Sween Myth-tery of Life m-10

by Robert Asprin

  "Why do you think that is, Guido? What makes fights between married couples so explosive?"

  My bodyguard frowned and scratched his head.

  "I never really gave it much thought," he said. "If I had to give an opinion, I'd say it was due to the motivationals."

  "The motives?" I corrected without thinking.

  "That too," he nodded. "You see, Boss, the business-type disputes which result in violence like I am normally called upon to deal with have origins that are easily comprehended ... like greed or fear. That is to say, either Boss A wants somethin' that Boss B is reluctant to part with, as in a good-sized hunk of revenue generatin' territory, or Boss B is afraid that Boss A is gonna try to whack him and decides to beat him to the punch. In these situationals, there is a clear-cut objective in mind, and the action is therefore relatively easy to predict and counter. Know what I mean?"

  "I think so," I said. "And in a domestic disturbance?"

  "That's where it can get ugly," he grimaced. "It starts out with people arguin' when they don't know why they're arguin'. What's at stake there is emotions and hurt feelin's, not money. The problem with that is that there is no clear-cut objective, and as a result, there is no way of tellin' when the fightin' should cease. It just keeps escalatin' up and up, with both sides dishin' out and takin' more and more damage, until each of 'em is hurt so bad that the only important thing left is to hurt the other one back."

  He smacked his fist loudly into his other hand, wincing slightly when he moved his injured arm.

  "When it explodes," he continued, "you don't want to be anywhere near ground zero. One will go at the other, or they'll go at each other, with anything that's at hand. The worst part is, and the reason neither us or the cops want to try to mess with it, is that if you try to break it up, chances are that they'll both turn on you. You see, mad as they are, they'll still reflexively protect each other from any outside force ... into which category will fall you or anyone else who tries to interfere. That's why the best policy, if you have a choice at all, is to get away from them and wait until the dust settles before venturin' close again."

  This was all very interesting, particularly since I was in the middle of contemplating marriage myself. However, my bodyguard's wince had reminded me of the unanswered question originally raised by his appearance.

  "I think I understand now, Guido," I said. "Thanks. Now tell me, what happened to your arm? And what are you doing back at the palace?"

  Guido seemed a little taken aback at the sudden change of topic.

  "Sorry I didn't check in as soon as I got back, Boss," he said, looking uncomfortable. "It was late and I thought you were already asleep ... until I heard that argument in process, that is. I would have let you know first thing in the morning."

  "Uh-huh," I said. "No problem. But since we're talking now, what happened?"

  "We ran into a little trouble, is all," he said, looking away. "Nothin' serious."

  "Serious enough to put your arm in a sling," I observed. "So what happened?"

  "If it's okay with you, Boss, I'd rather not go into details. Truth is, it's more than a little embarrassing."

  I was about to insist, then thought better of it. Guido never asked for much from me, but it seemed right now he was asking that I not push the point. The least I could do was respect his privacy.

  "AH right," I said slowly. "We'll let it ride for now. Will you be able to work with that arm?"

  "In a pinch, maybe. But not at peak efficiency," he admitted. "That's really what I wanted to talk to you about, Boss. Is there any chance you can assign Nunzio to be Pookie's backup while I take over his duties here?"

  Realizing how infatuated Guido was with Pookie, it was quite a request. Still, I was reluctant to go along with it.

  "I don't know, Guido," I said "Nunzio's been working with Gleep to try to figure out what's wrong with him. I kind of hate to pull him off that until we have some answers. Tell you what. How about if I talk to Chumley about helping out?"

  "Chumley?" my bodyguard frowned. "I dunno, Boss. Don't you think that him bein' a troll would tend to scare folks in these parts?"

  Realizing that both Guido and Nunzio relied heavily on intimidation in their work, this was an interesting objection. Still, he had a point.

  "Doesn't Pookie have a disguise spell or something that could soften Chumley's appearance?" I suggested. "I was assuming that she wasn't wandering around the countryside showing the green scales of a Pervect."

  "Hey! That's right! Good idea, Boss," Guido said, brightening noticeably. "In that case, no problem. Chumley's as stand up as they come."

  "Okay, I'll talk to him first thing in the morning."

  "Actually, Chumley's a better choice than Nunzio," my bodyguard continued, almost to himself.

  "Pookie's still kinda upset over shootin' me, and Nunzio would probably ..."

  "Whoa! Wait a minute! Did you say that Pookie shot you?"

  Guido looked startled for a moment, then he drew himself up into a wall of righteous indignation.

  "Really, Boss" he said. "I thought we agreed that we wasn't gonna talk about this. Not for a while, anyway."

  Chapter Sixteen:

  "Marriage is a fine institution ... if one requires institutionalizing."

  S. FREUD

  "Hi, CHUMLEY. MIND if I come in?"

  The troll looked up from his book, and his enormous mouth twisted into a grin of pleasure.

  "Skeeve, old boy!" he said. "Certainly. As a matter of fact, I've been expecting you."

  "Really?" I said, stepping into his room and looking around for somewhere to sit.

  "Yes. I ran into Guido this morning, and he explained the situation to me. He said you were going to be calling on me for a bit of work. I was just killing time waiting for the official word, is all."

  I wondered if the briefing my bodyguard had given Chumley was any more detailed than what he had told me.

  "It's all right with you, then?" I said. "You don't mind?"

  "Tish tosh. Think nothing of it," the troll said. "Truth to tell, I'll be glad to have a specific assignment again. I've been feeling a bit at loose ends lately. In fact, I was starting to wonder why I was staying around at all."

  That touched a nerve in me. It had been some time since I had even stopped by to say 'Hello' to Chumley.

  "Sorry if I've been a bit distant," I said guiltily. "I've been ... busy ... and ..."

  "Quite right," Chumley said with a grin and a wink. "Caught a glimpse of your workload when you rolled in the other night. Bit of all right, that."

  I think I actually blushed.

  "No really," I stammered. "I've been ..."

  "Relax, old boy," the troll waved. "I was just pulling your leg a bit. I know you've been up against it, what with the Queen after you and all. By the by, I've got a few thoughts on that, but I figured it would be rude to offer advice when none had been asked for."

  "You do? That's terrific," I said, and meant it. "I've been meaning to ask your opinion, but wasn't sure how to bring it up."

  "I believe you just have, actually," Chumley grinned. "Pull up a chair."

  I followed his instructions as he continued.

  "Advice on marriage, particularly when it comes to the selection of the partner to be, is usually best kept to oneself. The recipients usually already have their minds made up, and voicing any opinion contradictory to their decision can be hazardous to one's health. Since you've actually gotten around to asking, however, I think you might find my thoughts on the matter to be a tad surprising."

  "How's that?"

  "Well, most blokes who know me ... the real me, that is, rather than Big Crunch ... think of me as a bit of a romantic."

  I blinked, but kept a straight face.

  While I have the utmost respect for Chumley, I had never thought of him as a romantic figure ... possibly something to do with his green matted hair and huge eyes of different sizes. While I suppose that trolls have love lives (otherwise, how does
one get little trolls?) I'd have to rate their attractiveness in relation to dwellers of other dimensions to be way down near the bottom. Their female counterparts, the trollops, such as his sister Tananda, were a whole different story, of course, but for the trolls themselves ... on a scale of one to ten, I'd generously score them around negative eighteen.

  This particular troll, however, old friend though he might be, was currently sitting within an arm's length of me ... his arm, not mine ... and as that arm was substantially stronger than two arms of the strongest human ... which I'm not ... I decided not to argue the point with him. Heck, if he wanted to say he was the Queen of May I'd probably agree with him.

  "For the most part, they'd be right," Chumley was continuing, "but on the subject of marriage, I can be as coldly analytical as the best of them."

  "Terrific," I said. "That's what I was really hoping for. ... An unemotional, unbiased opinion."

  "First, let me ask you a few questions," the troll said.

  "All right."

  "Do you love her?"

  I paused to give the question an honest consideration.

  "I don't think so," I said. "Of course, I really don't know all that much about love."

  "Does she love you?"

  "Again, I don't think so," I said.

  I was actually enjoying this. Chumley was breaking things down to where even I could understand his logic.

  "Well, has she said she loves you?"

  That one I didn't even have to think about.

  "No."

  "You're sure?" the troll pressed.

  "Positive," I said. "The closest she's come is to say she thinks we'd make a good pair. I think she meant it as a compliment."

  "Good," my friend said, settling back in his chair.

  "Excuse me?" I blinked. "For a moment there, I thought you said ..."

  "I said 'Good and I meant it" the troll repeated.

  "You lost me there," I said. "I thought marriages were supposed to be ..."

  "... Based on love?" Chumley finished for me. "That's what most young people think. That's also why so many of their marriages fall apart."

  Even though he had sort of warned me in advance, I found the troll's position to be a bit unsettling.

  "Urn, Chumley? Are we differentiating between 'analytical' and 'cynical'?"

  "It's not really as insensitive as it sounds, Skeeve," the troll said with a laugh, apparently unoffended by my comment. "You see, when you're young and full of hormones, and come in close contact for the first time with someone of the opposite sex who isn't related to you, you experience feelings and urges that you've never encountered before. Now since, despite their bragging to the contrary, most people are raised to think of themselves as good and decent folks, they automatically attach the socially correct label to these feelings: Love. Of course, there's also a socially correct response when two people feel that way about each other ... specifically, marriage."

  "But isn't that ..." I began, but the troll held up a restraining hand.

  "Hear me out," he said. "Now, continuing with our little saga, eventually passions cool, and the infatuation has run it's course. It might take years, but eventually they find that 'just being together' isn't enough. It's time to get on with life. Unfortunately, right about then they discover that they have little if anything in common. All too often they find that their goals in life are different, or, at the very least, their plans on how to achieve them don't coincide. Then they find, instead of the ideal partner to stand back to back with while taking on the world, they've actually opened a second front. That is, they have to spend as much or more time dealing with each other as they do the rest of the world."

  Despite myself, I found I was being drawn in, almost mesmerized, by his oration.

  "What happens then?" I said.

  "If they are at all rational ... notice I said 'rational/ not 'intelligent' ... they go their separate ways. AH too often, however, they cling to the concept of 'love' and try to 'make it work.' When that happens, the result is an armed camp living an uneasy truce ... and nobody's happy ... or actually achieving their full potential."

  I thought about the bickering I had recently witnessed between Kalvin and Daphnie, and about what Guido had told me about domestic disturbances and how they can explode into violence. In spite of myself, I shuddered involuntarily.

  "That sounds grim," I said.

  "Oh, it is," the troll nodded. "Trying to 'make it work' is the most frustrating, depressing pastime ever invented. The real problem is that they've each ended up with the wrong person, but rather than admit that, they try to gloss things over with cosmetics."

  "Cosmetics?"

  "Surface changes. Things that really don't matter."

  "I don't get it."

  "All right," the troll said. "I'll give you an example. The wife says she needs some new clothes, so her husband gives her some money to go out shopping. That's a rather simple and straight forward exchange, wouldn't you say?"

  "Well ... yes."

  "Only on the surface," Chumley explained. "Now look at it a little deeper ... at what's really going on. The husband has been getting caught up in his work ... that's a normal reaction for a man when he get's married and starts feeling 'responsible,' by the way ... and his wife is feeling unhappy and ignored. Her solution is that she needs some new clothes to make her more attractive so her husband will pay more attention to her. A surface solution to her unhappiness. Now, when she says she needs new clothes, the husband is annoyed because she seems to have a closet full of clothes that she never wears, but rather than argue with her, he gives her some money for shopping ... again, a surface solution. You'll notice that he simply gives her the money. He doesn't take her shopping and help her find some new outfits."

  The troll leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

  "From there, it goes downhill. She gets some new clothes and wears them, but the husband either doesn't notice or doesn't comment ... possibly because he still resents having to pay for what he thinks is a needless purchase. Therefore, buying new clothes ... her surface solution ... doesn't work because she still feels ignored and unhappy ... and a little angry and frustrated that her husband doesn't seem to appreciate her no matter how hard she tries. Her husband, in the meantime, senses that she's still unhappy so that giving her money ... his surface solution ... didn't work. He feels even more bitter and resentful because now it seems that his wife is going to be upset and unhappy even if he 'gives her everything she's asked for.' You see, by trying to deal with the problem with surface, cosmetic gestures without acknowledging to themselves the real issues, they've actually made things worse instead of better."

  He smiled triumphantly as I considered his thesis.

  "So you're saying that marriages don't work," I said carefully, "that the concept itself is flawed."

  "Not at all," the troll corrected, shaking his head. "I was saying that getting married under the mistaken impression that love conquers all is courting disaster. A proper match between two people who enter into a marriage with their eyes open and free of romantic delusions can result in a much happier life together than they could ever have alone."

  "All right," I said. "If love and romance are bad bases for deciding to marry someone because it's too easy to fool yourself, what would you see as a valid reason to get married."

  "There are lots of them," Chumley shrugged. "Remember when Hemlock first arrived here? Her marriage to Roderick was a treaty and a merger between two kingdoms. It's common among royalty, but you'll find similar matches in the business world as well. In that case, both sides knew what they wanted and could expect, so it worked out fine."

  "Sorry, but that seems a bit cold to me," I said, shaking my head.

  "Really?" the troll cocked his head. "Maybe I'm phrasing this wrong. What you don't want is a situation where there is a hidden agenda on either or both sides. Everything should be up front and on the table ... like with the Hemlock/ Roderick marriage."

&
nbsp; "What's a hidden agenda?"

  "Hmmm ... That one's a little hard to explain. Tell me, if you married Queen Hemlock, what would you expect?"

  That one caught me totally unprepared.

  "I don't know ... nothing, really," I managed, at last. "I guess I figure that it would pretty much be a marriage in name only, with her going her way and me going mine."

  "Good," the troll said emphatically.

  "Good?" I echoed. "Com'on, Chumley."

  "Good in that you aren't expecting anything. You aren't going into it with the notion of reforming her, or that she'd give up her throne to hover around you adoringly, or any one of a myriad of other false hopes or assumptions that most grooms have on the way to the altar."

  "I suppose that's good," I said.

  "Good? It's vital," the troll insisted. "Too many people marry the person they think their partner will become. They have some sort of idea that a marriage ceremony is somehow magical. That it will eliminate all the dubious traits and habits their partner had when they were single. That's about as unrealistic as if you had expected Aahz to stop being a money-grubber or to shed his temper just because you signed on as an apprentice. Anyway, when their partner keeps right on being the person he or she has been all along, they feel hurt and betrayed. Since they believe that there should have been a change, the only conclusion they can reach is that their love wasn't enough to trigger it ... or, more likely, that there's something wrong with their partner. That's when marriages start getting bloody. At least with Queen Hemlock's proposal, nobody's kidding anybody about what's going to happen."

  I mulled over his words for a few moments.

  "So you're saying that you think I should marry Queen Hemlock," I said.

  "Here now. Hold on," the troll said, leaning back and holding up his hands. "I said no such thing. That's the kind of decision that only you can make. I was just commenting on what I see as the more common pitfalls of marriage, is all. If you do decide to marry the Queen, there are certain aspects that would weigh in favor of it working ... but you're the one who has to decide what you want out of a marriage and whether or not this is it."