by David Deans
71
With this cheery lame little regurgitation, things continue their inexorable bovine backslide toward disaster. With Bob apparently on the brink of sussing out what his apparent, if anonymous, replacement (an angst-free Clark Kent Sisyphus in diamond-knit cardigan) was doing to his jumbled-up leavings, one could well see him taking advantage of the sales figures announcement and the celebratory chaos of its aftermath as the natural platform for a dramatic reentry. And much as Friday is being anticipated by management and staff alike (and I’m pleased for them, really, I am!), I find I am unable to partake of that enthusiasm myself. (“No, Miss Janet, I’m fine. Just got a bit of a headache. Thanks, I’ve already taken one—it should be kicking in any minute now.”)
As I thought I had dealt with the dictation, it did not help that I was to find a most unwelcome message waiting for me when one morning I arrived at my office. The moment I saw the flashing light on my voice mail, a sixth sense told me something was wrong—nobody leaves messages in the middle of the night. Well, at least not in Belmont. I laid the Gazette down and gingerly picked up the receiver. I listened as the technology clicked in—Bob’s (original) voice telling how he wasn’t in his office right now, but if the caller left a message, he’d get back as soon as, etc…. another wave of beeps and a click for the start of the message.
It was Miss Scarlett, in her anchor-and-knot scarf. At first there was just silence, and a few nocturnal ahms and erms: you could palpably hear her deciding whether or not to leave a message. When she did speak, Miss Scarlett spoke in a whisper, not a long-distance whisper from Acapulco, nor even Bellville—it sounded more like she might’ve been calling from one of the coin booths outside the mall. “Mr. Hash, Mr. Hash, please pick up the phone if you’re there! Have you found it, Mr. Hash? Have you looked in the files yet?”
Then just rain in the background till the line went dead with a click and a purr.
A little bird tells me that life is but brief.
72
Take Me to Your Leader: A Role Play
Earth has been invaded by a troop of strange beings from outer space who, despite a limited command of English, appear to be benign: these are the Limbo Martians. Their spaceship, a very large silver-white Frisbee-shaped saucer, has landed on the thirteenth green of the golf course on the outskirts of Belmont.
Returning from an afternoon training seminar picnic held in a nearby township (Bellville), you and your fellow passenger colleagues, alarmed by the blaring soundtrack of the spaceship’s unearthly eddying throb, decide to “interrupt schedule,” and pull up at a safe distance. Through a gap in a hedgerow you observe that a group of Limbo Martians have descended a ramp protruding from the rim of the spaceship and are now gathered in a pool of humming blue light round their leader.
Note to the instructor: For the following skit task [particularly suitable for larger classes] you will need a volunteer Col. Hash, a lead Limbo Martian, and an offstage Bob T. Hector Hash.
Skit
As Astronaut Hash you have been selected to represent the earthlings and it is your job to persuade the Limbo Martians to take up a six-month trial course in Beginner’s Business Essentials in English (at a special introductory rate).
As part of your approach you might like to set up trestle tables on which are arranged vast quantities of course material not unworthy of Patroclus’s funeral celebrations: course books, business cassettes, logo-encrusted ballpoint pens, lucky dip key rings, and progress clip charts. Javelin contests, chariot races, animal sacrifices, drinking contests, commence. Bonfires burn late into the night.
DISCUSSION: Why might the Limbo Martians have chosen Earth as their planetary destination as opposed to other available planets in other solar systems with perhaps more abundant reserves of natural resources, more binary-oriented language systems, and more convivial inhabitants at their disposal? Discuss the myriad ways in which improving the space people’s English might allow them to leapfrog ahead of their fellow stay-at-home Limbo Martians on return to their own distant planet.
73
In all probability, Bob’s so-called Limbo Martians were members of the local acting society who’d been dolled up in aluminium foil, Scotch tape, and beekeeper masks. The saucer was probably nothing more than an obscenely oversize touring camper some crapulous fat cat had driven onto the seventeenth fairway, mistaking it for his front lawn—now that does sound familiar. The supposed Patroclesian celebrations, for their part, were more likely a sprawling soft-fisticuff-and-cupcake-barbecue mêlée between disgruntled nocturnal golfers and a group of bedraggled do-gooders from the local book club, the numbers made up by the Belmont district constabulary—all expertly choreographed by director Bob T. Hash III, and limned in his so-called researcher’s sketchpad.
I have noticed, as many fellow travelers will have also, a similarity in tone and content, a certain felicity in timing, a certain parroting, if you will, between the above exercise and a silly story that appeared earlier this summer in the Belmont Gazette. Summer being typically the season, in Belmont as elsewhere, when stories are sparse, and newspapers have to make up things for themselves (like that Miss Scarlett disappearance). Anyway, according to the article in question, so-called exotic avians are in the process of “taking over” the local parks of our beloved Belmont. Having escaped through their owners’ windows, a number of budgies, lovebirds, parakeets, lorikeets (not to mention domesticated parrots with unwieldy vocabularies that keep putting things in parentheses) are now not only able to survive at our hitherto inclement latitudes but, thanks to global warming, are now able to breed with free abandon in the now increasingly more gentle climes of our native city parks, formerly intemperate, now simply peppered with tree-perched pointillist daubs of Day-Glo oranges and twittering prismatic crimsons. Small feral colonies are now being observed, reproducing in conclavian miniature their natural subtropical habitats, to the best of their abilities. The story was accompanied by a map of the park in question replete with little hash signs (#) to show density of bird.
An in-depth inside article took up the theme. With due gravity, the voice of the Belmont Gazette informed us that although the park-bird phenomenon was quite serious in Belmont itself, it was not by any means restricted to Belmont alone. It has been observed in bromidian Bellville, for instance, and even farther afield. Agricultural scientists and apiculturists—no, that’s bees—aviaptologists (“Thank you, Matilda, with you in a sec”) are warning not only of a threat posed to the indigenous species (starlings, blackbirds, cardinal tits) in terms of food stock, nesting rights, etc., but the fascinating possibility that, since they—the exotic birds, that is—are no longer restricted to the role of mere in-house mongers of living room entertainment (microwave tings, embarrassing expletives in front of auntie), our feathered and re-feralized friends (notably the African gray, or Psittacus erithacus) might make use of the language of their former masters to communicate among themselves, in a gregarious fashion, to the vertiginous level of advanced certificate—as defined by Acme International Institute of Languages, Main Street, Belmont (CEO unavailable for comment).
Ah, the caged bird will sing—nice comfy thought that, for wistful timid souls!
74
“Un Piccolo Incidente al Crematorio…”
(Another chance to practice your Italian!)
Scene: the town crematorium. Deceased: Patroclus Hash, husband, father, cuckold, pedagogue, manqué bungee jumper. Weather: rain. Dress: black suit and tie; umbrella preferred. You find yourself in a back-row pew of the gathered mourners. As the short grammatically unimpeachable eulogy nears a conclusion, you recall with a start the deceased once mentioning (in a jovial, offhand manner over drinks in the clubhouse) how he suffered from a rare “faux rigor mortis” syndrome wherein under certain circumstances—for example, suffering from a concussion—the sufferer appears for all intents and purposes to be dead when in fact he’s in some kind of narcoleptic coma.
Role play 1) You take the role of the co
ncerned mourner. Springing forth from the rear of the chapel as the service is nearing its climax, try to have urgent words with presiding priest.
Role play 2) You play the role of Noberto, an obdurate furnace hand. This being vacation employment for which—on paper at least—the spoken word is little needed, your linguistic talents have not yet been stretched much beyond arranging the occasional romantic assignment, and you are alas little able to understand what the frantic mourner who has come round to the furnace area is trying, apparently so desperately, to tell you.
Only Italian is to be used in these role plays. Students should feel free to use appropriate hand gestures in the traditional Italian manner. (Alternatively, more advanced students can have their hands tied to their sides to prevent them from doing this.) Please note that during this exercise teachers have been asked to enforce the strictest zero-tolerance policy toward any manhandling whatsoever of the coffin.
Here are some phrases the student might find useful:
Qui hic minxerit aut cacarit habeat deas superos et inferos iratos! = Here minx hick at cassarit, has two superb irritating infernals
Tieni i tuoi cavalli…é stato cremato solo il tuo sosia! = Hold your cavals! We’ve only cremated your sosies!
Attento, non toccarla, che ti bruci le dita!—non appoggiarsi…= Don’t touch her there with your finger!—no apogees…
farfalle (93), pasta di semola di grano duro; cottura dodici min, diece al dente = far-falling smells of pasta at gran’s door, you’re a cot (93)
Eccoci! Le ceneri, sono pronte. Aspetti un attimo che trovo l’urna adatta…= Here, sir, your ashes are pronty. Aspects an a team that works the adopted urna
una fenice…un pappagallo, invece = a fence?…no, a papal gale invoice
And finally, as the furnace hand relents, upon opening the casket, you declare, somewhat aghast:
“Acciderboli! Sembra che qualcuno ha rubato la salma!” = “Crivens! Same bra call has rubbed the lady salmon!”
75
“It is men we are forming, not parrots.”
—J. A. COMENIUS
I like to think of myself as having been present at the time and place that the eighth edition of the Acme institute’s well-loved Forward with English! sprang into life. I was right there at the glint in the eye, right there from the ground floor. That may not sound like a very bold or ambitious claim to want to make, especially when you consider my subsequent—not to say welcome—involvement in the whole business. Yet I feel privileged to have been there. I feel honored to have, in some small way, taken part in that unique, special moment—way back before any of this other complicated cock-and-bull stuff came along. Back when I was a humble grammar book mascot, and Bob T. Hash III, alas now ante portas, was just plain old Bob T. Hash III.
The first fledgling phrases of that new eighth edition, I believe, were conceived just a few days after Bob was offered the initial commission. They occurred to him on the Saturday afternoon in the front yard, as he was in the middle of cutting the lawn. From my perch I’d been watching an angst-free Sisyphus (in thick-knit diamond-pattern cardigan) mowing his diagonals like a bishop on a chessboard; when, at a certain point, Bob and his mower came to an unexpected standstill. They stood transfixed in the middle of the lawn, half all neat and crew cut, the other wild and disheveled. The mower’s path did not appear to have been halted, however, by a fresh-dug molehill or kamikaze Frisbee.
Moments later, the motor neutralized, Bob sprang into the living room and made a beeline for his work desk. Surely this was not the time to go over the household accounts! (“What’s this, Matilda? Parrot feed’s gone up again, I see? We’re going to have to do something about reining in our collateral expenses”) No, Bob, I thought to myself, this is not on the schedule. Heedless of this inaudible advice he rummaged about; not a few seconds after, he located both paper and pen. I saw him write something down—On Saturday afternoons Bob mows the front lawn.
Within that honest-to-goodness use of the present tense lay the seeds of much greater truths. For Bob, On Saturday afternoons Bob mows the front lawn would be—from that moment onward—his Cartesian anchor. With its formulation and commitment to paper, Bob ended several days of doubt, days when he had yet to convince himself whether accepting the commission was the right thing to do. But now he sure knew. He tucked the piece of paper and pen into his pocket and went back to his mowing. From his expression (reposefully smug), and a certain new spring in his step, you could see that in writing that phrase he had made a major decision.
Talking of lawns, one last rather poignant incident. As we know, I came in due course to take over Bob’s duties (of which mowing that same lawn was not least). Only last Saturday, in that same diamond-patterned thick-knit cardigan, I myself broke off mid-diagonal not to scribble something down like Bob, but with the altogether more wholesome idea of fetching a beer from the icebox.
Finding the icebox alas empty of beers, I went to look in the cupboard under the stairs. I appear to be still a little unclear as to the correct use of the word icebox—but goodness to Betsy, what the Dickens! That cupboard under the stairs gets used as an overflow from the kitchen. I opened the door and turned on the naked 60-watt bulb. Almost immediately, by its harsh white glare, I saw my birdcage and stand. Long time since I’d run across those things! The stand itself was tilted at an angle, on account of the hypotenuse of the stairs. Smaller bits were on a shelf wrapped up in newspaper. You could make out the shape of the rungs on the ladder, and the old-worldly roundness of the mirror. A draft coming up through the floorboards was wafting through the lonely unused bars of the cage.
One day, one day soon, I am going to feel the barrel of a gun jabbing at the small of my back.
76
Hobbies and Pastimes
Now turn to the page of Everyday Handheld Armaments in the picture book. Student may choose from an Italian Beretta, a silver triggered Stanley, a sprightly Colt 45, a cowboy’s wild-western Winchester, and a trumpet-barreled blunderbuss with genuine buckshot…
LANGUAGE TIP! Keep out of reach of Bob T. Hash IIIs!
77
On Friday morning, on the big Friday when the eagerly awaited sales figures from last quarter were going to be announced (around lunchtime), I got Miss Happ to print out my final, crowning modifications. Having checked them over, I declared to myself that the eighth edition of the course book was at last free of meddlesome rampancy and that the last traces of hoax had finally—and forever!—been banished from the republic of Belmont. It was then sealed in the manila and placed in the very out tray where, not all that long ago, I had found it. I straightened my necktie, sighed a team-leading-job-done sigh of relief, and decided to reward myself by taking the afternoon off. On the pretext of fetching something (a stapler) from downstairs, I managed to sidle through the gathering bustle of decorations and slip out of the building unseen. I drove back home where I gorged myself on a whole head of lettuce.
The better to digest my lettuce, I decided to take a siesta. Among vegetables, I believe that lettuce is the least frenzied—but you still have to digest it. There remained one outstanding thing to wrap up this whole business—hands up, yes, Rex?—to return the garden shed to its original time-honored function (its door always bolted to deter an intruder). However, I would take my siesta first, like the hare and the tortoise. Or like Señor Gonzalez. That was what Señor Gonzalez would have done: siesta first, decommission the correctorium mañana (see—¡Vámonos: Adelante con el Español!) I had set myself the challenge to salvage the grammar, and having met that challenge, by goodness if I didn’t deserve a quick nap!
A bright red cardinal chirped in the shade of a bush when it saw me come out from the back veranda with the intention of digesting my lunch. “Ah, look,” I said, pulling a roving garden deck chair into the shade. “Mon dieu,” I said, dragging the children’s inflatable Michelin-man pool up beside it. The point was to have my feet dangling in the water while I lay in the deck chair. Not without cause I had
got the best deck chair available on the postal supermarket (see www.GardenDeckchairMonthly.com for some lively online discussion).
Later, as I was dismantling the desk inside the shed après siesta, I suddenly remembered an earth-shattering detail. It concerned the loose-fitting plot around which the course sections hung, and which give the course book its pseudo-biographical shape. Now, toward the end of Bob’s bogus version, in token of his own supposedly quiet determination and stalwart profit-stretching service to the institute, Bob T. Hash III, a little too conveniently, was to be posted on a kind of permanent sabbatical.
As I’d progressed through the grammar myself, I’d not only had to prune the grammatical boob-outs of the bogus, but I’d had to make necessary plot adjustments along the way—replacing his rambling picaresque and often contradictory tapestries with the market-driven, primary-key plausibilities of real life. In particular, I did my best to remove any references to his absenting himself and instead had him quietly promoted in the final pages of the course book where, in his new innocuous guise, he would then be at liberty to remain. But, for one reason or another, I’d never actually got round to adjusting this section and in the end I’d simply forgotten all about it. Now go back to section on “Could have done/was going to do.”