Twice Melvin

by James Pumpelly

  “Patience, my dear,” Melody addressing his eagerness. “You know what they say: ‘the longer the wait, the greater the satisfaction’.”

  “That depends,” George counters, mimicking Melody.

  “On what?” Faithful asks.

  “Well…like an engagement,” he postures, maneuvering out of a pending embarrassment, “…I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “I just arrived!” Melody responds, determined to hear his news firsthand. “Have there been developments?”

  “You might say that,” George concurs, “or better said, the picture will not be developed. The camera’s broken, Melody. Charlene and I have-“

  “Made a decision?” she interrupts, struck by an inchoate sundering, like a promise broken before it can be expressed, “might we say a snap decision?”

  “Honestly, no. I mean, yes. I was going to break it off with Charlene upon my return from Boston, but she beat me to it. Apparently, she told everyone in Plainfield, except me.”

  “But-but you weren’t here,” Melody mutters, the thought of absence, of a man not being there to play his part, reminding her of someone else. “Where’s Thelma?” she asks suddenly….

  Melody’s question shocks me into a fright. “Is that your surprise?” I scream silently, A.M. smirking with amusement. “Is that what you deem pleasant? My march to crucifixion?”

  “Now, who said anything about you, Melvin?” A.M. zapping the percolator with a burst of energy. “Gotta get these folks on the road before the show’s over. Don’t want you missing your surprise.”

  “Knowing you, it’s probably one I’ll wish like hell I did miss,” I complain, unconvinced by her apparent nonchalance.

  “Funny you’d say that,” my aunt’s casual act more like magnificent indifference. “Fact is, wishes are what hell is made of. Did you know that?”

  “Changing the subject doesn’t work with me,” I counter with fisted defiance, “only honesty.”

  “Give me a break!” she shoots back, pointing a skeletal finger at Melody. “Where was this fixation with honesty when you were-“

  “Enough!” I interject, pleased to see the coffee being poured, the pie served. “I’ll check my temper, if you’ll check yours.”

  “Deal,” she simpers - her old fascination with George drawing her so near to his chair that he asks for a coffee warmup before his first sip. “What a doll!” she coos, “what a perfect specimen!”

  “Yeah, like those little containers the doctor gives you to take into the bathroom.” But she seems not to mind my aspersion, the party of three donning coats to depart for the show.

  “Want to wait and enjoy it with them?” A.M. asks, as they trek through the snow for George’s car.

  “Let’s meet them there,” I suggest, somehow knowing it’s the answer expected – Thelma’s placard, unexpected, announcing our arrival at the capitol.

  Adieu to the blues,

  “I Do” is the news.

  What comes in twos,

  Is not a ruse.

  “Not her best,” I guffaw, relief spreading through me like nitrous oxide, “but Simon’s a made man, if ever there was one.”

  “Made a man is closer to the truth,” A.M. arm-pumping a gleeful YES! “Told you, didn’t I? Promised you a surprise, didn’t I?”

  “You did, Aunt Martha…and forgive me for doubting you,” my apology in mid-sentence when I espy Vincent, mummy-like in blankets, strapped to a gurney, held at a forty-five by two Godhard professors, the better to afford him a view. “Let me rephrase that,” I add, grimacing at the sight of Vincent still suffering from the potion my jealously authored. “There are areas of expertise in which doubts have merit…one of them being-“

  “He’ll recover, I tell you. It’s in his life pattern-“

  “But you told me you couldn’t read his life pattern; that his guardian angels wouldn’t allow it,” I argue. “Some faith you engender, Aunt Martha, risking a life for a whim!”

  “Add a ‘P’ and you’ve got it,” she snips, “for a wimp is what a jealous man is!”

  “Never mind me,” I cry, “it’s Vincent we need to help.”

  “Help is on the way,” A.M. dabbing her eyes as though my censure has reaped her tears - George’s car emerging from a blind of snow. “Watch your Vincent now,” she sniffles, her twitching lips breaking into a smile as Melody exits the car.

  “Heaven help us!” I hear Melody cry – Vincent unfastening his restraints to go wobbling to her side.

  “What did I tell you?” A.M. asks stiffly. “Damn men. You’re all alike.”

  “Including George?”

  “I said men, not gods,” A.M. flitting to George’s entourage just as Simon appears from behind a capitol column, traipsing down the steps under a placard of his own design - a roar of Hurrahs! prompting Thelma to turn and discover the cause:

  If I write the lyrics

  And you make the music,

  Together we’ll have a hit.

  But first you must promise

  To quit all this protest,

  And march to a legal writ:

  I do!

  “You were right!” Melody gushes, tugging at George’s sleeve, “The show has romance! And what’s more, so does the supporting cast!”

  “Can a marriage proposal be anything less?” Vincent queries from his blanket shroud.

  “Indeed it can,” George stepping abruptly between Melody and Vincent, “…as my experience proves. However, in the case parading before us, marriage makes a certain business proposition more enticing.”

  “Oooooh, that’s right,” Melody catching his inference, “we have another show coming soon, don’t we?”

  “Another?” Vincent gasps, terror in the shine of his eyes.

  “A mammoth book sale,” George explains, to Vincent’s immediate relief. “And one you don’t want to miss. Simon’s to play auctioneer.”

  “You don’t say!” exclaims Faithful, her sideboard sessions with Simon suggesting bibs more than bids.

  “Artie’s will,” George informs. “Got the last laugh on us, didn’t he?”

  George’s assumption rousing Aunt Martha’s objection:

  “Hardly! Artie’s the butt of the joke, his little shiner being wiped by his executor.”

  “As though George would change a diaper,” I laugh. “I doubt he has much to do with the little tyke since he and Charlene have-“

  “That’s another surprise in the making,” Aunt Martha interrupts, “and one heck of a convoluted one, too; but a surprise just the same…and it’s all for you.”

  “For me?” I respond, doubting her altruism. “This is beginning to be pleasurable, this student-teacher thing we’ve got going; and especially when the teacher turns out to be a queen,” I blandish.

  “Queens can give titles, Melvin, but they can’t make a gentleman out of a serf. We can all, however, be noble of our own accord. And that is my gift: another chance for you to be noble.”

  “No surprise there,” I mumble, taken by her remark.

  “But it is,” she affirms, for once, her blue eyes ignoring George. “’Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,’ said our dear Lord; and soon you will see that you’ve done just that - if only you live up to it.”

  “Now I am confused,” I quibble, Melody’s beauty making it difficult for me to think in the abstract. “First, you say I must lay down my life; and then you say I must live up to my death. Seems to me it’s got to be one or the other.”

  “Think of it this way,” Aunt Martha’s sudden display of patience confusing, an attribute of which I’m unfamiliar, “sometimes, it takes the death of one idea to birth a better one; the failure of one experiment to lead to a successful one. Get it?”

  “I think so,” I nod. “A bad man must die for a good man to be born? A kind of celestial quid pro quo between the morgue and the nursery?”

  “No, that’s not
it!” she shouts, her supply of patience apparently minuscule, “but perhaps you’ve stumbled upon something I didn’t know.”

  “Here we go with the Roman empire again,” I tease, my surprise reduced to annoyance.

  “And why not? ‘They wail more noticeably who mourn least’, claimed my good friend Tacitus. Let’s see you put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  “What’s there to mourn?” I rejoin, aware she’s referencing my separation from Melody.

  “Nothing,” my aunt’s sardonic smile prompting my alarm. “You’ve discovered your surprise-“

  “Enough!” I bellow, the word ‘surprise’ having lost its allure.

  “Just enough!” she howls, mimicking my ire, “just enough to impregnate Charlene!”

  Loneliness is but the fear of life.

  (Eugene O’Neill)

  XXIV

  Montpelier has seen nothing like it since Admiral George Dewey’s homecoming after the Spanish-American War. Even the governor is in attendance, and all the legislators who aren’t snowbound - Thelma Peabody’s pugilistic presence, marching to a bickering cadence across the capitol lawn, a tourist attraction for as long as anyone can remember. And today, her wedding promises to live up to her legend. That vows are to be exchanged in her literal tracks only adds to the bizarre milieu, hundreds of guests hoisting placards in remembrance of her causes. (Most of them lost!) Real Men Are Neither is not among them, nor is Make Up, Not Out, both omitted in respect for the occasion. But a plethora of others bob and nod to Thelma’s epigrammatic career. If God made man from dirt, behind every good woman’s a cloud of dust, reads one; and A vote counts, but a cause multiplies, notes another. Among the favorites are issues of more recent dispute, problems as diverse as unwed mothers and DDT bringing Thelma’s pen to bear: A hitch in time saves nine, and Putting pests-aside, a bee in the bonnet’s all the buzz you need, proclaiming her personal views.

  With the happy event hastily scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving (Thelma taking no chances after her previous stand-up), Mrs. Rolundo has demonstrated her industry admirably by organizing ‘placard parties’ among the ladies’ auxiliaries, reviving, on the subject of hairdos, such treasures as: Wanted: Dread or a Hive, and Don’t split hairs, chop heads! And wilder yet:

  Had Francis Keys your dread-full locks,

  our stars would all be bangles;

  But Franklin, my dear, didn’t give a damn,

  choosing bald among the eagles!

  that old Ben lobbied for turkeys, not eagles, apparently beyond Thelma’s literary purview.

  As if hundreds of pole lofters aren’t puffery enough, Simon is in on the act, as well, hiring children to distribute handbills of his own inspiration. To some, it’s unclear whether his poem is in commemoration of the weather, or of Thelma’s protests. But Thelma suffers no such ambiguity, demanding Reverend Rolundo read it aloud as she stands in vestal white, on the capital steps, beneath the outsize bronze of Ethan Allen:

  Gray sky of somber morn,

  Furl fast your grievous standard;

  Hush bugler’s damping horn,

  I’ll hear what Pan has pandered.

  Roll out the cheering blue,

  Bedazzle day with promise;

  For I to Hope am true,

  Be damned your doubting Thomas!

  No ears have I for fife,

  Nor bands of tardy tapping;

  Let fly the song of life

  To hands of hardy clapping!

  Draw quick your drape of drab,

  Let rise my canty curtain;

  For I have dreams to grab,

  My play’s rehearsed and certain.

  Though fool you may the few

  Who cower ‘neath your cover,

  Here’s one who knows the blue,

  That laughing lets you hover;

  The better to compare

  What soars above your sorrows:

  The clime of your despair

  To many merry morrows.

  Gray sky of somber morn,

  Mark hell a lost retreat;

  For I am Faith reborn,

  Hark well - my joy’s replete!

  the Right Reverend Rolundo’s resounding recitation giving the verse, like the statue of Ethan, a larger-than-life persona. Even Judge Nancy Whittaker appears moved by the work, producing from her purse a black felt pen to alter the nearest placard, making Real Men Are Neither read Real Men Are –-it– . (Her redaction prompting George to pad his proximity to the placard.)

  If all else seems a spectacle, the ceremony has the air of a miracle, the exchange of vows commensurate with a sudden shower of snow, a myriad of frozen flakes swirling round as though Providence is tossing rice.

  “Always did have a good sense of timing, that Thelma,” observes Faithful, the bride and groom wending merrily through the well-wishers, “always knew where to be, and when; which is more than I can say for Simon.”

  “Simon had his moments, too,” Melody recalling his success with the bugs, “you might say he knew where not to be, and when. But you can bet he’ll be at the reception.”

  “He’ll be carried along by the throng whether he intends to go or not” Faithful banters, accepting George’s help into the car, a fanged wind etching her face like the crinkles in a crape myrtle blossom.

  “The reception’s at Thelma’s farm, isn’t it?” George asks.

  “At her maze is more like it,” Faithful titters, “her tiered rows of mountainside garden enough to shoo the pests away in confusion.”

  “But it works, Mother,” Melody responds. “Thelma’s coerced old man gravity into playing her gardener, making him water her veggies with the turn of a single tap. Too bad we can’t appreciate her handiwork under two feet of snow.”

  “Nor Charlene’s in her two arms of ice,” adds George. “Which reminds me: have you given any thought to her employment?”

  “It could be awkward…for the two of you, I mean. That’s something you need to decide, not me. Mother called on Charlene twice this week, hoping to see little George; but Charlene made a point to refuse her the baby, claiming he was cross, or sleepy, or some such nonsense. Mother thinks she’s jealous of me being with child – which makes no sense at all.”

  If you only knew, George muses. “Perhaps the auction should be her last official duty with the firm. When should we schedule it?”

  “Over the Christmas holidays, perhaps? Although, it’s not my schedule that matters anymore; it’s the auctioneer’s. He’s the one with his hands full, now,” her observation prompting laughter.

  “Believe it or not, Simon assured me that next weekend would ‘Just do me dandy’,” says George.

  “Oh? and me, as well,” Melody surprised by the rush of events, “a good excuse for another weekend home before the Christmas holidays.”

  “Thought I was reason enough,” Faithful feigning injury from the back seat.

  “You are, Mother, it’s just nice to have an excuse sometimes. If only reasons are facts, then excuses are imaginary; and one never knows when a little imagination might come in handy.”

  “According to Napoleon, it reigns supreme,” George throws in, after an affected harrumph. “The Emperor once said, ‘Imagination rules the world’.”

  “Which solves the mystery of why Artie chose Simon to play auctioneer. Maybe Artie saw his chance and took it,” Melody following George’s lead - the sight of Thelma’s snowcapped farm, behind a colored chain of cars, corralling the trio’s attention.

  One week later, a chain of cars again surrounds the action. With Artie’s book values professionally appraised, all that remains of George’s duty is to help Melody bid for the firm - not an easy task. The ever erratic Simon is making ‘auction’ seem descriptively oblique, ‘theater of the absurd’ falling nearer the mark - especially for the uncategorized items. Under an upraised, tattered edition of Children’s Garden of Verse, Simon squawks:

  “What-am-
I-bid? What-am-I-bid? Do-I-hear-five? A five-five-five? There-a-five, now-a-ten? A ten-ten-ten? There-a-ten, now-a-twelve? A twelve-twelve-twelve? Do-I-hear-twelve? Going once…going twice…SOLD! for ten dollars to Miss Charlene Mally.”

  But Simons’s calling of the bids are not as disconcerting as his penchant for versing in between. Free rides like:

  A peek-a-boo and a buck-a-book,

  And a sheepskin for your trouble;

  A rock-a-bye and a baby’s-book,

  And they’re off to make your double.

  Just make-a-bid on a chil’en’s-book

  And your stock’ll be-in-silken;

  Or don’t cry wolf when the goose won’t cook,

  Or a cow they’re still-a-milkin’-

  taking the crowd by surprise, then by their purse, as he preys on their fear of ignorance - even George aghast at the bids his hype is hiking:

  So what-am-I-bid? Pray, what-am-I-bid?

  Do I hear a five-or-a-fifty?

  A fifty there, and a sixty here-

  And a babe that won’t be-a-milkin’-

  But when Simon strays to the abstruse, chanting:

  Buy a book on a brook,

  Buy a book on a farm,

  Buy a book on Brook Farm, too-

  George takes a turn at the mic, sending Simon off in an arcane fog.

  “Brook Farm was a nineteenth century Boston area utopian experiment in communal living, in case you aren’t familiar with Mr. Farley’s reference,” George begins, “but here’s a work of more modern times, though its subject harks back to Brook Farm’s era.” George holds up a copy of The Search for Bridey Murphy. “Being of Irish decent, I’ve read it myself,” he continues, brightening to the afterthought as though endorsement might author demand. “It’s the story of an American lady who, under hypnosis, recalls a past life in Ireland-“