The Defenestration of Bob T. Hash III

by David Deans

  Once more you are shown politely, firmly, and another time empty-handed to the door. However, on your way out at the doctor’s reception, ask Nurse Scarlett, since the doctor has once again run out of prescription slips, if she could just write one out for your refill medication.

  “Just take this to the pharmacist’s, Mr. Hash,” says Nurse Scarlett, handing you the prescription. “And make sure you get plenty of rest!”

  51

  The question was how near Bob really was to piecing together the full picture. Reviewing now a series of events in light of the ominous memo, it looked like he was in fact a good deal nearer than I might have wished for. There was the business of the jacket at the dry cleaners. There was that ridiculous long lost twin turning up as milkman. There was that coincidence with the golf bags at the airport. More than once correspondence in the office appeared to have been intercepted—letters steamed open at the staff kitchen kettle before landing in my in tray. In Venice, at night, under honeymoon moonlight, the egregious hoaxer had tried to frighten me off by trotting along foggy canal walks in a crimson red duffel coat, matching red storm cap, and a fisherman’s Wellington boots—all hopelessly several sizes too small for him. On the golf course, several of my registered holes-in-one had unaccountably been transmuted into bogies by the time I arrived on the green. From a dimly lit corner of the French restaurant I had been spied on from two almond-shape eyeholes cut into a rustling copy of the previous day’s Le Monde. On Matilda’s birthday, the UPS van that drew up to deliver my magnificent cattleyas deposited from an anonymous admirer an identical blooming bunch of flowers.

  And now, hot off the press: this. As part of my research (yes, that’s right, Bob, research) to help me rehabilitate the above petit déjeuner pour un chien into a once more fit state of health (presented again in Bob’s bogus version—which I trust would have tickled drug-crazed hepcats and two-penny hedonists alike), I had myself limped along to the local clinic (armed as always with my policeman’s notebook) for a brush with the world of bedpans, clip charts, and drips. Having taken a morning’s worth of notes, I thanked both medics and nursing staff for their cooperation, French-kissed a couple of the nicer nurses, lobbed in a couple of puns to console the afflicted, thanked all for their often invaluable suggestions, and made saunter for the exit.

  But, on my way out, I happened to notice a man on a waiting room chair, slouched as sick as a parrot. He had about him an “air of an Iberian”—and would no doubt within minutes be diagnosed as a victim of the Spanish flu. Please note that Bob is neither the first nor the only mortal being since the appearance of organic sentience on the planet to have suffered ill health.

  52

  American English vs. British English

  Dan Smith from the London office is in Belmont to discuss the new motivational strategy with his American colleagues. After a day of busy meetings, Dan follows his colleagues into the office kitchen for some well-earned refreshment, only to find there are no more beers in the icebox (Br. Eng.: “no more to by ales in the fridge”). Chester and Janet from accounts decide to take Dan out for a night on the town.

  Some more examples:

  • these days I take the elevator = these days I take the lift (“all part of my new healthy lifestyle, Bob!”)

  • automobile = traditional steam train

  • financial leverage (MIT) = “tandem” economics (Cambridge)

  • fedora hat = trilby

  • I say gas…you say oxygenious petrol

  • vacational faucet garbage = rubbish holiday tap

  • a howdie dawdi doodle do Stetson (another species of hat) = cricketer’s bowler

  • Señor Gonzalez watched the long line of people passing through the gate at the airport = long queue of people

  • James Dean salad dressings and Grand Canyon cigarette ads = Mrs. Gaitskill’s recipe for homemade steam puddings

  • schedule = schedule (pronunciation)

  • homeland traffic crossing guard = lollipop lady

  • gridlock blues harmonica Wite-Out = haywain punk on leafy Tipp-Ex hedgerow

  • Look out, there’s a wrench in the gears! = Look out, there’s a spanner in the works!

  • businessman’s toilet kit = businessman’s sponge bag

  • That new air-conditioning system sure takes the cake! = That new air-conditioning system really takes the biscuit!

  Note that sometimes there is no difference.

  As the evening’s revelries draw to a conclusion (Chester having dropped out early to get back to some unfinished homework) Janet looks up at the sky and points out the Big Dipper—right above the intersection with Main Street. Dan Smith, after a moment’s incomprehension, smiles.

  “Ah, you mean the Great Bear, Janet! I’ll soon get the hang of that,” he says.

  “You’re getting the hang of it already there, Dan—welcome aboard!”

  53

  Who on a clear black night has not gazed up at that other constellation, recently configured, the Parrot—incidentally, no differences astraddle the pond on that one—and wondered what great consequences befell the narrator on the tails of the surgery sighting (Am. Eng.: “clinic”)? I was able to deduce from that little encounter, coming only a section or so after receiving the mysterious fire drill memo, that a gauntlet had been thrown down and that the stakes were high—nothing less than the fate of Forward with English! Bob had now, at the doc’s, confronted his antagonist; I had confronted mine too. This was all about as plausible as an episode of Commissioner Rex—the show about that dog I was telling you about that thought it was Sherlock Holmes. But, like Rex, Bob didn’t need the full picture to know that his Forward with English! could well already be in danger. Two twin Bobs had looked at each other for the first time square in the eye. This was war, a war on Bob. In the war of Bob against Bob, it was like there was this one copy of Forward with English! being lobbed back and forth between us like a book-shaped hot potato in an animated cartoon. Only one of the versions was going to become the new eighth edition—and if you dropped that hot book-shaped potato it was most likely not going to be yours.

  However much this was turning out to resemble a plot out of Commissioner Rex, this last encounter did inject a sudden urgency into my work as editor in chief. Hitherto, my idea of a deadline was but a rippling mirage in a heat haze. All at once, there was a race on to flush out the aberrancies from the remaining sections, before Bob put two and two together (coming next—Comparatives and Superlatives). And I did not relish the thought of having to fend off a windmilling lawn-invading Bob from his throne.

  Till now, most of my troubleshooting work on what was to become the one and only approved and published official version of Forward with English! (eighth edition) had been done at my office desk, formerly Bob’s. Soon after taking up my post there at the start of this story, I realized the office chores I was expected to perform required little more than my token appearance—a handshake, a wave, and a smile. To show I was a boss who did things, I would sometimes poke my head in at a meeting: Good idea, Stan, but why not let’s just have another look at last quarter’s sales figures first? But even on busy days I usually had enough time to rattle off my daily self-set quota of expungements before the midmorning coffee break without being disturbed: Quite frankly, Stan, I think to be incurring an outlay of that nature on a new set of windows at this part of the business cycle would be counterproductive…. These were then typed up by Miss Happ and slipped sweetly from her lap into my in tray, ready for a hop-skip-and-a-proofread before the afternoon tea break—Miss Scarlett remaining, alas, on the police missing persons’ list (either that or lying with her left leg in plaster at a mountain ski resort). In any eventual wittily composed acknowledgment preface, tagged on to a long list of more eminent references, there is going to be a nod in Miss Happ’s direction of the old “…indispensable, indefatigable for fifteen minutes, without whose long suffering, etc.” type.

  All that had been very nice and leisurely but n
ow those days were over. It was time to roll up my shirtsleeves, for a surge™ in the war against Bob. With the idea of notching up the repair pace a gear or two, I canceled nonessential meetings (Sorry, Molly, but the overhead projector’s playing up again). I forewent lunch hours in the office canteen. (Miss Happ was again good enough to put in as much overtime as I needed.) True to the Hash-ian tradition, I started bringing an overflow of work home in the evenings in that famous clasp briefcase, thinking I could work at the children’s living room desk—forgetting that the family would be having a snack or reading a book, or taking turns to switch on/switch off the TV, or taking turns to close and open the drapes (Yes, Betsy is closing the curtains!): conditions somewhat less than conducive to the studious concentration that my editorial labors demanded. But a solution, as always, was just round the corner.

  On the Saturday afternoon after I’d received the nasty memo, lawn mower as hushed as a RoboKaddy golf buggy, I had just finished shaving the lawn into a rather verdant rainbow of halms. I was putting the mower away into the backyard shed (even though the Scarlet Pimpernel never had to do this) when, halfway up that ramp (that yellow cartoon lightbulb pinging into surprise above my head this time), it occurred to me that this might be the place of greater peace and isolation I needed for my lexical graft work. Inside the shed—bracing smell of pinewood in the drudge-to-be’s nostrils—it was dry and spacious; a quiet little window gave serenely onto the west and those lovely blood-red sunsets so particular to Belmont. It was summer, and if I were to requisition the garden shed and convert it into a place of literary labor, the garden would be pleasant and cool in the evenings. Shrubbery would muffle my cries of “Bingo!” my cries of “Eureka!”

  That same afternoon a clutter of gardening and horticultural instruments made gallant room for the work desk, which the children helped me drag out from the living room. (No Betsy, your homework will just have to wait.) A spare Anglepoise lamp was commandeered from the house; a bunch of lined pads, erasers, ink refills, and tinctures of Wite-Out were brought home from the office stationery department in the CEO’s pockets. And—get this—a jet-black carnivorous Webster barbecue on rugged traction-style wheels was parked outside the shed door like a London beefeater for time and direction and crows. Those traction-style wheels had thus far been put to the test only on the patio flagstones but were suitable, apparently, for “the roughest four-wheel outdoor terrains”—a sport-utility barbecue, if you like, in which I might incinerate scorch-earthed discarded drafts, aborted efforts, and, more important, Bob’s original apocrypha, chapter by chapter, as I worked my way through his bog standard Forward with English! I was concerned that such scabrous and potentially damaging teaching material, if not completely destroyed, might somehow manage to reconstitute itself, wending its way into less scrupulous hands than mine.

  Having converted the tool shed into a place of literary labor—what I came to call my “correctorium”—from then on I was able to withdraw in the evenings after partaking of the family dinner, thereby adding several hours of solid repair work to my stint at the office, accelerating the pace of my labor and hopefully maintaining a one-step advantage over Bob. (Had my sudden predilection for dried fruits and nuts in the office canteen—Yes, Jack. It’s all part of my new healthy lifestyle!—and a request, at home, that nut roast usurp the traditional meatloaf, rung some Acme alarm bell?) The downside of this development, of course, was spending less time with Matilda, and which, for the meantime at least, proved something of a partial eclipse of our long balmy “quality time” evenings of quality coitus. But I knew that with Bob closing in—the memo, the clinic, the trademark surge—it was only a question of time before he figured out the whole story—and it was imperative to clean up Forward with English! and have it delivered into print before Bob did. Like a studious Saint Jerome, I was simply going to have to put in the hours. There was no way around it (unless of course I got someone else to do it for me). The Matildian “uninterrupted course of ease and content” had been interrupted; there was pine in my heart.

  It can hardly be a question of coincidence that the day after I’d started my new evening working regime in the shed that I realized I’d fallen in love.

  54

  Comparatives and Superlatives

  Some examples:

  Jane is taller than Bobby but not as tall as Betsy.

  Miss Scarlett’s typing abilities are the best in the office.

  The garden shed is more conducive to serious work than the living room.

  Hibs are better than Rangers or Hearts.

  In the following exercise choose the word from the available options to complete each sentence.

  a) The sales figures for last quarter show the fourth consecutive increase. Last quarter’s sales figures are the __________________ ever! (best/most recent/forever and)

  b) I’m really enjoying this exercise. I haven’t had this much fun since last _________ (time we went to Disneyland/exercise/Tuesday’s fire drill).

  c) A five-iron hits _________ a seven-iron but not as far as a three-iron. (farther than/nearer than/golf club)

  d) Mr. Hash went on his honeymoon to Venice. He said it was _________ honeymoon he’d ever been on. (the most aquatic/the most honey-full/the most Venice-like)

  e) A turbo-charged eight-cylinder SUV is _________ than the average saloon car. (more environmentally friendly/less environmentally friendly/less saloon-car-like)

  f) Signora Brambilla said the gherkins were the _________ she’d ever tasted. (most delicious thing/most disgusting thing/least un-gherkin-like thing)

  g) Tushi said the office party this year was _________ than last year. (better/partier/more tiger-economish)

  h) It is _________ for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Bob T. Hash III to. (easier/No, thanks, I don’t smoke!/using a pygmy camel)

  i) Falling from the fifth-floor window takes _________ than from the sixth. (quicker elevator/less lift time/breath of fresh air will do you a world of good)

  j) Our worldwide organization has operations in more than 44,000 countries and has a turnover in the region of a trillion dollars per annum: so it must be the _________ (biggest/turnoverest/how many was that again?) company in the world.

  k) Letting the workers install their own air-conditioning systems was the _________ mistake since sliced bread. (biggest/most air-conditioning related/most sensible)

  l) The eighth edition of the course book is a vast improvement on the seventh. This is the _________ English course I’ve ever taken! (Englishest/course bookist/most improved)

  LANGUAGE TIP! The incautious use of a comparative may require hours of argument and disputation to restore an initial parity; a cavalier but misplaced superlative can lead to stool-hurtling barroom fisticuff brawls amidst sawdust and spittoons. Before using comparatives, student is therefore advised to avail himself of a battery of supporting evidence and justifications to back up his assertion. Ipso facto, superlatives should really only ever be ventured out of earshot of the hearer.

  55

  Falling in love—so unexpectedly, so out of the blue—was perhaps the best thing that had happened to me thus far in this whole escapade. Again, don’t get me wrong—I had enjoyed the picture book banter, I had enjoyed the little power trip in the office with its insipid hellos and good-byes; I was still enjoying my fun with Wite-Out and pen. Truth be told, I had even quite enjoyed falling off the perch and tumbling onto the living room floor ready-dressed in a suit and necktie. But falling in love with Matilda was a better thing still by a long way.

  I suffered from the famous symptoms—the glow, the overwhelm, the seismic shift, the gestalt switch, the Johnson flag-poleons and a pattering heart. I longed to behold her of an evening strolling round Duck Pond, running through her comparatives and superlatives. I longed to regale her long into candlelit night with the story of her husband’s elopement, the tale of how I had sacrificed my ladder, mirror, and perch for the betterment of mankind…coo-ee, over here!: Comeni
us is alive and kicking…

  But I remembered also that if I told her before I’d done with my revision on the eighth edition of Forward with English! and she didn’t believe me, I risked putting the entire project in jeopardy, not to mention the romantic affair itself. How might I begin to broach the subject, how phrase such a frog-prince-ish absurdity: “Darling, you remember how I asked you to embark on the nut roast?” And what if the news of the transmogrifying parrot freaked her out? What if she thought I was her original charlatan husband (gone now forever)—only gone a little mad? Raving that he used to be a parrot indeed! What if she renounced me—what if she went back to pining for her long and forever lost Comenius?

  On balance, the sanity of Forward with English! was simply too big and important a thing to risk. For better or worse, its fate had been entrusted to my hands: the time wasn’t right yet. With the great leaps of progress I was making in the correctorium, my gremlin-free version would in any case be soon in the clear. There would be plenty of time to muse on these events then with a couple of rocking chairs up on the veranda and a fat rap-cat joobie Cuban cigar.

  For the meantime I’d be like Orpheus, descended into a bright Tupperware hell to retrieve his Matilda—the condition being not that I can’t look her in the face (e.g., as she waves me in from the veranda), but that I mustn’t let her know I’m the parrot till I’ve rid Forward with English! (eighth edition) of her husband’s misleading mischief once and for all—and got it safely off to the printers.

  56

  The Usual Suspects

  the past progressive

  Inspector Marlow is investigating a crime. A man has been found dead outside the Belmont office building of the Acme International Institute of Languages in Belmont. So severe were the injuries incurred that it has not so far been possible, nor may it ever be, to identify the deceased. The police have yet to decide whether to treat this as a case of mishap, suicide, or homicidal murder. Observing however that a fifth-floor window lies ajar, and privately suspecting foul play, Inspector Marlow decides to conduct a series of interviews in order to eliminate various persons as suspects from his inquiries.