THE

MEDIOCRE
BRITON
T PATRICK MURRAY

 THE MEDIOCRE BRITON

BY

T PATRICK MURRAY

© T Patrick Murray 2023

The author wants to thank everyone who read this as it was written,
which is…. oh, no one…
“The British are not the superior subspecies of the Caucasian race, but
rather the superior genetic sector of the entire human species in general
obviously’’

LORD WILLIAM RICHARD WINDSOR

 PROLOGUE
There is no prologue because the notion that these people
have a personal history that’s worth reading about makes me
about as sick thinking about writing it as you feel reading it.

So go make some Earl Grey, start a re, put on a vinyl record

and grab your favourite blanket, and read the story of an
eclectic elite wealthy family who could have never been born
and as such would have absolutely no negative impact upon the
world in any manner.

In fact, it would have been a better world I think… but

there’s a bitch and a bastard born every minute in the United
Kingdom, and admittedly, those “never do wells” are slightly…
entertaining.

You be the judge…

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 CHAPTER I

I have always fancied myself more American than the titled

English nobility I am, a dreadful opening gambit sure to
engender a dozen future awkward embarrassments, as more of
my mates from Oxford and Cambridge and the boys from
Henley hear about my preference for co ee over Earl Grey tea
as a daily beverage, for example, even though, as with all
secrets, it is a sublimated, self-loathing, passive-aggressive
projection of the inferiority we, as English men, feel toward the
prototypical American male, known as Jonathon Doe I believe,
or rather, Joseph Sixpack—a gross stereotype learned in the
third grade and, like most childhood trauma, persisting until
the post-pubescent pretense we all accept as objective fact—
true, we lost a war to them two hundred-plus years ago (the one
time in history the French actually put up a ght), and made
amends eventually, their victory despite; and soon those men
became our friends yet we spoke like gossiping ladies-who-
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lunch behind their backs, dismissing them as uncouth and
uncultured, with fashions that tended to clash.

Human beings may have originated in Africa, but they rst

became civilized in Britain, and all other forms and nationalities
are simply, we must admit< inferior species.

Yet these two great empires have been borrowing and stealing
one another’s ideas— culturally, psychologically—for centuries.
Our love-hate relationship has enjoyed a long tradition,
stretching back to—if not George III (that was pure hate)—
then at least to George the Something.

Economic savvy was unavoidable for me.

My great-grandfather was the legendary Lord Rothschild’s

personal small change carrier, eventually working his way up to
Chief Cashier Furthest From The Door.

My grandfather< well, conspicuous achievement frequently

skips a generation. My father was the late Gerald Walthorpe-
Huntington, a nancial genius of a kind, who almost single-
handedly—to talk to him— saved the world from an even
deeper calamity than the one now charitably referred to as the
Great Depression.
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 He accomplished this despite being stigmatized by a jail term
served for manslaughter, the result of a stereotypical Black
Tuesday suicide attempt gone horribly wrong when he landed
on a passing minor royal.

His original gift is in my genes, but enhanced by my superior

knowledge of pitfall-avoidance. I learned as much by his
negative example as his positive one, and certainly more than
by his hands-on attention.

But excuse the whining digression…

To the best of memory, I rst exhibited a penchant for nancial

wizardry at age four, detecting a distinct aroma in small change,
right through my father’s pockets.

By six, I could classify the scents by denomination.

Soon I turned this gift for pro t. None of my classmates

believed my boasts, lining up a half-dozen or so at a time, only
one of them holding the currency.

If I could ‚guess‛ who had the money, how much, and what
speci c coins, I would take it all home.
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Competitive schoolboys being what they are, the dares
escalated (I had to miss sooner or later, they naively thought),
the number of children increasing by the week, until I had a
lucrative junior enterprise aloft.

Eventually the boys all became too discouraged to participate,

but not without unknowingly funding my rst two months’
tuition.

When I told my parents what I had done, expecting

congratulations while gleefully displaying the monetary
evidence, Mother put up a convincing front of being appalled,
but Father could not disguise his mixture of emotions.

Outwardly as angry as she, he was nonetheless impressed by

such a weasely son, yet threatened by a cleverness he lacked,
providing him with another unneeded reason to prefer my older
brother Jonathan as the true heir to his name and reputation—
somewhat left-handed attery, as it would turn out.

Mr. and Mrs. Walthorpe- Huntington, incidentally, allowed

their boy to keep his winnings, but refused his request to
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 transfer to another school to continue the harmless predatory
fun with a fresh ock of pigeons.

As biological coincidences go, my sister Albertine has not been

so bad.

The two of us have always had similar humors and shared that
bitterness which can only emerge from the wisest family
members.

In some ways, she had it harder than I.

First, she and her sisters were dismissed as extraneous or

super uous beings within the accepted nancial mindset.

The elder two, Regan and Goneril, were academic over-

achievers from much the same mold as our brother.

After Jonathan, Father kept fertilizing Mother once a year,

hoping for a back-up son just in case, but Mum kept giving him
‚worthless‛ daughters—I am surprised in retrospect he did not
try to have her beheaded—until she nally threatened Dad with
castration, but unfortunately, failed to follow through.
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 Regan is a devout feminist and terminal virgin who made a
fortune in her own right as a real estate developer, then did a
complete turnaround after the staggering success of her rst
book Estrogen on Ice.

She now has a long-term contract with the BBC as host of the
Ball Busters Hour‛ radio program.

With its emphasis on women’s empowerment issues and

revenge fantasies, the show continues to accumulate huge
ratings after nearly two decades on the air despite being loudly
condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, banned in
Scotland, boycotted by the Girl Scouts, and linked to a number
of ‚drive time‛ road rage incidents.

She sneered, along with our parents, at the achievements of

Goneril, which consisted primarily of producing children with
the e ciency of a well-maintained Xerox machine, twelve and
counting, right up until her hysterectomy (‚a waste of her
brain,‛

Dad called her hobby, since none of the descendants would

carry his name—though he did search for a Walthorpe-
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Huntington not related, and at one point even considered
marrying Goneril o to a rst cousin).

I say ‚and counting‛ because she continues to hold out hope for
a miracle in the form of the Sarah Project, a scienti c research
study conducted by several personal friends who happen to be
Nobel laureates, seeking an extension of the reproductive years
even following the removal of hitherto essential organs, and
dubbed in honor of the Biblical hag who started giving birth
long after the appearance of her rst unwanted facial hair.

Goneril’s husband, incidentally, the father of this litter, is a

long-respected Conservative member of Parliament and
compulsive self-promoter whose name escapes me (not really,
but I know how that will bother him).

Mother had a rough time of it with the last two, particularly

Albertine who was a premature breech Caesarian with
unusually sharp toenails.

“Get one of those whores you’re always shagging to have the

next one!‛ Mum was overheard screaming from the maternity
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ward before the anaesthetic kicked in, an incident eventually
mutating into hospital legend.

There was another girl, Jessica, who died at six of meningitis

(Dad had to be reminded ‚which one that was‛) and to whom
Albertine often referred as ‚the lucky one.‛

I came along quite unexpectedly ve years after Albertine and

the sight of my penis was probably my last substantive social
contribution ever to inspire pride in my father (indeed, it has
never been so happily greeted since).

Although an afterthought in terms of family planning, I was a

most welcome male cushion at the outset for the sanctity of the
Walthorpe-Huntington name< and was subsequently used
much like a cushion.

Albertine was further marginalized within our clan by

becoming a divorcee at only 22. Her husband was Rodney
Sweetbreath, a restaurateur eleven years her senior, a man of
excessive charm and a habit of womanizing (some of us really
do marry our parents).
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My sister was too proud to tolerate his in delities, but the two
remained on ‚good terms‛ after producing a son—Rodney Jr.,
naturally.

Mum was hysterical. ‚Why the hell don’t you just put up with it
if you like him so much, you stupid girl!‛

‚Because I’m not you,‛ my spying ear heard Albertine reply with
the crackerjack timing of a vaudevillian. I was never so proud of
someone blood-related. Mother’s face fell. (I did not see this,
but I felt it along with the oorboards.)

We were sometimes called the British Kennedys—at least by

Mum—rather a switch on the old reference to the Kennedys
themselves as ‚American royalty.‛

We were that important< in our minds. Certainly my father’s

marital vows were taken as seriously as those of any average
Kennedy.

Like many of that Hyannisport crowd, we pretended to be

Catholic when the cameras were rolling, but none of us knew
an extreme unction from an ecumenical council. Sunday
morning religion at the Walthorpe-Huntington estate was
expressed by facing either the latest nancial news or the
esteemed porcelain throne, both from a kneeling position.
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When we did attend church as a family, we sometimes made
unintentional scenes by being completely addled as to the
correct moments to sit, stand, kneel, and genu ect.

One time, Father even left in frustration, muttering, ‘I bloody

give up.‛

Our later absence from services would be interpreted by some

as abandonment of Catholicism when in fact, we had been
discreetly asked as a group not to return.

Furthermore, how can one abandon that of which he has never

been part? Being publicly perceived as Catholic, however
erroneously, was preferable to disclosure of the borderline
heathenism which de ned our combined lives.

Albertine was braver than I in those days after her divorce.

Barred from taking the sacraments, she was philosophical: I

won’t have to swallow that wet cardboard anymore.‛

Ironically, she was closer to being a true Christian, if that is

what I mean to suggest, than any of us. I was o ended on her
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behalf and stopped attending Mass as soon as I turned
eighteen.

Our parents were o cially scandalized, but privately continued

to sleep through the weekly sermons, often from the comfort of
their queen size mattress< or at least one of them did.

Father apparently had some aversion to it, often nding more

agreeable accommodations elsewhere. (Mum actually thought
the house was too big for me to notice.)

His matrimonial derelictions aside, I was not so naïve as to be

unappreciative of my father’s vision and hard work.

I owed him much. He had survived against seemingly

insurmountable odds in one of the world’s darkest times.

Not only that, he had played a precise, well- documented role in

its recovery.

He was, in simple terms, the singular determinant in producing

either the con dence or the laughable presumption (time will
decide) which would ultimately lead me to assume the reins of
my heroic destiny.
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Good show, Dad… but I promise to surpass you.

Six of the Seven Deadly Sins can be explained, if not justi ed,
as either perfectly natural physical excesses (lust, gluttony,
sloth) or visceral responses to inevitable human interactions
(anger, pride, envy).

Avarice stands alone in its implications.

Since money itself was an invention, so was the love of it.

Regardless of what that ethical dwarf Gordon Gecko said,
greed was (originally) the most avoidable of all our vices.

I truly believe in what is left of my soul that economics is a

pseudo-science at best, a mysterious world inhabited by
theories in neckties and governed by rumor, superstition,
hysteria, and other forms of arti cial stimuli, the minutiae of
which have eluded the comprehension even the most gifted
modern luminaries.

Geniuses such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard

Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, and John Cougar Mellencamp
all failed to con rm a universal cultural theory, or Uni ed Polo
Field Theory.
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 It is as purely an impure invention as has ever been devised to
simulate necessity within the e ciency of governance, simply
on the basis of its baseness, the point being that those who
devote their lives to this elusive eld of study may be as in the
dark about its ‚scienti c‛ rules as a given layperson.

That is its badly concealed dirty little secret.

I was just arrogant enough to believe that I could x the

American economy and, by extension, all economies and
prevent the Chinese from ruling the global roost.

The rst step was a kind of benevolent in ltration. My plan was

to take up residence within an area of the U.S. known for its
insulated, high-end, retro-consciousness.

How I longed for the company of a people who lived as if

Ronald Reagan** were still in o ce (during the rst term,
before the symptoms of Alzheimer’s—or was it just a reaction
to his medications?—had become so embarrassingly agrant).
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I recalled reading about a place called the Philadelphia
MainLine in Forbes< or maybe People? No matter. My name
was writ upon’t.

**[Reagan< How to explain the man? It has never been

adequate simply to interpret him as a grandfather gure to a
comparatively young electorate, his compassion limited to
nightly weeping over the corporate tax.

And that so-called charisma of his< well, I’ve seen less

transparency in a Windex advert.

Granted, I have a distinct disadvantage as an unrepentant lm

fanatic. I have always found it impossible to accept as
‚Presidential‛ the former star of Hellions of the Sea and Banzai
Attends University, as I believe they were retitled for their U.K.
releases.

Yet everywhere he and that oblivious grin went, they fooled the
masses.

Even our own Iron Lady Maggie Thatcher, in a rare moment of

eight-year-long weakness, fell victim to his bad acting.
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He was hardly the rst ‚ray gun‛ to cast a laser-like spell, but
was certainly the only one to do it so successfully while relying
on such meager ammunition.

And so I would institute the overhaul and, in e ect, rescue the

planet< rescue it from itself, from its delusions of wealth, from
its lost priorities, from o cial contracts printed in Cantonese
or drivers’ licenses in Mandarin.

And to do all this in what is known in the vernacular as ‚Phillie,‛

the Cradle of Liberty, the City of Brotherly Bullshit. Oh, the
justice of it, the irony!

The rapturous, temporal symmetry!

The sheer transcendent, grandiose overstatement! I harden at

the memory…

Recognizing my unique responsibility, I declared myself

indispensable.

Like John Winthrop of long ago, I would depart for the

colonies to establish< not a place, but a state of mind for all to
witness and absorb.
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 And I had the resources to inform Oprah Winfrey, Matt
Drudge, Arianna Hu ngton, and any number of other
in uential Americans to pave my way.

But who was I to anoint myself Financial Saviour of Humanity?

On the other hand, if such was to be my fate, who was I to deny

the world access to my gift?

How shameful of the universal donor to keep his healing

heredity coursing through his own bloodstream, never to be
transfused to a dying race.

My far-reaching plan included a comprehensive, downright

sneaky internal renovation of traditional theories centering on
the system of supply-and-demand, beginning in the workplace
itself.

I would never defend the exploitation of children, but there are

positive lessons to be learned from the most e ciently run
sweatshops of certain Asian and Third World cultures.
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 One Cambridge study of 32 factories within a nameless Paci c
protectorate revealed a marked increase in productivity relative
to metabolism, bone density, and other physiological factors in
underage workers.

Applying these ndings to mass production model, I proposed

a scienti c re-alignment of manufacturing techniques based on
employees’ non-height requirements.

Speci cally, no legal adult over 5’3‛ would even be considered

for a long-term position as an animal stu er.

To avoid accusations of discrimination, taller applicants were to

be placed in a completely bogus facility, brie y paid, and
periodically laid o on inspired but believable pretexts while
their smaller, speedier counterparts took up the slack.

Within a few months of implementation, output gures among

participating businesses were signi cantly augmented, but
intra- league company athletic contests played on regulation
courts became horrifying things to watch.

More than a few spectators commented that they had never

seen a basketball team get shut out before.
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 Perhaps inevitably, hiring schemes were eventually exposed,
regardless of the best e orts of my toadies to conceal them, and
the lawsuits mounted.

But I had not yet begun.

My private life has hardly been the most titillating among

public gures, but there are some highlights I am willing to
share.

I met Prunella at Ascot.

The rst thing I noticed about her was the cup of tea sitting
before her and into which she had just placed both lemon and
milk.

The speedy, inevitable curdle embarrassed her company, but—as

if a crucial laboratory experiment had failed—almost brought
tears to what I would later discover were her hazel eyes.

Since she was well past the age at which she should have known
better, I simply had to ask.
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‘Pardon me,‛ I interrupted the circular unease at table, but why
did you just do that?‛

“Really, sir,‛ immediately shot back the only gentleman among

the four, ‚does the young lady not feel poorly enough?‛

“There’s no need to,‛ I said without taking my eyes o Hazel< I

mean Prunella. She looked up, almost smiling.

I was simply fascinated by the… choice.‛

And do people’s glaring faux pas always fascinate you so?‛

inquired an older woman, presumably the girl’s Grand Bitch of
a mother.

That depends upon the particular faux pas. Deplorable

manners, for example, always bore me.‛

‚Impertinence,‛ someone said, but never once did I remove my

eyes from the ones meeting my own and which were soon to be
revealed as hazel. Now they were de nitely smiling along with
the other features on this modestly lovely face.
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 ‚I wanted to know what it tasted like,‛ she nally said, rather
shocking her three companions. ‚That is the most excellent of
all possible answers,‛ I persisted.

The overdressed bovine was indeed her mother, the ‚gentleman‛

her son-in-law, and the comparatively silent but equally haughty
third party his wife Agnes, apparently Prunella’s wicked
stepsister, the type who thought it becoming to wear her nose
as a hat.

‚We take you to these elegant places and you never fail to
humiliate us,‛ the mother, one Lady Kloppington-Heft,
complained, ‚it’s pure sel shness.‛

She was gussied up like an extra from some fth-rate all-drag

production of My Fair Lady, which, I am sometimes wont to
suspect, is the whole idea behind Ascot. The other two were
equally self-parodying.

Only Prunella was tastefully coi ed and garbed in lavender, a

shade never before displayed so triumphantly.

The owing print out t complemented what I was about to

learn were the aforementioned hazel eyes.
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‚Why now? Why here?‛ I pursued, again ignoring the others.

‚Indeed,‛ agreed Lady K-H., probably surprised by the

sentiment which echoed her own. ‚I’ve been putting it o , I
admit,‛ said Prunella. ‚Impulse, I suppose.‛

‚I love impulse!‛ I felt myself blurting out. ‚It’s my favorite

spontaneous thing!‛

‚Really, sir,‛ repeated the brother-in-law whose name was Percy

Hanversloane. ‚Have you no sense of decorum?‛

Prunella took a mostly unobserved sip of her by then unsightly

tea, immediately followed by a look of mild disgust.

“How is it?‛ I asked.

“A bit cold.‛

“Pity. Allow me to get you another.‛

She jumped to her feet as if rescued, revealing a quite

voluptuous gure. ‚Yes!‛
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‚Prunella, sit down!‛ ordered La Grande Dame from Hell—that
was her o cial title in the Social Registry.

But we were o like a two-person bobsled. It was a mutual

impulse.

‚They’re hazel,‛ she told me when we were alone.

‚Who?‛ I asked, confused.

‚My eyes. I could see you were wondering about the color.‛

‚Yes, quite. They’re enthralling.‛

‚I was thinking of having them dyed. A lot of the girls are doing
it now.‛

‚Oh, no, you mustn’t.‛

‚I know. The expense. Lloyds won’t insure it, considers it

‘cosmetic.’ Imagine? But I can a ord it< ‛

‚No. Not the expense”

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‚Oh. You mean the pain. Temporary blindness plus a severe
burning sensation for a few days and some minor screaming. It’s
worth the trouble in the long run”

‚No, I< perfection should< ‘worth the trouble in the long run’?
What could you mean?‛

‚I mean< it’s such an unbecoming hue for the eyes, don’t you
think? Not exactly green or gray, not brown nor blue, yellowish-
brown like the inside of a loo, what was that you were going to
say about perfection?‛

She managed to utter all this in what seemed like one breath.
Her style was so contagious that I had lost my train of thought.

“Oh!‛ I suddenly remembered.

‚Perfection should not be tampered with< I was about to say.‛

“Perfection.‛ The hazel circles danced a bit as she drank in the

word.

“Should not, must not be tampered with,‛ I warned.

Her speaking style instantly slowed.

Well despite the preposition at the end, that is the most

extraordinary compliment I have ever been paid.

Self-serving hyperbole, but lovely to hear.‛

Prunella nished her second cup of curdled tea (I made certain

it was piping hot) with the massive gulp Mum and Sis, she
informed me, had always been too willing to point out as being
so improper.

‚Self-serving, perhaps,‛ I said, aware that my attentions were

crassly traditional, ‚but hardly hyperbolic.‛

Evidently una ected, she appeared to be about to rise.

“Well,‛ she said, ‚now that I have tasted tea with lemon and
milk, it is safe to say that I will never do that again, not even at
the point of a gun.‛
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Pretending not to notice her sudden movement and hoping to
compel her to stay longer, I introduced a new subject.

“Have you a horse in this race?‛ I asked with feigned interest.

‚Goodness, no!‛ she seemed almost o ended. ‚I’m impulsive,

not reckless. Betting is so foolish.‛

‚Oh, I agree, completely agree,‛ I said, deftly concealing my

ticket. I had wagered a modest twenty pounds on the
American-raised ‚nag‛ Nowhere Fast.

(Sir Noam Fetlock, the horsey’s original owner, had con dently
reasoned that the discouraging name would deter bettors on its
initial runs, thus upping the take before a winning reputation
had been built.)

Personally, I admired the pluck of such a name. ‚I’m here just to

enjoy the atmosphere,‛

I explained pitiably to Prunella, who made no attempt to

conceal a childlike sneer.
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And why do you come if not for the racing?‛ I appended.

‚For the tea, naturally.‛ She looked quite serious, then smiled
devilishly. I sti ed a chortle. I know not why.

‚< and to meet the right man.‛

My reaction must have bordered on stunned. ‚Oh, well< maybe

someday.‛

I felt my own non-hazel eyes widen.

For the rst time I thought this one was too smart for me<
even with the lemon and milk as refutable evidence.

[Incidentally, do I not have an uncanny knack for total recall?]

I should not have worried. Prunella quite surreptitiously

provided me with her home phone number written in runny
black ink on what appeared to be a tampon.

The feminine accoutrement itself was not so disconcerting as

the ink—could it have been from a fountain pen?
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She became more fascinating by the minute!

En route homeward I told myself aloud (to the dismay of my

driver) and against my better judgment (which I had habitually
ignored on principle at that stage of life), ‚I must have this
woman!‛ I did have her, eventually. But rst I courted her.

On our third rendezvous, she was adamant that I desist in

calling her ‚Prunie.‛ She suggested ‚Nellie,‛ although no one had
ever called her that before, but I refused.

It sounded too e eminate. We nally agreed on ‚Hazel‛ as a

compromise.

She liked to be constantly reminded of what I quickly

convinced her was her best feature.

Lady Kloppington-Heft was appalled at my attentiveness—and

told me so on what would be my last visit—even more so at the
new moniker her daughter now appeared to love.

The dowager from Hell—and that was the actual address on her
passport—threatened to disinherit Prunella.
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‚Do so!‛ was her reply, ‚but you will never disinherit Hazel!‛

Lady K-H. was visibly perplexed by this retort, and in truth, so

was I.

Hazel immediately turned to me and proposed. I accepted and,

after stepping over her mother on the way out, we eloped
before my head had time to reel.

Lady Kloppington-Heft made good on her melodramatic

promise, but we did not need her money.

Hazel had been subsisting for years on a generous, loophole-

free inheritance provided by her father and with my own
healthy fortune, we were set for life.

I was more concerned about the health of my bride.

It surprised me to learn that she was 34, making her six years
older than I< surprised, not because she looked younger, but
she certainly acted younger.
Indeed, it was one of her least resistible characteristics.

We are all paradoxical, but Hazel stretched the limits.

She frequently displayed a maturity rare in other adults (a whiz

at long division, e.g.), including her own family.

Yet, she had the limited understanding of a child< a child with

enormous knockers. Hence, making love to her had its
inherently perverse aspects.

Sometimes she would even ask me for large sums of money

afterward, not that there was a connection in her brain between
sex and material reward—it was the only time she remembered
to ask.

She told me that she needed it—in cash—to make an

investment, never mind exactly what sort, and that if I really
loved her I would admit it was none of my business.

I neglected even to question why she did not simply use her
own savings which were considerable.
I soon discovered that she was quite fond of money. Not to
spend it or waste it or aunt it, but simply to look at it.

No, that’s a lie.

Also to listen to its crinkly sound, to smell it, to feel it. Once I
found her luxuriating in our tub, teeming with not water nor
bubbles but genuine coin of the realm.

Where did she even nd so much hard currency? Part of me

was titillated amidst the understandable worry.

I stripped and crawled in with her so that I would not be able

to judge her.

And guess what? I got it. In fact I was worse than she.

That primeval aroma came rushing back. The unorthodox

bathing would soon become habitual ritual.

Then one evening something (initially) quite unsettling

occurred.
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 There was a vaguely familiar, yet highly unappetizing, smell
emanating from our kitchen, not in itself a rarity in an English
household, but upon further inspection, I was shocked at its
source.

On the right front burner of our top-of-the-line stove were the

strips of several one-pound notes sautéing with onions.

I noticed the table adorned with the same homey place settings
and utensils as usual, but with the addition of two small bowls
lled with freshly polished shillings.

Hazel’s hazel eyes looked distant yet focused as she stirred the
shreds of increasingly worthless paper into a pulpy something
she perceived as nourishment.

For a moment I thought of calling someone, but instead took

my regular seat and unfolded my napkin.

‚Smells good,‛ I said.

Smiling rather vacantly, she responded, ‚I thought I would try

something new.‛
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No wonder she sacked the cook yesterday, I thought privately.

She had reached the point of acceptance in her disease to

openly share its symptoms with me without having to verbally
acknowledge them.

In its way, this was the quintessential show of trust, and

thoroughly elevating to our relationship.

‚I hope it’s not too rich for you, my darling,‛ she seemed
oblivious to her own play on words. Our dinner conversation
was awkwardly subtextual.

‚You haven’t touched your shillings.‛

‚They just< look too good to eat.‛

‚I know what you mean.‛

It was almost like two children playing house with pretend

edibles. I reluctantly partook, despite the anticipation of future
digestive problems.

The meal was surprisingly delicious< I convinced myself. But

this was nally too much even for me. I was shocked back into
a semblance of reality.
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 I had not told her about the vasectomy. Even with all my
adoration for her, I could not bring a child into this
environment.

I at rst tried slipping The Pill into her ‚food,‛ but she
experienced such dramatic hallucinatory side e ects—at one
point swearing she had seen Louis Pasteur in the garage—that I
was forced to rethink the tactic.

And so< clip, clip. Brrrr. Love does indeed make one do strange
things, often without consideration for long term prudence.

And no, Prudence was not a tart I had on the side.

Hazel died within a year, of metallic poisoning and other

internal infections.

My guilt was overwhelming. I had been eating legitimate meals

on the sly while, unbeknownst to my beloved, minimizing, even
faking my ingestion of legal tender.
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She had begun cooking lira and rubles, calling it ‚exotic,‛
becoming progressively addicted.

I could do nothing to stop her.

Worse still, I was too ashamed to seek the medical and

psychiatric help she so obviously required. I was beneath
revulsion.

My own mirror would not return my gaze—so I demanded a

refund from the manufacturer.

Lady Kloppington-Heft, her daughter Agnes and Percy

Hanversloane all wept openly at the service, and were
unexpectedly kind to me, more than I deserved, in truth—
although both women did appear to be using the occasion to
make yet another dire fashion statement< two of them, in fact.

At the post-internment bash, the four of us even agreed to put

aside our di erences long enough to honor the memory of our
common loved one by serving pre-poured cups of tea with both
lemon and milk, and downing them with inappropriate vigor.
Lady K-H. was actually heard slurping.
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 To my great surprise, Hazel had left her entire estate to
Nowhere Fast, the American racehorse I had so unwisely bet
upon. She must have seen me secretly cheering him on after we
parted that day, reading my lips through binoculars.

Of course, the will was immediately determined to be the

ravings of a lunatic (the phrase ‚sound mind‛ actually drew
titters at its reading) and, needlessly to say, did not hold up in
the courts, to the probable disappointment of Nowhere Fast’s
most recent owner, Sheik Rat’l en-Rahoul of Qatar.

The Thatcher government took it all, ironically since the

apolitical Hazel had always voted Labour just to spite her
rabidly Tory parents.

One request I absolutely insisted upon honoring was Hazel’s

deathbed wish to be buried in a lavender casket (I spray-painted
it myself) next to her black cat Kareem.

Since Kareem was still alive, however, and staying with

guardians, I was compelled to abduct, then euthanize him, but
rst had to convince him he was sick.
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This was not easy since cats are suspicious by nature and
Kareem, in particular, was a Scorpio—we all know what they
are like.

After much scratching and caterwauling, the deed was done,

and both were ready for their last journey.

However, while representatives from the Kloppington-Hefts’

family church, Our Lady of Perpetual Bleeding (or the ‚bleeding
ladies‛ as they were derisively labeled in their neighborhood),
hesitated to consecrate the ground for the burial of a ‚predatory
feline‛—I nearly struck one of them when I interpreted this as
a reference to Hazel—a grieving Lady K-H., who desired a
prompt end to the wearying and tasteless delay, revealed her
trump card, i.e., her connections to the Vatican she was so
happily prepared to exploit.

Her compatriot in the Land of Couturial Excess The Pope

swiftly granted a rare dispensation (‚Anything for you,
Girlfriend!‛ he pronounced from the papal balcony in Latin),
and the deceased were nally laid to rest.

Both ‚Hazel‛ and ‚Prunella‛ appeared on the tombstone at my

behest (a stipulation sometimes inferred by casual visitors as
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representing Siamese twins). Kareem’s gravesite was unmarked
—a concession to the skirts at Perpetual Bleeding

I wondered over the ensuing weeks, through my grief, why

Hazel had not felt an obligation to place me in her will.

She apparently thought that the mention of Nowhere Fast was

tribute enough to my signi cance in her life.

It was not.

The money meant nothing, especially with so much of it

already at my disposal. It was the gesture I missed

How could she? Was she that far gone?

Then I remembered. She was swallowing coins, for Christsake,

without a magic act as an excuse.

Looking back, I tend to wonder how she might have prepared

Euros. It would have been a savory mélange, to be sure.
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 I do not recall whether it had ever occurred to me at the time
that vasectomies were irreversible.

We Walthorpe-Huntingtons had always been as obsessive as

Henry VIII about producing male heirs.

Adoption was never to be considered, removed as it was from

the purity of the bloodline.

If, however, I could convince the family that my sterility was

natural and not self-imposed, at least my sporadically
compassionate mother might have persuaded my eternally
dogmatic father to entertain the only viable alternative to
classic begetting.

I was close to thirty and they were already becoming impatient.

“When will that lazy appendage of yours do its duty?‛ my father

asked me one evening over brandy, not long after Hazel’s death.

“Gerald!‛ my mother chastened, “The boy must be married

rst.”
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I rather squirmed here at the recollection of a costly youthful
dalliance, as well as Mum’ condescending use of the word ‚boy.‛

‚I sometimes think I’d prefer a bastard over nothing at all< but

we’ve been down that road before,‛ he snorted.

‚Bite your tongue!‛ she was genuinely shocked.

I could not resist my next insolent comment: ‚Father, I have

long detected in you a preference for the company of bastards,
in a manner of speaking.‛

‚You ingrate!

‚Darling, your blood pressure,‛ my mother felt obliged to

intervene. ‚Benedict, apologize to your father at once.‛

‚No, don’t force him to,‛ he went on. ‚It’s not in his nature. This
is his character, my love.

He dares to sit there drinking my best cognac, smoking my

imported cigars, dressed in the clothing I taught him to
appreciate, the bene ciary of the nest schooling, owing me
everything<‛
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I believe I yawned at this point.

‚Look at him! I’ll throttle him!‛

I cannot even remember his rising from that lordly easy chair,
only the sensation of two previously strength-deprived hands
about my throat. I blacked out.

When I revived, Mother was on her knees—a sight shocking

enough on its own terms—cleaning up shards of broken glass
from the carpeting.

She had crowned my father with a cocktail mixer and was

disposing of the evidence as he lay beside her with a
surprisingly massive head wound.

‚This carpet will have to be replaced,‛ she said absently,

observing the blood, still actively trickling down—as Reagan
might have put it—from her husband’s skull, the very blood the
integrity of which had been the subject of our discourse, the
rising pressure of which his wife had just admonished him
against, the vitality of which was now steadily draining from
him, ruining the Oriental rug, his Armani suit< and so much
else.
 Somewhere that crushed pedestrian from 1929 would nally be
avenged.
< but not today!

Still woozy, and as if on auto-pilot, I pushed Mum out of the

way and shoved my father’s head into a bucket of ice from the
bar.

Not surprisingly, it was a perfect t. A combination of sharp

re exes, rudimentary rst-aid knowledge (or was it just a lucky
improvisation?), and natural coagulation spared his life

The wound was not so severe as it had appeared through my

recovering haze.

‚Don’t forget to tie a tourniquet around the asshole’s neck,‛ I

heard a jeering voice say. ‚And how dare you push me down.
Now there’s blood on my frock.‛ She had begun blotting it. ‚It’s
that Chanel knocko I got in Tijuana... not the only thing I
picked up there, but never mind.‛

By now I had returned from my own mini-death. ‚And so there

should be blood on it. You were ready to let him die.‛
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 ‚That adulterous money whore! He was going to kill you!‛ She
sni ed contemptuously. ‚He was right. You are an ingrate.‛

Dialing for emergency response, I thought of Tolstoy for some

reason< ‚All happy families are alike< ‛

Dad then mumbled something from within the bucket.

I hung up.

“Did he say ‘one’?‛ my mother asked, ‚or ‘won’?‛

It was my father’s ‚Rosebud‛ moment, except that he would

now live to be given the chance to explain it.

Lucky chap. ‚It sounded more like< ‘Juan.’‛

After a few seconds, she made a gasping sound of sudden

realization< then returned to dabbing at her phony French,
really Mexican dress.

“Oh, what’s the point?‛ she whined. ‚It’s trash now.‛

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 I re-dialed.

Would Mum ask Dad who Juan was?

I immediately thought of, was indeed hoping for, an illegitimate

child somewhere.

And with a Spanish-sounding name yet! It was too rich.

Perhaps from their time down Mexico way when Mother was
o bargain-hunting.

That this apparently cherished lovebaby would be the rst, or

rather last, mention on his ostensibly dying lips would
automatically kick Jonathan downstairs into second place in my
father’s thoughts, which may as well have equaled death< had
my brother not already been dead lo, those seven years.

Am I vindictive?

My hatred of Jonathan has not receded over the decades,

surprisingly even to me.
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Originally, I would later discover, my father had wanted to
name my late brother ‚Juan,‛ but my mother vetoed it.

They settled for ‚Jonathan,‛ but Mum capitulated to ‚Juan‛ as a

middle name, knowing nothing of its connection to her
husband’s past.

Jonathan’s closest super cial friends continued to call him ‚Jon-

Juan,‛ or sometimes ‚Juan-Jon‛ when they were drunk or feeling
whimsical, both suitable for him on a variety of levels, until his
untimely, Grenadine-related death.

But then I thought, why would Father have wanted two

children of the same name?

The lovechild angle was out. Unless< maybe he was calling out
for Jonathan by the name he had intended.

I didn’t know.

Who could Juan be? I was determined to nd out if it took me

a lifetime.
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There is no reliable way to approximate the scope of one man’s
life without at least a cursory understanding of his father.

He would have been known as the Boy Wonder of Wall Street,

had London a major nancial thoroughfare named Wall.

In June 1929, at the obscenely tender age of 24, he became an

intrinsically self-contradictory senior partner for Cellshort &
Rigrett, infuriating some forty-and- ftyish comparative old
guard who, nevertheless, could not deny Dad’ premature
business acumen and, of course, his youthful energy, voracious
sexual appetites for Eastern European prostitutes, and a
partiality for anachronistic plaid and seersucker suits always
accessorized with one of 33 yellow silk hankies handmade by
Seville Row.

But the real legacy of my old man, that bugger, was his Zen-like
mastery of the art of investing, utilizing the endowed gifts of
Omaha intuition< except, unlike Warren Bu et, Dad acquired
his oracular abilities at Oxford.

His ideology was based on a chart trend atypical analysis model,

using regressive Keynesian economic tendencies to calibrate the
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range of price by extrapolating equity indexes from any given
ninety-day chart.

For example, he would calmly use the formula X = D x 3 (and Q)

divided by the square root of F minus the day of the months
squared, with D being the Dow Jones and Q being the
NASDAQ and F being the FTSE.

Many traders thought this formula was absurd, but it soon came
to be seen as the E = mc squared of nance.

After all, even Einstein’s third grade teacher thought he was

stupid.

And the art experts ignored Van Gogh’s unsold masterpieces

that had been discounted to a price of sixpence at the time of
his death.

Genius is like a supernova in the sky; it takes time for the

people on earth to appreciate the illumination.

And Dad had, well, a political sort of personality, not unlike the
kind that Churchill had, and that Ben Franklin from the early
colonies had—Renaissance Men all of them.
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 The political social gatherings—actually, organized private
orgies following the o cial ‚soirees‛ from which the donors and
other sti s had by then departed—were stu of legend at the
at of Dad’ secret concubine in downtown London during his
heyday when he was trading 200 to 670 million pounds a day in
actual equities and complex future contracts, naked puts, write-
calls, bracketed hedges and of course, his most deadly move—
the Short Report.

His pre-website, pre-subscriber email investment advice was

94% correct in short stock picks—that’s 2,746 stock picks over
29 years at 94% in the money, and absolutely unheard of to this
day unless your last name is Mado .

Yes, that was his legal ace up his sleeve for the poker game held
daily on Wall Street and a quite pleasant street here in London,
as well as Hong Kong and Chicago, for starters.

Dad lived two lives—or is it lives?

Family man playing polo with princes, living the English Dream
with his castle and white wrought iron fence and his princely
progeny (plus one knave)—not actually royalty, my family of
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 course, but wealthy enough to rub leather padded shoulders
with the true elite from the sacred bloodline of Windsor.

That was my image of him, and Mum’ of course.

But then there was the nancial assassin, destroying wealth and
stock prices with his uncanny ability to spot an overvalued,
overleveraged, overpriced and overrated company that the
world saw as pro table and valuable when the books were
cooked or at the least warmed in a classic brick oven for that
crispness it gives any fraudulent second set of accounting
ledgers and actual SEC 8k balance and o - balance sheets.

The company commissioned these two sets of accountings for

obvious reasons—one prepared for internal accuracy to gauge
losses and one prepared leak for the public, in ating good
numbers by the release, revision and restatement if, say, there
were to be a dip one day that he would play God to make and
go away.

Typically, the old man would redline the manipulation of a

pro t/loss gure by adding a zero to the end of it or reducing
the bad percentages using white-out to make an 89 million-
pound loss into a much more digestible 39 million-pound loss.
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By transforming an 8 into a 3, he would succeed to exceed all
the analysts’ estimates and as such predictably spark an arti cial
rally fueled by the massive stock buyback his crime would
induce and take pro ts from the average 18% price in ation
within minutes of the issuance of the false information
appearing on the big board to the roar of oor traders’ elation
which eventually resulting in a Scotland Yard investigation.

The digital ticker tape was a ‚useless innovation‛ that my father

would refuse to look upon for market information, preferring to
feel the prices printed on tape as he would chuckle and quickly
shred the evidence of his rape of his duciary duty to his
clientele, who testi ed at his inquest on the record, and I
quote, said ‚go to hell.‛

It was greed, pure greed- that was his classless motivation.

Those held responsible for his illegal stock speculation were the
innocent blokes who worked at the retail brokerage houses who
my Dad used as unwitting straw men by using the cover of their
22 million-pound funded margin accounts so the regulators
could not connect the thousands of illegal trades he made in the
name of Cellshort & Rigrett even with the help of a dozen
bloodhounds, fty forensic accountants and a descendant of
Sherlock Holmes not in rehab for cocaine addiction.
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My father’s crimes veered in a serpentine circular wire transfer
route that took six years to reverse engineer for his inevitable
indictment-a carefully planned trek through numbered
accounts nestled deep in the Alps and through the banks with
views of sandy Cayman Island beaches.

All in all there were 14 di erent client-based banks involved-

from the peaks of Switzerland where questions are not asked
when take your cash, saying thanks in Swiss with a smile- for if
there is no honor among thieves, there certainly can be a good
degree of old fashioned civility.

Thereupon the shares are suddenly selling like whiskey at a

speakeasy as stock goes to Jupiter with Father reading the ticker
tape as it falls to the ground, making an abstract sculpture of
thousands of feet of information turn priceless before it is
known by all, and worthless minutes later as it is placed on the
board to, indeed, be known by all.

Somehow he knew when the top price had been reached.

He came to this determination by using a stolen algorithm

based on Milton Friedman’s freshman work and a nance
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technique employed by Donald Trump as a teenager, a secret
formula guarded as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Coca-
Cola (the ‚classic‛ recipe, before the company’s invertebrate
trend-spotters started believing the fudged demographics of
Pepsi’s propaganda campaign) and allowing him to buy bargain-
priced put options hedged by July calls for expiration the next
month for arbitrage pro teering before anyone could validate
the truth about the nancial reporting.

Dads would have squeezed every shilling from every share

before anyone would know if the valuation had been fair or the
result of an innocent and honest accounting error, or simply
incompetent management, or an inferior product, or a recall, or
bad PR or even a scandal involving a secretary, a sex act, the
Chairman and a house plant.

When the stock fell to single digits, Dad would buy to cover all
his margined positions in the money, and the spread would be,
well, 40 to 50 pounds per share, with each deal involving the
contrarian arbitrage of the short-sellers—the lepers who all the
other long and hold traders hate and blame for every closing in
the red—they even refuse to socialize, the longs.

That is what we called them—the two groups, like some weird

variation on West Side Story involving bets, not Jets.
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So the Shorts and the Longs, like rival fraternities, would
sabotage each others’ social events and share secret information
while engaging, without compunction or an ounce of awareness,
in industrial espionage that was so depraved moralistically, deep
in its complexity and despicable criminally that MI5 and MI6
were called in to break up a teatime ght at the Oxford Club
(home of the Longs) and an assault with a cricket bat during a
Boxing Day dinner dance for wives and a rock and roll concert
for the mistresses (after driving the wifey home and slipping her
a micky of hot skim Milk of Magnesia with two dissolved
tablets of Quaalude).

Once sure that Mum had passed out, Dad would change into
his best Nehru jacket or something of equally un attering
desperation and head over to the Cambridge Club, where the
Shorts held council in a large room next to the main squash
courts—the scene of the crime where a Short saw a man he did
not recognize playing a match with an Asian desk trader for
commodities, then searched the locker room and found a
business card for the rm Beyer, Lowe, Pryce & Holder< the
leader of the long rm, the bastion of the bulls here in the
domain of the bears, the sanctuary squash arena of the
Brotherhood based on a belief in the short—the hunters of
failure or of mediocrity, the pro teers of the weakest public
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companies, the merchants of death who are the grave diggers
for the NYSE and NASDAQ, the FTSE and the rest.

But there was honor among my father and his fellows bears,
who saw that the market was a manipulated casino trading
paper wealth at and in ated, unconnected to reality and
detached from the truth of the tness and nancial health
about which in every quarter most will lie and report nothing of
the truth, in hopes that no one investigates, and looking for
proof of price to earning pro ts that purported penetrated the
company’s roof.

Dad would use a lie detector—actually wire a

SHAREHOLDER to listen in on the call—and theorized that
the invested subject would react intuitively to any lie by the
CEO perceived by his subconscious and his nancial
sophistication.

This resulted in a biometric autonomous yet illegal release of

insider information.

But really, what barrister would press charges?

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After all, it was just a harmless analysis of the earnings belched
up by psychologically repressed yearnings.

And now that I’ve cleared all that up<oh dear, I see it is nally
time for tea.

The restorative e ects of a good cup of Earl Grey cannot be

understated.

Where was I? Oh yes...I recall.

Most of this is what awaited the great Walthorpe-Huntington

through subsequent eras.

The seeds of his toxic genius, however, lay in those carefree but
darkening months preceding that immortal Black Tuesday,
which might have more accurately been labeled, for the bene t
of posterity, Red Tuesday.

Even then, power was an aphrodisiac, and there was no

shortage of nubile or simply loose women with hopes of
conquest over the new young prospective meal ticket.
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 Father surely took advantage of his sudden appeal among the
appers and their fashionable sexual emancipation.

His bed-hopping exploits, rather than becoming a distraction,

fed his passion for work, encouraging a sweet, symbiotic
interaction.

He was, as they say, on a roll.

The soaring, seemingly limitless upward trend in Dad’ life

would soon be adversely, radically a ected by circumstances
beyond the control of even the most prescient observer.

Unprecedented panic permeated the entire 29th oor that

autumn afternoon, and every other oor in the building as far
as my father knew.

Down below, the sight from his open window was even
grimmer. At rst they looked like odd splashes of paint, but
sudden movements in his peripheral vision, accompanied by
horri c screams, revealed a dramatically di erent sort of
splash< or splat.
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Prone bodies were strewn about Canary Wharf with more soon
to follow, as semi-regularly as stubborn clockwork. Someone
will have to clean this mess up, he brie y thought.

Dad counted as many as 37 sprawled souls in varying degrees of

lifelessness before giving up and deciding to join their ranks.

The wildly mocking ticker tape machine in his o ce seemed to

be spitting at him, ‚Do it, do it, do it! ... ‛ He did it.

Younger pedestrians had been successfully dodging this

precipitation of despair, or ducking inside a random shop
before its (soon to be permanent) closure.

The elderly had a harder time of it, relying on their haler

companions or an occasional stranger for guidance. Amid the
near-apocalyptic chaos, there were bound to be casualties,
however.

One befuddled lady of advanced age who had just left her
weekly appointment at the beauty salon, where she had treated
herself to a rare pedicure—an even more unpleasant experience
for the beautician than usual, I have learned—and cheerfully
over-tipped (before being tipped over herself), attempted to hail
a cab.
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Deaf in one ear and losing sensation in the second, she only
vaguely heard the warnings of others, including the brave taxi
man who had just pulled over.

Then one of the previously mentioned splats befell the old dear.

The Duchess of tiny Pleat-Follicle-on-the-Thames had been

duly laid out.

It was surprisingly easy for Dad, he would confess much later.

His footing on the ledge never took hold—why should it have?

—and he released himself, the damn racket of ticker tape
mocking him after he begun his descent, soon to be overtaken
by his own womanly shriek, perhaps a harbinger.

For a fraction of a second, but seemingly longer, there was a

feeling of freedom, an exhilaration never before known to him.

Then a sudden thud, a fall doubly broken by an unobserved

awning, a la Harold Lloyd perhaps, and next by the brittle
bones of an old duchess.
 If this had been just any passer-by, the incident would have been
quickly forgotten by everyone but her surviving relations,
especially on a day like that one in October.

But this poor woman happened to be 217th in line to the British

throne. (A Royal commission does indeed exist to calculate
such things.)

All of Pleat-Follicle-on-the-Thames was in mourning, its only

ag lowered to half-sta in honor of the good lady.

At the age of 88—not to mention her numerical placement

among other potential successors—she was far from likely ever
to come near the crown, but tradition and honor called for
justice—nay, retribution—for her sweet soul.

The punishment, therefore, was required to t the crime. It

did< and then some.

Dad’s competent legal representation succeeded in having the

charge reduced from second-degree murder to voluntary
manslaughter.
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Inside the courtroom, however, his chances for acquittal or
even leniency were threatened by the presence of defender Sir
Bertram Haagen-Dazs, a legendary eccentric fast-approaching
retirement (but not fast enough)

The barrister’s customary absent-mindedness was exacerbated

on this occasion by the loss of his ‚lucky wig‛ just before post
time, and the necessity of borrowing another from a trusted
associate

An apparently allergic reaction to the unfamiliar head covering

resulted in frenzied itching accompanied by uncontrollable
scratching throughout the proceedings, rendering Sir Bertie’s
presentation less than compelling, and the demeanor of the
presiding judge, a Lord Crumpetson, less than tolerant.

Father was found guilty as charged and sentenced to nine years,

but with certain sums posted to certain numbered accounts in a
certain apolitical nation famous for certain resorts for alpine
relaxation and certain banks beyond the reach of covert
investigation of unlawful non-payment of the King’s high rate
of taxation—yes, Dad, with a few well-placed telephone rings
made, and more than a few old favors called in, set into motion
a quiet process of establishing as his rehabilitation facility a
very large hunting estate mansion at Hertfordshire, and as such,
his hard time of 108 months became incalculably softer, what
with his dead-of-night transport to the ‚house arrest‛ that was
as much a prison as Westminster Abbey is a common
whorehouse, all arranged by six- gure pound sums wired by an
anonymous, untraceable origin deep within the network of
Dukes and Knights, Tories and Labourers, and these certain
members of the House of Commons and certain idle title-
holders in the House of Lords in turn cashed in their political
poker chips.

Within a week of the verdict, my father was enjoying a better

standard of living than prior to the fuss, and with such luxury so
readily available, he promptly and—in retrospect—quite
predictably forgot his responsibilities, both personal and
professional, in favor of his golf game.

Wind of these goings-on wafted over the hillside hazards all the
way to the bench occupied by Lord Crumpetson, whose
righteous integrity and petty impatience had initially con ned
Dad to what was intended to be a lengthy, punishing stay.

His magisterial eminence a ronted by the brazen facts,

Crumpetson (who had lost a pretty penny of his own in the
crash) set about e ecting a reversal of unwarranted fortune for
the felonious Walthorpe-Huntington, with the aid of a private
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 cache of henchmen, some of whom overlapped with those of
my father.

The second time around, the judge was singularly victorious in

making an example of this ‚pampered reprobate,‛ as per his
original design.

Gerald Walthorpe-Huntington became a model prisoner at

Magwitch Penitentiary, notorious as the roughest, smelliest
institution in England, using his time in the library, educating
himself the rst months on the ne points of economics and
nance in preparation for his eventual re-assimilation into
British society.

He was initially nicknamed ‚Bankman of Alcatraz‛ for his

obsessive e orts, even though Alcatraz was in San Francisco
Bay and Burt Lancaster’s bird movie was still decades to come.

One morning an Irish-Guatemalan heavyweight contender

named Juan O’Klock, serving an eight-month sentence on an
aggravated assault conviction, took a shine to my father in the
communal shower.
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Little more than half the ghter’s size, he had no choice but to
submit to the advances.

Juan insisted on calling him ‚Maureen,‛ abetted by the fun-

loving prison authorities, who provided wardrobe, makeup, and
wigs they kept on hand for just such an occasion to keep the
majority happy at the minor expense of one spineless twit’s
dignity.

Dad was never much to look at as a man, but was apparently

quite breathtaking as a woman. He was morti ed by his new
identity, but at least massive squirts of the French perfume with
which he was supplied helped to mask the infamous Magwitch
stench.

‚Maureen‛ became very popular among the inmates, passed

about like a fast-food order and leaving Dad with a lifelong fear
of suppositories.

To Juan’s consternation, his lady was soon being shipped out to

other prisons in exchange for soap, shoes, and other
necessaries.
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 Under harsh physical duress, ‚she‛ had become adept at passable
imitations of Jeanette MacDonald and Marlene Dietrich,
among others, hating every second of it, continually thinking
‚all this because of that fucking stock market.‛

Maureen then toured the United States in correctional facilities

big and small, raking in huge pro ts for Magwitch, not a
percentage of which she was entitled to by law (even the nightly
gratuities stu ed into her silky lingerie ended up in the prison
co ers), but multiplying her fan base.

One group of soldiers in New Jersey jailed for a night of

drunkenness was so inordinately taken by the reluctant
chanteuse, she was in danger of losing ‚her‛ career and ‚his‛ life
if not for the intervention of the local police (at least one of
whom was himself smitten with this vision of loveliness).

For years afterward, my father would continue to receive mash

notes and even proposals of marriage on o cial stationery from
the U.S. Army, who were never the wiser.

Maureen had been such a huge success across America, it was

determined by her hitherto unfeeling ‚management‛ that she
needed a rest.
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Walthorpe-Huntington had lost valuable time away from his
books which he was not permitted to take along on her travels,
and to his surprise, discovered that she had also begun to miss
Juan, in fact had persevered only at the tingling remembrance
of his nasty touch.

Upon her return to Magwitch, she found herself swept o her

pumps by the boxer, who comforted his clearly exhausted
‚bitch‛ and promptly took her to bunk, promising and
delivering a night of glorious but excruciating passion.

‚You’re so sweet,‛ said Gerald-Maureen, followed by ‚Owww!‛ It

was the rst in what was to be a long string of such utterances
in the ‚coming‛ days.

Dad had requested a return of his standard issue uniform, but

the guards refused. Maureen was too much in demand among
the other prisoners, who had been desperate for her mollifying
company.

Juan took issue with her involuntary promiscuity, but accepted

it as part of the territorial reality. ‚Owww!‛ indeed.
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With all that he had been forced to swallow, Dad began to take
on some stones (of more than one kind), mostly in the bum-ular
region, to the carnal appreciation of the inmates, who increased
their ‚requests‛ for oral pleasure to continue the weight-shifting
trend, which in turn, multiplied the demands.

Taxing as the revised orders were for Maureen’s jaw, they did at
least give her rectal lining a rest, though she was hardly closed
down in that area, either.

After several more months of this dependable service, my

father’s sentence was commuted for what the o cial paperwork
described as ‚extremely good behavior.‛

Juan had been released just a few weeks earlier, but shortly
thereafter, word ltered past the gates that he was stabbed to
death in an altercation over a comment made about a
photograph of his ‚girlfriend.‛

Maureen cried so violently upon hearing the news, her mascara

ran< I am told.

So Father’s freedom arrived just in time. He managed to

smuggle out a few all-important nance books among his
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personal e ects, but left all remnants of Maureen behind, with
only the occasional sweat-scented love letter to remind him of
her, along with a bowlegged stride as a (temporary) souvenir.

Dad’ former nemesis Lord Crumpetson could not ght the

prison’s decision, having died ve months earlier of a syphilitic
condition he was too humiliated to have treated.

However upon hearing of the premature release of Walthorpe-

Huntington, the outraged lone survivor of his victim, a distant
cousin Denton Fisch-Horder, with support from the population
of 63 people in Pleat-Follicle-on-the-Thames swore vengeance.

Denton had never met his cousin—his family had emigrated or

immigrated or both to Halifax, Nova Scotia several generations
earlier—but was starving for attention and jonesing to see his
name in the papers, in spite of being functionally illiterate. (‚I
said I wanted to see it, not read it,‛ he later explained to his
sympathetic but confused landlady.

Denton’s Canadian residency disquali ed him from taking over

as duchess, leaving him only 493rd in line to the British crown,
behind several other foreigners, strangely enough, including at
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least one shepherd in Lichtenstein. (That Commission has
never been paid su ciently.)

Cellshort & Rigrett was less than a shadow of its former self,
but still functioning.

Its national headquarters was now a trailer, but by worldwide

Depression standards, this was major.

Dad’ old job was not available—there were no senior partners

to speak of—yet he was determined, shamed not so much by
his recent thoughts of suicide but by the unimaginative choice
of method, and armed with his newly bolstered knowledge, to
revitalize the company he still considered home.

Be it never more humble.

First he needed money. He wondered if the London Stock

Exchange even existed any longer as he had once known it.

His former work as a oor trader, though a step backward,

would be ideal for his current condition. Some ten months of
penal (not a pun) popularity had left him ill-suited for a seat on
the Exchange< or a seat anywhere.
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 Movement was just what he needed, along with an outlet for his
expertise which would surely get his foot back inside the
doorway to monetary solvency—his own, his nation’s, and the
world’s!

He arrived fortuitously just as the government’s abandonment

of the gold standard took e ect, quickly followed by the
devaluation of the Pound Sterling.

A gastrointestinal reaction to the news told Father he was

nally in the right place at the right time.

Experiences before his pre-Crash had tamed Father’s habits.

Intense focus on his work now precluded a robust social life
beyond the occasional one night stand.

Only sub-consciously did he admit that a wife was a necessity

for a man of his standing.

There were, however, forces at work without his active

participation to ensnare him if he was too busy himself to do
the hunting.
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For all intents and purposes, as they say, his marriage to my
mother was arranged, though never acknowledged as such in
those supposedly civilized times by the two self-important
families involved, the Walthorpe-Huntingtons and the
Dingbury-Hassetts of Outer Kenlingtonhampstonshire (not to
be confused, as often happens, with the Dongbury-Hussetts of
Inner Kenlingtonhampstonshire).

Whatever their feelings toward one another, the young Sandra

Dingbury-Hassett was a prize, social arm candy of the rst
order< if one may be permitted to talk in such a way about his
own mother.

Although he had a way with the ladies, probably because of his

money, Dad was never a looker, a bit on the scrawny side, and
the most prevalent question overheard whenever the
Walthorpe-Huntingtons passed was ‚How did he get her?‛

Or so I have been told.

Still, the prevailing mood during the rst few years of their
union resembled contentment, if not exactly bliss.
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 Mother relished her role as a dutiful trophy wife (before there
was such a term), for which she was eminently quali ed, not
only because of her outer beauty but her inner vacuity.

The monotonous regularity of their birth announcements

coincided with Father’s growing reputation as a wartime
appeaser who considered Prime Minister Chamberlain a giant
among men.

Dad had once contracted Hitler to paint his summer home (a

Nazi purge scheduling con ict postponed the plans
inde nitely), and a snapshot taken with the dictator would
eventually sell for $24,000 American at Sotheby’s in spite of his
futile attempts to destroy the negative (Hitler’s, I mean, not
Dad’).

[Such a life. All the way from pre-fetal limbo or wherever, I

recall that I could hardly wait to be born into it.]

Jonathan was Edwin Booth to my John Wilkes, or—perhaps

more ttingly—Joe Kennedy Jr. to my Ted. Impregnating a
black pre-law student while at university in the late Sixties was
more or less my rst o cial Chappaquiddick. (Christine Keeler
aside, the Americans have always had much more delicious
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scandals than we limeys.) I paid out-of-pocket for Tracie’s or
Stacie’s then-illegal abortion.

My brother stood by me throughout the vehement verbal

sorties from Dad and even Mum. Such pseudo-perfection on
Jonathan’s part simply made him more repugnant to me. He
may have been more responsible in his birth control habits than
I—practice does make perfect, after all—but Jonathan’s randy,
disposable treatment of women made my own seem downright
virginal by comparison.

He could do or get away with anything, it seemed. Everything,

that is, but holding his liquor. His low tolerance for alcohol was
(eventually) notorious and costly. Once I watched him swoon
from consuming a crème de menthe parfait after dinner. It was
the one chink in his considerable armour, and it soothed to
know of its existence.

A compulsive globetrotter, Jonathan was forever gallivanting on

the French Riviera, the Florida Keys, the beaches of Australia,
Disneyland, participating in activities for which his younger
brother would have been harshly castrated< sorry, I mean
castigated, of course. The degree of imbibing which went on
during these jaunts is still a dull mystery, but there have been
educated guesses pro ered.

Jonathan’s dashing good looks—he favored our mother—and

sense of global fun never interfered with his work ethic< no, of
course not. As director of the Accounting O ce—at only 25, no
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 less—he saved the family-run business several fortunes, and
earned it several more. He had a gift for analysis, an instinct for
problem-solving, plus that goddamned halo e ect which must
never be underestimated in its power. To make matters worse,
all his tactics were completely above-board.

Only once did I ever observe my father in a show of anger

toward Jonathan. It was when he noticed a subtle loss of his
much-traveled eldest son’s British vocal intonation. ‚Jesus Fuck!‛
Dad bellowed, ‚How is anyone supposed to know you’re one of
us?‛

‚Honestly, Father, who gives a shit?‛ Jonathan responded,

sounding almost American, maybe even Texan! This was too
much for the proud, aging man, who then slapped him quite
powerfully. Being left-handed as well as under-handed, he drew
blood with his wedding ring from Jonathan’s ‚sensual‛ lower lip,
as a national tabloid had once described it.

Dad had instantly debased himself. ‚Oh, my dear boy< forgive

me.‛

‚It’ all right,‛ slurred Jonathan, ‚I ha’ another,‛ applying an

always available handkerchief to said lip, which paid the price
for our father’s insistence on wearing a circle of gold with no
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 meaning to him. Jonathan required four stitches and gave up his
favorite pineapple juice for several months.

I feared the great Walthorpe-Huntington might have cut o his

own o ending nger after such an experience, blood-stained
jewelry included. Sympathetic toward my brother for once, I
would gladly have provided the machete.

Would Father ever apologize to me like that?

To quote my dear, departed sibling, ‚Who gives a shit?‛

Jonathan excelled in water sports. An accomplished yachtsman,

he was a semi- nalist in the prestigious Great Big Cup race two
seasons running< a particularly remarkable yet typical over-
achievement since the event is held only once every four years.
It had been widely predicted that Jonathan would have
advanced even further on his third try, had not tragedy struck
in what would come to be known in certain circles as the
Grenadine Incident.

Grenadine, for the uninitiated, is a cherry-red-colored

sweetener of pitifully low proof, used in sissy mixed drinks and
about the only bottled liquid of any alcoholic content to be
tolerated by my late, lamented brother’s tender constitution.
Embarrassed by this natural weakness, Jonathan experimented
with the sugary substance in various forms, nally arriving at
one concoction with cloves, bitters, seltzer, imitation bourbon,
and a dash of garlic salt as the remaining ingredients. No one
else would have touched it with or without knowledge of the
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recipe, but Jonathan trained himself to like it, necessarily
preparing it on the sly to avoid detection.

It looked like a legitimately sti drink in its rocks glass with a

lemon wedge, and provided just the adequate buzz for my
brother, who could nurse one or, at most, two over the course
of an evening, sometimes having to bribe the innkeepers to
secrecy and always ordering in code. He became so adept at the
slight-of-hand that none of his hanger-on friends suspected a
thing. And with the taste of the faux whiskey hiding that of the
Grenadine, he convinced himself on some level that he was a
grown-up.

Unfortunately for Jonathan, the ruse back red when he took to

drinking his invention in privacy, gradually recognizing a
belated sweet tooth. Foregoing the bourbon substitute and
accompanying components, he often downed the crimson syrup
neat. The problem with

Her

Grenadine is that its gustatory similarity to cheap soda pop

fools the mind into forgetting its chemical potency, however
slim. Jonathan was becoming addicted, stocking up on cases of
the Pink Lady ingredient just as a real alcoholic hoards real
alcohol.

The write-up on page six of the Times of London recounted the

facts of the accident accurately enough, but with a subtly yet
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 unnecessarily venomous tone, referring to the ‚fortunate‛ lack
of other deaths, as if to imply ‚What’s one playboy more or
less?‛ Such audacity boiled my father and deep-fried my mother.
I was barely singed.

Although the bottle contained only 15% alcohol, due to my

brother’s unlikely internal delicacy, its consumption constituted
an overdose of dangerous proportions. Asleep at the controls,
Jonathan allowed the boat to careen and nally to crash at
terrifying speed, according to the few witnesses, into an Italian
bakery (love that irony) on the Mediterranean. It was in the
early morning hours so only two kitchen personnel were inside.
No one else was hurt, as the newspapers happily reported,
though the neighborhood’s A.M. mu n supply was seriously
depleted.

Father demanded an autopsy, but Mother threatened to lock

herself away with the corpse—she had recently seen Gone with
the Wind for the eighth time—rather than to permit such
posthumous barbarity and desecration. ‚He’s already hacked to
pieces!‛ my father reminded her with his characteristic
sensitivity and, as usual, got his way.

The ndings were conclusive. Jonathan had died of massive

internal injuries, but trace amounts of sugar in his system
pointed to a possible diabetic coma on the near horizon.

‚Aha!‛ exclaimed my father, startling the coroner, causing him

to drop his clipboard.
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 ‚What do you mean ‘Aha’?‛ asked Mum quite angrily. ‚It wasn’t
murder! Who would kill my darling boy?‛

One mili-second later— I felt, then saw my father’s narrowing,

accusing (in retrospect, non-hazel) eyes glance my way.

Gerald Walthorpe-Huntington had long thought of Himself as

God. It was not a huge leap that He should have considered His
sons to be Cain and Abel.

16.

I had always known wealth. However, not until I had begun to

harvest the fruits of my own career did I feel truly free to
experience the splendor of overindulgence and decadence. The
seminal moment occurred when I commissioned the renowned
architect I.M. Payworthy to build my rst real home. I wanted
it to be as vulgar and ostentatious as bearable. Payworthy
a ected a look of deeply o ended artistic and professional
sensibilities toward my suggestions, but gladly lowered his
standards and lived up to his surname by the end of the process.

Her

I advised him to peruse some set designs from old Hollywood

productions with heavy emphasis on De Mille and von
Sternberg. By the time he had nished, I was living like King
Faruk minus the bother of a harem. I did not allow myself to be
ashamed. This was my haven, the result of my sweat and labor<
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 all right, it was not my sweat and even less my labor, but it was
still my house.

I was, within a few years, the eleventh richest man in England

(a ranking which profoundly, and quite frankly, pissed me o ).
The money just kept coming. What was I supposed to do, call a
plumber? It was all too convenient for me to be embarrassed by
it. So I decided to like it.

17.

As with many women victimized by serial philandering from

their husbands, my mother tried stepping out herself, not that
Dad would ever be home long enough to notice. And as is often
the case, Mum began by attempting to seduce her gynecologist
in his own o ce. He failed to respond, evidently not
su ciently astute to distinguish her actions from those
occurring during a standard check-up. Overexposure to stirrups
can be surprisingly disengaging, to paraphrase the late Dale
Evans.

Realizing she was wasting her time, she moved on to her

dentist, scheduling an ‚emergency‛ appointment after only a
month since her last visit, planning to open her mouth extra-
wide with maximal use of the tongue. ‚It’s lucky you came in,‛
he said. Observing the early stages of pyorrhea, he gave her the
name of a specialist. (‚Damn British,‛ she probably thought.)
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The third medical opinion was the charm, if such a word may
be applied in connection with gum disease. Dr. Fangblow cured
Mum not only of her oral pus and in ammation but of her less
obvious, often more stigmatizing and baser ailments. She felt
re-juvenized and validated for all of three weeks, then began to
feel unworthy of the behavior.

Having cleanly broken o the a air, she took up knitting

instead, becoming quite pro cient. She had planned to enter an
upcoming contest for the largest comforter, meticulously
attending to o cial rules and guidelines, but kept on working
right past the due date. Mum could not seem to put down the
needles. Her physical appearance, always of prime concern to
her, had begun to deteriorate along with her zest for movement.
We had to remind her to eat.

She would have won that competition easily, and loved claiming
the prize money, depriving the less fortunate who thought they
were the only ones who could ‚sew,‛ as she mistakenly called it.
‚I’ll take it next year,‛ she promised, accelerating her handiwork
to get an early jump, frequently making noticeable sparks y,
but no such sequel had been announced.

Her

Father was too distracted by his own extra-curricular activities

to care much. ‚It’s just menopause,‛ he said one day on his way
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 out the door. ‚I thought she’d already been through that. Oh,
well<‛ Exit Dad, once again.

By tax season the comforter had reached the downstairs sitting

room. Several of the servants had threatened to quit. One of
the visiting grandchildren went missing for an hour and a half,
leaving its mother, my sister Goneril, in hysterics and vowing
never to return (though with twelve o spring, she could have
a orded to lose one). Yet Mum kept on. Even Madame DeFarge
took an occasional break, for fucksake.

I felt the need to move back in temporarily, just to keep an eye

on her. She had begun to soil herself and make jokes about it.
Once she even played with it, getting some on her needles, but
stabbed me, cackling when I tried to clean them. Her
conversation had stopped altogether. Her ngers bled o and
on. The help had indeed all quit. They never liked her anyway.
And where was my father?

Well< that week, behind our collective backs, he was with

Trixie VanderSchlotten, a 23-year-old professional pole-dancer,
remarkably agile for a girl with three toes missing (information
deemed salient enough to be touted on the marquee). Dad
determined to nd out exactly which three. The light was too
poor at the Wanker’s Club in Soho to get a good look. Besides,
her feet were the only parts of her that were always covered<
with those iconic, unexplainably suggestive seven-inch stilettos
Father himself may have worn at one time.
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 The Germanic-sounding name intimidated him as a bitter
survivor of the Dresden bombings, he kept insisting, twisting
one of the most devastating campaigns perpetrated by the
Allies against the German state of Saxony into a fabricated
attack on our own beloved Stoke-on- Trent namesake in
Sta ordshire (he went to absurd lengths to prove his national
pride in those later years after the Hitler rumors had begun to
die down, if not quite subsided). At any rate, Trixie
VanderSchlotten admitted only to being ‚Dutch.‛ That’s what
they all say, Father thought to himself, but on the other hand,
what respectable Kraut would name his daughter ‚Trixie‛? This
internal convolution was su cient to ease his fearful
assumptions.

It was a rare honor for a Wanker’s patron, but Trixie was happy
to invite this seeming gentleman to her ‚dressing‛ room
(formerly the club’s generic restroom still bearing the phone
numbers and epithets of its previous function on the walls),
where matters escalated, or ‚lifted,‛ to be properly British.

I had to meet this girl when I found out about her existence<
not because I learned of the a air, but because Dad and I had
similarly prurient tastes. Father and son collided one night (I
had convinced Albertine to watch Mother after having secured
her son’s safety) amid the smoky dimness of the proletarian
establishment in which we had each been sitting for some forty
minutes, undetected by the other.
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 ‚What the fuck are you doing here?‛ Father was the rst to ask.
‚I had to get away fr< Who the fuck are you to ask me that?‛

Feeling trapped, he explained everything. I was shocked, not by

the truth, but by his willingness to reveal it. It was only the tip
of the proverbial iceberg, however, as I would soon discover.

‚Do you have any idea what your wife is going through right
now?‛ I snapped accusingly. ‚I’ve seen it myself and even I don’t
know.‛

‚You’re a ne one to talk. Why did you leave her if she’s so badly
o ?‛ ‚She’ll be ne. Albertine’s with<‛

‚Quiet. Trixie’s on.‛

Drum roll. We sat to see what we had both come for, so to

speak.

After the ‚show,‛ which had featured an incongruous tribute to

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Father excused himself for his seventh
or eighth urination—he was at that age, which should have
interested Trixie—and I covertly went back-‛stage‛ for a visit
with the peroxide bimbo. (I had just witnessed de nitive proof
of her non-blondeness.)
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‚Oy’m no ippin’ bimbo!‛ she squealed following the proper
introductions. ‚Oy really loyk yaw fathah!‛ ‚Woy? < I mean why?
Nobody else does.‛

‚Aww, ’e tohwed me awl about yoe, Ahnold.‛

‚I wish I could say the same. And it’s Benedict.‛

‚Sawry.‛

‚That’s quite all right. Miss VanderSchlotten< ‚

‚Trixie.‛

‚Nothing will come of this, Tri< Is there not some other name
by which I may call you?‛

‚Yoe think Oy’m the fust ‘e’s ‘ad on the soyde? ‘e tohwed me
everything about ‘isself, ‘e did. ‘e trusts me< an’ yoe can caw me
‘Delohwis’ (that’s Delores) if yoe loyk.‛

She sounded ‚loyk‛ Angela Lansbury in Gaslight. I was about to

appeal to her sense of reason but rejected that strategy out of
hand, then I noticed something akin to thought crossing her
rather scaly face.

‚Benedict< ‛ she mused, ‚bloymey, Oy know your family’s awl

rich and awl, did they boy chance nyme them eggs aftah yoe?‛
No, it merely resembled thought.
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 Father then entered, enraged. He had apparently forgotten to
zip. Perhaps not.

A burly, crude-looking man soon followed to announce, ‚Aw-

royt, the two o’ yoe outa ‘ere!‛

‚Which two?‛ I asked.

‚No, nawt Jerry!‛ Trixie implored. ‚’e’s gawt a free pass, ‘e does.‛

‚Yes, that’s an old habit,‛ I said. ‚Isn’t that right< Jerry?‛

‚How dare you come in here!‛ Dad groused.

‚How dare I come in here?‛

‚’ow daeh both o’ yoe,‛ reminded Bill Sykes. ‚Kem on, let’s go
befaw Oy lose me mannahs< an’ close yaw bloomin’ oy fust,
Wawn Bidey.‛

The good news was that Mother had nally stopped knitting.
The bad news was that she was still sitting there, if apparently
catching up on some sleep. The needles were bizarrely
protruding, walrus tusk-like, one from each nostril.

‚I got bored,‛ Albertine explained, removing them, ‚but she’s

nally nished that< whatever it is.‛

‚It’s called a comforter< ironically.‛

Then, to the shock of both my sister and me, Mum spoke her
rst words in two weeks: ‚What time is Benny Hill on?‛
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‚Mother!‛ said Albertine, tearing up. ‚You’ve always hated that
show! Besides, the Americans co-opted it years ago!‛

‚What stinks?‛ Mother asked, unaware that she was referring to

herself. ‚That’s not you, is it, Benedict?‛ She sni ed. ‚Jesus, I
think that’s coming from me< what the hell is that thing?‛ she
then asked, repulsed, pointing to her own knitting.

‚You made that, Mum,‛ said Albertine.

‚How dare you accuse me of such a thing!! Remove it from my

sight.‛ ‚With what?‛

‚I’m not certain,‛ I said to my sister, ‚but I think she may be

returning.‛ ‚Now if only the servants would.‛

I went to dinner at the Walthorpe-Huntingtons’ out of habit

and hunger, not duty or enjoyment. The meal was hot, but the
ambiance cold with a Citizen Kane-style stretch limousine-
length gap between Father and myself at the dining room table.
Mother had been con ned to bed, or so I thought until I heard
her singing in the shower. She was on the fourth song of her
Gracie Fields medley before someone other than Myra, the
newly hired serving girl, spoke.

‚Cognac?‛ Dad asked coldly after nishing, as usual.

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‚I believe I’ll have my Dewars tonight.‛ I always took brandy
after dinner. I was aiming at a subtle rebelliousness. If the
message was not received then and there, it soon would be.

Retiring, as they say, to the den, he lit a cigar but I declined. He

opened a newspaper without a word as I sat sipping my scotch,
playing with the swizzle, not conscious that my eyes were, now
and again, boring through his soul.

He felt the penetration right through the Times business

section. Then he spoke. ‚What. Say it.‛

‚How many others have there been, Dad?‛

‚How many what?‛

‚Please don’t play< ‚

He lowered the paper to reveal a de ant grimace.

‚Plenty!‛

I looked at him for several moments, at a loss, until I came up

with this: ‚If I’m supposed to be impressed, I’m not.‛ ‚Don’t be.
I’m not in competition with my own son.‛

‚You’re in competition with everyone.‛

‚Not my own son.‛

‚Maybe not the dead one.‛

‚You little prick. I should have put you up for adoption years
ago.‛
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 ‚By all means. That would have cured your whore-mongering.‛

Sharing of this nature truly does bring families closer together.

18.

Being one big tea party, London virtually staves o people

desiring a decent cup of co ee. The occasional bakery or
doughnut shop promises their best bet, but one is required to
hunt those down. And while the major cafe franchises are
represented there, sites are not so prevalent as in other large
cities.

Thus, when a Storebought’s opened on the ground oor of

Crewover & Underhand, it was a minor blessing, if only for its
convenience. The brand itself has always been just this side of
putrid, but one has to admire the genius behind the marketing
strategy. No one with functioning taste buds would buy their
disgusting product without the far more expensive, if
pretentious, sweetening agents e ectively transforming it. See?
Genius at its simplest.

I was one of the rst in line that morning to order a caramel

macchiato, not even quite certain what that was. I assumed it
had co ee in it. It was so delicious that I went back for another
after work.
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The ‚barista‛—imagine writing that silly thing down on your tax
form every year—was a very cute, slightly hippy young lady in
her early twenties, wearing a tag with the name ‚Molly‛ on it.

‚Hello< Molly.‛

‚Congratulations on your literacy.‛

Don’t tell me I’m going to fall immediately in love with a

‚barista,‛ I thought to myself as I placed my order.

‚One small< ‚

‚Step for mankind?‛

‚No< no!... I mean ‘tall’ excuse me, caramel mock< whatever it’s
called< ‚

‚Macchiato. It’s your blood sugar.‛

Her dry sense of humor was appealing to me, but I wondered

how management would take to it on what was surely her rst
day. I felt a duty to enlighten.

‚Molly< ‚ ‚Felicity.‛

‚Beg your pardon?‛

‚Name’s Felicity. Don’t know who Molly is, or if there is a

Molly.‛

‚Why are you wearing her nametag?‛

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 ‚Came with the uniform. Mine’s still being printed up, I guess.
They better do it fast. I’m not changing my name after 24
years.‛ Her accent was British, but her syntax, decidedly
American. Too much TV, I supposed.

‚Well?‛ she tried to remind me. ‚You wanted something?‛

‚Oh! Yes, I wanted to give you some advice, if that’s not too
forward of me.‛

‚Advice usually is, but I’m easy.‛

‚I was just going to suggest that maybe too much familiarity on

your rst day on the job might not be wise.

‚Oh. You think so? God, I hope it’s not too late. I can hold
back. You won’t turn me in or anything?‛

‚Of course not.‛

‚Thank God. Because, you know, I was planning to make a

career out of this. It’s been my dream ever since I was a tadpole.
Prestige like this doesn’t exactly come in a can. Who knows
where it will lead?‛ She shook her head and made a dismissive
sound with her lips as she turned her back to go on with her
prestigious work. I laughed inwardly at myself.
I stayed about for a few more jolts of ca eine until the close of
Molly’s or rather Felicity’s shift. At the opportune moment I
pounced. ‚Would you like to get a cup<? ‚ I stopped to remove
my foot.
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‚Don’t you dare say ‘co ee.’ Or tea, either. I get enough of
both.‛

‚Wine!‛ I covered. ‚A cup of wine. How’s that strike your fancy?‛

‚I prefer it in a glass, but a cup will do nicely.‛

There was a pleasant little restaurant-bar around the corner in

which she would probably not be embarrassed to be seen in her
uniform, although I guessed that there was not much upon this
earth that ever succeeded in embarrassing this girl. We found a
cozy table for two and grabbed it. Felicity started right in<

‚Before we go any further, I’ve got a son. 21⁄2. Name of Jordan.

Father’s long gone. He was a prick.‛ ‚Very nice name, but... I
wasn’t about to propose.‛

The sarcasm and such.‛

‚Why not? What’s wrong with me?‛

‚Well< for one thing, you have a kid.‛

She laughed, but it was a dull, colorless laugh, the kind which
suggests a lack of practice, the kind which seemingly resents
being discovered, as if perceived as a sign of weakness.

‚So you work upstairs? Crewover?‛ ‚Guilty.‛

‚Must be rich.‛
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 The bluntness con rmed what I suspected. She was not at all
mercenary in spite of her circumstances, whatever they were
entirely. I immediately wanted to see her again< away from the
counter, that is, and in other clothes, or eventually out of other
clothes, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The increased frequency of our meetings soon began to have an

e ect on my sentences, which were noticeably shorter of late.
This pared down verbiage may or may not have been to my
social advantage, but I was mildly indignant over the loss of
words. My priorities were still out of joint, and that was how I
preferred them.

More surprising than my happiness to be dating a girl from the

working class was my appreciation of someone who understood
struggle. At 39, I rst sensed what it meant to be insulated.
Felicity seemed not at all impressed by my money, nor even by
my pride and joy, the architectural paragon which was my
home. The rst words to spring from her mouth upon her
introductory visit were, ‚I’m waiting for the Prisoner of Zenda
and his wife to come down those steps.‛ She liked the screen
classics, too. I hit the dista jackpot with Felicity.

I not only loved but admired her. She was working her way
through school at two jobs (she also served luncheon at a
retirement home part-time) without child support from
Jordan’s derelict father, necessarily paying for the boy’s day care
herself. She loved learning. Her at was virtually wall-papered
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with books on philosophy, politics, history, poetry—and she had
read most of the great novels (but no economics—which
increased my esteem for her). Her apparent insatiability shamed
me into taking out a library card for the rst time since
university. We actually discussed what we read! I felt close to
human.

The great Walthorpe-Huntington, of course, emphatically

disapproved, and I was so certain that he would, that I kept the
relationship a secret from him for a good six months. Upon its
discovery, my never more ignorant father blared, ‚Tell me you
don’t plan on marrying Eliza Doolittle!‛

‚Why not?‛ I said smugly. ‚Think of what I’ll save on oral

arrangements at your funeral,‛ then added, ‚When we do tie the
knot, it will be just to spite you, old man.‛ As this exchange
indicates, my relationship with Dad continued to blossom.

The following day I won Felicity’s hand (we were engaged in

several rounds of couples poker). After the game she consented
to joining me in legal wedlock. Felicity did not want the
ceremony to be a major blowout, but I insisted, continuing the
spite theme. She accused me of petty vindictiveness and warped
priorities. Her accurate diagnosis of old family traits did not
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prevent me from following through with the plans just the
same.

My new wife deserved the best and I wanted society to know,

whether she cared or not. And I footed the bill regardless of
what Emily Post or anyone else would say. Only now do I regret
the show, equating myself in retrospect to one of those
transparent attention whores who proposes marriage via
skywriting or national television broadcast, confusing true
romance with the most self-serving ostentation. ‚I married an
exhibitionist,‛ any of the women so honored could justi ably
claim. And so, alas, could my Felicity.

But she was not one for romance, considered it a waste of time,
preferred to get right down to the meat of things. She enjoyed
pornography more than I did. How could any man fail to
appreciate something so refreshing in a woman?

One night she had revealed to me the reason for her fascination
with blue lms. She was majoring in Erotic Cinema at the
famously unconventional Phogg U., hell-bent on becoming the
foremost female porn auteur on the scene. Dismayed by my
own sudden prudery, I immediately thought of Jordan, but
hesitated to inject his name into the conversation. I trusted
Felicity’s judgment. I was sure she was careful to shield her son
from her passion, for the time being.

This most recent detail on my ancée’s résumé raised more

questions than it answered. Being the unimaginative slug I
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 sometimes am, I wondered about her relationship with her
father, for some reason. What am I saying? I know perfectly
well the reason. She never mentioned him, and I was too timid
to ask.

So Felicity consented to the big a air out of her love for me,
swallowing her principles for what was most likely one of the
few times in her life. She was resplendent in a gown of what she
called ‚eggshell,‛ her bridesmaids equally so in magenta. Since
these ladies were all ‚actresses‛ and classmates of the bride’s, my
juvenile imagination was piqued as to what was going on
beneath the nery. Jordan, serving as page (quite impeccably),
almost got a glimpse himself when he tried to crawl under one
of the oor-length skirts. Oh, to be a three-year-old in England.

The ceremony went o basically without a hitch, with only one

small unscheduled detour. Mother, whose mind at the time had
an open-ended appointment with decay, interpreted the
dreaded ‚forever hold your peace‛ as a cue to go into one of the
bawdy old numbers Elsa Lanchester did in decline, until
Albertine stu ed a corsage into her mouth. As we left the
church, Mum threw rice pudding at us, staining my
cummerbund< and not just at the bride and groom, but started
inging it randomly, bare-handed, and nally had to be
restrained. The priest o ered to sit on her.
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Felicity refused even to consider moving into the mansion and
thus I became her non-platonic roommate. I had to admit to
myself I was excited by the prospect. It felt almost naughty in
some childish way. That garish, oversized domicile would be
going to waste, but I could not have cared less. I shuttled back
and forth when necessary, but Felicity’s at o cially became
mine, too< for just slightly more than two weeks.

During that time, I was a di erent person. If I had been backed

into a corner, I still would have known I was rich, but there
were so few reminders immediately present that I could literally
forget about my money. Felicity resisted, but I insisted upon her
letting me pay the entirety of the rent. I cleaned the bathroom,
threw out the garbage, vacuumed and performed other
common tasks, all of which felt enriching, physically and
spiritually. If there had been a lawn, I’d have mowed it; a
garden, I’d have weeded it; or a dungeon, I’d have de-infested it.

I led a major invasion of the neighborhood grocery, nearly

maxing out one credit card on goodies that would last for
months and surprising Felicity with a gourmet repast on only
my second night in my new home. She rewarded me
handsomely.

Jordan was a delight. At the risk of sounding treacly, he really

was what you may have already predicted—a perfect surrogate
son. I was in love—the way you can only be with a child or a
kitty. A Renaissance Boy without question, he kicked his toys
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like a future Pele or Beckham, conversed—at least by toddler
standards—quite eloquently, and was fascinated by images of
dinosaurs< a paleontologist in the making, to be sure. His
bright baby blues and blond waves promised to make him a

Jude Law-ish ladykiller, but his brilliant intelligence and

sensitivity would exclude the possibility of chauvinist piggery.
This surplus of ne attributes more than compensated for the
occasional jam-covered doorknob.

That last Sunday morning Felicity endeavored to make a huge

American-style brunch. She went wild: sausage, eggs, ham,
‚hash browns,‛ strawberries, wa es, my favorite thick-cut Oscar
Meyer bacon (‚Bake!‛ Jordan called it), and Mrs. Olsen’s co ee
in lieu of the ashy Storebought’s we could have obtained for
free.

Everything looked and smelled scrumptious, and no doubt

would have tasted even more so, had an ungodly accident not
interrupted our noonday gorging plans. Felicity and I were so
pre-occupied in the kitchen that we had failed to stay abreast of
Jordan’s activities. Our rst sign of abnormality was a tiny
hacking sound, then the harrowing image of the little boy’s face
turning almost as blue as his eyes. She swept him up and ran out
the door, leaving the feast to oblivion.

Even as smart as we were, neither of us had ever bothered to

learn the Heimlich maneuver, nor even known whether it was
appropriate for pre-school children. I drove frantically to
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hospital while Felicity tried desperately to remove the blockage
(the ‚bake‛) from Jordan’s miniature throat. We were too late by
the time we reached the emergency.

I refused to feel the guilt Felicity instantly began imposing on

me. She blamed me for literally bringing home the bacon on
which the lad had choked< though she quite clearly had
overcooked it. Such inappropriate nger-pointing dictated our
future. The marriage was quickly annulled.

I moved back ‚home‛ to emotional distress and internal

confusion. The much expounded-upon ‚futility of wealth‛ had
never before revealed itself so unpleasantly. The surroundings
suggested nothing more than solitary con nement with a tennis
court and wine cellar. Why did a person as pathetically solo as I
need all this ashy nonsense? If Father could have accessed
these thoughts, they would have spelled my long overdue
disinheritance. Even I would later dismiss such musings as the
unmistakable symptoms of temporary insanity.

19.

Later that week I bought a canary and named it Jordan. It never

answered when I called it, but it seemed to love me. I decided
to change its name to Simon, to which it responded quite
enthusiastically. It had a gift for the warble. I realize they are all
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 supposed to sing, but my bird had talent! Too bad Ed Sullivan is
dead, I thought, this would be just his cup of tea. My wish was
surely not to exploit Simon. Since I was wealthy and fairly
famous, I did not want to be accused of ‚whoring out‛; I could
have donated all of our proceeds to charity, but the good ones
were all taken. I settled for novelty performances at o ce
parties and such.

We did all the great duet numbers: ‚Indian Love

Call,‛ ‚Anything You Can Do,‛ ‚You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,‛
‚Dueling Banjos,‛ ‚That Old Black Magic‛ (Simon did an
uncanny Keely Smith to my Louie Prima), ‚Scarborough
Fair‛ (he wore a tiny little fright wig to play Garfunkel), ‚You
Don’t Bring Me Flowers‛ (we took turns as Neil Diamond—
neither of us wanted the Streisand stigma), and ‚Ebony and
Ivory,‛ which I despised but Simon inexplicably loved. Di erent
tastes for di erent species.

We were a pair. I was suddenly popular at social gatherings for

the rst time, thanks to a little yellow bird with more
eloquence and nuance than any silly old macaw. Even as much
as I avoided the limelight, it was inevitable that word would get
around, and we were eventually wooed by agents and television
producers.
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The inundation of o ers was mind-numbing. Crewover &
Underhand, while enjoying the fun in private, was o cially
opposed to the prospect, labeling it ‚undigni ed.‛ Simon
seemed interested, however. I nally relented for one
appearance only.

It was a woeful morning show called ‚A.M. Blokes.‛ If I allowed

the bird this one opportunity in a modest arena, he might see
that show business was nothing special and that the life he had
at home was a happy and rewarding one< an assumption of
major error.

He wanted to perform the classic comedy routine ‚Who’s on

First?‛ to prove that he was more than ‚just a voice.‛ I told him
he did not yet have a national reputation and it was best to
stick to proven material; besides which, the baseball motif was
too esoteric for a British audience and a cricket-themed re-
write simply would not y.

I chose for our combination debut and farewell performance

Loggins & Messina’s ‚Your Mama Don’t Dance,‛ one of our best
numbers (I certainly did not want to embarrass myself.) The
reaction was stupendous. To my crushing disappointment,
Simon was bitten.
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But I stood my ground. I reminded him who was the ‚master‛
and who was ‚only the pet.‛ An unfortunate choice of words.

Simon was not himself anymore at home. He played with his

seed but did not eat very much. I tried to enliven his days with
the anti- parakeet jokes which had normally drawn such a
positive response, but he was too depressed and angry. Needless
to say, he could not or simply did not sing. His life ended the
way so many other canaries’ do, at the bottom of his cage
among yesterday’s headlines. I could not entirely rule out
suicide.

Not since Hazel had I experienced so much guilt. I had a

miniature mausoleum built on the grounds to honor my dear
little friend. The one-man construction crew, one of those
tediously self-righteous ‚angry young men‛ from some damned
pointless Osborne play of several generations ago, snickered
during his work, but before he was nished the job I reduced
him to tears, stopping him in mid-hammer, with my tales of
Simon.

20.

The loss of my tiny yellow mate slowly yielded to the real

source of my most recent depression, the death of Jordan and
abandonment by Felicity. Simon, for all his delight, was nally a
distraction from challenges I badly needed to confront.
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 I avoided Storebought’s for far too long, then decided to go
inside one day for a cup of< something, I told myself, actually
hoping to see Felicity, who, I then discovered, had quit her job
several weeks earlier. I also checked Phogg U., where she was no
longer enrolled. Her name had been crossed out in the vestibule
outside her at, meaning that she must have forfeited her
security deposit. The weirder part of me wondered if I had
imagined the entire relationship. It was almost as if she had slid
o the earth’s curvature without regard for gravity. Who could
have blamed her if she had?

*I still periodically pick up a periodical devoted to the porn

industry in hopes of seeing her name (Honestly, that’s why!).
Thus far, unless she has changed it to the frequently publicized
‚Vaza Lean‛—she always liked Sir David—I have come up
empty< once again, empty.+

With tragedy upon tragedy, my own depression worsened. I

then saw a therapist on the advice of my former therapist who,
I would later discover, had lied to me about his retirement<

Originally, Mum and Dad had insisted that I should start to see
the highly recommended Dr. Lachrymoe Z. Teerduck after my
‚indiscretion‛ as a student. I reluctantly consented, just to nd
out what the ‚Z‛ stood for. It was Zebulon, to my
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 disappointment, for I had already been acquainted with several
Zebulons and was hoping for a Zack.

I surmised that I was in trouble when I rst entered his

tastefully furnished personal space and noticed a picture of
Erich von Stroheim on one wall, and of Richard Widmark on
another. Dr. Teerduck was a renowned proponent of Frontal
Attack Therapy, an extremely popular road to emotional well-
being in the late Sixties and through the Seventies among the
trendiest of masochists and self-haters. Since my own problem
was supposed to have been arrogance, according to my loving
father, I was forced to question his logic. Clarity, however, was
nearby.

Dr. Teerduck believed rmly that every neurosis to which an

individual stubbornly clung was a result of a separation from his
‚true self,‛ an identity which could be discovered only in his
o ce. In fact, the process began in the waiting room, with
Wagnerian arias piped in over the public address system.

The sullen receptionist, who was required to wear Viking horns

and (on special occasions) a Brunnhilde-like breastplate,
habitually picked ghts. ‚Do it,‛ she barked, ‚say something
about the out t!‛ then pulled out her Nordic spear from behind
the desk.
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 Theheavilyorchestratedatmospherehadhadresoundingsuccessin
breakingdownclients’resistances. Theneedtobeimmediately
sedated and even hospitalized for several of them was all that
the good doctor needed as proof that his methods worked,
maintaining that such an extreme reaction in his patients and
sometime litigants stemmed from the instantaneous
penetration of the guilt—an emotion he heartily promoted—of
not being ‚whole.‛ These and other brilliantly elucidated
precepts formed the basis of his classic best-selling treatise
Bombast of the Soul: A Self-Exclusion Crisis Amid the
Mythology of Compassion.

‚You should feel blessed he would even take you,‛ Dad said.
‚He’s a giant in his eld.‛ ‚He did wonders for your father< at
rst,‛ Mum added.

‚Stick to the subject, dearest.‛

It soon became apparent that Father had scheduled my initial

appointment not to have me ‚cured‛ of anything, but simply to
see me—though never with conscious intent—regularly berated
by someone with a PhD., under the guise of healthful
correction, thereby absolving himself of any anti-Benedictine
preconception and retribution. (I was not a bad amateur shrink
myself.)
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 I thus submitted to the demoralizing see-through quackery to
humor Dad and to spare our relationship any further
splintering. (He was paying for it anyway, but running a private
tab without my knowledge.)

So long as I was sitting there, I thought I might as well vent. I

tried to stay on point about Mum and Dad and the usual old
chestnut concerning their failures as parents, but Dr. Teerduck
kept changing the subject to masturbation or potty training,
always with a tone of harsh, even hostile judgment and a Peter
Lorre-ish grin. ‚You gutless milquetoast!‛ was his favorite
recurring verbal assault, beginning with the very rst session.

They’re not joshing when they call this shit ‚treatment,‛ I

thought. Never had I been ‚treated‛ so shabbily. After about
three months of like abuse, Tuesdays and Thursdays between
my afternoon classes ‚Introduction to Usury‛ and ‚Advanced
Per dy,‛ I had had my ll, and decided to speak up, as they say.

‚Doctor,‛ I began, ‚this tough, aggressive approach, this be-

cruel-only-to-be-kind rot may work on gang members, hard-
core drug addicts and the like, but I’m a civilized, sophisticated,
semi-educated person with a clearly mapped future, who made
a single mistake in judgment and now nds himself your
unwilling patient after being bullied into that role by his
inordinately provincial, image-conscious parents.‛
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 Within seconds, I noticed two of the unhappiest teardrops ever
to fall, from those previously enraged (incidentally, non-hazel)
eyes. Could I have actually hurt this man with my words?

‚Damn you,‛ he said, now openly sobbing, ‚you’re the one who’s
supposed to cry< You’re the rst ever to call me out on all this.
I’m a bloody fraud! Please don’t tell your parents< or anyone
else.‛

I did not. We cut the session short that day, Dr. Teerduck being
too emotionally drained to continue. Poor fellow. But two days
later, he resumed his in ammatory rhetoric. Even Widmark
seemed to be snarling more repulsively than usual. Von
Stroheim almost spoke.

Basic human kindness, according to the doctor, was an

unnatural neurosis in its own right, a self-serving form of classic
enabling, which prevented the giver and the receiver each from
discovering his ‚inner prick.‛ That favorite vulgarism did indeed
possess a dual meaning in the scholarly theories of this blatant
humbug. Since the planet was becoming crazier by the hour,
however, his principles found a solid and faithful audience
through book tours, talk show appearances, seminars, symposia,
a theme park franchise, and a rare venture into academic action
gures (which his critics called ‚dolls‛ just to upset him), one
apiece handed out gratis to patients with each tenth visit.

Indeed, the doctor’s success was not without backlash.

Organized protests camped out at the sites of his public
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appearances, greeting him upon arrival with their trusty
placards reading ‚Teerduck You Suck‛ and ‚Lachrymoe,
Quackrymoe.‛ Disparagingly labeled ‚Nicies‛ by his supporters
for their insistence upon the validity of kindness, the mostly
youthful voices inspired me to join.

I was the only member of their throng to simultaneously

participate in private meetings with L.Z.T. and public damnings
during the o hours. That distinction was a source of secret
pride while it lasted, but Teerduck himself eventually identi ed
my face from among the crowd in a published Times of London
photograph, over his morning scone.

He had considered himself immune to the pedestrian

condemnations of the Nicies, but this new wrinkle represented
a real threat. ‚That is you, is it not?!‛ he shrieked at me across
his desk, waving the newspaper in my face. ‚Is this sabotage? Is
that your plan? What are you< why are you< you< you‚Gutless
milquetoast?‛ I helped. ‚Relax, doctor. Don’t have an episode.
No one knows of my association with you.‛

‚Your parents do.‛

‚Father thinks the Times is left-wing propaganda. And Mother

hasn’t read anything since before I was born. And my siblings
don’t even know I’m here.
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 If any of their acquaintances see the picture and mention it to
them, I’ll simply look like the family embarrassment I am. They
certainly would never reveal my perceived psychosis. They’d die
rst.‛

‚Still, it’s truly bad form, young man.‛

Teerduck was right, of course, but I did not discontinue my

activities, and I had lied to him. There was one soul who could
connect our names. Samantha Maldumaire was passionate,
dedicated to her cause, and altogether balmy.

Sporting Brando’s leather jacket and Twiggy’s haircut, she

evinced at rst glance a seeming disinterest in men, but her
undeniably pretty face had me hooked. I would do anything for
her, as I would soon prove to myself in spades

Samantha had the notion of getting the goods on Teerduck by

invading his personal les. ‚There’s always something in there,‛
she insisted, ‚and you have easy access to them. This is a sign
from God, Benedict.‛ Since she was an avowed atheist, her
comment was strong inducement, notwithstanding my
trepidation. Samantha was nothing if not persuasive.
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I was beginning to feel very lm noir about the whole project.
Her ‚strategy‛ was for me to (somehow) steal the pertinent
documents on Tuesday, returning them on Thursday before they
would be missed. No logistical suggestions were included in my
mastermind’s instructions beyond a vague reference to
simulating an epileptic seizure. I knew she was insane, and
respectfully rejected that excuse for a plan.

‚All right,‛ she said, ‚then we’ll have to break in.‛ So much for
God’s endorsement.

I meekly agreed, out of my delusional love and lust, the two

most common factors preceding total obliteration. Samantha
was gutsy, but self-assured to the point of being naive, all of
which dilated my pupils. The two of us became so busy plotting
the ‚caper‛ and Samantha so pre-occupied in her thought
process, it never once occurred to me—and I am certain, not to
her—that we had yet to have sex. But on some unde ned,
unexplored level, I knew she was as in love as I.

Carefully casing the two-story o ce building one night,

hunched together by necessity in our black cat burglar get-ups
(which were quite slimming), I nearly spoke of our cosmic
destiny, but was soon brought back down to earth. ‚Damn it,
Benedict,‛ Samantha stage- whispered, ‚you’re kneeling on my
hand.‛ The moment had passed.
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 In our observations, we took notice of a night watchman fast
asleep around 2:30 A.M., his mouth opened widely enough to
accommodate an extra-large burrito. This was long before those
ubiquitous surveillance cameras and sophisticated alarm
systems—nothing but a probably snoring sixtyish man to worry
about. Hence, Samantha and I felt con dent that our rst foray
(mine, at least) into crime would be a piece of cake, preferably
marble sponge.

On the agreed-upon Tuesday night-Wednesday morning, we at

rst checked on the guard, who was indeed asleep. Flashlights
in hand, we smashed in a window to Teerduck’s o ce quite
gingerly, but otherwise entered without fanfare. Luckily, the
ling cabinets were unlocked. We went to work, pouring
through page after page of o cial-looking boredom with our
hand-held ashlights. We also rummaged through his desk
drawers in search of salacious private correspondence.

‚I’ll bet he’s been in and out of cracker farms,‛ Samantha said,
salivating as she paged through the data. At least two hours
passed, then<

‚Oh, my God!‛ she suddenly heard me gasp, dropping a folder as

if infected.
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 ‚What’s the matter?‛ she verbally pounced. ‚You found
something?‛

‚He’s got the plague!‛

‚What! Bubonic?‛

‚I don’t know. Is there another kind?‛

‚I thought that was wiped out!‛ She grabbed the papers up.

‚Well, it’s back.‛

After a half-minute, I could make out her rolling, probably non-

hazel eyes through the adjusted darkness. ‚That’s plaque. These
are his dental records. Idiot.‛ This last word was spoken with a
maximum of impatient, patronizing contempt.

My incompetence was humiliating enough, but the ‚idiot‛ was a

crushing blow to my self-worth. I immediately re-considered
my romantic inclinations toward such a callous young woman.
‚Nicies,‛ my posterior.

Our e orts proved to be fruitless over those dark A.M. hours.

There was nothing concrete, neither sleazy nor incriminating,
we could use against the doctor, nothing but the same
despicable standards we had been decrying all along. Yet the
adventure was not unproductive if only because I learned to be
more selective in my libidinal pursuits, though probably for all
the wrong reasons.
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I was too embarrassed to face Samantha, and attended no more
gatherings of the Nicies, but did not tell Dr. Teerduck so that I
would at least continue to hold the upper hand in his o ce.
Ironically, I could have used a sympathetic ear just then, but
only on my terms.

He assumed the broken window was the result of a kids’ game

of soccer on Wednesday afternoon when he was on the golf
course, but wondered where the ball had gone. Perhaps the
cleaning lady had a grandson.

Out of the blue he then asked, ‚Benedict, have you considered

the possible bene ts of a nice long holiday?‛ ‚I’m already on
holiday, doctor.‛ It was July. School was not in session.

‚I meant for me.‛

And so on this gray afternoon many years later, when I chanced

upon Dr. Teerduck on the street, I remembered his face well
enough through the age lines, but had forgotten that I had once
owned a piece of his soul (perhaps I always shall). Still fool
enough to believe in the dictates of the cosmos, I rst politely
thought to ask him to recommend

‚I’m retired!‛ he volunteered before I had the opportunity to

complete my question. The professed status seemed plausible
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 since he appeared to be in his late sixties, but he did eventually
provide me with the name of another counselor once I had
expressed my need for one and convinced him that he was safe.
I don’t know why I trusted him< in some odd way, I felt I owed
him.

The Teerduckian worldview had been out of fashion for quite

some time and had indeed been largely discredited among
L.Z.T.’s colleagues, to the unexpected glory of a generally
disheartening universe. And since he had confessed his
philosophical fraudulence to me long ago, I concluded that he
might steer me toward a reputable professional (don’t ask me to
explain my reasoning). He did, more or less.

If I in any way played a small part in cutting Teerduck’s

in uence short, I am glad, but su cient time has passed that I
may now feel sympathy for the clueless old fart, wherever he is.

[Shortly after our goodbyes, it occurred to me that I had

discontinued my alleged therapy so many years earlier just four
action gures short of a complete set. I still needed Willie
Whiner, Sara Sublimator, Carl Compensator and Emma
Enabler.

Incidentally, if my parents ever learned of that picture in the

Times, neither of them once mentioned it.]
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21.

Dr. Sylvia Schlockman (‚Good! She’s a Jew!‛ cried Mum. ‚They

know how to x people!‛) had a pleasant bearing for a
psychiatrist.

Her smile made me feel immediately comfortable, more than I

wanted to feel, actually. How was I supposed to open up and
release my demons to this nanny?

I did not need to add to my guilt by ruining her day. She had
that kind of face.

I tried to focus on her framed diplomas and degrees on the wall

to remind myself that there was probably nothing she had not
heard.

Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing!‛ she confessed some

twenty minutes into the session when I described my father—a
statement I found rather inappropriate, but certainly honest
enough. It was one of her few interruptions; I was ceaselessly
cathartic.
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In fact, I went on such a verbal jag that I failed to notice until
my third visit that Dr. Schlockman had been seducing me,
though she had at least fteen years on me. (In addition to his
other sterling qualities, Teerduck now took on, in my
estimation, the character of a procurer.)

With the satisfaction of having unburdened my soul over the

happenings of the previous months and to avoid a re-enactment
of Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in Spellbound, I
considered myself purged of whatever was ailing me, and
resumed my life.

One revelation which surprised me during my time with Dr.

Schlockman was my oral meditation on the possibility of my
own fatherhood. Jordan had been fate’s relentless and tangible
reminder. I wanted a son for myself, but also recognized this
desire as being culturally, societally and familially in uenced. I
still wanted one, however.

I got a puppy instead. Bulldogs had that appealing combination

of being utterly lovable while looking unloved. I named him
Rubble, not because he resembled something tossed aside
(though he did), but after Barney of ‚The Flintstones,‛ who had
always impressed me as that rare creature, a morally evolved
Cave Man. I never liked the name Barney. So Rubble it was.
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 He was a bad puppy, as most of them are. Were it not for that
unparalleled cuteness, no one would abide their satanic
behavior. As far as their teeth are concerned, there is no
signi cant di erence between a soup bone and the leg of a
Louis XIV sofa or your own arm. The world is their chew toy.
Rubble was so evil one weekend, I seriously considered sending
him a Whitman’s sampler.

We tolerate these vicious but neutral attacks, as well as the

spontaneous defecation and embarrassing olfactory exploration
of visitors’ laps in the hope of nding a ‚best friend.‛ An alien
species might nd this apparent abandonment of self-respect
and good sense objectively sad, but what may one expect from
an alien? Those bigots who maintain that the dog gives ‚love‛
only in exchange for food were proven wrong when I starved
Rubble for three days, yet he continued to lick my face and wag
his tail at the shamed and godless sight of me.

Never again would I punish him so. He was indeed my best

friend, I say proudly. No woman, no mate, quite obviously no
parent could o er such solace from the shelling by a depraved
universe, without so much as an e ort. He seemed to have an
uncannily innate understanding of the complexities of the
derivatives market as well. An especially grueling day was
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instantly dissolved by feeling Rubble’s big, eshy countenance
on my weary legs. Even the occasional drool was welcome.

Lamentably, I had learned that, due to chronic breathing

problems, bulldogs live comparatively shorter lives
(approximately eight people years) than other breeds.

That celestially smashed in, abby face which so endeared him

to me threatened to be Rubble’s Achilles heel, or in this case,
head. It is one of Creation’s meanest ironies that a feature so
delightful should be equally as fatal. Rubble ful lled the experts’
predictions right on cue, passing at 8 years (canine middle age),
with my guilt-ridden consent, into the unknowable, his subtle
whimper

accompanied by a questioning yet undeniable wisdom in his

eternal puppy eyes, deeply black but I could sense just a hint of
Hazel as they shut for the last time.

Let the sco ers sco . Sir Benedict Ignatius Walthorpe-

Huntington has known love of a kind.

22.
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Just on a lark, I decided to seek out a secluded hideaway one
night< any secluded hideaway. In no danger of becoming an
alcoholic (I simply never craved the stu ), I nevertheless felt
the need to socialize with people who probably were. I chanced
upon a modest but not uninhabitable place called Lenny’s in the
East End.

Rubbing elbows with the common folk would only bene t me,
so long as I could conceal my true identity from someone I may
have unwittingly screwed into debt. If anyone asks, I’m Martin,
I decided. My face was not so well publicized as my name.

I had hastily but carefully thrown together my version of casual

—a cardigan and an old pair of khakis I found hidden in a
storage closet and which I had not worn in at least ten years.
They still t; the health club membership paid o . Not too
conspicuously, I hoped, I entered.

‚Dewars over ice,‛ I said for an opening.

‚Comin’ right up.‛

Quite immediately, the jolly-looking man on the stool to my left

struck up his idea of a conversation. I tried to cover my unease
by appearing friendly and engaged in his prattle.
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 It was not going well, this attempt at being one of the masses,
but not badly either. Ed was a machinist by trade, in his mid-
forties by the looks of him, and an altogether good bloke, as
they say.

It was my turn to reciprocate but it suddenly ashed into my

brain that I had neglected to invent an occupation for myself.

‚I’m a forensic pathologist,‛ I said to my own disbelief, having

just nished watching an episode of ‚Law and Order.‛

‚Bloody hell,‛ said Ed.

‚It can be.‛ I misunderstood.

‚You can’t a ord a better place than this to wet your whistle?‛

‚Well, it’s< the slow season.‛

‚Oh.‛ He seemed to buy my inspirational ad-lib. ‚Lenny, get this

pathological another scotch.‛ Lenny laid an upside-down shot
glass in front of me.

Before I could stop him, I noticed something quite disturbing

in one corner of the pub. ‚Excuse me, Ed, there appears to be a
man lying under that table over there.‛

‚Oh, that,‛ he said. ‚That’s my designated driver. Don’t worry.

He’s just takin’ a nap. Hey, Rory! Wake up!‛
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I stared quizzically until I realized my leg was being pulled and
I laughed. We laughed together, a new experience for me with
another man. It felt good.

I soon became a regular of sorts. ‚Hey, Marty!‛ Ed would

announce my entrance. He was always there, must have spent
every night there. Rory, too, each time under a di erent table.
Lenny put up with it as a mindful brother-in-law. I played darts,
talked cricket, even sang old sailor songs. It was, oddly, both
humbling and ennobling to have this secret location in which to
re-exist. Yet, all the while, I was deceiving Ed, this decent man
who was becoming my< could it be, a friend? If he were to learn
the truth, well< I would deserve the unknown consequences.
What was wrong with me anyway?

With or without the deception, the entire milieu was an

overdue education. I felt retrospectively sheltered, but in a
lofty, self- important sort of way. I had a sense of why people
like Ed and others present hated people like me (if I have not
made it clear, I hated most of us myself), though we never
discussed nancial or even social matters. We were having too
good a time. My consumption of liquor was— inevitably—
increasing, but I remained unconcerned. When you are
plastered, of course, very little does concern you.
One crowded Saturday evening, I was so looped I even
karaoke’d (Is that a verb?). The arti cial courage prompted me
to reach new heights of shamelessness with my voice.
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Performing ‚You’re Mama Don’t Dance,‛ it occurred to me in
mid-song, through the growing stupor, that it was careless of
me to pick a number I had once sung on national television. I
frantically forgot some of the words. Though the likelihood of
exposure was slim, it was too late.

A plump but otherwise diminutive woman had recognized both

me and the song from the one brief time in my life that my
physical self had enjoyed a high pro le. She cornered me with
all matter of questions about Simon (‚Whatever happened to
him?‛—what the hell do you think?).

Fortunately, Ed had made a beeline for the gents’ room right

after my song, but I felt unmasked, vulnerable, and dirty. I
bolted through the doorway to the darkened street, sticking
poor Ed with the bar tab, quickly caught the bus and never
returned (I believed), not just to Lenny’s but to the whole East
End. What disgraceful behavior from a supposed adult.

If a man is humiliated and no one is there to see him blush,

does it make a di erence?
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 I continued to drink out of habit, at home. With full awareness
of what this development in my life was supposed to signify, I
rejected the possibility. Taking nothing away from AA or any
other method of concentrated deprivation, I knew that
dipsomania was not my problem. Denial, of course, was a
symptom of the disease, an assertion I could never grasp, the
ipside logically suggesting that a person who was not an
alcoholic would have to admit he was. That made no sense as I
poured another one. Ironically, the hangovers themselves soon
cured me. It was just a brie y self-destructive, late- fties phase,
thankfully. Sorry, labelers.

23.

Father was palpably excited to be receiving the prestigious

Jacob Marley Award for ‚distinguished service to economic
survival‛ only two weeks after his 87th birthday. It was the rst
time, as far as I could ascertain, that the honor had ever been
bestowed posthumously. There was to be a huge banquet with
eminent speakers and invited guests. Although he dismissed
this considerable to-do as a consolation prize for being by-
passed for a knighthood or even a Nobel because of his
questionable political history, he took his much too snug tuxedo
out of storage and decided to attend.
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 Mother, of course, was too far gone by this time (the last
function she graced was intermittently disrupted by her music
hall-style renditions of ‚God Save Our Queen‛ while attempting
to count everyone’s ice cubes). Regan and Goneril should
certainly have made other plans, but Albertine and I would be
there as each other’s self-conscious escorts.

So would Denton Fisch-Horder and his mates Smith and

Wesson (he had posted the weapon, with ‚Perishable‛ written
on the package, to the cheap hotel room he had reserved for
the occasion to avoid probable airport hassles). Security was
still rather lax in the early Nineties, especially in England;
consequently, the expatriate Nova Scotian psycho’s perennially
belated plans stood a good chance of nally reaching fruition on
my father’s big night. The original Pleat-Folliclians had either
long ago lost interest in their once passionate cause or simply
died o , leaving Denton alone to bear his still clearly, if anally,
retained grudge.

Denton was long-retired from his forty-year career as an ice

cream vendor, subsisting on a modest but—considering his
spartan lifestyle—survivable pension, always bitter that he
might have pocketed so much more. ‚Children are such
goddamn awful tippers,‛ he was often heard complaining—even
to their parents—‚the sel sh little terds.‛
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 The mum and dad did their own complaining, threatening to
boycott the product, but Denton was never red or even
reprimanded—in fact, was often given appreciative raises to
keep him unmotivated beyond this quasi-vocation. By whatever
criteria these things are judged, he was the best vendor there
was—and as for the boycott, well< kids need ice cream more
than they need parents, especially bossy ones.

After the obligatory overstated speeches, it was Dad’ turn to

rise (it took only thirty-nine seconds to help him up—we had
rehearsed at home). It was a long enough wait for a lurking
Denton to nearly postpone his act of justice yet again, but
nally< three shots rang out. Dad fell immediately. The sounds
in the echoing hall could not, in a matter of seconds or their
fragments, be reliably interpreted as gun-related.

Mass panic and confusion processed the incident as quickly as

manageable.

‚At long last, I avenge you, my cousin< the Duchess of< Plate
Monocle< uh< Meat Particle< Pleat-Follicle-on-the-Seine< the
Thames!‛ the white-garbed crackpot with the pistol over in the
corner intoned with some frail passion. ‚Where?‛ at least six
voices in general proximity to the geriatric loony asked, but
most in the room did not hear him.
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A husky and alert busboy and professional rugby hopeful sacked
the geezer with no regard for the man’s octogenarian status,
jarring the weapon from his liver-spotted hand and breaking
almost as many bones as in Denton’s never more distant cousin.

[None of them could have been expected to remember. Pleat-

Follicle-on-the-Thames had been completely destroyed in the
late 1940’s by a huge blizzard, leaving no survivors, but also no
casualties (everyone had already moved out by then)].

In his old vendor uniform, Denton was at rst mistaken for a

medical professional. ‚Are you not ashamed, doctor?‛ asked one
angry old woman. But the ‚doctor,‛ by then immobile and barely
conscious, had actually done nothing. The pistol was a quite
authentic-looking stage prop, a Christmas gift one year from a
rum raisin-loving Halifax regional theater group, ring blanks.
(Denton had seen their production of Detective Story fourteen
times despite savage notices.

Father had collapsed in shock, believing that he had indeed

been shot right through the speech, which he had placed in his
left breast pocket, but the pain was only a massive coronary.
Albertine and I were instantly by his side, loosening his tux.
‚My speech,‛ he rasped, gurgled, or whispered.
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‚It’s safe, Dad.‛ I did not know what else to say. This was
followed by a soft-spoken ‚Juan.‛

‚Oh, Christ. Not that again.‛

‚One what?‛ asked Albertine.

‚It’s< I’ll tell you later.‛

His heart, the existence of which I had often doubted, gave out
right there, con rmed within minutes by the summoned
paramedics. What an inconvenient way to discover it.

And so Denton Fisch-Horder had exacted his revenge in the

most inept way imaginable. I dreaded the proliferation of
rushed, inaccurate tabloid headlines like ICE CREAM MAN
SHOOTS FINANCIER or MURDER SCOOP! The much-
witnessed culprit could be

163

charged with nothing more serious than public disturbance, but

while awaiting arraignment, died of his rugby injuries.
Fortunately for the busboy, who faced no charges, there were no
more Fisch-Horders or Pleat-Follicles or Harley-Davidsons or
Dash-Hyphens to initiate any additional vendettas.

Dad was so proud of that silly speech. Albertine convinced me

to read it at the memorial service. At rst I accused her of a
distastefully timed, strictly Walthorpe-Huntington-esque
emotional blackmail which was beneath her. After
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consideration, however, I thought why not, so long as there was
plenty of communion wine available. I checked with the priest,
a last-minute replacement who objected to the Pinot Grigiot
provided for the ceremony by the regular celebrant, who had
been called to Boston for yet another emergency exorcism, this
time by some apparently Catholic Native American tribe called
Red Sox Nation.

‚I wanted a nice Bordeaux, a claret,‛ the cleric said. ‚Whoever

heard of white wine with the Host? Blasphemous. Am I to
understand he drinks that bloody piss every Sunday? How is
anyone supposed to transubstantiate with that splashing about
in the cup?‛

Hoping to circumvent a second major schism, I made my

excuses and departed, more convinced than ever that Rome
should allow these poor buggers to have sex, and decided to
fortify myself before the Mass. Its commencement scheduled
for just three hours away, I would have to begin immediately. I
needed a sti one just to look at Dad’ speech, which I had not
yet read, nor even unfolded. Once I had, I needed a second. My
usual Dewars simply would not su ce.

Fortunately, I found some old tequila at Dad’ house, where the

atmosphere would, I thought, inspire me.
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 I had forgotten what a transforming libation Jose Ferrer or
whatever it was called could be. I needed every degree of its
power to plod through Dad’ rambling thoughts on paper.
‚My esteemed colleagues, honored guests, loving family, it is
with great humility that I stand here before you to accept<
blah, blah, blah, etc<‛ Good God, did that thing need an edit. I
removed the cork and got down to work.

From what I remember, the speech was ready for presentation

by the time Barlow, my chau eur, dropped me at the church. I
had a large thermos of Mrs. Olsen’s by my side. Barlow was
su ciently trained not to react to anything, including on this
particular day my several choruses of ‚Nobody Knows the
Troubles I’ve Seen‛ from the back seat.

There was a sizeable turnout for the occasion, many of whom

were professional extras hired for the day. Some of them were
good enough to be relied upon to contribute genuinely mood-
enhancing tears. Albertine had just nished her respectful,
appropriately bullshitty eulogy, cueing me up.

I surprised myself by rising erectly and walking with the perfect

poise that only someone who was completely snockered could
pull o .
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 Without even remembering to remind the assembled that the
words were from Dad’ Jacob Marley acceptance speech, I began

‚My steamed colleagues<‛ Did I say that correctly? I thought as

Albertine shook her head in disbelief. ‚Cherishing, as I almost
have< always have, the demagogic< democratic!... principles
of<‛ I could feel the syllables springing forth, but seemingly on
their own, without any concerted e ort by my tongue to form
them. ‚I would shpare nothing<‛ Oh, Christ. There it was—my
rst slurred ‘S.’ ‚<my

loving wife Santa< my dodgers Vegan and Gonorrhea<‛ Portrait

of a trainwreck refusing to wreck, but continuing on against all
reason. The last few words seemed particularly di cult to
release, but as they suddenly burst outward, I recognized them
as chunks of breakfast. One of the extras got splattered.

In an obvious break from character, she turned to her nearest

cast mate and said, ‚Remind me to re my agent.‛

I had sobered up somewhat before the trip to the cemetery,

with the help of Mrs. Olsen and of Albertine, who must have
enjoyed pouring a quart of cold Evian over my head.
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At the burial site, I noticed a big, dark, elderly man, perhaps a
year or two younger than my late father, but appearing to be in
strapping good condition for his age. When the ‚mourners‛ had
begun to disperse, the gentleman approached me and spoke.

‚My name is Juan‛ he said with an unlikely brogue, nearly

fracturing me with his handshake. I felt my mouth drop open
along with my eyes. All three ori ces would remain in that state
for the next several minutes as the hulking stranger continued.
‚I knew your Da a long time ago. She was the love o’ me life.
Sure if she wasn’t the prettiest lass I ever did see. She taught me
so many things, Maureen did. And she really knew how to take
it up the arse.‛

I doubt that I heard a word after that, though he did go on. I

recall my neck sti ening as I continued to look up at this
personi ed nightmare; and I had for some reason forgotten
how to blink. Albertine later informed me that I fell squarely
on my face. Certainly I broke my nose somehow. Evidently I
also chipped a tooth on the way down on a tombstone of
someone named Grovelson.

Juan O’Klock, it appears, had cleverly (who would have

guessed?) staged his death back in 1931 to spare his beloved
Maureen, i.e., my father, the inconvenience and embarrassment
of being saddled with a lug who would simply not have t into
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the world Dad had envisioned for himself and which his rapist/
lover (?!) had also wanted for him/her. (Imagining the cellblock
pillow talk made me nauseous, if they even had pillows, that is.)
Mr. O’Klock knew that Father was smart enough to hunt him
down if he had simply disappeared. And thus, the hoax.

Juan’s decision forced him to abandon his own dream of the

heavyweight title, but he apparently followed the great
Walthorpe- Huntington’s nancial career as closely as a
fanatical sportsman reads the cricket scores. God! In its way, it
was a very touching sacri ce< in its own bizarre, vomit-inducing
way.

24.

Being knighted is, as they say, an honor. The method by which

the news is relayed, however, could be more elegant. I had
received junk mail from Buckingham Palace many times before
(‚YOU MAY ALREADY OWN A SMALL SHIRE!‛).
Therefore, the last thing I

expected to nd in my postal box was an invitation to my own

knighthood. Somehow I had always thought, when it nally
happened, I would be in charge of the guest list myself. But the
Queen has never been known for her strict adherence to proper
etiquette. Who will ever forget her very audible series of farts
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while appearing on ‚Meet the Press‛ in the late Eighties? (In her
defense, however, Tex-Mex Night was a rather ill-advised choice
for a White House dinner with a visiting gurehead.)

But back on subject< Apparently unimpressed with the

informality of the presentation, I had inadvertently discarded
three prior noti cations before the fourth arrived quite
auspiciously. The envelope was identical, with standard B-Pal
logo, but emblazoned this time with Her Majesty’s own
handwriting proclaiming in royal blood-red ink, ‚Open this,
damn it, before I change my mind!‛ To magnify the
intimidation, the stamp in the upper right hand corner, for
which she had newly posed to get my attention, glared
ominously at me. Almost hearing the icy voice, I obeyed.

I was quite swept away. I immediately thought of Hazel,

Felicity, Jordan, Simon, Rubble and other non-human
companions, including my parents and Jonathan. Other than
Albertine, there was no one with whom to share the news. I
was even between pets. It was a much lonelier moment than I
had anticipated, lonelier still when I removed the long-awaiting
Dom Perignon from my freezer and popped it open. After a few
swigs directly from the bottle, however, I began to feel MUCH
better, downright silly in fact, dancing with myself around the
house, inside and out. I mooned the neighbors though the
nearest one was a half-mile away (I knew he owned a telescope).
I decided to ring up Albertine. She was quite elated.
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 ‚Dad would be so proud,‛ she said.

There was no call for that. I hung up on her

The ceremony itself was, as they say, an eyeful. Buckingham can

be a humbling environment in its own right, even more so when
the Queen enters in full regalia. Conditions, however, were
hardly ideal for my much anticipated day. A u epidemic having
hit London and surrounding suburbs, many of the Royal
attendants could not attend. Her Majesty was accompanied by
her two Gerkin orderlies whose complexions both looked
ttingly green. Only three of the ve Yeomen of the Guard
demanded by protocol could make it, and likewise neither the
Lord Chamberlain nor the Lord Steward nor most of the other
Lords found it practicable to remove themselves from bed. The
responsibility as Royal stooge ultimately fell to the rst
available in order of succession, Lord Horowitz, who was not
well himself, but did not get many opportunities like this one
and gladly made the trip, fever and all.

The Queen herself was the picture of health, as always. She

never missed one of these things. Apparently there was a clause
in her contract forbidding sickness of any kind. There were
rumors a oat that she had an exact double (a rather chilling
possibility), that she was
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receiving regularly administered injections of a secret Royal
elixir, and even that she was a robot. One way or the other,
either her own or her stand-in’s presence at all imperial
functions was guaranteed.

The hearty bearing notwithstanding, there were certain changes

during the natural aging process to which even Her Majesty
could not give the slip. Although my own knees were serving
me dependably, I worried from this unaccustomed position that
the monarch’s ability to lift the ceremonial sword, on which I
noticed some small but imposing blood stains, might have been
impaired. The spots were too freshly red to have been the
product of o cial usage by her late father in his capacity as
colonel in the Scotchguards. I suddenly felt protective toward
the state of my clavicle. But I am now happy to convey that my
collarbone and the rest of my anatomy survived the drubbing<
that is, dubbing. I was lucky—the next fellow in line, Sir Aubrey
of Locksmith, was wounded just above the right nipple.

Afterward, the Royal photographers went mad snapping the

honorees, but I was hoping they would wait until I had time to
don my armour, only to learn that the impressive metallic
apparel had been discontinued several centuries after the
Lancelot-Galahad era.
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Fortunately I discovered this information before being further
humiliated by the next question I had planned about my seat at
the Round Table. (An obsession with monetary issues often
leaves one out of the cultural loop.)

On the following morning, I could feel that I was coming down

with something. Although possibly harboring the immune
system herself of a comic book superhero, the Queen has
always been a known carrier.

All in all, it was a good day, though.

25.

Before putting the house on the market, Albertine and I

scowered the property, a grueling process. Neither of us was the
sentimental type, but one never knows. And one afternoon,
there it was. Dad’ journal. Who knew? My initial compunction
about reading it was soon cancelled by my rationalization that
(a) there was no lock on it, like a diary, and (b) these were the
private thoughts of my dead father, promising to bring me close
to him for perhaps the rst time< if belatedly.

And I could not wait! I thoughtlessly drove o , leaving

Albertine on her own for the rest of the day. The book sat on
the passenger seat, taunting me with its harlot-red cover, daring
me to pull over.
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I had never driven so recklessly. I bounded up the stairs,
skipping several of them, clutching the journal as if it were a
dirty magazine and I were twelve. Neither was far from the
truth.

The women! I knew he was a pig, but wow! Not only was he
one of the many to boink Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, but
also Grace Kelly, Anna Freud, even Margaret Rutherford.
Gertrude Stein actually considered swearing o lesbianism for
him. But the real shocker came on the entry of December 23,
1930: ‚The ecstasy of being with Juan is indescribable. He makes
me feel like the woman I never knew I could be, even though I
do miss wearing pants and the hair on my legs.‛ I felt queasy.
There followed more graphic details which I shall spare the
reader(s).

26.

My previous visits to the States had all been business-related.

Although this one featured some of those same deadly aspects,
I was determined to make at least the rst few weeks a pleasure
trip, hoping to familiarize myself with the people and
surroundings I had always felt were parts of my interior.
I began, appropriately enough, at Independence Hall in
Philadelphia.
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What a silly-looking building. It reminded me of one of those
old prairie schoolhouses I had seen in pictures. What hope was
there for any country which presumed to start o in such a
place? What an arrogant asshole that John Hancock must have
been, signing his name to the Declaration of Independence as if
he were erecting the Hollywood sign

And talking of Hollywood, what an armpit that place is.

Excepting the historic Grauman handprints in cement, the
closest things I saw resembling a star were some reality show
bitch and a bloke who did laxative adverts< or ‚commercials,‛ as
they are called. Where was Goldie Hawn? The rest of the town
was like an outdoor brothel for surfers.

But it was Classical Athens compared to sections of the South.

Seeing Mississippi was like re-visiting the Old Testament but
with humidity. The women suggested some frilly, antediluvian,
ante-bellum plantation archetype, probably with a semi-
automatic weapon hidden beneath the hoopskirt. They were
almost their own species, so hospitable and honey-voiced as
they damned you all to hell, and so badly in need of a sweeping
psychiatric intervention. And please don’t even get me started
on Texas. Contrary to popular myth, only two things are
actually bigger down there: the percentage of undocumented
workers and the average ego.
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Then there was Las Vegas. You can take that whole town and
stick it on the old ‚Gong Show‛ where it belongs. Of all the
evils perpetrated against society by The Mob, Vegas is the most
egregious. Its East Coast version, Atlantic City, was only slightly
less frightful, but boasted some decent beaches—spoiled, as
always, by the infestation of unsupervised children. I made the
mistake of wearing my European Speedo ‚down the shore,‛
forgetting the historically recent, uncharacteristically prudish
American male habit of sporting only something resembling
Bermuda shorts by the seaside (how do they prevent their white
thighs, in private moments, from clashing with their bronzed
shins?), ignoring a

Her

century of skin-tight tradition, while their shapely dates

continue to don dental oss. The army of evidently parentless
brats could not let me get away without its cheeky editorial
comment on the garb, transforming me on the spot into Clifton
Webb. I threw one of their foul grape popsicles into the ocean.
But I was the only man to leave there with an even tan.

The insidious Valley Girl phenomenon has reached crisis mode,

infecting every pocket of habitation between the seaboards,
and probably Alaska and Hawaii by now as well. I was So Not
prepared for this heinous, organized assault on our beloved
language that I was tempted to go searching for an English-
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 American pocket dictionary. And not only teenagers are
a icted by the epidemic. Professional athletes, policemen,
saleswomen, bureaucrats, meteorologists, even educators have
devolved, virtually overnight, into linguistic renegades.
American MTV is the new(ish) Academie Francaise.

The bouncing about made me hunger for the thriving,

comparatively sane and civilized New York City, where I would
be spending much of my time, with its tradition as a nancial
paradigm. The pulse of the nighttime metropolis has never
been overstated. Its busy thoroughfares with their lights, tra c,
and rising steam are high visual art, its car horns the real music
of the streets, natural and out-in-the- open and inclusive in a
way that the rude, self-pitying, alienating seclusion of rap and
hip-hop can never be. Times Square is no Trafalgar, but remains
an invigorating, self-sustaining icon. Even the ubiquitous litter,
the smell of stale subway urine or the sudden, violating
appearance of the latest primitive likeness of an orphaned
erection cannot critically damage the unrivaled breadth of
experience simply of being present within this still evolving
structural and atmospheric masterpiece of urban originality

Despite improvements, there is still too much dog poop,

however.
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And yes, I went to Washington< just like James Stewart. Staring
up into Abe’s face through the Georgia white marble as best I
could, I felt it. He really was a decent man, but perhaps
deserved to be sitting, more honorably, among the majestic
thoroughbreds and quaint moonshine of Kentucky, the
commonwealth’s last log cabin probably leveled long ago, than
in the middle of D.C., that selectively sanitized spiritual slum.

27.

With thoughts of ever reproducing (either naturally or

unnaturally) behind me, I set out to nd a mere soul mate, a
preferably post- or soon-to-be menopausal but otherwise still
vital woman with a shared worldview, someone with whom to
minimize the number of lonely hours, and who understood the
wisdom of pre-nuptial agreements. Was that too speci c, I
asked myself. It turned out not to be when I met Minerva
Hatchback, editor and publisher of Mainkunt magazine.

I met her, actually, not in the Philadelphia vicinity but in New

York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which was, for one
week only, showing the works of the avant-gardist Hickson
Forklift, one of the most important exponents of the Armenian
New Wave.

Acclaimed as a modern masterwork, his ‚Girl with Boy Arms‛

was displayed prominently next to a drinking fountain later
revealed to me as a Forklift sculpture and rare venture into
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realism. A smartly tailored Minerva was staring almost as if in a
trance at the painting. She must see something in it I do not, I
mused.

‚Remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it,‛ she said,

apparently sensing my presence but still enrapt by the picture.
‚Such complete and utter shit.

Spontaneously bursting into laughter, I futilely attempted to

smother it with my hand, naturally spitting all over my sleeve. I
leaned down to get a healing spot of water and reclaim
composure, but was instantly apprehended by two guards and
escorted without, as the curator himself reprimanded me for
touching the alleged artwork.

‚The prohibitions are clearly exhibited throughout the

building,‛ he fussed, which only multiplied my gu aws. Minerva
had been following all the way to the exit (a special door exists
for ejections). My mug shot was taken (a rare honor—and no
one ever smiled so much for it) and I was ngerprinted (another
rare honor) and warned never to return (the trifecta). I was still
laughing uncontrollably out on the street when I noticed
Minerva.
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‚I feel totally responsible for this,‛ she said kindly. ‚I’m so sorry.‛
‚Don’t be silly.‛ I was recovering gradually. ‚It’s my own
foolishness.‛

‚Please let me buy you a cup of co ee.‛ There was—what else?

—a Storebought’s on the block< at least one. ‚It really was a
piece of shit, wasn’t it?‛ I reminded her as we strode.

‚The worst,‛ she said. ‚And that water fountain! I’m glad you
tried to drink from it before I did.‛ ‚The rope should have been
a clue, I dare say.‛ I started roaring all over again.

The barista—who was male, and therefore should probably

have been called a ‚baristo‛—did not know whether to be
distracted by my manic giggles or by my blackened ngertips.

Minerva and I introduced ourselves at the table over the

grizzly-tasting ca eine, undoctored.

I was in no condition to order anything more complicated.

Neither of us had ever heard of the other. Di erent elds, you
know. But no harm done. We hit it o , as they say, and agreed to
meet up later that night. At our ages, short notice was seldom a
problem.
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 At a Greenwich Village bistro, we sat and talked—mostly, she
did—late into the night. Having established that we were
practically about to become neighbors in the Philadelphia area,
Minerva felt compelled to personally acclimate and forewarn
me.

‚Never buy anything on the street no matter how good it

smells,‛ she said. ‚That stu ’ll kill you. Keep away from cheese
steaks. Those things’ll kill you even indoors, maybe not
tomorrow but eventually.‛ (She said this while chain-smoking
Virginia Slims; the politically correct anti-cigarette laws were
not yet on the books.) ‚Avoid public transportation whenever
possible, but don’t drive either. The Parking Authority is a
racket. You can’t get around it. One-hour meters outside movie
theaters? It’s a racket. And the garages are another racket. They
de ne the word ‘gouge’< ‚ (I suddenly guessed how Laertes must
have felt listening to Polonius.) ‚Don’t have the Inquirer
delivered. It only shows up when it feels like it. But don’t read
the Daily News, it’s for rednecks which there are a lot of in that
town but they call themselves ‘blue collar’ as an excuse. They
boo their own sports teams even when they win. Assholes.
They’ve been getting away with it for years, they’re big on
denial, no thinking person in the city has the guts to call them
out on it< ‛
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[This was much more information than I needed, but it does
seem like the appropriate time to pat my own back once again
for the accuracy of my reportage without the use of either a
writing implement or a recording device.]

Minerva was a self-made woman whose publication was a global

phenomenon by the time she was 30. An early advocate for the
single motherhood trend, she had helped to popularize sperm
banks, even started one of her own, the rst to feature drive-
through deposit windows. (Was it too late to adopt her 22-year-
old recently married son?, I wondered. I must look into that.)

A linguist of obsessive devotion, she had had a hand in

removing split in nitives from the o cial Oxford list of
grammatical taboos. ‚Dangling participles are next,‛ she
threatened at one of our subsequent meetings, ‚along with
passive voice< nothing wrong with it< and that fucking
subjunctive mood. I’ve never seen anything cause so much
unnecessary trouble in my life. Just get rid of it!‛

‘I agree with that one!‛ I heard myself contributing. ‚I was

always a very good English student, being English myself, but I
received a 44% on an examination on use of the subjunctive.
44%! The lowest score in my own personal history. Dreadful.‛

After a stare and a glare, Minerva put me in my place with that

tiresome Americanism ‚This isn’t about you, Ben.‛ But it works
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(almost) every time, if only because of the disbelief of hearing
its crass usage by otherwise intelligent people.

Oh and run-on sentences, that’s another thing. Who’s to say a

sentence is too long if it has content? The trouble is most
people resent long sentences because they have nothing to say
themselves! There’s no question that the way English is taught
in the public schools is a travesty and needs to be streamlined
considerably and at once.‛

How could I argue with that? And even if I could, how could I
get a word in? About this time, I tried to remember how much
I had told her of myself. Our knowledge of one another was
certainly lopsided due to her conversational dominance. Yet it
did not bother me. I found her intriguing in every imaginable
way.

I had been staying at a MainLine luxury hotel until I could nd

some place permanent, so certain was I that I belonged at this
general location. In the meanwhile, I had leased a Manhattan
penthouse to be close to the Crewover & Underhand subsidiary
on 112th Street.

The commute,‛ as we Americans call it, was conducive to

informed cogitation, relaxation, and uninterrupted private
brainstorming. Many a night I would stay with Minerva at her
place in a small but upscale town called Haversoon, but she
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delayed the consummation for her own reasons, and I was not
forward enough to initiate, not with this woman. She did
continue to talk, however.

‚The MainLine is crawling with cunts,‛ she would explain her

worldview, the basic theme of her bi-monthly. ‚Some of my best
friends are cunts, to my shame, though I’ve never been one
myself.

‚< the MainLine, Orange County, the entire state of

Connecticut< these are the real cunt centers. There are also a
surprising number of them in Fort Worth, but not so much
Dallas as you might think.‛

Like most men, I had always fancied myself an expert on

cunthood, but listening to Minerva was a real education on the
topic. Hers were no super cial observations. Beginning in the
Nineties, she had launched and personally endowed an
exhaustive ten-year national research study on her favorite
subject. Minerva had earned decisively her sobriquet ‚Queen of
Cunts,‛ but disliked the term, not because of its o ensive
nature, but because, as stated, she was ‚not one‛ herself< she
quite earnestly believed, despite a massive accumulation of
contradictory testimony.

They just don’t know her, I rationalized to myself< but even

myself was no longer buying it. (‚Buying it.‛ I am indeed
becoming American.)
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 Should I have pursued dual citizenship or given up the
motherland outright?

28.

Close to sixty and never having played baseball a day in my life,

I nevertheless volunteered to ll the conspicuously vacant left-
elder position for the Crewover & Underhand Chiselers so as
to pass as a ‚team player‛ in more than one sense. I was
promptly replaced before the rst inning of the rst outing
when my lack of experience became obvious during the warm-
up. Demoralized, I took my place on the bench between a fat
woman and a myopic mouth-breather.

We were facing the Knott-Cubberd Insurance Company whose

own team, the Sponges, was younger, stronger, better at the
game, even more devious. They were knocking my pathetic co-
workers about for 81⁄2 innings before our desperate manager
deigned to give me an ‚at- bat‛ (a term which had to be
explained to me). Hardly necessary to explain is the outcome. I
did not save the day.

After our predictable but no less humiliating defeat, one of our

relief pitchers confronted me.

‚Don’t you know anything about baseball? You don’t try to steal
rst base when the catcher calls a time-out.‛ say.)
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‘Why not?‛ I reasoned quite sincerely. ‚It seemed like the
perfect opportunity.‛ (I would have been only our third ‚man
on,‛ as they

Final score: 37-1, some kind of league record (the ‚1‛ was a uke
of a pinch hit home run in the fth by the fat woman who
could not see the bases while circling them, and needed to have
her feet guided; her e ort to reach home plate so protracted
the playing time that the umpires o cially declared the
seventh-inning stretch redundant). A unanimous post-game
vote by our team membership resulted in a forfeiture of the
entire season to spare ourselves further devastation. Finance
was a hard enough game.

29.

An American sex partner seemed long overdue for me. And

since Minerva had spent a fair amount of time in Britain, the
adjustment might not be as trying as with many others.
Furthermore, marrying someone nearly as lthy rich as I could
be fun. We both sensed that we were being gravitated toward
the altar or some facsimile.

We just showed up one day at City Hall, that monstrosity

sitting in the middle of the main street of Phillie (those
planners were smoking something other than Roanoke tobacco)
with a guano-covered Billiam Penn seemingly o ciating from
on high, forcing into consideration some additional points of
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the ongoing dependence upon historical symmetry as a
recurring theme in the ful llment of my hovering destiny.

Against the odds, Minerva was very good for my ego, at least
for one cherished, super cial male part of it. After our maiden
voyage, she called me ‚Big Ben‛ and it stuck< literally. Her
relatively small vagina had trapped me almost as tightly as a
vacuum cleaner minus the attachment. I panicked. To retrieve
my member, I immediately called to mind a picture I had once
seen of Cher without makeup. Blessedly, that worked.

But I did so look forward to the second time< and all

subsequent times. There was, in addition to the more
conventional delights of coitus, the element of an imagined risk
involved with Minerva, as if I had survived God-knows-what
with each new completed blending of esh and uids. She was
like a goddamned Venus ytrap, that woman, scary and
wonderful.

Yet, after adding up all the pluses, Minerva was my only really
bad choice by far. The charms of that lady at the museum had
vanished. Even Samantha, potentially corrosive as she was,
provided only a short-lived fascination. Minerva and I endured
for almost two years before it began to dawn on me that all her
bedtime attery was meted out exclusively for her own
multiple-orgasmic bene t and that her dismissive treatment in
the daylight, those lectures and long-winded harangues which I
had found so sexy at the threshold of our relationship, revealed
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her true feelings toward me; and they were getting old. Minerva
Hatchback would have subjected any husband or lover to
similar condescension, or rather, any man weak or desperate
enough to tolerate it. I trembled to think that I could be such a
man. Just brie y, I thought maybe Dad had the right idea with
Juan, but few lasting relationships have ever been built upon a
sexual assault.

I was the plainti in the divorce proceedings, unaware that my

wife had included a tiny clause in our ‚pre-nup‛ stipulating that
all bets were o unless she initiated the split. (Lacking a history
on which to accurately draw, she must have instinctually
predicted her own limited marital shelf-life.) However, I
surprised her with some ne print of my own, demanding that
she never leave Pennsylvania in order to collect, a con nement
which would play havoc with the frequent yer’s yearly income.
Her attorney and my solicitor (whom I had own in from
Birmingham—he was apparently branching out by ambulance-
chasing after an Alabama hurricane) each knew of the other
side’s treachery, but evidently approved of the idea. Such a
strange lot, these legal types. Minerva herself, upon discovery of
the hidden detail, appeared to acquire a new admiration for me.

‚Big Ben< I had no idea,‛ she smirked.

‚What idea?‛ I asked suspiciously.

‚That you had it in you.‛ She almost cooed, ‚Let’s stay together.‛
Minerva seemed sincere, but my self-regard was, at this time of
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life, too precious to compromise. Our secretive contractual
terms left us as equals with a grudging mutual respect, but we
went our separate ways with only the fortunes we road in on. It
was back to pets for me, the only animals I could trust< that
anyone can really trust.

My failures with the female sex did not prevent me from falling
in love with Phoebe, a caramel-shaded dachshund, sweet as the
candy of her coloring, and as of this writing, my longest-lasting
girlfriend. She was and is so smart, so loyal, so funny that I
decided to take her back to England with me. Who was I
kidding? I’m British through and through. If I am never to nd
True Love there or anywhere else, so be it.

Some people are meant to be alone, just as some are destined to

be poor or ugly or untalented or reactionary-conservative.
There is tragedy only in insisting we are not these things. Don’t
just accept your de ciencies, but embrace them< well, maybe
not the reactionaries. Dogs, the most nobly appreciative species
on earth, will o er you the only unconditional love in existence
for those very peculiarities< or at least in spite of them

30.

Let the world go to hell. Who will destroy it rst—the money-

worshippers of Wall Street or the corporate earth-poisoners
they help to subsidize? If civilization should collapse
economically before ever getting around to doing so physically,
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 that is tting for a race which has long ago lost sight of its
purpose by placing inordinate weight upon something so imsy,
in the nal analysis, as the manufactured culture of wealth.
Easy for me to say, right? Well, I never purported to be
consistent. I’m as confused as the lot of you.

Then one night I made a return trip to Lenny’s pub with the
intention of paying Ed back whatever amount I owed him. I
knew I was doing this to clear my conscience and hoped that
that was not wrong. It had been too many years, but I was
con dent he was still frequenting the place, or perhaps
‚alwaysing‛ would be more accurate.

Right away I spotted a grayer version of Lenny (both hair and

skin). He did a double take, but the recognition slowly emerged.
I also knew oor-dweller Rory by his same shoes. God
Almighty.

‚There’s no excuse for what I did,‛ I said somewhat shakily, ‚but

I want to square things with Ed. Does he still< ?‛ ‚Ed died,‛
Lenny interrupted. ‚About four months ago.‛

‚Oh, no.‛ My so-called heart shattered.

‚His liver. I’ was a long time comin.’‛

‚Oh, no.‛

‚You said that already.‛ He was being cautious, perhaps

justi ably so. ‚Still I can’t believe ‘e outlived Rory over there<
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We talked about that night you ran outa here. Nobody
understood why. Ed said to me, ‘Did he think I’d judge ‘im just
b’cause he used to be in show business?’ He was really upset<
Funeral was a big deal. We closed down. We were ‘is family, you
know. You shoulda been there< I’m sorry, I forgot your name.‛

Then it hit. So had I. My alias, that is.

‚Benedict,‛ I nally revealed. It hardly mattered.

Indeed I should have been there, unworthy though I felt. I

visited the grave, shaking my head at it, sick to my stomach,
sick at myself. Sweet old Ed. Nothing could console me, least of
all the hugeness of that damned house to which I then
returned. I called for Phoebe. She came running as always,
though half asleep, with a happier greeting than I would ever
merit. I told her she was too good for me. I think she agreed
but wagged and licked anyway.

I headed for the Dewars to toast Ed. I wondered what he would

make of my sitting here in this shit palace drinking alone. After
the third scotch, I heard myself say ‚I’m sorry, Ed.‛ On that
elevated plane I really do hope exists with its blessed absolute
knowledge, I assumed with some solace that he now
understood. Just to be safe, I did not have a fourth.
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I looked down to nd Phoebe with her head resting upon my
highly overpriced right shoe. Why does this glorious species
insist on wasting itself at the feet of men? Certainly not for the
Purina which I had tasted once out of curiosity. Whatever the
reason, my gratitude is inexpressible.

31.

Did I kill my brother? Of course not. But did I stop him from
drinking what I knew to be poison for him? Of course not.
Does that make me guilty of something passively criminal? Of
cou< Some sage entity far removed from the corporeal will have
to answer that one. It is not without some understanding that I
will even concede my (arguable?) role in the death of Hazel.

The act of living, if it has taught me nothing else, has exposed

the countless ways in which we subtly kill one another with lies,
betrayal, unfair expectations, bullying, egomania, projection,
labeling, groupthink, disenfranchisement, foul odors, ghastly
music, ugly hairstyles, and creepy body piercings.

My humility seems to vary with the winds. Even a rich bastard

like me, when isolated, gains insight denied to members of the
herd with their calculated distractions burying a much-needed
self-scrutiny.
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Until that golden hour when the masses

achieve this giant step, four- legged creatures will, ironically,

continue to provide the real humanity. And it shall remain an
honor to clean up their shit.

I used to feel saddened by my state of being basically friendless,

and questioned my appeal or adequacy as a person.

However, maturity (such as it is) has enlightened me as to the

ease and consistency with which some of the lowest vermin and
bottom-feeders can collect, entice, even buy friends.

It is precisely because I have something to o er that the

shallow majority feels it can gain nothing from knowing me. At
least that will do as satisfactory explanation until a better one
reveals itself. In the meanwhile, consider my frail ego stroked.

But why, people have wondered, would anyone air so much

dirty laundry about his family, loved ones, and himself? Why
else?

For the money, of course.

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 Guideline Notes:

Sir Benedict Ignatius Walthorpe-Huntington, chairman of

Crewover & Underhand Bank Plc.

Family emigrated from Hungary to Vienna in 18th C.

Great-grandfather was Lord Rothschild’s small change carrier,

later promoted to Chief Cashier, Furthest From The Door.

Father was runner on oor of London Stock Exchange, later

senior partner of Cellshort & Regret.

After Crash of ’29, convicted of manslaughter by landing on

passer-by during suicide attempt.

Benedict mistaken for nancial genius based on misconstrued

gardening references (Being There?).

Crewover & Underhand was central player in derivatives

market. Bank owned small U.S. subsidiary selling sub-prime
mortgages. Benedict could apply for 36 trillion lb. of nancial
support to cover shortfall of 35 trillion, resulting in record
pro ts for a U.K. bank.

Timeline:

18th C.—Family emigrated from Hungary to Vienna.

19th C.—Great-grandfather promoted by Lord Rothschild.

1904—Gerald Walthorpe-Huntington born.

1929—Gerald becomes senior partner; attempts suicide;

charged w/manslaughter. 1930—Sentenced to nine years.
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1931—Sentence commuted; released.

1936—Marries Sandra Dingbury-Hassett.

1939—Jonathan born.
1940—Regan born.

1941—Goneril born.

1942—Jessica born.

1943—Albertine born.

1948—Benedict born; Jessica dies.

1966—Benedict enters university. 1968— Electroshock therapy.

1971—Jonathan killed. 1977—Benedict weds Prunella/Hazel.
1978—Hazel dies.

1988—Benedict weds Felicity; marriage annulled; he brie y re-

enters therapy. 1989—Sandra committed.

1991—Gerald dies.

2007—Benedict becomes American citizen; weds Minerva.

2009—They divorce; Benedict repatriates to Britain.

The End

fl


 ABOUT THE
AUTHOR



T Patrick Murray is an author and a award winning lmmaker who is

the father of two kids in co ege. He thinks AI wi quickly change the
world and he describes himself as a political moderate.

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