Brunhilde was very disappointed that what she thought of as her Ford station wagon would not fit into the garage. The Jaguar, however, not only did fit therein but left enough space, almost five feet over, so that Phil could build a shelf two and a half feet wide on which he put his “new”—actually used—$29.95 Underwood typewriter from Sears, Roebuck and Company. A “kitchen stool” ($6.50) from the same place fit in the remaining two and a half feet, and he now had an office in which to practice his creative writing.
In his own exploring of Goodhope, Phil found two things that interested him.
One was a small private school called the Organic School, which brought to Phil’s mind the growing of tomatoes, for example, in water, but which he learned in fact made reference to the theories of the school’s founder, Miss Marietta Fieldstone, who held that education was organic to life. But what really interested him about the school was that it didn’t grade the students on how well they did on tests, but rather on how hard they tried.
Brunhilde, his daughter, was almost five, and soon she would be old enough for the pre-kindergarten class at the Organic School.
Phil was later to serve for decades on the Board of Directors of the Marietta Fieldstone School of Organic Education even though he had only a two-year College GED diploma and everybody else had either a Ph.D., an M.D., a D.D.S., or similar degree, or was, as the president of the board was, an Organic Old Boy in addition to being president of the First National Bank of Goodhope, which gave that gentleman a pass, educational degree–wise.
But that’s me getting ahead of this romance novel narrative. Again.
The second thing Phil noticed while driving the Jaguar around Goodhope was the Goodhope Slightly Used Children’s Clothing Discount Outlet.
He had already learned that as sure as the sun rises in the morning, two weeks after one buys one’s children a pair of shoes, one’s children have outgrown them.
So one day, he loaded Little Phil, who was now four, into the Jaguar and drove him to the Goodhope Slightly Used Children’s Clothing Discount Outlet. As he was trying slightly used shoes on Little Phil, he heard a woman’s voice say, “What a darling little boy!”
He got to Little Phil in time to keep Little Phil from kicking the lady, who had a kind face and a motherly ambience.
“Thank you,” Phil said.
“Can he swim?” the lady asked.
“No, but he splashes around wading pools very well.”
“My God, if you don’t teach that darling little boy to swim, he’ll drown. Goodhope is, after all, on Muddiebay Bay, into which other navigable streams, such as The Creek, formerly Bayou Volante, flow. There’s water all over the place.”
“I take your point,” Phil said.
“And I mean right now,” the nice lady said. “Not when you get around to it in your own good time.”
“I don’t want to drown, Daddy!” Little Phil said, looking up at Big Phil and tugging at his hand. “I want to learn to swim so I won’t drown and have to be buried where the worms will eat me up.”
The nice lady nodded. “The thing for you to do, sir, if you don’t mind a little advice, is take this darling little boy out to the Grand Hotel, this very afternoon, look up Woody Woodson, the Foggy Point Country Club’s recreation director, and enroll this darling little boy in the swimming classes.”
“Please, Daddy!” Little Phil said.
“I appreciate the suggestion, but I’ve been out there and I’m not sure I could afford that,” Phil lied, and was immediately ashamed of himself, as this was not the truth and this was obviously a nice lady.
“Maybe, were it not for that overpriced Jaguar I saw you drive up in, you would have the money to buy swimming lessons for this darling little boy to keep him from drowning.”
“I’m sorry I tried to kick you when you called me a ‘darling little boy,’” Little Phil said.
“Two things,” Phil replied. “Not only does a little more than eight years remain on the ten-year loan I used to purchase my Jaguar, but I have two more children in addition to this one, which is why I can’t afford to take any of them out to the Grand Hotel and buy them swimming lessons.”
The lies came quickly to his lips because of his experience in the intelligence business, where he had acquired the ability to lie automatically when the truth got in the way. Being a good liar was of course a hallmark of someone in the intelligence business.
But now he was ashamed of having lied to this nice lady. That had never happened before.
Is it conceivable, Phil wondered, that I have been away from the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation long enough to have reacquired some shreds of decency?
“I can understand that,” the nice lady said, “as I have a son about your age who is always buying fancy cars he can’t afford and otherwise squandering money. So, not because I like you, but because I don’t want this darling little boy to drown, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She scrawled something on the back of a business card of the Goodhope Slightly Used Children’s Clothing Discount Outlet and then handed it to him.
“Take this out to the Grand Hotel, ask for Mr. Woody Woodson, and give this to him. If you don’t, and this darling little boy drowns in Muddiebay Bay because he can’t swim, God will get you.”
Phil read what the nice lady had written on the back of the card.
Woody, get this gentleman a Non-Expiring Guest Family Membership in the Foggy Point Country Club. Gladys.
“Please, Daddy, do what the nice lady says, so I can learn to swim and won’t drown,” Little Phil said.
“And please give some consideration vis-à-vis whether or not you need that expensive XJ6,” the nice lady said. “Or whether that money could better be spent on this darling little boy.”
She bent over and kissed Little Phil.
Really surprising Phil, Little Phil kissed her back. Usually when women tried to kiss him, he either kicked them or spit at them, or both.
[ TWO ]
Woody Woodson turned out to be a bald, diminutive gentleman in his fifties with dark tanned leathery skin, the result of having spent most of his life in the fierce southern sun.
“Gladys gets what Gladys wants around here,” Woody said when he had read the back of the card the nice lady had written on. “Consider it done. If you will give me your address, the post office will shortly deliver thereto your membership card in the Foggy Point Country Club, the keys to your locker at the clubhouse, the keys to your personal golf cart, a sticker for that Jaguar you drove up in which will permit you to leave the grounds without having your Jaguar searched for items you might have purloined, and some other stuff. Welcome to the Foggy Point Country Club.”
“I can’t do it,” Phil said.
“You understand that all of the above is free of charge because of Gladys’s generosity?”
“That’s the problem. She is being so generous because she doesn’t think I have any money. Tell me, how much does it cost to join the Foggy Point Country Club?”
“More than you can afford.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, first you have to be recommended by two members, and three is better. Then you submit a cashier’s check for five large—”
“As in five thousand?” Phil interrupted.
“Uh-huh, five large, which partially covers the cost of the Full Background Investigation. The results of the FBI, as we call it . . .”
“I know both what an FBI is and what the FBI is. Go on.”
“. . . the results are presented to the Membership Committee, which meets twice a year, for their review. One Proposee in three makes it through that review, as the Membership Committee loves to drop black balls in the box. Then, presuming the Proposee has gotten that far, his application is sent to Mr. K. J. O’Hara, Senior, who
is president of the Foggy Point Country Club, because he owns it, for his review. One Proposee in four gets past Mr. K.J. Senior’s review. If Mr. K.J. Senior does, the Proposee then is permitted to submit the cashier’s checks.”
“Checks plural? And what are those?”
“One is for fifty large and that pays for basic membership. Another five large is a deposit against towels, soap, and other incidentals at the clubhouse, and the third is also for five large, and is a deposit against the loss overboard of fishing rods, et cetera, when fishing off the club’s fishing vessel, a seventy-two-foot Bertram called The K.J. And the fourth check is for just one large to cover the first month’s dues.”
“I see.”
“And then the whole thing is laid on Gladys’s desk for her approval. Nothing gets done around here unless Gladys approves.”
“Just to satisfy my curiosity, what would happen if I were to write a check here and now for sixty-six thousand? Sixty-six large? Would that get me in?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Phil shook his head.
“No, I just can’t bring myself to take advantage of Gladys’s generosity because I lied to her about not having any money. I just can’t take a free membership.”
Woody Woodson considered that for a full thirty seconds.
“Well, like I said, what Gladys wants around here, Gladys gets. Most of that Membership Application Procedure is just EXPLETIVE DELETED!! anyway to keep the riffraff out. Gladys wants you in the Foggy Point Country Club, and I can’t see where your being willing to pay for it is an insurmountable barrier in that regard. Write the check, and we’ll see what happens.”
[ THREE ]
The next morning at about eight-thirty, Phil was hard at work writing creatively on his plywood desk in the garage when he heard the telephone ringing. When it stopped ringing, he decided that Brunhilde had either answered it or decided not to as she was busy setting up the advertisement she planned to run in The Muddiebay Register-Press newspaper announcing the establishment of the Brunhilde Wienerwald School of Classical Viennese Opera Ballet Dancing.
When the telephone rang again several minutes later, he decided much the same thing. But when it rang again several minutes after that, he said, “Oh, EXPLETIVE DELETED!!,” and went into the house and answered it.
“Mr. Philip Williams, please,” his caller said. “Mrs. Gladys O’Hara calling.”
“This is he, ma’am.”
“You lied to me yesterday, didn’t you, Philip? The reason I know is because when I came to my office this morning I found a check drawn on your First National City Bank of New York City-Diamond checking account for sixty-six thousand dollars to pay for your membership in the Foggy Point Country Club.”
“I’m not exactly broke, ma’am.”
“Nobody with City-Diamond checking accounts is. I know that because I have one. Why did you intimate to me that you were broke, or nearly so?”
“I’m trying to keep my affluence under wraps, Mrs. O’Hara.”
“I understand that. But surely your wife knows?”
“My wife, the former Vienna State Opera ballet dancer, known professionally as Brunhilde Wienerwald, is the primary person from whom I wish to hide my affluence and thus keep it under wraps.”
“I understand that, too. One of my friends, Madame Violet Tenser-Schultz McNamara, is a former Vienna State Opera ballet dancer, and they apparently teach them from childhood that money is to be squandered as quickly as possible. But before we get into discussing Viennese State Opera ballet dancers, I’m curious about the source of your affluence, if I may ask.”
“I’m trying to keep that under wraps, too, Mrs. O’Hara.”
“I was afraid of that. I can say this to you, Philip, because I am old enough to be your mother: It is never too late to repent and start off on a new path of righteousness and legality. So tell me in what dishonest and amoral way you came by your affluence, and maybe I can help you avoid getting jailed.”
“Actually, I’m a writer. An author.”
“You’re not going to lie to me again, I hope, as I know that only the masters of literature, such as Wallingford Philips, my favorite author, make enough money to qualify for First National City Bank of New York City-Diamond checking accounts.”
“Guilty, ma’am.”
“Now I know you’re lying. Only someone like Friar Aloysius of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance who obviously spent years listening to women confessing all in the confessional could have such intimate knowledge of women as the Friar, writing as Wallingford Philips, shows he has. All I can do when finishing one of the Wallingford Philips novels is to thank God those Trappist monks can’t talk out loud to anybody and expose more of the secrets of the female heart than he already has.”
“My real name, ma’am, is Philip Wallingford Williams the Third. Does that suggest anything to you?”
“What comes to mind is ‘truth is stranger than fiction,’ but what you’ve just said pushes that pretty close to the end of that envelope.”
“Nevertheless, I am Wallingford Philips. Or Wallingford Philips is Phil Williams, whichever you prefer. Cross my heart and hope to die, Mrs. O’Hara. But please keep that under wraps.”
“Well, I certainly can understand, presuming you’re no longer lying through your teeth, why you would want to, as you say, keep that under wraps. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of women would compete for the privilege of murdering you in the most painful way for exposing the secrets of their hearts to the men of the world.”
“Are you in that number, Mrs. O’Hara?”
“No, I’m not. I decided early on in life that one has to play the cards one has been dealt. So when I married ol’ K.J. I decided to play it straight with him, and it’s worked out very well. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to talk my sisters in the gentle gender to play it straight with their husbands, but they just won’t listen. I suppose it’s the nature of the beast, as you’ve so often said in your novels.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Phil, why don’t you call me Gladys? I think that we have a commonality of interests and may be useful to one another and that should put us on a first-name basis.”
“How may I be useful to you, Gladys?”
“Let’s talk about commonality of interests first. You said that you don’t wish to share the full extent of your affluence with your wife. I understand that because I don’t wish to share the full extent of my affluence with my husband.”
“Why not? I thought he was loaded. I thought he owns the Grand Hotel, the Foggy Point Country Club . . .”
“And he and his lunatic brother also own a trucking company and have a lunatic idea that they can take the wheels off an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer and load what’s left—they are calling the box a ‘container’—onto ships and then put the wheels back on when the ship gets where it’s going. They’re going to call this lunatic idea The Land-To Sea-To-Land Company. But I digress.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“There is loaded, Phil, and then there is loaded, if you take my meaning.”
“You mean you’re more loaded than your husband?”
“Let me put it to you this way. Do you smoke, Phil?”
“Yes, ma’am. Excuse me, Gladys. I do. Cigars.”
“Good for you. Cigarettes are really bad for you. But since you smoke, I presume you’ve heard of the American Tobacco Company?”
“Yes, I have.”
“It was founded about the time of the American Revolution by a man named Heinrich Merican. Merican was my maiden name. I was born to Heinrich Merican the Fifth and his wife, Gertrude, as their only child, and later became their sole heir.
“When the first Heinrich Merican started selling Pocahontas cigars, he had the cigar bands and the labels on the box the cigars were going to go in printed by Benjamin Fr
anklin in Philadelphia. Well, Ben was getting on in years, and as everybody knows he liked a little sip of Pennsylvania corn whisky every hour on the hour starting with his breakfast.
“Whatever the reason, what happened was a small printing error.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“The label on the cigar boxes and on the cigar bands was supposed to read ‘Fine Pocahontas Cigars. A Merican Tobacco Company product.’ Old Ben dropped the space between the A and the M in Merican. What the labels now read was ‘Fine Pocahontas Cigars. AMerican Tobacco Company product.’
“Well, faced with having to peel all the labels off the cigar boxes and having to tear all the bands off the cigars and then glue the correct ones back on, ol’ Heinrich said, ‘To hell with it. Get the mislabeled cigars out to the public. Most of them can’t read anyway.’”
“That makes sense,” Phil said.
“And over the years the Merican Tobacco Company became the AMerican Tobacco Company.”
“I see what you mean by ‘there is loaded and then there is loaded.’”
“If my husband, K.J. Senior, knew the full extent of my affluence, he would press upon me to financially support the idiot idea he and his idiot brother have about taking the wheels off perfectly good truck trailers, calling them containers, and then loading them on ships. Getting the picture?”
“Getting it. That’s a dumb idea if I ever heard one,” Phil said.
“We now turn to my eldest son, K. J. O’Hara, Junior, known as Junior, or Little K.J., who as I have previously mentioned is about your age, and whom I love dearly, much as you dearly love your Little Philip.”
“What about him?”
“He needs some guidance, as I wish to dissuade him from his present lifestyle, which consists almost entirely of buying cars he can’t afford even on the lavish allowance K.J. Senior insists on giving him, chasing airheaded blondes with large bosoms and tight little rear ends, and shooting at clay pigeons off our pier on Muddiebay Bay.”
“He shoots at clay pigeons, you say?”
“He is the Browning Arms Company’s most valued customer, as every time they change the location of a screw on their Diamond Grade Full Factory Engraved Over and Under shotguns with gold triggers and selective ejectors, he has to have it, as he believes it will make him a better marksman shooting at clay pigeons off our pier. So far he has bought nine such overpriced shotguns.”
The Hunting Trip Page 28