets.

“Why don't we take him over to the Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar and buy him a drink?” Aboreal suggested. With Aboreal in the lead strutting proudly with his chest thrown out and his chin high our outlandish troupe shuffled up to the door of the Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar. A man came flying out through the swinging doors and landed in front of Aboreal's feet He got up, brushed off his clothes and shaking his fist at the door shouted, “You'll see, you'll see, just like Munich. You'll see.”

Tears streamed down his face as he, disillusioned, removed his Mickey Mouse button from his chest and angrily flung it into the gutter. We laughed good-naturedly and went inside the bar and soon were standing at the rail drinking giant steins and eating onions and horseradish on cheese. At the tables other ol men were ordering from menus. One sat nude except for a boiled vest and tall hat whose top had been ripped off.

“I'd like some cucumber soup, some jellied deer tongue and some Berchtesgaden 1936,” he requested of the husky walrus-mustached waiter who stood at his table.

When all the mugs at the bar were filled to the brim Hairyman raised his stein and proposed a toast “At ease, gentlemen. I want to introduce all of you to Bukka Doopeyduk, a brave young apprentice who single-handedly bore the assault of some of our detractors in the public cinema yesterday. Without assistance he took on those monsters behind us, who breathe fire into the neck of our tired generation. Long live Seato Nato Cento and the granny executioners in black sneakers.”

The ol men clinked their glasses, took some robust swigs and then sang a rousing chorus of “I'm a Yankee-Doodle Dandy.” Suddenly the half-nude man rose from his chair and genitals swinging moved toward us.

“Gentlemen,” he said in the Boris Karloff voice. “A toast to Lenore!”

There was sheer silence until Aboreal Hairyman spoke up. “Alfred,” Aboreal consoled, putting a sympathetic hand on the man's shoulder, “please don't start that again.”

“A toast to Lenore, dammit,” the man insisted, rudely pushing Aboreal's hand aside. “How can we forget Newport? The milling young women just home from Radcliffe shading themselves near the picnic baskets? The sumptuous melons on the tables and the brilliant conversation?”

One ol man waving his hands wept uncontrollably, pleading with the speaker, “Don't talk about it, Alfred. Please don't talk about it, boo, hoo, boo, hoo.”

“O the boat races,” he said, ignoring some of the weaker of the ol men who had dropped their heads to their tables. Their violently trembling fingers clutched the handles of their steins as the man went on. “I would walk about in my duck pants and blazer and sometimes we'd go clam-digging. O, if only I could have continued paying for her harpsichord lessons, things would have turned out different”

“It wasn't your fault, Alfred,” Aboreal Hairyman whispered.

“My boy,” the grief-stricken gentleman said, turning to me, “it would have never happened if Matthew and Waldo had remained to guard the gate. The villagers wouldn't have been able to …” But he trailed off and broke down. After a pause he looked up, and reaching inside the top of his hat, brought out a gold watch. He put the gold watch in my hands. “My boy, I want to give you this as a token from Lenore and the army of unalterable bores.”

“O, no I can't, sir,” I protested.

“No, take it,” he insisted, then wheeled about and slowly returned to his deer tongue, cucumber soup, his Berchtesgaden. Another man came, hesitated, gave me a carton of Picayune cigarettes. Still another, a shiny spittoon. I was babbling with joy.

“O, gentlemen. This is much more than I deserve. I can't take your pension checks, your boxes of gold dust twins and the elbow baking soda.”

Aboreal Hairyman reassured me. “Now my boy, we fossils will be very much rebuffed if you won't take our gifts. You deserve each and every one of them,” Aboreal said in State Department redundance.

“I must go home now and study my Nazarene manual but I'll never forget this night.”

“Three cheers for Bukka Doopeyduk. Hip, hip. … Hip, hip. … Hip, hip. …” The ol men waved as I left the quaint Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar of flickering gas lamps and beaded curtains. Mist rose from the cobblestone streets. Horse-drawn carriages moved in and out of the shadows. From the 1870 dining palace the ol men could be heard singing the haunting strains of a World War I favorite:

Roger Young Roger Young was the glory and the story of the everlasting tires of the infantry who died for you and me young Roger of the story and the everlasting wires of the infant free lies the story and the glory of you and me Roger Young who died in his veins and the
…

I was as happy as a lark when I arrived home. I put down the gifts and turned on radio station UH-O.

On each side of the steps leading into the courtroom was a statue of a white seal balancing a bright ball by the tip of its nose. Inside in the ceiling of the main hall was a dome of murals depicting episodes from the life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes. RBH pulling the pigtails of the first Chinese officials to be received in the White House; RBH commenting on the size of their buck teeth to two of his cronies who hold the little diplomat's jaws apart for a better look; Rutherford Birchard Hayes making a mad dash to get rid of the poker cards and the bottle of Old Hickory as the First Lady, affectionately known as “Lemonade Lucy,” pokes her coalscuttle hat of green silk into the Cabinet room to announce that lemonade and Kool-Aid are being served; Rutherford Birchard Hayes kicked in the head by a horse on October 21, 1864, but intrepidly opening the Wichita pickle fair the next day; Rutherford Birchard Hayes giving colorful and quaint measles blankets to some Indians who proudly pose with their headdresses thrown back and their noses in the air like snooty camels while the President winks at his poker partners who—in on the prank—stand off to the side of the reception slapping their thighs and covering their grinning mouths. In the center of the dome was a giant mural of Rutherford Birchard Hayes surrounded by his eight children: Birchard Austin Hayes, James Webb Cook Hayes, Rutherford Platt Hayes, Joseph Thompson Hayes, George Crook Hayes, Fanny Hayes, Scott Russell Hayes and Manning Force Hayes. They stand with their mouths open as Daddy holds a big round and firm cucumber between his raunchy lips at the Wichita pickle fair, October 22, 1864.

Inside the court, the clerk called for the case which was to precede mine. The participants were roughly shoved through the door. They were surrounded by an unusually heavy detachment of Screws. Masks had been drawn over their heads and their wrists were bound with rope. The Screws positioned the pair before Judge Whimplewopper. Whimplewopper stood on three telephone books behind the bench. He was a natural-born midget afflicted with an unusually long nose. In fact the nose was so long that it became the subject of a series of features in the
National Inquirer
.

It was very difficult for Whimplewopper to conduct a normal courtroom because many of the nose's fans would line up in the corridors of the courtroom to take pictures and ask its opinion on the length of Jackie Kennedy's riding boots. Sight-seeing buses would follow his limousine to his home in East Hampton where he entertained Mile. Matzabald's associates and bargain-basement hippies. While he conducted the business of the courtroom, his nose rested upon a purple satin pillow Matzabald had made for him. This only added to his difficulties. Ruthless art executives would try to swipe the pillow so that they could exhibit it in their galleries. Judge Whimplewopper asked the Screws to remove the defendants' masks. They turned out to be M/Neighbor's son and his little anarchist friend Joel O. I knew it. I knew it. Their criticism of the state would get them into trouble. I hoped the judge would be stern with them and stern he was.

“You pair have been accused of trying to make it across the Black Bay in a rowboat full of boxes of mouthwash. Whaddaya have to say for yourselves?”

“Well, your honor, all that I can say is that your mama must have humped a whole bunch of anteaters for you to have a snout like that. Which is to say more for her than SAM's mother who gave a dying bull elephant the clap,” M/Neighbor's son replied.

Everybody in the courtroom got shook including me. I only wished that the punishment issued would be severe.

“Now see here, you young punk, you can't talk about me and SAM's mothers like that They've been dead for years, God rest their souls.”

“Yes and they've probably given all the worms in the cemetery lockjaw by now,” added Joel O.

“Thirty days for contempt of court!” the judge screamed, weeping profusely.

Suddenly a man ran down the aisle of the courtroom, swiped the pillow and dashed toward the side exit. “Come back here with that pillow! One of you Screws stop that man!” It was the president of the Yellow Cab Company. The man was captured and whisked off to a room near the courtroom. The Screws returned the pillow to the bench, lifting the judge's nose and gently placing the pillow underneath.

“Dat's more like it,” the judge said, combing his pink bangs with a yard-long comb. His hair had been teased and fashioned at Mile. Matzabald's Mudpie Factory. “Some of these art dealers ain't got no RUTH,” the judge editorialized. “Now I'm going to give you 'linguints thirty days in the tombs for rapping about SAM's and my ol ladies and playing the dozens like that.” An attorney for civil liberties rose to object to the arbitrary something or other. Seems that he didn't like the way Judge Whimplewopper was handling the insolent youngsters. Before he could continue the Screws had tackled him, and putting a full Nelson on the man hustled him from the courtroom.

 

“Object nothin'—this is my courtroom and I was duly appointed by the Dictator of HIMSELF and I don't 'low a bunch of willy-nilly nervous Nellie chumps to kick up no fuss. Right, boys?”

“Right!” answered the Screws, snapping to a position of parade rest.

“So you creeps want to get tough, huh? Another remark about my ma and I'll give you a contempt citation. We'll see about burn the baby burn. Now what have you to say for yourself?” Whimplewopper said, turning to the boy anarchist.

“We were going to take Sam's Island, kidnap the motherfuker and make him tell the truth about those fourteen people who were killed up there in the John last week. We were going to pour gallons of mouthwash in the sucker's mouth until he gave it to us straight,” Joel O. explained.

“Well for your info, kiddo, I personally headed the commission what investigated that matter and there were pretty respectable fellas on it-including Mr. Nancy Spellman, Chief Nazarene Bishop and vicar of the Screws; Irving Gooseman, a well-known philanthropist and civic leader; Aboreal Hairyman, our roving ambassador; and a very nice colored gentleman who was a retired head of the colored Elks of the world. These are men with fine backgrounds and they don't be telling no fibs so I'm going to give you thirty more days for holding these men in contempt and impugning their reputations. And that goes for all those commie joos out there who were writing up all them books and articles about me and the fellas who sat on that distinguished commission. If I ever get you guys in my courtroom, I'll teach you commie scum a little trick. You know it was a rabbinical committee what wrote them articles what brought down the Roman Empire and I don't want that happening here. We won't stand for it”

“How did a handicapped mind like yours ever get into judicial robes anyway, you weird-looking little moxy? I bet your joint's the size of a flea.”

“He may be tiny, Joel O., but he's a swinger,” said M/Neighbor's son. “I saw him in
Time
magazine once with some really boss-looking broads. He seemed a little high and was showing them how to do the black bottom singing corny stuff like boo-boop-a-doop and wearing a fun hat on his nose.” The two defendants cracked up and laughter resounded in the courtroom.

“But he must be a switch-hitter, baby, because he had to go downtown on SAM in order to get the job.”

“Wait a minute! Whatta you think this is, some lousy social work clinic? Thirty years for arson, possession of illegal drugs and going from city to city to start riots! I'm fed up with you kids doing nigger dances and wearing your hair long. You seem to be having a lot of fun. Maybe thirty years in a federal prison will straighten you guys out. Take um away, Screws.”

Joel O. spat on the nose.

“GETUM OUTTAHERE,” he screamed as a Screw dutifully polished his snout.

“Fuk you and your generation of ghosts! We'll convert the prisoners! None of you ol crow eyes over sixty will stop our drive.”

“Get rid of um, willya?” Whimplewopper ordered his Screws, as he gulped down a fistful of Miltown. “I'll surely wet the bed tonight. It was better in the fifties when I presided over the bird hearings. Everybody was polite and dignified. Used big words like quibbicale and didn't take no offense because I youse to be a hog caller. Those boys made me muss my pink bangs, sniff, sniff. There will be a ten-minute recess while I get myself together,” the judge sobbed, as two Screws assisted him from the courtroom.