by R.P. Burnham
The Guy in 3-C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables
by
R.P. Burnham
******
PUBLISHED BY:
The Guy in 3-C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables
this edition copyright 2014 by R.P. Burnham
originally published as a chapbook in 2000
Acknowledgements
“The Guy in 3-C” first appeared in Satire, “A Breach of Decorum” in Infinity Limited, “Harold and Elroy” in Wyoming, the Hub of the Wheel, “The Mystery of Democracy Inn” in Satire, and “Litbiz Magazine Interview with William Shakespeare and Fyoder Dostoyevsky” first appeared in The Long Story, and has subsequently been reprinted in Northeast and The Least Shadow of Public Thought.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Mystery of Democracy Inn
The Guy in 3-C
Harold and Elroy
One Day Griswold
A Breach of decorum
The Reminder
Two Bird Fables
Dick and Jane Remember the Simple Sentences
Litbiz Magazine Interview
a note about the writer
###
The Mystery of Democracy Inn
or
Jonesie, The Modern Prometheus
Miss Isabella Flutterhart, her bosom heaving in agitation, tried one final time to start the car. The engine grinded and sputtered but would not catch. “Alas!” cried Isabella. “Alas!” For she was alone and frightened on a desolate stretch of the Maine coast far, far away from civilization. Around her the lightning bolts burst to the ground with the savagery of a dagger plunged into the breast, the thunder and wind roared louder than the moans of the damned, and the chill rain fell in sheets of solid water like blood pouring from a severed artery. No wonder she was scared.
A bolt of lightning cracked across the sky and revealed a large gothic structure at the end of the peninsula half a mile ahead. There was only one thing to do — she must flee for refuge to that large mansion and hope they could accommodate her. She grabbed her overnight bag and fastened her meager summer coat as tightly as possible and fled through the rain, getting frightfully wet before reaching the building which bore in front a weatherbeaten sign that read: DEMOCRACY INN. Inside the lobby illuminated with candles because of the power outage, Isabella, shivering and drenched to the skin, paused a moment to catch her breath before noticing a corpulent gray haired lady with a gray complexion and wearing a gray dress regarding her sternly from behind the counter.
“What do you want?”
Isabella, remembering her breeding, chose to ignore the patent incivility of the remark. “Pray, whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
The woman frowned darkly but answered, “I am Madame Veneer, proprietess of Democracy Inn. Who are you ?”
“My name is Miss Isabella Flutterhart. I’m a governess. I was on my way to assuming a new station at a gentleman’s house when first I got lost in the fog and then this dreadful storm came up and put my car out of commission.”
Madame Veneer frowned and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Well?” she demanded harshly and with another frown. “Well?”
“Well, I was hoping there might be accommodations for me tonight.”
“Madame Veneer looked behind her to where two score sets of keys hung idly waiting for use, then back to Isabella.
“I can pay, of course,” explained Isabella. She reached for her purse.
Madame Veneer waved her hand disdainfully. “Time enough for that later,” she said. “Wait here. I shall find the hired man to bring your bag upstairs.”
As she was speaking to Madame Veneer Isabella couldn’t help but notice a tall, dark and handsome stranger regarding her with a stern countenance from the other end of the lobby. Now alone, Isabella took occasion to steal glances now and then toward the gentleman, noting his black hair and flashing, fierce black eyes that somehow radiated an aura of melancholy and mystery. “Oh, my” murmured Isabella to herself. “Oh, my.” She was certain something evil lurked in this inn. She could feel in the heavy, damp atmosphere of the ancient edifice the repressed panting of strong desires and unbridled passion, and somehow associating them with the flashing black eyes of the stranger, it made her feel warm in a secret place not fit to be mentioned in polite society.
“Oh, my,” murmured Isabella again as the gentleman, after casting a melancholy look in her direction, turned upstairs, favoring ever-so-slightly his left leg. At long last Madame Veneer returned wearing an even deeper scowl than when she left, possibly because she had been unable to find the hired man. “Follow me,” she said archly, peering at Isabella from above her gray spectacles and disdainfully picking up Isabella’s bag with an aura that communicated just how unworthy of her station such an action was. Her other hand held the candle.
Halfway up the stairs the tall, dark stranger passed them on his way back down. When their eyes met, the stranger nodded curtly to Madame Veneer and gave an almost imperceptible bow to Isabella. Seeing Madame Veneer’s eyes narrow, Isabella was sure there was some secret between them. “Pray, Madame Veneer, who is that gentleman?”
Gaining the landing, Madame Veneer turned and proceeded down the hall. Only at the door of Room 8 did she turn and regard Isabella archly. “Mr. Heathmarsh is staying at the inn. Beyond that I am not at liberty to divulge the private affairs of our guests. Here is your room.” She opened the door to a small comfortably furnished room containing a brass bed covered with a pink bedspread, a desk and chair, a dresser with a mirror, a large closet, and best of all for Isabella’s present condition, a bathtub and sink in the corner. Seeing it, Isabella said, “I am most particularly anxious to remove my wet things and take a hot bath. I do hope the storm has not affected the water as well.”
Madame Veneer frowned and shook her head, a gesture Isabella took to mean that hot water was available. “And I do hope a tray can be sent up.”
Madame Veneer dropped the overnight bag on the bed in the same disdainful manner she had picked it up. Taking her candle, she lit several more in the room. “I will send the maid up,” she said. “Miss Flutterhart, I feel it my duty to warn you that you must stay in your room. If you hear noises in the night, pay them no heed. Stay in your room. Is that understood?”
Isabella nodded, not at all pleased with her hostess’s imperious manner. “I understand,” she said, and looked toward the door with a dismissive nod.
As soon as she was alone Isabella drew the bath water and removed her wet clothes. The hot water restored her spirits, more dampened by Madame Veneer than the rain, and soon she was humming happily to herself. By the time she stepped out of the tub she was singing aloud, a fatal mistake for one of her maidenly virtue, for before she even had a chance to reach for a towel she was mortified to see before her a large man with a blondish crewcut whose coarse eyes were staring at her nakedness.
“Eek!” cried Isabella, covering her rubies with one hand and her golden triangle with the other. “What is the meaning of this outrage?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I knocked and thought your singing was an invitation to enter. I brought the tray.”
With his coarse eyes still roving over her loveliness, Isabella thought it high time to educate the common people in basic civility. “A gentleman would turn his head,” she said sharply. “Have the goodness to leave me in privacy.”
With an embarrassed grin, the man hung his head and left, after which Isabella dressed and ate her sandwich and tea and then retired, all the time thinking in shocked outrage of what the coarseness of the hired man’s eyes communicated
until she grew quite warm in that secret place.
At about two o’clock Isabella was awakened by a loud noise. For a moment she lay confused while gradually recovering her self-awareness. She had been dreaming that the mysterious stranger had come up to her bed, ripped open her bodice and was drinking in the loveliness of her twin beauties whilst Isabella, heaving in agitation, was murmuring, “Please, Mr. Heathmarsh, have some decency.” And while that dream was certainly distressing, particularly to a person of such maidenly virtue as Isabella, she knew instictively that was not the cause of her sudden awakening. She listened intently, holding her breath, and before long heard the sounds of muffled voices and the sharp retort of something banging against something else. Remembering Madame Veneer’s injunction, Isabella was momentarily hesitant, but it occurred to her that this remote peninsula would be a perfect place for enemies of the republic to land spies from submarines. At the same time she remembered the look Madame Veneer and Mr. Heathmarsh had exchanged on the stairs. Very likely he was right now in the act of some monstrous betrayal of his country and only she could save him from himself. Of course she realized that without a robe to cover her flimsy bodice she was in some danger of being ravished if she came upon that brooding, melancholy man, but weighing that possibility, she decided her patriotic duty compelled her to take the personal risk, and bravely she set forth down the stairs. Seeing a light in the kitchen, she tiptoed toward it very, very slowly so as not to give herself away. At the corner she slowly, very slowly, peeped her head around to behold ... what? Did her eyes deceive her? Did she see what she saw? “Oh, my,” she murmured, feeling herself tremble. Then all her bravery deserted her and with a cry of fear she beat a hasty retreat to her chamber, dived into the bed, and covered her head with the blankets.
After her fright Isabella was late arising in the morning. Downstairs no one was present except Maidsie the maid, who while getting her tea and roll informed her that though the storm had passed the road was still washed out so that she was trapped at the inn. Isabella asked if a man might take a look at her car and was directed to Jonesie in the workshop. There she found herself, much to her mortification, in the presence of the man who had stared at her nakedness the night before. When she came in he was tending to a wounded sandpiper. “Morning ma’am,” he said, touching his cap. “You see this poor wee thing was injured in the storm.” As he spoke Isabella was conscious of his coarse eyes roving over her twin lovelies, but she always had a soft heart for people who loved and helped weaker creatures, so she could not help exclaiming, “Why, what a good and gentle common man you are, Jonesie. I wonder if you could take pity on another victim of the storm and fix my car.” Here she batted her big blue eyes at him, which made Jonesie only too happy to comply. With tool box in hand he sauntered down the road whistling and soon returned saying the problem was merely water in the distributor. Within an hour her car was fixed and parked in front of the sign for Democracy Inn. Isabella offered to reimburse him for his trouble, but he touched his cap awkwardly and said, “My pleasure, ma’am.”
“Why,” said Isabella, blushing at the thought that he was once again eying her twin lovelies bursting forth from her low cut gown, “I must exclaim, what a good and charitable man you are!”
After that Isabella whiled away the rest of the morning reading a romance she had brought with her. At twelve she went down to the restaurant hoping to find another guest with whom she could share her dark forebodings about the inn. As it happened, a middle-aged couple, he dressed in tweeds and a bow tie and wearing thick glasses, she elegant in a gown even lower cut than Isabella’s, saw her glancing indecisively from them to the mysterious stranger and invited her to join them. They introduced themselves as Professor and Mrs. Tenuretrack.
“What brings you to the seacoast?” Isabella asked, glancing at the mysterious Mr. Heathmarsh and trying not to be disappointed.
“Research,” answered the professor crytically. “I investigate surreal phenomena as part of my scholarly research.”
“Oh, my,” Isabella said, much relieved. “Then perhaps I should tell you what I saw last night. I hardly know whom to trust, but if you say you investigate strange phenomena, then perhaps you’ll understand. I think,” added Isabella in hushed tones, “that some foul fiend stalks this inn and that we are all in mortal danger.”
It is impossible to describe the effect this statement had on the professor. He appeared startled, intrigued, ecstatically happy, and dubious all at once. Regaining his composure after a sip of tea and a glance down his wife’s dress, he said, “Miss Flutterhart, kindly explain what you mean.”
“I mean, professor, that I saw something here last night, something ... something ... not human and yet ... and yet ...”
The professor eyed her steadily in his most professorial manner. “Did it have” ... he paused dramatically ... “five lines and an oval?”
Isabella let out a shriek. “Why, professor, how on earth did you know?”
In the corner the dark stranger looked up from his three day old newspaper, while the professor beamed confidently. “I suspect, Miss Flutterhart, you have indeed seen the creature.”
“Pray explain,” Isabella said breathlessly.
The professor favored Isabella with a wan smile. “The creature that holds enthralled an entire nation, and who goes by the name of Jonesie.”
“Jonesie!” exclaimed Isabella.
“Jonesie,” nodded the professor.
“But surely ... I’ve met Jonesie. He’s a very kind man, though coarse,” she added, remembering his roving eyes. “He not only fixed my car for me today. He takes care of sick animals. Jonesie? No,” Isabella concluded, lowering her voice and glancing toward the mysterious stranger. “Mr. Heathmarsh seems more likely. But, pray tell, professor,” said the virtuous Isabella, her voice rising and growing excited and despite herself feeling warm in that unmentionable area, “what does Jonesie do, ravish fair maidens?”
The professor leaned forward conspiritorially. “Miss Flutterhart, I must trust you to keep the information I am about to impart in the strictest confidence. An undue word, a casually dropped phrase, could ruin my research just as it verges on triumph. May I trust you to be discreet?”
“You have my word of honor as a gentlewoman,” Isabella replied.
“Very well, then. Let me share with you the fruits of my research thus far. To begin with, Jonesie is a stick figure kind of guy — no personality, no face worth remembering, no recognizably unique beliefs. His body, legs and arms are mere thin lines and his face a blank oval. Some believe a child invented him while doodling in front of the tv on Saturday morning. Others conjecture he came from the mind of an adult with no imagination who didn’t see anything in the world but a few worn clichés and warmed over slogans. Some maintain Jonesie is mass man in all his purity. It is known that he does what he’s told to do and keeps his nose clean. He likes sports and situation comedies on tv—especially violent sports and comedies where there is a lot of, er — shall we say a lot of prodigious and pulchritudinous female adipose proto-plasm —”
“—He means these,” Mrs. Tenuretrack interrupted, putting her hands a foot in front of her chest and gesturing like the pope while Isabella modestly blushed.
“Though he learned to read in school,” continued the professor, with an appreciative glance down his wife’s dress, “it is also known that he never reads a book, magazine or serious newspaper. If it weren’t for traffic signs and tv titles he’d have long ago forgotten how to read. Now my research has verified this point abundantly: since he doesn’t read, he doesn’t think. As a result he is a perfect candidate for the boys who run the government and the boys on Madison Avenue so that every latest fad is tried out on him, every shift of opinion registered in his mind. It’s a matter of public record, in fact, that Jonesie always numbers himself in the majority in every public opinion poll ever taken except once when he was asked a hard question requiring thought and he found himself among the 22% who wen
t for “not sure” on the poll. However, even in this case two weeks later opinion shifted and “not sure” swung into the majority position again. So in effect his record is perfect.
“A lot of people are under the impression Jonesie doesn’t exist. They say they’ve never met him and therefore he cannot possibly be real. Their argument is compelling. I’d be the first one to admit he is nearly impossible to examine closely and that even when seen there’s not much you can conclude from five lines and an oval. But I have devised a scientific experiment rather like Einstein’s thought experiments (it’s my gift to the methodology of the social sciences,” he proudly added parenthetically) “to prove Jonesie exists. We all know that no one has ever seen electricity, but we can all see it indirectly through its effects. Proving Jonesie’s existence must be done similarly. Just as with electricity we must pay attention to the effects which are easily seen — just turn on the tv or ring a doorbell or depress a toaster and you see them. So it is with Jonesie. We know he exists because we can see his effects in the calibre of men and women who lead this country. Such sorry, miserable scraps of humanity, we have to remind ourselves, were elected into office, and it would clearly be impossible to elect such mediocrities unless Jonesie controlled the ballot box. Similarly we know Jonesie exists from the fare served up on network television. No human being could possibly be watching that stuff. Not if we accept the definition of human being as he or she who looks before and after, as having such large discourse. Not if we exclaim with Hamlet, ‘What a piece of work is a man!’ So you see, Jonesie exists. American culture proves he exists. He’s real, not an abstraction. The problem has always been this: how can a normal human being with all the attributes of his species, who suffers pain and responds to the pain of others, who loves his children and fears death, how ...?”
“Yes, professor, how does this foul fiend manifest itself?”
“That is exactly the reason I am here, my dear Miss Flutterhart. As you know, the full moon brings forth the werewolf and in the night stalks the dreaded vampire. Some such mechanism, I am sure, brings forth Jonesie. Tonight I plan the experiment of a lifetime. Your help will insure my success. I will have proof of the creature’s metamor-phosis—”
Suddenly a loud, blood-curdling scream erupted from the kitchen, and Smithie, the cook, ran by with his eyes wide with horror. “My God!” exclaimed Isabella. “The creature has struck!”
Amidst the general flurry of excitement, with the four guests all standing and eying one another, Madame Veneer appeared to calm everyone. “A slight misunderstanding,” she frowned. “Please be seated.”
The professor, with a shrug and a look toward his wife that communicated he was interested in pursuing some private research in their room, quickly whispered to Isabella his plan and they retired. Since the plan required Jonesie’s presence in Isabella’s room, as soon as she had finished her lunch she went in search of him. “Jonesie, my good man,” said our golden haired heroine, “I wonder if you would be so kind as to come to my room tonight promptly at eight. Could you do that?” She batted her big blue eyes at him, and as expected Jonesie indicated that he would be only too happy to oblige.
As soon as it was dark the professor and his wife entered Isabella’s room and set up their equipment. Before hiding in the closet the professor reminded Isabella that she would be perfectly safe as long as she followed his plan. At eight Jonesie arrived, wearing a grin and carrying a six pack of beer.
Isabella’s instructions were to first get Jonesie off guard by polite chitchat, a skill which a young lady of her accomplishments was most adept at. “How is that poor sandpiper, Jonesie?” she began.
“Fine, ma’am. He’s got a broken wing but I’ve splintered it.”
“And do you expect the good weather to hold?”
“Reckon so, ma’am.”
“And, pray tell me, Jonesie, just how do you spend your leisure time?”
Jonesie sat down and cracked a cool one. He offered a can to his lady but she politely declined. “Well, ma’am. I like to drink beer. That’s fun. And sports and comedies on tv are fun to watch.” (Isabella heard the professor’s “hmmm” in the closet.) “But today I was doing something special. I was practicing for the county fair games.”
“How delightful. And what sporting events have you entered?” blushed Isabella, conscious that now and again Jonesie’s coarse eyes were boldly roving over her twin lovelies.
“The spitting contest and hog chasing. The spitting contest is my best event, though. I always expect to rate quite highly in the spitting contest.”
“Tell me, Jonesie, were you up late last night?”
“Last night? Lemme see.” He chewed his tongue and gave the question a hard think before brightening. “Yeah, me and Smithie were playing cards in the kitchen.”
“And did you,” asked Isabella, feeling her heart palpitate as she moved into the critical part of the experiment, “talk about anything out of the ordinary?”
Jonesie tugged at his collar and looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Ayuh. Smithie talked about Japan where he was stationed in the army.”
“Did he tell you about the strange life he saw there?”
To Isabella’s horror Jonesie’s eyes went blank as ovals as he began to speak. Her courage almost failing her, she struggled to get out the professor’s next question. “What do you think of the poor people starving in Africa, Jonesie?”
“People ... starving ... in ... Africa?” Jonesie repeated. Now his nose and mouth were fading.
“Throw weight!” Isabella shouted, moving into the third phase of the experiment. “Balance of power! Gross national product of Thailand! Deficit spending to stimulate the economy!” She couldn’t go on, the horror was too great. Before her a man was crumbling away and a thing was emerging. Putting her hands to her cheeks, she screamed. The professor, however, was more firm in his resolve. He leaped from the closet yelling philosophical verities with the rapidity of slugs jetting forth from an Uzi. “Existence precedes essence! Act only according to a maxim by which you can at the same time will that it shall become a universal law! The transcendent can only be manifest in the immanent! Esse est percipi!”
Before them, perfectly formed and unmistakable, were five lines and an oval. With a cry of triumph and a blinding series of flashes, the professor shot off a roll of film. When it was over Jonesie was standing in the middle of the room in his normal body looking dazed and perplexed. “Sure was bright,” he said dully. “I can see stars.” He reached out and tried to touch them.
“The mystery is solved!” cried the professor’s wife, coming from the closet and straightening the décolletage of her dress, which for some reason was mightily disarrayed. Turning to her husband she gushed forth with this apostrophe: “You have prevailed. Jonesie is your normal, decent, honest guy until faced with things that cannot be seen. The moment he is confronted with problems over the horizon or abstractions, he turns into the foul fiend. You, hero of democracy, have been proved right!”
“Yes, my love,” crowed the professor. “My work is vindicated! My future secure! Let them laugh at me now!”
“But, professor,” Isabella said, tugging at his arm and trying to bring him back to the business at hand. “The creature. How shall we destroy the creature? Silver bullets and stakes through the heart seem too difficult with a stick figure, to say nothing of the cruelty of it. What shall we do?”
“Posh!” cried that learned man, already assuming the arrogance and self-importance of a full professor at a prestigious university, “we educate the bugger.”
Just then another blood-curdling scream pierced the air and shattered windows on three floors. Maidsie, however, quickly rushed up to explain the phenomenon. It seemed Mr. Heathmarsh, who was in fact a traveling salesman selling a line of paper napkins for the cocktail lounges of his circuit and who had been in a funk at the prospect of losing sales due to the storm, had refused Madame Veneer’s advances and had been crowned over the head with a
frying pan for his trouble. Earlier today Smithie had been the victim of the same hostile coronation when he told Madame Veneer that she was so fat and there was so much woman there that if he married her he’d instantly be liable to be brought up on charges of bigamy.
With that other and secondary mystery solved, the professor turned to Isabella to offer her grant money to undertake Jonesie’s and democracy’s redemption. Isabella looked over at Jonesie sitting dazed and cracking a brewski. Just at that moment the stars cleared from his eyes so that he was able to catch sight of her twin lovelies bursting forth from her low cut gown. Naturally he grinned coarsely. “Yes, professor, I will undertake the charge,” cried Isabella, resolving to work extra hard at educating Jonesie. A great deal, she knew, depended on her success, most particularly whether the sequel to “Jonesie, the Modern Prometheus” would be “Bride of Jonesie” or “The Return of Jonesie,” and that unmentionable warm spot was pretty clearly telling her which sequel it preferred.
The Guy in 3-C