All But a Pleasure

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “And would in my humble opinion squander your university education. Why not embark with me among the epochs and byways of historical research in quest of Atramentacia Scrivener’s ‘fruitful umwelt’?”

  “Oh, no, that sounds too much like schoolwork! I’m still in recovery from my university education. Now I just want to do something— ‘socially beneficent.’”

  “True, too true. What are we, after all, but social drones, those of us who delve away in the dust of an earthy yesterday ferreting out arcane lore for others to fashion into dry and scholarly fictions—or overripe bestsellers, for that matter—destined to molder away into the earth of a dusty tomorrow.” By his tone, she couldn’t tell whether he was being playful or a little serious about his supposed uselessness to society.

  She decided to treat it as playful. “Well, you could be wasting your own education just sleeping all day and partying all night like a playboy.”

  “I do in fact, since graduation, follow my natural proclivity to sleep half the normal person’s day, rarely arising much before luncheon, save when Sunday forces me into activity at the ungodly hour of ten. Thank Saint Martha’s for an eleven o’clock Mass!”

  “And then you lug home satchels of books and work away half the night. You’re not really a lazy idle drone, Cory, you’ve just gotten your clock schedule slipped a little around.”

  “Whereas you… Are you still astir with the roseate dawn, Angela?”

  “Most days. I love mornings the way you love words. I always have.”

  He gazed at her thoughtfully. The waiter brought their plates of spaghetti. When he had left again, Corwin resumed, “Have you ever meditated on how well our schedules might mesh? Each having an approximately equivalent number of hours—early in the morning or late at night, respectively—for personal consumption, whilst enjoying time together for mutual interests from luncheon until the earlier of our slumber-hours?”

  She sprinkled Parmesan cheese over her spaghetti while thinking what to say, how to respond. Could she just be hearing things the way she wanted to hear them? That must be it. If there was one man in the world who would never try to keep two women on his string at the same time…

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I may try to set myself up for a date with…with Hank Algood. Yes, Hank. Will he be at Sam Imani’s again this week?”

  “Ah!” said Corwin. “I assume so, considering that to the best of my knowledge he has been in attendance every Sunday… I speak erroneously, every Sunday but one, in July…throughout this estival season just passed.”

  “Oh, good, then.… What do you think, Cory? Is he my type?”

  “Angela, you hardly stand in need of my permission. As a woman of legal age and superior intelligence, you are at indisputable liberty to arrange whatever assignations you may please. At the least, this will not constitute a soi-disant ‘blind date.’”

  He must really have been disappointed that his and Julie’s plan to set her up with Dave Clayton hadn’t panned out. “No, really, Cory. I’m not asking your permission, just your advice. You’ve had all summer to get to know these people. I haven’t. Would you have chosen Hank as a blind date for me, if I liked blind dates? Is there anything I should know about him, other than that he started teaching at Riley High the year after we graduated?”

  Corwin shut his eyes a little longer than the average blink, then started twirling spaghetti up onto his fork. “Insofar as my observation of and acquaintanceship with Hank Algood extend, he is an estimable gentleman whose erudition ought to prove congenial to your own body of knowledge and personal tastes. No, I know of absolutely no evidence to adduce in Hank Algood’s disfavor. May you enjoy your date with him, and bless you, my children, bless you!”

  CHAPTER 8

  Sunday, September 24

  They were back at Sam Imani’s big old Victorian mansion of a house for another rolegame Sunday. This time Sam, who Angela thought seemed to have a slight limp that she hadn’t noticed last week, began the afternoon by settling his group in the living room for a rousing scenario of Christians vs. Lions—the lions usually won, but just enough element of doubt remained in this rolegame version of history, Corwin assured Angela, to add a piquant flavor of ambiguity.

  Angela looked around at the rest of Sam’s circle as it had gathered so far. Curly Friedman and Carmine Jones and Paul Osaka and Trudy…what was Trudy’s last name? Began with ‘U’? She really ought to make more of an effort to apply Corwin’s mnemonic tricks for remembering names. Gerry Wu and Pearl Mitsu this time, too—Policeman Percy and Beloved Belindy in last week’s Raggedy Ann. And several others whose names Angela didn’t know at all yet. And, of course, Julie Whitcomb, sitting in the big old cushioned armchair, looking a little…drawn out, somehow? Angela hoped she wasn’t just imagining something her deep, subconscious psychomystique wanted to believe about Julie. Pearl was sitting in the closest sofa space to Julie’s left. There was one straight chair left, just to Julie’s right. Corwin looked around once and claimed it, indicating his desire to play a Christian called Nichomachus. Angela announced that she was going to see what other scenarios might be grouping.

  She found Hank Algood in the library again, this time talking about a good, rousing game of Topsyturvydom. It had been one of their favorites back in high school. Corwin used to play a superb Ruthven Murgatroyd, quite a fair Reginald Bunthorne, and a really good John Jasper, who in Gilbert and Sullivan’s version turns out not to be a murderer, after all, but dies at the end anyway. Taking dibs on Pirate Ruth, Angela darted back briefly to the living room, hoping perhaps to entice Corwin over to the G&S scenario right away.

  She found that even more players had gathered for Christians vs. Lions, so that now there were two staggered rows of filled chairs between him and the door, and Sam was already rolling the die. So she just called over, “Topsyturvydom in the library, as soon as you’ve teased the lions into eating you!” and hurried back to be Pirate Ruth.

  * * * *

  Julie pulled out the little folding chalkboard they were pretending was a Roman wax tablet with stylus, and told the rulemaster, “Lavinia would like to pass a message to Nichomachus.”

  Sam tossed his die, gave it a glance, and said, as he would have said, according to the mysterious power of rulemasters, no matter what number turned up, “Granted, Lavinia, and successful.”

  She opened the chalkboard, chalked in, “When & where can we talk privately a.s.a.p.? R.s.v.p. as Corwin,” and passed it over to Sam as rulemaster, who looked at it briefly and passed it on to Nichomachus.

  He opened and read it, gave Julie an inquisitive glance, rubbed out her message to chalk his answer, and turned to the rulemaster. “Shall security and success crown my striving to return my own epistle into Lavinia’s hands?”

  Again Sam rolled his die, looked at it, and nodded. “Vero, Nichomachus.”

  Nichomachus passed it back to Lavinia. She opened it, read, “Tomorrow, 1400, late luncheon at Wallace Library coffee shop?”

  She gave him a nod and poised the eraser above the chalkboard.

  “Well, Lavinia? Sam rumbled in his deep voice. “Whether you can tell any of the other players or not, you’ve still got to share it with the rulemaster.”

  Aware that Corwin, watching closely, knew by now that Sam was in on the planned appointment, Julie refolded the chalkboard and submitted it to the rulemaster. He read it, erased it, and passed it back. “As Pope Eusebius, I rule that Lavinia may invite any others she wishes to the agape in her house. As Emperor Diocletian, I warn all Christians that any such meetings are liable to be raided and every attendee arrested, and all of you know what being arrested means in such cases.” He flipped his die a few times from hand to hand.

  Lavinia looked over the ranks of Christians still remaining after the first feline feast in the Colosseum. She signaled about a third of them, and play continued.

  Her aga
pe went off safely, but fifteen minutes later, both she and Nichomachus were arrested for refusing to burn the pinch of incense to Caesar, and sentenced in short order to the arena.

  “What?” Nichomachus protested. “Not subjected to strenuous interrogation even with the ambition of extracting from us the names of our confreres and consoeurs?”

  Sam rolled his die, studied it, and shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, Nicco my chap, Emperor Diocletian says the lions have got to be fed right now.”

  So Lavinia and Nichomachus were hustled into the Colosseum, which they found crowded with tier upon tier of hooting non-player characters. A gate opened at the far end of the arena…the lions roared into view…they came charging across the sands of the arena straight toward the bravely quivering Christians…again the rulemaster rolled his die…

  “Sorry again, Nichomachus, that lead lion has just bitten off your head. Nice bite, Lion.”

  Curly-as-Lion growled, nodded, and bent back to her dinner.

  Nichomachus sat stunned for a heartbeat before registering his protest. “But is that actually conceivable, anatomically and naturalistically speaking? Is the oral apparatus of even the largest lion available outside the fabulous monster genre of cinematic literature truly capable of engulfing the entire head of an adult homo sapiens?”

  “Okay, it just snapped through your neck at the first bite. Either way, death was instantaneous. Apologies, Nicco,” the Emperor Diocletian repeated.

  “That was…abrupt,” Nichomachus conceded. “Very well, then, appealing to Pope Eusebius, have I garnered sufficient virtue to linger behind awhile lending spiritual and possibly a modicum of material assistance to those of my Christian sisters and brothers who still remain in the sublunary veil of tears?”

  Pope Eusebius consulted his score booklet and shook his head. “Apologies again, but Pope Eusebius says, Not quite. Best you can do is reassign the points you’ve got to your surviving fellow Christians.”

  “All to Lavinia, then.” Corwin rose. “Vale et bene, omnes. Nichomachus may as well translate himself at once into the celestial abode coveted by Pagans as the Elysian Fields and known to us more accurately informed Christians as Heaven. My palm of martyrdom, if you please.”

  Pope Eusebius pantomimed handing him a palm visible only to spiritual vision, Nichomachus pantomimed brushing it across Lavinia’s head while wishing her better fortune than his, and the first lion fed while the second waited in envious hunger, pawing the bloodied white sand.

  As the new martyr crossed the living room, Sam gave the die another role and said, “What’s this? The second lion has attacked the first one, and they’re fighting for the prey that’s already dead. Looks like the emperor may have to send in the soldiers, here. Hmm…or maybe the gladiators.”

  The late Nichomachus never looked back in his progress toward the hall. Julie guessed he was headed for Heaven in the library, and gave herself a little smile, thinking about Dave Clayton.

  * * * *

  Like most games of Topsyturvydom, this one started in Victorian England, where more than half the Savoy Operas were set. Also like most games in this particular scenario, it moved rather quickly into one of the other settings, most often starting with Titipu, especially when the rulemaster adopted the role of the Mikado, like Hank Algood.

  “Oh, by the way, Angie,” he told her while Pearl Mitsu (who had been devoured in the lions’ first banquet) as Katisha and Mickey Patinkin as Bunthorne were planning their next action, “you know we’re doing ‘Foggerty’s Fairy’ this week at Riley High.”

  Her date with Hank might be easier to arrange than Angela had feared. “I never miss a ‘Foggerty’s Fairy’ if I can help it. Next to ‘Iolanthe,’ I think it’s my favorite. Are you asking me to go with you, Hank?”

  “Well, not exactly. I was going to offer you and Corwin a couple of complimentary tickets for any evening Thursday to Saturday, or the Sunday matinee.”

  “Corwin?” Was it that obvious to everyone but Corwin himself? “He’s like—like a brother to me, but sometimes, you know, a woman likes to go out with somebody who isn’t her brother.”

  “Even an old, avuncular type like me?”

  “Oh, Hank, you’re only—what—about thirty!”

  “Thirty-four, but thanks for the compliment. Well, Corwin’s right there in the doorway, Why don’t we ask—Whoops!” Hank added, even as Angela jerked around in her chair to look. “He just ducked out again. Maybe to get a sandwich before joining us.”

  “I never heard him scream this time. I’ve heard others screaming their way out of Sam’s and Ike’s scenarios this afternoon, but not…”

  “I did a pretty doggone good scream when the lions ate off my leg,” Pearl said proudly, “if I do say so myself.”

  “How odd.” Angela shook her head. “I don’t mean your scream, Pearl. It was a good scream. I mean, about Corwin.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t been thrown into the arena yet,” Hank suggested. “Maybe he was just on his way for a sandwich to fatten himself up for the lions. As an English teacher at Riley, I can get you in for the Wednesday night dress rehearsal, and you can decide about those comps from there.”

  * * * *

  Back in the living room, Lavinia gave a most satisfying scream as the secutor prodded the lion closer to her while the retiarius cast his net over beast and lady together. Emperor Diocletian cast his die and pronounced her properly martyred. Pope Eusebius consulted his score book and announced that, adding in the points she had inherited from Nichomachus, she had enough to hang around and help the living.

  “But Saint Lavinia,” Julie replied, “chooses to distribute all her points among…let’s see, who’s still alive?… Flavia, Marcus, Jubilatus, Cornelia, and Petrus Argentus. Saint Lavinia chooses to follow her companion Nicco’s example, take her palm in hand, and flit to Heaven right away. Vale et bene, everyone! Convert those lions if you can, and if you can’t, may you give them all galloping indigestion.”

  Reaching the hall, she bumped into Corwin, who was just backing out of the library. She gave him a quizzical look.

  “Angela,” he explained, “appears to be in extremely comfortable tete-a-tete with Hank Algood. Their happiness ought to remain unalloyed.”

  “Angela’s and Hank’s?” said Julie.

  “She earlier confided to me that she desired to arrange a date or two with him.”

  “She did? Well, your age is the best time for playing the field.” Unlike mine, Julie thought, which is the best time for settling down with a single partner.

  “Is it? That’s some modicum of consolation. Here—Hobart!” Corwin went on, catching Hoby McGruff on his way back to Topsyturvydom with a sandwich in one hand and bottle of cola in the other. “Could you kindly be so accommodating as to convey to Angela my felicitations, along with the intelligence that I have departed prematurely under the spur of…of a raging headache.”

  “Yo!” Hoby acknowledged, moving on into the library.

  “A headache?” said Julie.

  “A hardly unanticipated side effect, I conceive, of having that appendage masticated by a ferocious beast of prey. Are you also among the blessed by now, Lavinia?”

  “Even though I doubt my screams are quite as entertaining as yours, whenever you get a fair chance.” She winked. “But, yes, I’m on my way to Heaven now, and without even the trace of a headache. Guess my lion went straight for the heart. Can I drop you off on my way?”

  “Utilizing the occasion to broach the topic of our platonic—I trust—assignation tomorrow?”

  She considered that a second or two. This afternoon she just wanted to finish resting up for date number two with the front runner for her prince. And she didn’t think it would hurt a bit to keep Corwin in the dark overnight. She shook her head. “No, I think we’ll leave that till tomorrow at fourteen hundred. It’ll work out beautifully—I have the night shif
t Mondays right now, I can just go on to the hospital from the library. All I’m going to tell you for now is that you’re right: it’s perfectly and absolutely platonic. Want that ride anyway?”

  “No, thank you, I shall appreciate the walk. A mere four kilometers, give or take an insignificant number of steps, traversing certain of the most aesthetically pleasing sectors of Forest Green, on an autumnal afternoon of rare clarity; and having for companionship this anticipatory conundrum to mull over en route. Yes, all this ought to clear my cranial neuralgia quite nicely. Should you, however, desire gentlemanly escort as far as the door, I stand obedient to your most gossamer whim.”

  “As far as the front door.” She hooked her hand through the crook of his elbow, and they made their way outside, where they said, “Au revoir” and parted, she for her car and he for the footpath.

  CHAPTER 9

  Still Sunday, September 24

  Topsyturvydom came to its usual solid conclusion, almost every character happily paired off, not necessarily with the same party they got in their original operas—this time Katisha got Dick Deadeye and Princess Ida got the Duke of Dunstable while Ko-Ko ended with Lady Jane—and then everyone joined in the rousing final chorus from “The Tuppenny Prince” with which the scenario traditionally ended.

  And Corwin never had come back after that one time Hank glimpsed him in the doorway.

  Angela had never heard him screaming, either. But she did hear singing in the living room, an enthusiastic rendition of “Triumph, Christian Martyrs” to the tune of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” the traditional way to end that rare game of Christians vs. Lions when events had unfolded in just the right way, the number three turned up on the last roll of the rulemaster’s twelve-sided die, and the last batch of Christians converted the lions, much as Saint Francis was to convert the wolf of Gubbio a thousand years later. Was it possible that for once Corwin’s character had actually survived to the end of the game? She went into the living room, hoping to find him there.