by Ron Carlson
First, the very concept of oil on the roof upset so many of our villagers. Granted, it is exotic, but all great ideas seem strange at first. When our researchers realized we could position a cauldron two hundred feet directly above our main portals, they began to see the possibilities of the greatest strategic defense system in the history of mankind.
The cauldron was expensive. We all knew a good defense was going to be costly. The cauldron was manufactured locally after procuring copper and brass from our mines, and it took—as is common knowledge—two years to complete. It is a beautiful thing capable of holding one hundred and ten gallons of oil. What we could not foresee was the expense and delay of building an armature. Well, of course, it’s not enough to have a big pot, pretty at it may be; how are you going to pour its hot contents on your enemies? The construction of an adequate superstructure for the apparatus required dear time: another year during which the Huns and the Exogoths were raiding our village almost weekly. Let me ask you to remember that era—was that any fun?
I want to emphasize that we were committed to this program—and we remain committed. But at every turn we’ve met problems that our researchers could not—regardless of their intelligence and intuition—have foreseen. For instance: how were we to get a nineteen-hundred-pound brass cauldron onto the roof? When had such a question been asked before? And at each of these impossible challenges, our boiling oil teams have come up with solutions. The cauldron was raised to the roof by means of a custom-designed net and hoist including a rope four inches in diameter which was woven on the spot under less than ideal conditions as the Retrogoths and the Niligoths plundered our village almost incessantly during the cauldron’s four-month ascent. To our great and everlasting credit, we did not drop the pot. The superstructure for the pouring device was dropped once, but it was easily repaired on-site, two hundred feet above the village steps.
That was quite a moment, and I remember it well. Standing on the roof by that gleaming symbol of our impending safety, a bright brass (and a few lesser metals) beacon to the world that we were not going to take it anymore. The wind carried up to us the cries of villagers being carried away by either the Maxigoths or the Minigoths, it was hard to tell. But there we stood, and as I felt the wind in my hair and watched the sporadic procession of home furnishings being carried out of our violated gates, I knew we were perched on the edge of a new epoch.
Well, there was some excitement; we began at once. We started a fire under the cauldron and knew we would all soon be safe. At that point I made a mistake, which I now readily admit. In the utter ebullience of the moment I called down—I did not “scream maniacally” as was reported—I called down that it would not be long, and I probably shouldn’t have, because it may have led some of our citizenry to lower their guard. It was a mistake. I admit it. There were, as we found out almost immediately, still some bugs to be worked out of the program. For instance, there had never been a fire on top of the entry tower before, and yes, as everyone is aware, we had to spend more time than we really wanted containing the blaze, fueled as it was by the fresh high winds and the tower’s wooden shingles. But I hasten to add that the damage was moderate, as moderate as a four-hour fire could be, and the billowing black smoke surely gave further intruders lurking in the hills pause as they considered finding any spoils in our ashes!
But throughout this relentless series of setbacks, pitfalls, and rooftop fires, there has been a hard core of us absolutely dedicated to doing what we wanted to do, and that was to splash scalding oil onto intruders as they pried or battered yet again at our old damaged gates. To us a little fire on the rooftop was of no consequence, a fribble, a tiny obstacle to be stepped over with an easy stride. Were we tired? Were we dirty? Were some of us burned and cranky? No matter! We were committed. And so the next day, the first quiet day we’d had in this village in months, that same sooty cadre stood in the warm ashes high above the entry steps and tried again. We knew—as we know right now—that our enemies are manifold and voracious and generally rude and persistent, and we wanted to be ready.
But tell me this: where does one find out how soon before an enemy attack to put the oil on to boil? Does anyone know? Let me assure you it is not in any book! We were writing the book!
We were vigilant. We squinted at the horizon all day long. And when we first saw the dust in the foothills we refired our cauldron, using wood which had been elevated through the night in woven baskets. Even speaking about it here today, I can feel the excitement stirring in my heart. The orange flames licked the sides of the brass container hungrily as if in concert with our own desperate desire for security and revenge. In the distance I could see the phalanx of Visigoths marching toward us like a warship through a sea of dust, and in my soul I pitied them and the end toward which they so steadfastly hastened. They seemed the very incarnation of mistake, their dreams of a day abusing our friends and families and of petty arsony and lewd public behavior about to be extinguished in one gorgeous wash of searing oil! I was beside myself.
It is important to know now that everyone on the roof that day exhibited orderly and methodical behavior. There was professional conduct of the first magnitude. There was no wild screaming or cursing or even the kind of sarcastic chuckling which you might expect in those about to enjoy a well-deserved and long-delayed victory. The problems of the day were not attributable to inappropriate deportment. My staff was good. It was when the Visigoths had approached close enough that we could see their cruel eyes and we could read the savage and misspelled tattoos that I realized our error. At that time I put my hand on the smooth side of our beautiful cauldron and found it only vaguely warm. Lukewarm. Tepid.
We had not known then what we now know. We need to put the oil on sooner.
It was my decision and my decision alone to do what we did, and that was to pour the warm oil on our enemies as they milled about the front gates, hammering at it with their truncheons.
Now this is where my report diverges from so many of the popular accounts. We have heard it said that the warm oil served as a stimulant to the attack that followed, the attack I alluded to earlier in which the criminal activity seemed even more animated than usual in the minds of some of our towns-people. Let me say first: I was an eyewitness. I gave the order to pour the oil and I witnessed its descent. I am happy and proud to report that the oil hit its target with an accuracy and completeness I could have only dreamed of. We got them all. There was oil everywhere. We soaked them, we coated them, we covered them in a lustrous layer of oil. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, it was only warm. Their immediate reaction was also what I had hoped for: surprise and panic. This, however, lasted about one second. Then several of them looked up into my face and began waving their fists in what I could only take as a tribute. And then, yes, they did become quite agitated anew, recommencing their assault on the weary planks of our patchwork gates. Some have said that they were on the verge of abandoning their attack before the oil was cast upon them, which I assure you is not true.
As to the attack that followed, it was no different in magnitude or intensity from any of the dozens we suffer every year. It may have seemed more odd or extreme since the perpetrators were greasy and thereby more offensive, and they did take every stick of furniture left in the village, including the pews from the church, every chair in the great hall, and four milking stools, the last four, from the dairy.
But I for one am simply tired of hearing about the slippery stain on the village steps. Yes, there is a bit of a mess, and yes, some of it seems to be permanent. My team removed what they could with salt and talc all this week. All I’ll say now is watch your step as you come and go; in my mind it’s a small inconvenience to pay for a perfect weapon system.
So, we’ve had our trial run. We gathered a lot of data. And you all know we’ll be ready next time. We are going to get to do what we wanted to do. We will vex and repel our enemies with boiling oil. In the meantime, who needs furniture? We have a project! We need the determina
tion not to lose the dream, and we need a lot of firewood. They will come again. You know it and I know it, and let’s simply commit ourselves to making sure that the oil, when it falls, is very hot.
THE CHROMIUM HOOK
JACK CRAMBLE
EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, that we pulled in the driveway and I found the hook when I went around to Jill’s door. It was caught in the door handle, hanging there like I don’t know what. I didn’t know what it was at first, but when Jill got out she knew, and she started screaming, for which I don’t blame her. Her father came out and made like where had we been and did we know it was almost one o’clock. He’s a good guy, but under real pressure, I guess, since his wife had her troubles. Anyway, he looks at the hook, and then he looks Jill over real good, suspicious-like, like we’d been up to something, which we definitely had not. We had been, as everybody knows, up at Conversation Point with our debate files, and the time got away from us. I was helping her with her arguments, asking questions, like that, things like “What are the drawbacks of an international nuclear-test-ban treaty?” And she would fish around in her file box and try to find the answer. Her one shot at college is the debate team, and their big meet with Northwoods was a week from that Saturday. It was Mr. Royaltuber who called the police, and the word got out.
JILL ROYALTUBER
IT WAS THE scaredest I’ve ever been, and when I think of how close that homicidal maniac came to getting us and doing whatever he was going to do with that big vicious hook, my blood runs cold. Jack was really brave. He wanted to get out of the car after we heard the first noises, the scrapings, and see what it was, but I wouldn’t let him. Sometimes boys just don’t have any sense. We’d already heard about the escaped homicidal maniac on the radio. They’d interrupted Wild Johnny Hateras’s Top Twenty Country Countdown with the news bulletin that some one-armed madman had escaped the loony bin on Demon Hill and was sort of armed and dangerous. And of course Discussion Point is right there by the iron fence of the nuthouse. We had gone up to Discussion Point to work through some problems I’d been having since my mom left, and Jack was talking to me about being strong and saying he’d be there for me and not to get too depressed and to look on the sunny side of things, that Mom was better off in the hospital—she certainly seemed happier. So Jack was being that thing, supportive, which I love. A boyfriend who is captain of football is one thing, and a boyfriend who is captain of football and supportive is another. But I kept him from getting out of the car after we heard the noises. The wind had come up a little and it was dark as dark, and I said, “Let’s just get out of here.” Jack wasn’t afraid. He wanted to stay. But I told him it was late, and then we heard the scratching closer, against the car, and it felt like it was right on my bare spine. “Pull out!” I yelled, and he gunned the engine of his Ford—it’s a wonderful car, which he did all the work on—and we headed for home.
DR. STEWART NARKENPIE, DIRECTOR, THE SPINARD PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE
IT IS NOT a loony bin. It is not a nuthouse or a funny farm. It’s not even an insane asylum. It is, as I’ve been telling everyone in this community for the twenty-two years I’ve lived here, the Spinard Psychiatric Institute, a center for the treatment of psychological disorders. It is a medical hospital, the building and grounds of which occupy just under two hundred acres on the top of Decatur Hill, and it employs thirty-eight citizens from the lovely town of Griggs, including Mr. Howard Lugdrum, who was injured seriously in last week’s incident. I have spoken to the Rotary Club once a year for forever, as well as to the Lions and the Elks and the Junior Achievement and the graduating class of the high school and the Vocational Outreach in the Griggs Middle School, explaining what we do and how we do it and that the Spinard Psychiatric Institute is not a loony bin or any other kind of bin, and I am not getting through. It is not a bin! Even though a large portion of our community has had family and friends enter the Institute as patients only to be returned to the community after treatment in better shape than before, and even though most everybody has visited the grounds—if not for personal reasons, then certainly at our annual Community Picnic on the South Lawn—there still persists this incurable sense that once you pass under the Spinard stone arch you are entering the twilight zone. Yes, we do have a big iron fence, because some of our patients get confused and could possibly wander away, and yes, the buildings, some of them, have bars over the windows for the safety of our patients, and some of our patients wear restraints when out-of-doors, but they are dangerous to no one but themselves. I cannot say how weary I am of setting the record straight. It is not a nuthouse, and I am not a mad scientist. We don’t have any mad scientists, mad professors, or mad doctors. No one’s mad. We don’t use that term. We do have some disturbed patients, but we’re treating them, and there is a chance—with rest counseling, and medication—that they will get better. We do not perform operations except as they become medically necessary. We had an appendectomy last fall. We do not operate on the brain. We do not—as the high school paper suggests regularly—do brain transplants, dissections, or enlargements. Most recently I had to speak with Wild Johnny Hateras at KGRG, the radio station in Griggs, about the prank news bulletin on Halloween, which is just the kind of thing that keeps any understanding between the Institute and the town in tatters and is responsible, I think, for the harm resulting from last Saturday’s incident, about which we’ve heard so much.
MR. HOWARD LUGDRUM
IT HURT. DON’T you think that hurt? Everybody talks about the kids: oh, they were scared, they were frightened and nervous, oh, they were terrified. Well, think about it—had two trespassers yanked off their prosthesis? In the course of doing their job, were either of them pulled from their feet and dragged till an arm came off, and left there tumbling in the dirt? As it turns out, I was lucky I was wearing my simple hook and the straps broke; if I’d been wearing my regular armature, those two little criminals would have dragged me to death, and we’d have murder here instead of reckless endangerment.
ROD BUDDAROCK
IF ANYBODY, ONE person, says anything, one thing, about my buddy Jack Cramble being up there at Passion Point to do anything, one thing, besides help little Jill Royaltuber with family problems, such as they are, I’ll find that person and use his lying butt to wipe up Main Street. I’m not joking here. I know Jack from being co-captain of football, and I know what I’m saying. Of course, he could have come to the team party out at the Landing, but here was a girl who had some troubles and he was there to help. There’s been a lot of talk about what they were really doing. Jack made that crack about debate, which was too bad, because he couldn’t get within two miles of the debate team—I’m a better debater than Jack and Jill put together—but he only said that to protect Jill’s reputation, such as it is. She’s a nice girl, but a little confused. It was only last year that her mom went bonkers, and Jill herself went a little nuts about that time, but she is no slut. If anybody, one person, says anything about Jill Royaltuber being a wide-mouthed, round-heeled slut, I’ll find that person and trouble will certainly rain down upon his or her head like hot shit from Mars.
MR. HOWARD LUGDRUM
I’D SEEN THE car before. It’s a two-door Ford, blue-and-white. There are five or six cars I see there by our north fence in the pine grove. They bring their girlfriends up from town in the good weather, and we find the empty beer bottles and condoms. The kids call it Passion Point. We had a timed light system there until a few years ago, but the Environmental Protection Agency asked us to dismantle it because of the Weaver’s bat, a protected species that hunts there at night. The deal about the parking is that the grove is our property and we stand liable for any harm. Two kids climb in the backseat of some old clunker with a faulty exhaust and the Institute would be sued until the thirteenth of never. I mean, these are kids at night in old cars. What we’ve done is put the grove on the watchman’s tour, and one of us takes the big flashlight and shines it on a few bare butts every night of the week. Until last week, it’s been k
ind of funny—I mean, you see some white rear end hop up, and then the cars start up and wheel out like scurrying rats. Once interrupted, they don’t come back. Until the next night. Like I said, these are kids.
I’m in charge of the buildings and grounds at the Institute, and I like my work there; it’s been a good place to me.
SHERIFF CURTIS MANSARACK
THE MOST FREQUENTLY asked question is “When you bust a beer bust, do you keep the beer?” For Pete’s sake. Every weekend I roust one or two of these high school beer parties, most often on the hill or down at Ander’s Landing. Sometimes, though, there’ll be a complaint and I’ll be called to a private residence. A lot of these kids know me by now, and they know that about eleven-thirty old Sheriff Mansarack will slip up in his cruiser and flash the lights long enough for every drunk sophomore to run into the bushes so that I can cite the two or three seniors too drunk to flee.
I was in the middle of such a raid last Saturday night, Halloween, a night when I know for a sure fact that there is going to be trouble, and I got the call from Oleena Weenz, our dispatcher. There had been, in her words, a “vicious assault by a pervert,” and she directed me to the address on Eider Street where I found Mr. Rick Royaltuber and the two young people and heard the story. I knew the boy, Jack Cramble, and had seen him play football earlier that night when Griggs beat Bark City, and I was kind of surprised that he wasn’t down with the rest of the team drinking beer at the Landing. I also knew Mr. Royaltuber, as I had taken the call when his wife went off the deep end a year ago. When a guy helps you subdue his wife and pries her fingers off a rusty pair of kitchen scissors while you hold her kicking and screaming on your lap on the front porch in front of all the neighborhood, you remember him. That was a bad deal, embarrassing for me to get caught off guard. I mean, she looked normal. I hadn’t seen the scissors. And it was bad for old Royaltuber too, with her shrieking out about him porking what’s-her-name, the wife of old Dr. Dizzy up at the loony bin, and rattling those scissors at us. Hey, sometimes kitchen tools are the worst. And she was strong.
