The Death of Mungo Blackwell

by Lauren H Brandenburg

  “Thieves and liars!” an uncle had shouted at a meeting called for the sole purpose of voting on the Toft dilemma.

  “They stole our land!” another had added.

  “That Sylvia is a piece of work.” Moira and Sorcha had sat through the meeting with their arms crossed and their backs turned, refusing to turn around unless Charlie did something about the Toft problem.

  “The whole lot of them is trouble makers. Who sells their goods at a funeral? Tofts. That’s who!”

  Charlie looked to Stephen for help, but he could see by the distant expression on his face that the custom of hating the Tofts was as ingrained in him as it was in the rest of the clan.

  “Excuse me, Charlie. May I ask a question?” The ruckus of Toft-bashing came to a halt at the sight of the raised hand of Velveteen Price. “I do not claim to know much about business, but if the Tofts are buying your items, are you not also taking their money? I was once an avid shopper before our days in Coraloo, as some of you know, and I have to say, I gave quite a lot of our money to many a boutique in the city –”

  “Let the Tofts in!” someone shouted. “We’ll take their money.”

  Other than the proposal that the market implement a special identification process and tax on the Tofts, which Charlie promptly shut down, the right shoes prevailed in the vote to allow the Tofts to shop the market. However, the sign out front would remain.

  “Oh Velvy! Look what you’ve done with the place. Isn’t it just darling!” Sylvia Toft squatted down in front of the rows of colorful treats lined up in the case. “I didn’t tell Mother where you got the recipe. She’d rather die than eat something Granny Blackwell had a hand in.”

  Velveteen knew right away what she wanted to sell at Granny’s. From the moment Charlie had asked her to take over the counter, Velveteen had set to work deciphering – with the permission of the Blackwells who were thankful they weren’t the ones in the kitchen – Granny’s handwritten recipes. Finella and Fiona, who had begun to wear their hair like Velveteen’s and begged Clover to buy them high-heeled shoes, were thrilled to work alongside her in the kitchen.

  Velveteen made an attempt to put on a pair of heels for the market’s reopening, but her feet had nearly doubled in size and forcing them on made her feel like she was playing pretend with the acquaintances. They looked good but didn’t feel quite right. She tried flats, sandals, sneakers, rain boots – she liked them all, but none of them were as comfortable or as lovely as her heels had been. She told herself she would give the heels another try after the baby was born; until then, with the weather warming, she’d just go barefoot. But when she entered Granny’s she found a pair of handcrafted leather sandals. On the sole was stamped F. Blackwell. The sandals, crafted especially to fit her larger than normal feet, fit perfectly. She had her first customer before she could track down and thank the gifted party.

  “How will I ever choose? Oh, aren’t you a clever one – did you paint them? Are they safe to eat? It’s no matter. I trust you Velvy; after all we are practically sisters, you know. What’s in a Melbaroon?”

  Finella pulled the dark red macaron from the case and handed it to Sylvia. Velveteen wiped her hands on the new apron Clover had made for her. “It’s cherry and black tea.”

  “Oh… maybe the Velva-roon instead? You can’t go wrong with orange!”

  “It’s bergamot with a lavender filling.”

  “I see.” Sylvia frowned at the treat and flung her arms up in the air. “Well, I guess I don’t have to eat them. I’ll take one of each.”

  Velveteen laughed. “So you’re purchasing them, but not going to eat them?”

  “Velvy, sisters support each other. It’s what sisters do, right? Should I make you an appointment at my shop? It looks like you’re due to get those roots touched up.”

  Charlie Price walked the market watching the shoppers moving in and out of the shops with their bags full of the Blackwell wares. The vendors were busy too. Charlie recognized a picker by how he stepped away from the booth, checked his phone, and then went back in for the offer. He watched as the picker walked away with a 1951 Peter Pan record player. Charlie shook his head. This guy was new.

  “I see you finally sold the Peter Pan.” Charlie sorted through the vendor’s collection of old records.

  “It’s good to see you, Charlie. I hear this is your doing? It looks nice.”

  “Thank you. I think it turned out all right.”

  “How did you convince Shug Blackwell to let us back in?”

  “The inside of a prison cell can change a man’s heart real quick.” Charlie didn’t really want to talk about Shug. Part of him had compassion for the man, but the other part was relieved to not have him breathing over his shoulder all the time. “I see you still have the hat boxes, Curt.”

  “I’ll give you both of them for a good price.”

  “My wife would think I’ve gone mad.” Charlie had sold nearly everything he had picked, and what remained he’d moved to his office.

  “How about for old times’ sake?”

  “What do you want for them?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Charlie laughed. “Are you trying to give them to me?”

  “A way to say thank you, and because I like you, Price.”

  Charlie pulled twenty-five out of his wallet and took the circular tin box. In the distance, the dialogue of the children performing under the grand chandelier induced a round of laughter.

  The tip boot will be full today.

  “Cursed!” one of them shouted.

  Charlie overheard the children practicing so many times, he could practically recite their lines from memory.

  The crowd applauded.

  He shuffled through the busyness of the market to Shug’s shop. A sign hung above the door – Mungo’s.

  Danger Blackwell ran through the door before it had time to shut. “I’m all finished up, Mr Price.”

  “How’s it going, Danger?”

  “Great! Three tours already.”

  “Sounds like Gideon is wrapping it up. Why don’t you take a break and grab a macaron? Tell Mrs Price it’s on me.”

  “Thanks, Mr Price.”

  Black and white photographs of factory workers seated at long tables inside the Coraloo adorned the walls. Shoe forms, a cobbler’s anvil, and leather-working tools filled wood-framed glass cases – each with a typed description containing the date and purpose. Charlie had learned many of the antiques in Shug’s shop were family heirlooms Shug had discovered in the factory’s loft storage space – one of Shug’s many efforts to pay off his debt.

  Shug’s had become Mungo’s – a tribute to the history of the market and the Blackwell legacy. In what free time he had, Charlie searched online, digging for anything the family could add to the museum. In the back, he had made his office.

  Charlie set the tin box on his desk and carefully opened the lid. He reached inside and removed a furry black nineteenth-century Royal Scots Fusiliers busby hat with a white plume and gold medallion on the front. Instinctively, he checked its value online – he could easily triple his money. He spun around in his chair and placed the hat on the bookshelf between Shelley and Stevenson. His collection of classic literature was finally free of their boxes and acid free paper holdings. Charlie stood to return to the market, accidentally knocking a small package – brown paper tied with twine – to the floor. He hadn’t noticed that one before. On top of the package was a note that read: “Thank you, friend. S. Blackwell.” And below, a quote Charlie new well: For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. R. Kipling.

  Charlie carefully pulled back the paper. He could see the blue peeking through. He tossed the parchment aside and stared at the elusive Kipling. This was it – The Jungle Book – the book his father had read to him every night as a child.

  “Charlie, are you in here?” Velveteen Price was not thrilled her husband had chosen Shug’s shop as his office – it smelled like rum and
cigars and needed a bit more work than she wanted to take on at eight months pregnant. “Isn’t it wonderful, Charlie! The whole day has been absolutely fabulous. The market closes in a few, and I thought we –” She stopped in front of his desk upon seeing the book. “Oh no, you didn’t! Did you, Charlie?”

  Charlie could barely speak. He shook his head and handed her the note, which activated her prenatal hormones, causing a flood of tears. He moved from behind the desk and held her in his arms until the lights went out on the Coraloo Flea Market.

  CHAPTER 33

  1937

  It is not often that a man is born of a native princess and cursed to wander the world in search of something he can only find within himself. Nor that he would live to witness his own funeral. Mungo may have battled the pygmies of the South Seas and traveled with pirates, but it was neither the thrill nor the adventure that moved him closer to his death. Every day he lived, as all men do, he inched closer to his end. A friend to kings and an enemy to neighbors, Mungo Blackwell died in his sleep in the four-poster bed on a quiet morning surrounded by his children. A son, a cobbler, a husband, and a father, Mungo Blackwell died having accomplished everything he set out to do in his life – he even found contentment.

  His sons attempted to bury him on the hill overlooking the town of Coraloo, his beloved having gone on before him. His home he had asked be converted into a factory for making shoes – as the talents of a single cobbler were no longer of use in a world obsessed with industrialization. He believed the space would one day employ the town.

  But, as with Mungo’s life, his burial was anything but ordinary. The sons had no more than put the coffin in the ground than the eldest son remembered they had forgotten to put shoes on their father.

  When the sons returned to the home, they discovered all of his clothing and footwear had been donated to the town parish, as their father had instructed. Unwilling to bury their father without shoes – especially as Menzies was deathly afraid that burying his beloved father in bare feet would bring a turn of bad luck that would send the family into sudden poverty – the two brothers went to the priest to ask for a pair of shoes.

  The priest would have been happy to return Mungo’s shoes had they not already been distributed to the needy. The boys, weary and nervous their father would not be buried before dark, walked the town looking for at least one person who might know the whereabouts of a pair of Blackwell shoes.

  As it turned out, their trek did not take them far, for in the Beaver’s Beard sat Jonathan Toft with his arms crossed and his feet propped up on a table. The boys recognized their father’s boots immediately and demanded the thief of a Toft give them back, but the Toft refused. Menzies swung first. Other Tofts in town got wind of the brawl and joined in. Soon the Beaver’s Beard was overflowing with Tofts and Blackwells engaged in an epic war Mungo Blackwell could not have planned better himself.

  In the end, Menzies held the Toft down, clamped a hand over his mouth, and wrested the shoes off his thieving feet. When the Toft wrestled himself free, he stood up and shouted, “You may have taken the hill, but we took the valley!”

  “For now, you dirty Toft – you have the valley, but we have the shoes! They didn’t fit you anyway!”

  That night – Menzies, with a black eye, and his brother, with a busted lip – buried their father under a full moon overlooking the town of Coraloo. The next day, surrounded by the love of family and friends, they celebrated in a vigil the life and death of Mungo Blackwell.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every time I sat down to write, I invited the Lord to sit down and write with me, to be beside me while I set out to forge a lovely place to dwell. I kept inviting until I realized that I just needed to recognize that He is always with me. Then, somewhere among the words, I found myself. I also found that He has a great sense of humor. I’m so very thankful for His company, creativity, forgiveness, unstoppable love, and endless grace.

  Jamie, thank you for letting me tell our story, even if I did blow it way out of proportion and toss in a bit of weird family history. You’re my Charlie Price and I will forever be proud of you. I love you twenty. Kensi and Jack, thank you for your grace and patience and total acceptance of my frantic-quirkiness. I’m crazy blessed to call you mine. Mom, you’re my biggest cheerleader. I’m quite certain you would brag about me even if I wrote the most ridiculous story ever told – oh wait… I did and you did. Thank you. Jordan and the rest of my Crawford clan, you inspired me to twist and tell our tales and encouraged me to press onward – you keep me safe with your strength. Julie Gwinn, you told me once that you believed in me; thank you for never stopping and for telling me to write this story six years before I had planned. Jessica Gladwell, thank you for taking a chance on me. I couldn’t imagine my Mungo in better hands. The publishing team at Lion Hudson, you’ve worked so hard to help me bring this to life – thank you for loving on me from so far away. Julie Frederick, I feel we became fast friends. Thank you for making Mungo shine. Duty calls! Sarah J. Coleman, you got it perfectly right! Thank you. And the many others: Gigi, for your constant prayers, my writing gals – Valeria, Melissa, and Keely – for all the calls, coffee shop meet-ups and conversations, my Realmies, my nacho mommas (you know who you are), my Shanan family and all my young writers, my friends, Larry and Shirley, my Brandenburg family, and every single one of you who have listened to me go on and on about this tale… Thank you from every inch of me!

  READER’S GUIDE

  1.This book is called The Death of Mungo Blackwell. Why do you think the author chose this title?

  2.The Blackwells hold a funeral for each family member before they die. Do you think this is a good idea? Does it make you think about what might be missing in your life?

  3.Charlie and Velveteen set out on a quest for simplicity, but find what they really need is contentment. What do you perceive to be the difference between simplicity and contentment? Do you think the characters find what they are looking for?

  4.Discuss Velveteen, her upbringing, playing “pretend” with the acquaintances, her fascination with Melba DuMont, and her relationship to Granny Blackwell. Do you relate to her character at all?

  5.Discuss Charlie’s life before and after The Rooning. What do you feel was ultimately driving him to seek success in both the city and in Coraloo?

  6.What parts of the novel did you find most humorous or relatable?

  7.Velveteen tries to find her shoes but in the end is given a pair of sandals custom-made for her by a member of the Blackwell family. Discuss the importance of “shoes” throughout the novel and the significance of Velveteen finding comfort in a pair of Blackwell shoes.

  8.Did you like how the author handled the resolution of the story? Is there anything you would add or change for either Charlie or Velveteen?

  9.“The feelings of defeat and fear surrounding Charlie in the days after the food truck debacle were now replaced by a sense of purpose – a mission – and a new family motto: ‘Simplicity’.” Do you have a motto that you live by? Do you think this was a good motto for the Price family? How would a different motto have affected their move to Coraloo?

  10.Stephen Blackwell says, “We Blackwells have always been about two things: faith and family… I was willing to take the risk.” Would you be willing to currently leave the life you have to try something new? What would that new thing be? Would you imagine it would be an act of faith or an act of survival?

  AUTHOR INTERVIEW

  What first inspired you to write The Death of Mungo Blackwell?

  A piece of history my dad passed on to me about a family member, who actually had his funeral before he died. Seriously! No wonder I’m so quirky. When I first heard this, I knew I had to write a character who would be bold enough to do that. The rest of the story is loosely based on my family’s own “Rooning” – we experienced financial loss during 2008. There was always a story there; it just so happened I was able to blend the two family narratives.

  Do you have a par
ticular writing routine?

  Not particularly. I do my best to get up before my kiddos, especially when I am in the middle of edits. Other than that, I take advantage of any free time I can to write, whether that’s in a coffee shop while my daughter is doing her martial arts or at the dining room table while my son is studying. In the car, on the back porch, in the waiting room of the dentist’s office – when there’s time, I write. But family is important, so time with them comes first.

  What is the writing habit that you rely on to get you through a first draft?

  I have to remember that it is the first draft. It’s going to be ugly, awful, and I just have to get the words on the paper. I usually have my chapters roughly outlined before I begin, but let’s be honest, it never looks the same when I’m done. I never stop when I feel stuck – I’m afraid I won’t want to come back to it. So, I keep going until I know I will be excited to write more the next day.

  How much of you is there in your characters?

  There is quite a bit of my heart in Velveteen. We’re both short, but I wouldn’t consider myself as glamorous or as high maintenance by any means. Her thought process is much like my own – a bit scattered, truly crazy about her husband, but trying to figure out her own path to contentment.

  Are there any scenes in your novel that you would consider “loosely based” on your own experience?

  During our “Rooning” I decided to color my hair, and when I went to rinse it out we had no water. My daughter had to run jugs of bottled water up the stairs and help me pour them over my hair! The worst part was that I had a photographer on her way to take my first professional headshots. Let’s just say my hair was really dark. Oh, and when the foreclosure agent showed up at our door, I was hosting a ladies event for our church. I totally played it off and the ladies had no idea what was going on (I didn’t throw macarons!).