NO. 69 A FOUNDLING’S LIFE: FROM TRAGEDY TO LARK TO TRIUMPH

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

I am James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction – a true Fiction.  Typhoon  tears me from my parents.  I alone survive.  I become an orphaned foundling, taken in by new loving parents, Dr. Ben and Indira Singh.  Now, I am Raji.  These are my found and foundling tales.

I. The Tragedy

THE FOUNDLINGS

We are left writhing by roadsides or under trees.  We are dumped in trash heaps.  We are cradled in now rigor mortised but once tender arms of parents killed by war, plague, inferno, flood, or scores of other tragedies.

We are the foundlings.

Around this big world, we, the tiniest, are the most helpless.  We are abandoned to the whims of the elements, animals, sometimes, worst of all, to the wrath of humans.

We come into the lives of others naked, or nearly so.  Those other babes and toddlers in our predicament, thousands, maybe millions – no one knows – most never survive.

Sometimes wild animals nurse, feed, protect and raise us as their own.

How do we cope?  How do we survive our beginnings then thrive?  Through the goodwill of others, by mere chance, but finally and ultimately, by fantasy we spin in our feral yet developing minds.  As we grow, unbeknownst to those around us, we retreat to a blissful make-believe of serendipity and lark to keep us sane so we can flourish in a life in which we are given a second chance.

Now cometh our stories and those of whom help and hinder us – our, Tales of the Fiction House.  For all those ‘WE,’ of whom I am one, now do I speak for they have beckoned me to do so —           Raji Singh

II. The Lark

 Little Known Famous Foundling Facts (LKFFF) 

A.  MOSES: (nicknamed ‘Nile’s Basket Boy’ by his intimates) Ancient publisher. Initiated move away from cumbersome tablets, to innovative strains of lightweight papyrus rolls.

B.  JAMES THADDEUS ‘BLACKJACK’ FICTION: aka ‘The Carper’ 19th century publisher (FICTION HOUSE) and abolitionist. Popularized the now banned (yet still-practiced underground) ‘sport’ of gloved, Cat Boxing along the Ohio.

C.  LIL’ TOM – alias ‘Puss ‘N Gloves’: First and foremost of the cat boxers. Two of his three gloved,  posing posters are known to exist. Hoped for third: whereabouts a puzzle; is considered the “Holy Grail” of the Cat Boxing collectibles. Estimated value if found, in even fair condition – TWO MILLION DOLLARS.

III.  The Triumph

(Here is my four-year-old great-great-grandfather’s triumphant foundling beginnings.

In 1826, he’s taken into a crusty ancient mariner’s riverside wharf shack. )

“This is Ol Tom, Carper. Ol Tom, this is Carper.”

Ol Tom raises paw in welcome and the boy instinctively takes it.

“Ol Tom,” Carper quietly says.

“Meow.” The sleek, one-eye gray feline looks approvingly over their guest then leaps to his usual perch, Mariner’s stooped left shoulder.

“He likes ya Carper. If he didn’t he’d been out the door. He can tell a young sailor who’s worth his salt,” Mariner says, stroking the cat’s glistening fur. Ol Tom is handily the cleanest thing in the wharf-shack. A bed of greasy straw and a seldom-used tub for washing is on one side; a chair that long ago lost its stuffing, the other. Sailor clutter- periscope, scrimshaw, bottled ship, swamps the top of a rotting bureau. Conch shells are all about. Dominating the middle of the room is a bottomless bucket over a hole in the floor – toilet to the river. Surrounding it are piles of corncobs and wrinkly newspapers.

“Ol Tom’s a Cincy legend. Fathered most of the cats on these docks, he did. Nears I can tell, not done yet. I reels him in as a young stray, just like I did you. Hiszen’ line will one day rule this fairen’ city.[1] How ‘bout you boy? Got ideas liken that for youren’ self?”

Mariner’s look locks Carper’s; makes Carper feel an equal. As he prattles, Mariner goes to stir bubbling clam chowder he had put on a small coal-burning stove earlier in the morning. He sweeps dried peas off a rickety wooden table. Carper listens to their hypnotizing ‘tick, tick, tick’ as they spatter to the floor, then ‘blip, blip, blip’ into the Ohio.

He is in a daze. Barely can he feel or sense as Mariner half-sings – half-bellows. “Time ta swab yer deck, Matey. Gotta be ship-shape for galley call.” With a wet washrag he mops the boy clean. Where once was soot, emerges sparkling ivory skin. Where ashen sameness of shape existed, appears definition – lithe fingers, willowy legs and arms, sharp shoulders, carnation pink cheeks reflecting in charcoal-hue eyes. “Handsome lad ya are,” he barks, brushing soot from Carper’s straight, black hair. Mariner’s resolve hardens. “No do-gooders’ll get our Carper into an orphanage. Eh, Ol Tom?”

Ol Tom adjusts his-self to his comfort level on Mariner’s shoulder and winks good eye, inches from ship-shack master. “Meeeooow.”

Mariner ladles two bowls. Carper runs to one, sits, and devours. Mariner layers the Cincinnati Daily Opine on the stove as a chopping block. He whacks off his catch’s head and tosses it on the floor. As Ol Tom leaps for it, begins batting it around between bites, the famished boy pushes away empty bowl and begins on the other.

“Eat your fill son. None go hungry here.”

Carper pulls a red silk handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his chin. Mariner breathes the silk’s sweet perfume. He knows the scent, but from where? Then, as he tosses the carp into a salt bucket to preserve until dinnertime, he notices an artist-rendered picture of a woman in the newspaper. He wipes away fish blood and squints closer at it, then at Carper. He sees the resemblance. Instantly he knows from whence the handkerchief came.

Mariner knows-from now on, this must be the boy’s new port of call.

[1] LKFFF: There is a famous marble statue in Cincinnati’s main library – a one-eyed cat reading a book. It’s been in different locations in the city for over a century and a half. Its origin is unknown.

 

Carper will grow up to become James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, publisher and abolitionist. (See picture)

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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No. 68: BOOKS

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Last week: It’s 1826, Cincinatti.  4-year-old orphaned foundling Carper is taken in by a sea-crusted ancient mariner.

In only a few minutes Mariner and Carper are at Mariner’s isolated ‘STATEROOM.’ A barnacle on the backside of an abandoned warehouse, the ten-by-ten foot wharf-shack juts out over the Ohio. It’s built of rancorous vegetable crate-wood. The river’s fishy odor is less offensive. Two nose-smudged porthole windows peep out. The oilskin tarp door groans a tired welcome when Mariner moves it. Inside, Carper scrunches his face and breathes cautiously.

One can see the sloshing water between inch-thick gaps in the planked floor. The structure sways like a ship in even moderate knot breezes and this makes it truly home for the Mariner. “I built ‘er seaworthy, Matey. Can launch this ‘skiff’ if I’ve a mind. Sail away wheres I choose iffa the city starts overtakin’.”

Firmly anchoring the wharf-shack are shelved books. They line the walls. Mariner can’t read, but pretends. For hours, he will stare at the print and mouth words he believes should accompany pictures.

You stare intently, entranced by the array of Mariner’s exotic objects never before this moment have you seen. BOOKS – bound in leather dyed blue, black, and red. The bindings’ wild animal pungency – primal; the pulp pages emit sweet, pleasant mustiness of the forest. These soothing scents overpower the wharf-shack’s odor. These scents, intoxicating, will draw you under their covers. Soon you will sleep. Dream. All their pages of excitement, knowledge, mystery will awaken a passion for life’s grandeur in you that never will dull.

There is no way that at this moment can your child’s mind perceive all you feel so deeply. You only experience…

The BOOKS: They begin leaping from the shelves. They slide down Harpoon. Its long face, snaggled with sharp-barbed tooth, is still gleaming with the sweet ardor of some past battle glory. When they reach the floor, BOOKS, in cadence begin marching round a three-legged stool and toward you. ‘Hup! Hup! Hup, hup, hup!’ In parade. Voices echo in unison, ‘JOIN US, CARPER. DON’T LET US PASS YOU BY!’

How do they know your name? Other books are open on rickety stands and on the floor. You smile as an artist’s drawing of a wiry pooch ‘WOOFS’ at you. On the page next to him, a little wooden boy dances clip-cloppity. You want to tweak his funny, ever-growing nose. But, ‘Ouch!’ You are afraid of splinters.

On the pages of a floored book, a pretty, golden-haired girl in a silver gown looks down from atop a leafy tree. She reaches for you. She has wings of silver, ruby, and gold. She reminds you of the butterfly that spent the night with you under the cart. You whisper, “Calico?”

‘COME FLYING WITH ME CARPER!’ she sings. She swoops down, takes your hand, and off you go go go, landing on the picture’s cloudy mountaintop. You lock hands and sing, skip and play ring around rosy, pocketful of posy. Ashes, ashes… all…fall…

‘No! No! You fist your hand in defiance. The fire-breathing monster won’t eat me,’ your thoughts shout, as you partly remember the nightmare. You blink. No longer do you hold her hand. You’re still clasping Mariner’s.

“Ouch! Carper, you got a clam’s grip there,” Mariner says as he bends creakily and closes the fairy tale book. Butterfly girl winks good-bye. Carper doesn’t feel scared or sad. He feels protected by Mariner and this place. He can visit the butterfly girl any time he wants. He will find many joys like her in – BOOKS. Carper will have read and absorbed each one in this dry-dock library before he turns eight.

BOOKS. They will become his life.

Carper will grow up to become James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, publisher and abolitionist. (See picture)

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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No. 67 Like the New Year, Life is Full of Beginnings

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

THE CARPER’S TALE   (From Tales of the Fiction House)

1826 

Daylight for just 15 minutes and already summer’s heat has dried dew from the Cincinnati pier.  A stoop-shouldered ancient mariner in an age-cracked slicker gamily trudges the seemingly un-ending stretch.  Alone.  Sunken jaw ratchets, way to below Adam’s apple, as he grumbles,

“How long I gonna live?”

These would be the first words my great-great grandfa, four-year-old James Thaddeus Fiction, would remember hearing for the rest of his life.  From beneath an abandoned fish cart, he mimics squeakily, “How long I gonna live?”

Mariner looks about, swigs Kentucky stump juice to relieve an aching molar.  “Ahh!”  He squints curiously down at his fresh-caught carp wrapped in yesterday’s Cincinnati Daily Opine.

The boy echoes, “How long I gonna live?”

The sing-song reminds Mariner of albatross he heard while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope.  He clunks down his bamboo fishing pole and peers under the cart.  “Why, you little carper.  You just parrot me?”  He reaches for and reels into the sunlight a soot-covered boy still trembling from the night’s chill.  Mariner’s knobby knees blink at him through dungaree holes.

A calico butterfly of silver, ruby, and gold had lit on the youth’s head.  “I see one of my friends been keepin’ ya company.”  Mariner winks at it as it flits away, “Happy sailin’, Calico.”  He bands to the boy. “So what’s youren name?  What you been rollin’ round in? And what in the name of Poseidon’s ocean you doin’ schoolin’ here?”  Sniff.  “Eew!  Yer rank as my giant pal Turt after e’s swum the Atlantic.”

Boy wants to say, “How can you smell me over your owen’ self?” Manages onl, “Umm…”

Mariner squints at his first catch-of-the-day and grumbles to it.  “Likes that one too, I do. Don’t think I’ll throw ‘im back, either.”

Boy’s face crinkles prune-wrinkly as he flinches; not so much from being level with something looking so like the fire-breathing monster of the nightmare he’s just awakened from – wild silver hair, blood eyes, warty cheeks and knife nose – but from  the sour smell reeking from pebbly-textured mouth.

Everything before this moment – who he is, where he’s from, how long he’s been here – is blank, dark as his previously alabaster torso.  He wears only short pants with pockets hastily stuffed with childhood trinkets, marbles, tin soldiers, a spinning top.

Escaping bed and building during the fire.  His mother ferreted away.  Wandering aimlessly.  Collapsing here from fatigue.  36 hours have since passed.  For him it easily could have been 36 days or 36 minutes.  The wrenching scars his memory – as happens with most foundlings.  Yet, after all that, he doesn’t fear this living monster.

     “I said, what you doin’… Oh never mind.  I start you carpin’ and you look like the type’ll never clam it.”  He engulfs the boy’s hand in his bony fingers – arthritic from a lifetime of casting nets and setting sails – elevates him, until toes are level with his whale-bone belt buckle; surveys him as he would a catch.

A passing paddle-wheeler on the mucky Ohio steam-whistles out a baritone ‘ahoy’ to old salt and young dawg.  “Let’s sail, Carper.  My stateroom – she’s up the way.  I’ll get ya cleaned and chowed.  Then we can find youren.  Unless yer a stray.  You stray from the orphanage, Carper?  If that be, well…all the more power.   Believe me,” he rasps, angrily clenching fishing pole, rap, rap, rapping its hard butt against the dock….”I know first-hand how’s ya don’t wants to be in a place like that!”

The boy’s thoughts are blank as they walk and he clutches Mariner’s hand:  No happy or sad as he looks up into a face equally expressionless as his, only a primitive gratitude for the presence, for the touch of another human.

Next Week: The Carper’s New Life in the ‘Stateroom’

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No. 66: YOU WILL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, RAJI – A LINDIAN CHRISTMAS STORY

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Just like the bespectacled Ralphie in the movie A Christmas Story, as an eight year old I yearned for a Red Rider BB gun.  Growing up in Cincinnati’s Lindian community – not big meat eaters or hunters – no one truly listened when I said I wanted this.

I dreamed of making grand safaris into the magical, mysterious Lindian Woods not far from my house.

“With my Red Rider…” quite often I excitedly boasted to a kindly, yet unsympathetic old Uncle or Auntie.  “…I could fortress in the wilds of the Lindian Woods and protect the city from errant tigers.”

     They’d reply, all the while laughing gently at their own impromptu humor.  “PSHAW!  Precious Raji.  50,000 Bengals fill the football stadium every other week.  You could never keep enough BB’s in stock.”  Then these wizened elders, the tiny bells on their sarongs jingling, the beads on their shirts beating as they jiggled from the laughter, would add something like, “Cobra and Mongoose from our homeland have yet to find a way to traverse the oceans.  So we need no protection from them.  What then remains, dear boy, for you to save us from – the furry little rabbits and squirrels?  They are not so vicious.”SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

     Then, just as Ralphie’s teacher, his mother, and even Santa replied to Ralphie, the Uncles and Aunties guffawed to me, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

But Ralphie’s fa, ‘the old man’, had a Red Rider when he was eight.  He surprised Ralphie with the pump-style air rifle on Christmas.

An equally understanding – at least, seemingly, at the time, old Uncle came forward for me:   on my Christmas.  He always dressed nattily, in starched, pressed cotton pants, and a vest over a dhoti shirt white as his wavy hair.  Every glance, every eye flicker, and every movement of his lean body professed to the world his philosophy of life:  ‘To stand on ceremony is the duty of all.’  (He must have come from generations of British Colonial influence.)

The BB gun – He presented it to me as ceremoniously as if he had been a Royal Brigade officer back in Lindia, and he was pinning a medal of valor on my jacket. SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

I remember vividly to this day standing as if frozen briefly in time, a new recruit in front of Colonel Uncle.  The emotions I felt – They are indelibly imprinted in my thoughts:

That day…That day…  

The Red Rider isn’t shiny and new like Ralphie’s.  The wood stock is worn and faded.  Nicks, gouges, and dents tattoo the tarnished barrel.  But I feel just as lucky as Ralphie.

I run my fingers over the cold steel and splintered wood.  All my eight-year-olds senses absorb the ardor of battle my Red Rider must have encountered over the decades.  I smell the decaying rot of defeated cobras saturating the stock.  I can almost taste the dank of the fur of a charging tiger, “brought down by just a single BB”, I imagine someone bragging over ale at a bistro.

As if it were a seashell, I put my ear to the barrel hole.  Instead of ocean, I hear the calamitous trumpeting of a herd of elephants scared away from an isolate village’s garden, and back into the jungle.  I stroke the splintered teeth marks of a vicious mongoose that tore wildly into the weapon before being subdued.

After a ceremonious pat on the shoulder from crater-faced old Uncle and the even more ceremonious statement,

“Now go forth young Gamesman” –

Into the Lindian Woods, I foray, to take my place among the tribe of humankind known as, INTREPID HUNTER.

I dribble a handful of copper BBs into the holding chamber.  I pump the cocking handle.  I take aim skyward, at Poppy Sol.  He glares, reprimanding me with a stinging ray.  So I move my point, toward a gluttonous cloud.  ‘I’ll pop that belly.’  I feel like Papa Hemingway readying to bag his first Rhino.  My hands sweat as I pull the trigger.

The loudest cannon fire BANG!

     That is what I expect.

A…phht!  is what I get.

The BB arcs like a rainbow, for not more than 20 feet.  I see where it goes…toward the pond…toward the rubbery lily pad where the Frog Brothers, Frer and Brer, rrriibiit on about the daily news of the Lindian Woods.  Plink.  The BB lands between them, breaking their conversation, and then it bounces off, plunking into the water.  Their sudden stares and immediate deep CRROOAAKS indicate they mock me.

‘There’s that Raji kid again.  The one who almost shot his eye out with the slingshot, last week,’ says Frer.

‘A nuisance he can sometimes be,’ replies Brer, sticking his tongue out at me and simultaneously nabbing a fly.

In unison, they croak loudly, ‘You’ll shoot your eyes out, kid!’

Again and again my shame heightens among the Lindian Woods inhabitants as the velocity of the BBs lessen with each shot.  (Seems the relic Red Rider can’t hold the charge of hand pumped air for more than a few seconds.  But I wouldn’t discover that cold fact until later in life.)  Another shot strays into the water, splashing between a circle of ten napping otters, who hold hands as otters outta whilst sleeping, to keep from floating away from each other.  Seemingly, one at a time their eyes open and they berate me for disturbing their slumber.  ‘You’ll shoot your…’  I get a feeling they’re readying to turn together on their sides, like a wheel, and roll over the water to chase me from their Woods.

I quickly scamper to a meadow where birds are singing joyously.  I shoot skyward.  POP!  The singing abruptly ends and the birds scatter.  Out of nowhere, the Lindian Woods Sky Patroller, Hawk, barrels in from out of nowhere, grabs the BB mid air, flies, just feet over my head, and flings it down hitting me on the head.

“Ouch.”  That is the fastest one of the projectiles flew that day, or would ever again fly from that dilapidated Red Rider.

‘Never do that again,’ I know is Hawk’s plaintiff cry.  Hawk eyes me viciously and then missiles out of sight.

Sigh!  I guess I may now know just why we Lindians are no hunters.  Likely, we’d starve.

O.K., I will shoot at trees.  Not one barks at me as I take aim.  So I fire.  Relic Red Rider suddenly takes on a life of its own – but unfortunately, it is in the form of a death gasp.SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

The BB spits weakly from the barrel, barely going two feet before it drops.  I hear a screech.  In animal parlance, I believe it means – “Hey, whattaya think yer doin!”  I look down, just as the BB bounces off the head of a rabbit, then ricochets as the little fella jerks its head.  The BB flies five feet horizontally, and nearly takes out the eye of a squirrel.

The rabbit’s screech, the squirrel’s angry, loud ‘CHHIIRRP!’ tells me,

“Run, Raji!!  Like your life depends on it.”  As angry as the critters sounded, I am sure my life really did.  (Harmless creatures, as Uncles and Aunties claimed; Hhrmph!)

Squirrel and rabbit give chase.  They’re on my heels, snapping, grr-ing, for hundreds of yards, until I am well clear of the Lindian Woods and onto a city street.

I near my Lindian neighborhood, out of breath, and I see my ceremonious old Uncle.  He is sitting cross-legged, on a small rug under a Lindian Fan Tree.  It is as if he has been waiting, patiently, for me.

“And how went the hunt, young Raji?”

Wait, is that what some would call a ‘knowing smile’ that slightly crescents his face.

I return the gun as ceremoniously as it was given to me.  I summon enough breath to say.  “Take it Uncle.  Never bring it back.  No matter how careful, it’s only a matter of time, before,

     “I shoot my eye out.”            SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A PARROT’S LIFE (A Tale of Two Birds – continued)

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

My wife Tenille asks quietly from the next room, “Has Captain Polly arrived?”

“Yes.” I answer.

“Good, the children will want to play with her after dinner.”

I know Tenille’s smiling.  Captain Polly’s been close in her, my, and our children’s  time of need.  She’s always there.  For everyone.

Captain Polly dozes – slight “peh, peh, peh” snores.  She sways lightly on her perch beside my desk.

I’m busy archiving, archeo-apologizing Fiction House Publishing manuscripts that date to the 1850’s.  I pet her.

She sighs, content:  Deservedly so – after over 20 decades of high-flying living.  Ever young is Captain Polly.  Feathers are the vibrant yellow, blue, orange of when she was in her 20’s:  Just some frays about the edges.  Sunflower seeds, a worm, grub, or bug here and there, gives her vim; keeps her trim. Vision’s sharp.  Probably 20-20.  One eye’s askew.  That’s how she sleeps.

Still, I can’t help thinking she’s somehow fact-checking notes I’m making about she and my great-great granduncle, author William ‘Golden Boy’ Golden – and their abolitionist exploits.

In this writing, he’s tending to tracts about the Underground Railroad to garner support by sympathetic, yet apathetic mid 19th century readers.  He ‘tells-embellishes’ how various message delivery birds played a vital part in the abolitionist cause.

 –Raji Singh, Publisher, Fiction House

 LAST WEEK: 

Captain Polly’s mistaken for a ‘do-gooder’ Jawhawk by pro-slave ‘border ruffians’ in anti-slave ‘Bleeding Kansas’.  She feigns taking a bullet, and performs a dying swan into a pond – all for the sake of getting vital information delivered for the abolitionist cause.

THIS WEEK:

HOW CAPTAIN POLLY CLIPPED THE INFORMER’S WINGS.

As the soaked parrot paddles quietly to shore her archenemy, Hawk, the pro-slaver’s air minion, swoops to intercept her.  He grips the muddy bank with one claw.  Raising the other for battle, he screeches.  ‘I can take a Macaw with one claw tied behind my wing.’

~ ~ editor note:  As in many wars throughout the centuries, hawks were trained to attack couriers of opponents – whether they were carrier pigeons; or humans on horseback, wagon, or ship.  ~ ~

Hawk’s speed, swiftness, and brute strength while airborne are unmatched by Captain Polly.  But Captain Polly is grounded – in cunning.  In this, no other flyer is her equal.  This is her reason for feigning being shot – to drop before Hawk attacked mid air.

Land advantage now – Captain Polly:  At least in her mind.   She shakes off water as she emerges from the pond.  It slicks up the clay bank:  Part of her scheme.

Hawk screeches as he motions with his beak.  ‘Right here, taped to my leg, I have human words that tell just who your mistress Willamina is, Captain Polly.  She is your Master, Golden Boy, a stinkin’ abolitioner is disguise.  I plan to deliver this information soon as I finish parsimoniously dissecting the voice box of one way too talkative prairie parrot.’

Captain Polly inches nearer Hawk.  Even from a few feet away his breath reeks carrion rot – from eating other flyers.  Captain Polly despises any creature that eats its own kind.

She glares into the glassy ebony eyes.  She knows the cunning eye flick hawks make before attacking their prey.  When it comes, Captain Polly will be ready; will react instantly.

Frogs inch out of the pond.  To savor the battle they sense is coming.  Crickets and grasshoppers leap onto the greenback’s slick shoulders, to ‘givva gander’.

Closer, ever closer Captain Polly inches.

Hawk must remain in place to keep his claw firmly in the clay.  He pulls his saber beak as far back as possible.  One lightening lurch will fell the macaw.  This is what Captain Polly knows he’s thinking, and she’s ready.

“No two-leg is my MASTER,” says Captain Polly.  “No bird, animal or human is master to another.”  Her words are clear as any humans.  “You, HAWK, choose to do the bidding of evil humans who seek to enslave.  In that, you willingly act their slave.”

‘Talk, talk, talk,’ chatters Hawk.

Closer, ever closer, comes Captain Polly.  She hears Hawk’s feathers ruffling – at the thought of sky king being dressed down by a mere pretty bird.  She sees his throat dryly heave at the contemplation of his mighty air throne challenged, with lowly, slimy pond creatures witnessing a forced abdication.

Pride goeth before a …

Hawk acts impetuously – just a moment too soon – just as Captain Polly was sure he would.  He lurches.

Captain Polly bends, avoiding his saber beak.

Hawk teeters, having no parrot head to grasp to help keep his balance.

Captain Polly dives, not at Hawk’s throat, but at his leg.  She seizes it in her gnarly beak.  She vices, tighter, tighter.

“SCREE!”  Hawk collapses.  His talons can’t catch hold in the wetted clay.  He slides like a ball, tethered by Captain Polly.  Topsy-turvey, round-about.  Saber beak gets nowhere near the ever moving parrot.

Frogs “ribbit” and crickets ‘whistle-screech’ hearty congratulations to Polly.

Captain Polly knows her next move must be swift, smooth, and flawless.  NOW!  She releases Hawk.  She flies at his neck with talons outstretched, beak open wide.  Instantly she’s on him.

“CRAA-CC-KK.”  She snaps his neck.  She claws away the implicating note on Hawk’s leg, and shreds it.

Hawk has one last laughing gasp in him:  ‘There… is… one… other… who… knows…, Captain… Polly.  The two-leg who wrote the note…’

COMING SOON:  HOW TO WARN GOLDEN BOY, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

©Raji Singh, 2012

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A TALE OF TWO BIRDS

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

LAST TIME – Golden Boy as Willamina, escorted by ardent admirer Jake, a beau in hoping and pro-slaver, infiltrates the pro-slavery picnic.  He is attempting to ascertain their plans to take over the government of ‘Bleeding Kansas’ via his Willamina guise and his clandestine activities.

As, nearly always, his partners-in-abolition, watery Turt and airy Captain Polly, aren’t far away.

NOW…

“Ma, Pa.  Got me a bead on a jayhawk,” the gap-tooth, ten year old little dickens shouts from amongst the picnickers.

“BAM!”  His rifle blast stings the calm air.

“EEE,” Captain Polly screeches, expelling blue and green bird poop onto the delinquent-to-be.

She falls-swoops from the azure sky and lands with a discernible “PLOP,” in a pond hidden behind a grove of trees.  The picnickers “ohh, aah, and gah” – not only for the marksmanship, but at the feathered thespian’s aerial death scene worthy of Madame Defarge.

‘Good fade.  Fine acrobatics, Captain Polly,’ Willamina thinks.  ‘A water burial is a nice touch for your audience.

‘Who ever said reconnaissance work is easy, eh Captain?’

“Jayhawk stew for me and you,” the little dickens chants.  He dances about, not even thinking to wipe the ‘foo’ from his hair.

As he runs to retrieve the carcass, Willamina grabs him.

‘You’re well aware everyone’s eyes are upon you – a stranger ‘a touchin’ one ‘a there’ns.  But, here’s an opportunity – a golden one – to ingratiate yourself to them.

“That bird’s meal for the turtles already, young ‘un.  But, here, just try a breast of my jayhawk.  It’s all plucked, fried and just right to gnar on.”

You open your basket. 

The spicy and sweet aroma of chicken wafts out.

“Jayhawk galore,” the boy shouts, grabbing a piece.

He can’t eat it fast enough, so you thigh and leg him too. 

The crowd’s all smiles for your gentle kindness, then when the little dickens tugs at your wrist and blurts, I want a wife just like you when I grow up – Jackpot!!  You know you’ve won most of them over – and all because they taught the tyke to hate so well. 

You grit your teeth when he mumbles through a foul, fowful-ful mouth,

“I kilt that damnable jayhawk, didn’t I ma’am.  Iffen I come across a wingless variety, I’ll kilt him too.”

Enough of all this fal-de-ral.  You know Captain Polly has a message for you – even sopping she’ll find some way to deliver it.

You take Jake’s arm, to shed yourself of the young admirer.  Hmm.  You’ve got to find a pleasant lady-like way to excuse yourself and go meet your Captain.  Just when you think of one, you feel a cold hand on your shoulder and hot breath on your neck from a man saying,

“Well well if it’s not Willamina.  But I do believe I know you from another place, and by another name, and looking a tad different.”

He spins you around.  You know him.  As William, once upon a time, you beat him unconscious for pistol-whipping a slave in Missouri – then you stole the young woman and booked her passage to freedom aboard the Underground Railroad.

STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK as A TALE OF TWO BIRDS continues – with a bird battle so intense it will take days for the flying feathers to settle.

© 2012 by Raji Singh

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

LEATHER, WHIPS, AND GUN-RUNNING ON THE RANGE – WHERE THE ARMS ARE BOUND

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

As I archive the mid 19th and early 20th century Fiction House Publishing, I am finding bits and pieces of rough drafts and published works.  Some of the roughs were gnarred-on by carrier pigeons that delivered them from chief writer William ‘Golden Boy’ Golden to Editor James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction.

This piece is predominantly in the words of Golden Boy – 90, 95 percent; however, I took the liberty of deducing the ‘gnarred-on’ and missing sections and adding them in.  No doubt, when I discover corroborating works my deductions will prove truly Sherlock Holmian.  That said…

     (Somewhere along the banks of the Kaw, in Free State ‘Bleeding Kansas’, in the 1850s)

The longwinded banner hanging between two walnut trees cheerily announces to those entering the glade, ‘WELCOME TO THE BORDER RUFFIANS PRO-SLAVE, ANTI-ABOLITIONING, and MONTHLY JAYHAWKER-PLUCKING PICNIC.’

Just up the river ‘apiece’….My ‘wonder-flee eccentric’ great-great granduncle William turns into Willamina to clandestinely infiltrate the after ‘Sunday come-to-meeting’ gathering.  He leans, looking into Turt’s eyes, clear mirrors.  Carefully, Willamina applies the last of his rouge.  Not too much.  Can’t shock the steadfast churchers – even if they’re a pack of hate mongering, lower than rattler, rabble.

~ ~  editor’s note  Turt’s an enormous land-sea creature thought extinct – a Trumpeter turtle:  A friend, guardian, helper to Blackjack, Golden Boy, Captain Polly.  Turt’s been a Fiction from the day he met Blackjack when Blackjack was four.  Charles Darwin found Turt on his way to the Galapagos Islands, although Turt was never lost.  See Turt’s tale in Tales of the Fiction House ~ ~

Willamina’s in his most conservative ankle-length gingham and calico.  His golden locks, that norm-ly, umm, usu-ly flow like crystal white wine, are properly bunned under his bonnet.  He’s looking properly plumpish for this crowd, because underneath he wears his cowboy jeans and canvas shirt, in case a quick change becomes necessary.  His Colt revolver’s ‘neath the bowls of tater salad, baked beans, and fried chicken in his wicker picnic basket.

“Wait in the river.  May need you,” he tells Turt.  “Don’t suppose I will, but in this business – be prepared.  Oh I know you’d as soon snap off a pro-slavers arm as look at them fella, but the information I gather today, mark my word, will garner us a hundred victories.”

Turt starts to trumpet of his trepidation of such a high risk being taken by his Golden Boy – today Golden Goddess Willamina.  Willamina clamps his beak-snout shut with his gnarly fingers (didn’t get to that soak and manicuring last night).  He edges Turt along the slippery bank and into the water.

Just in time, because approaching is his pro-slaver date for the afternoon, Jake.

“There you be My Sweet Pea, Willaminee.  Come, My Little Legume.  Lots of folks chompin’ at the bit to meet you.”

Willamina quickly slips on white gloves.  “Land sakes, Jake.  Papa dropped me off almost an hour ago.  Been biding my time for you.”

Jake moves to peck Willamina’s cheek.  Willamina turns it.  “Not now.  That’ll have to wait.”  Your penalty for keeping a lady waiting.”  Keep leading him on.  Bill and coo like Captain Polly taught you how.  You’ll get what you want from him, and maybe he’ll get a visit from John Brown or any of his equally fiery and sadistic ilk, as payment.

Willamina sees the rise of sexual adrenalin reflected in Jakes rheumy eyes; feels it momentarily when Jake pulls him close, hears it an almost animal growl that percolates from deep in his throat, smells it in the wild musk endorphins that’ve been set astir.  Willamina can barely breath – Jake’s ranker than any bear cave he’s had to hole up in to shake free of pro-slavers tailing him for his gun-running to abolitionist.

He pushes Jake away, but then takes his arm.  ‘Escort me, you vile creature, into the hating lair of mine adversary,’ Willamina mentally writes to help stay calm.  ‘As you read my tome, be it known my fellow abolitionist in the east and in New England,  that I’m scribing – by the seat of my dress.’  (All of Golden Boy’s postings are printed within days of their birth-ing by Fiction House Publishing, thanks to Captain Polly air mail or, quicker yet, the Fiction House carrier pigeon c- mail service.)

Flying high above the picnic, unnoticed by nearly everyone, is Captain Polly.  ‘Got to get Golden Boy alone,’ calculates Captain Polly, ‘to let him know his cover’s blown.  Soon to arrive is that sly, dirty bird of an informer that’s tipped its wing.’

   NEXT TIME:  See how Captain Polly clipped the informer’s wings, in, A TALE OF TWO BIRDS.  

~ ~  editor’s historical addendum:  The pre-civil war Free State strugglers of Bleeding Kansas (“ad astra per aspera,” their motto) were bound together in warding off pro-slave border state ‘ruffians’ seeking to end racial tolerance in their Kansas neighbor.  (‘Border ruffians’ was a too kindhearted nickname for the murderers.)

One of the numerous terms for the mid-westerners with anti-slave sentiments were, Jayhawkers.  Of course, no such bird existed.  The jayhawk was a composite of many types.  Repeated observer accounts tell of the appearance of a real bird, strangely arrayed in various plumages, as if Picasso could have been it’s ‘feather- ier’.  Mud and grime often sullied its many colors, as if it were in disguise.

This bird did exist and was thought to be the model for the imaginary jayhawk.  It was a parrot.  Her name was Captain Polly.  She was author-adventurer Golden Boy’s abolitionist cohort and friend.  She so hated slavery.  Why?  She, herself was one, on a ship for many years.  To a ‘master’ Captain so vile he’d…

Read accounts of her horrible fate from which she emerged victorious, in, Tales of the Fiction House.

©2012 by Raji Singh

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

THANKSGIVING AT THE HOME OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S NE’ER-DO-WELL BROTHER

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

(This is a popular repeat from last year)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

The Ancient Mariner, the scruffy sea salt who raised my great-great grandfather, told this curious holiday story.  It’s been handed down for almost 250 years.  Enjoy!

*     *     *

“To the GOOD life!”  Benjamin Franklin toasts.  A dozen of Franklin’s relatives, and a spiffed up Mariner, all “clunk” tankards.  They gather in the Philadelphia home of Franklin’s half-brother Franklin Ulster.  The men, all finely dressed in vests and jackets:  The women, in best subtle gray long dresses.    

     Ulster’s already woozy having sneaked many-a-nip to help cope with Benjamin’s incessant boasts.

They give thanks, sit, pass the food, and eat steamy sweet potato, tart cranberry compote – all the usual, with all the sweet scents of banquet, but turkey.  No one would dare offer up Ben Franklin’s noble favorite creature, which he backs as the new nation’s symbol.

“BETTER than any ale you’ve had, eh Ulster.”

The host limply nods.  On that, he must agree.

Franklin proudly thumps his chest and sniffs.  “A woodsy scent this batch has.  I must say, this is the BEST stump juice yet that Mariner and I have had the privilege of brewing.  Fitting nectar for the heroes of the Colonies who lie at rest in their Elysian Fields.  A place you shall need not worry of ever residing, being battle shy midst our Revolution.”

Ulster starts to defend his weapons merchant status, but his wife kicks his ankle under the table.  Brother-in-law Benjamin just might be convinced to float a loan to keep the creditors from the door.  The home, though not a hovel, is faked; garish below the surface.  Plaster of paris Louis XIV statues stand in for the real marble.  Sturdy walnut furniture is replaced with rickety pine lookalikes.

“Concerning our stump juice, as with all things in life, as I always say, Ben Franklin says, ‘Good, Better, Best.  Never let it rest.  Until the good is better and the better best.’  That’s what I always say,” Benjamin Franklin says.

“Oh you do,” Franklin Ulster challenges.  Ulster had pre-dinner fumed for an hour as the honored guest told of his Paris diplomatic exploits that help borne a new nation.  Now he’s caught brother braggart in a lie.  He maliciously spits out, “We both know those words you quote were written on the sign at Goode and Betty Bests Bakery when we we urchins.”

Benjamin squints down on Ulster through his bifocals, and calmly honeys a bun.

“And just who do you think sold them that adage.  Moi!  Mr. Ulster.  And for a pretty penny.  That coin built up through the decades made me the wealthy man I am today, Sir.  As I always say, ‘A penny saved is a penny earned.’”

Franklin Ulster grits his teeth, but Benjamin Franklin is just beginning his pillorying.

“I am truly sorry your Shoppes and various ventures failed.  If only you’d listened to my sage brotherly advice instead of wagering at cockfights.  You could very well be in the financial position I reside.  So, there!  F.U.”

Some of the younger ladies at the table attempt to hide their eyes with their handkerchiefs.  Some matrons titter at the bawdy inference.  Elder statesman, Uncle Benjamin smiles pleasantly at each of them.

Ulster abruptly rises and his brass cock belt buckle upends his plate, sending his Thanksgiving fare down the front of his pants.  “Damn you, Ben.  My name is Franklin Ulster.  I demand the courtesy of being addressed as such in my own home.  Not being treated as some bastard kin.”

“My full apologies Franklin Ulster.  In amends, let me personally serve you the escargot I’ve made for our repast.”  Benjamin Franklin nods to Mariner and Mariner kindly returns the courtesy.  “The Mariner taught me his special recipe when we first met in Paris.  It was the talk of all the French society.  The grand chefs of the city paid my friend quite handsomely for his recipe.”  Franklin goes to a rickety sideboard, and gets a clean dinner plate.

Franklin Ulster impetuously grabs it.  “Snails we eat to appease the grand Doctor Franklin.”

Benjamin Franklin responds, “You’d not offer eagle to those who want it for our national symbol.”

Ulster spits out the crawly foreign fare after the first bite and throws the full plate against the wall.  It smashes into a dozen shards.  “I’m off to slaughter a turkey.”

Before he gets to the door, the normally talkative Mariner, who has been quite quiet throughout the afternoon, shouts, “I’ve ‘ad enough of yer performin’, mate.  Show yer respectins’ for the honored Doc Franklin, F.U.”  The wiry, but sturdy seaman quickly intercepts Ulster, and in seconds, from the long sea line he always has in his pocket, keel hauls him, and hangs him from a ceiling post beam.  There he dangles until a leisurely meal is complete.

~ ~ editor note:  (Keel haul – to tie line to each arm and hang from the bow of the ship.)

The accounts that various Franklins relate in memoirs and letters in the archives of Fiction House Publishing tend to back the overall story. The reader must take into consideration, the Mariner, known for his proclivity for tale telling, and this is his telling, after all – he may have embellished his part in the holiday affair.

You may read A Thousand And One more of Mariner’s tellings in Tales of the Fiction House.  ~ ~

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,

Raji

© Raji Singh 2012

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

ARCHIVING THE FICTION HOUSE PUBLISHING COMPANY

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Technique and style observations about Fiction’s chief writer, William ‘Golden Boy’ Golden:

Influenced by Sophocles and Shakespeare, Golden often anthropomorphized characters.  Two of his favorites were the sun, a distinctively British bloke, and his ‘lie-dy’, the moon.  They became his camera, eye-in-the-sky narrators.  They advanced the panorama of a story.

Contrary to many critics of his day, who claimed the cowboy writer probably got hold of a bad batch of peyote while on the trail, he was inspired mostly by his editor, half-brother, James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction who looked to ‘Poppy Sol’ and ‘Luny Mum’ for companionship during his orphan-foundling times.

I came across this communication ‘pigeon-mailed’ by Golden to Blackjack before the onset of the Civil War.  Don’t know if it’s a draft for a proposed novel about his actual exploits as a freedom fighter, or a composite of many.  I’ll find more about it I’m sure, as my archiving, archeo-apologizing continues.  – Raji Singh, author of, Tales of the Fiction House.  (As many of you know, I am Blackjack’s great-great grandson and I am resurrecting his company, the titan of 19th and early 20th century booksellers.)

GUN-RUNNING AT THE FICTION HOUSE PUBLISHING COMPANY

The buckboard bounces over the dusty Kansas road.  The drover straightens his girdle, adjusts his bustle, and opens his parasol to protect fair hide from Poppy Sol’s caustic glare.  He glares defiantly right back up at Sol.

‘E be what ‘e be, Poppy,’ Luny Mum, a vanilla pie-in-the-sky intercedes by winking from afar in the horizon.

‘Hhrmph!  That ‘e, mayest be, Mum.  Still, can’t help believen’ I can change the bloke around to my way a blinken’.’

The drover’s horse, Gladiola whinnies a warning – approaching rides and riders.  The rattily-dressed, unshaven men are pro-slavers, known as border ruffians in mid 1800’s ‘Bleeding Kansas’.

“Thanks Gladiola, old girl, I’m on it.”

“Click.”  Rifles cock.

The drover reaches into his calico dress and clutches the handle of the gun holstered in his corset.  No worry about the oncoming 5 o’clock shadow that necessitates a quick straight razor shave, Rrrose Heather had taught him to apply his makeup so well even a perceptive groundhog wouldn’t notice a shadow ‘til around 8.

(…and, once again, my notoriously eccentric great-great granduncle, the author William, ‘Golden Boy’ Golden trots out his ‘Willamina’ persona, not for just another book, but also for the ‘cause’, – a free state amongst those enslaved.)  – Raji

…Luny Mum wrinkles, worried.  ‘What will become of our Golden Boy, Poppy Sol?’

Sol’s rays stroke her reassuringly.  ‘Be just three of the blighters, Mum. ‘E’ll ‘andle em.’

The riders stride over to block Gladiola’s path.

“Whoa, old girl,” Golden Boy whispers.

     “Hold on there Missy,” the ringleader barks.  “Got some questions need answering.  What’s youren name?  Where you headin’?”

“Willamina.  To church.”

“Don’t rightly remember ever seein’ you at service.  I’d ‘member seein’ a pretty little thing like you.”  He reaches down to pinch Golden’s chin.  Golden leans, away from his reach.

His pard jokes.  “You ain’t ever seen her there ‘cause you’ve never been there, Jake.

The other pard chuckles.

Jake dismounts, leans against the buckboard’s seat, and breathes deep.  “Ooh, you sure smell sweet Miss Willamina.  Wish we were trailen’ your scent steada’ stinkin’ abolitionists bringen’ in arms to kill off good southern immigrants doin’ their duty to keep slavery alive.  Well darlin’, I hate to say it, but we can’t be too careful, so we gotta see what your haulin’.”

“Stinkin’ Jayhawkers,” Golden Boy nods and sympathizes as they pry the lids off the crates.

“Bibles!” says Jake.  “Well ain’t that rich.”  Jake and the pards fumble through some of the pages of the books so unfamiliar to them, and then Jake spits.  “Go on, missy.  Get about your way.”

They ride away, missing completely, beneath the crates false bottom, the stash of rifles supplied by Blackjack Fiction to Golden Boy to arm the Free Staters.  (editor’s note – I added the names well over 100 years later – Blackjack and Golden Boy.  Out of necessity, they kept secret their abolitionist activities.)

Soon, …

“Hii-yaa Gladiola.”  The wagon rolls on.

‘Don’t look now Golden Boy, but one of em be riding back,’ Poppy Sol blinks.

Golden Boy tips his bonnet skyward.  ‘Thank ye, Sol.’ He clutches his gun again.

Jake approaches as the pards wait just out of hearing range.

“What say, Miss Willamina, I accompany you to the picnic after church on Sunday.”  With his sleeve, the suddenly shy slob smudges away nervous drool that waterfalls from the corner of his mouth.  He stutters, briefly.  “It-it’ll be a f-f-fine day for dumplins’ and pie.”

“Why, landsakes, Jake.  Any girl be pleased as punch havin’ such a fine gentlemanly escort.  Of course I will.”

He smiles crookedly then rides away.

“Stinkin’ border ruffians,” Golden Boy curses to Gladiola as he takes a shotgun from beneath his dress and takes bead on the pro-slave renegades.

‘Will ‘e blast ‘em to kingdom’s come, Sol?’

‘Won’t ‘e Mum?’

Mum waxes nostalgic.  ‘Ye know, Sol, I say – NOT!  No fair lass would pass a chance on a social occasion.  I be sayin’ she’ll, um, he’ll, go with ‘ims.’  What better way to infiltrate that world of scalawags!’

Coming next:  ‘LEATHER, WHIPS, AND GUN-RUNNING ON THE RANGE – WHERE THE ARMS ARE BOUND.’  (where often is heard, a tortured word, and the skies are cloudy all day.)

©2012 by Raji Singh

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SHERALEE, YOU’VE COME BACK TO ME

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh  (Archiving the Fiction House…)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

“Messages, Sheralee and the other heroic carrier pigeons delivered in their Abolitionist flights, led to a victory in our Abolitionist fight.”  James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction

Blackjack reaches across the shadows of time and puts his hand on my shoulder.  Though cold centuries separate us, his touch is warm.  When he comes to meet me, whether he’s at age 4, 14, 40, or 94, always he has his reasons.  Maybe he’ll come to protect me, or comfort me.

Maybe to remind me of things I oughtn’t to forget.

I sit midst the glorious organized clutter of my archiving the Fiction House.  Blackjack had honed a method of PURPOSEFUL DISARRAY so intricate; first, to conceal vital secrets of the Abolitionist Movement and the Underground Railroad, later to conceal information leaks to rival publishers.

Secret hideaways, nooks, crannies, I’m still discovering…  False bookshelves, and doors leading hither, thither and who knows where…

I hear a gentle “pip, pip” sound as something wet drips onto the nape of my neck and shivers down my back.  Who doesn’t know that feel – of someone else’s tears.

‘Sheralee, you’ve come back to me,’ Blackjack whispers as he reaches past me and into the tiny coffin to strokes Sheralee’s feathers.

‘My archiving brought him back,’ I think.  Though a man in my 40’s, I feel like a toddler once again when I ask, “Does my archive work please or displease you, Great-great granfa?  Shall I continue it?”

Trepidation of his answer:  I don’t want to stop.  I’m discovering so much.

Anticipation of his answer:  I breathe deep.  I smell the smoldering sweetness of the hand-rolled cigars always meticulously lining his breast pocket, permanently infusing into his dapper waistcoat; and the bold charred oak pungency of brandy – it is, ever, slightly, on his breath.  I look up into his gaunt face and at his lean frame.  I see the bon-vivant James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction in his 70’s this visit.  His face is lineless, though hairline has just begun its recession.  The perpetual desire to stay young, battles at the onslaught of his aging.  Why?  How?  Because his always-youthful actions and attitudes, they continually stave off that eventually winning opponent.

Blackjack’s words – reminders about family that I, or no one, mustn’t forget – are brief, reassuring.  ‘All those of our Fiction House will live on if our stories are told.  Keep telling them and we will live, forever.’  These are words tattooed on my soul and emblazoned in my mind.

Blackjack says, with a curious inflection in his voice, as if a rhyming hint.  ‘Too heavy a load is she to take back with me.  To your hands now I pass Sheralee.’  He pretends to hand me the tiny coffin.

Then, he’s – GONE.

I lift Sheralee’s coffin, so he can see it as he departs in the ether of mid air.  The little thing’s heavy.  I remove Sheralee.  She’s light as her feathers.  So why’s this box heavy?

Luny Mum pokes her beam through the window.  ‘Just you be lookin’ a might closer, me shining always, and forever lad.’

~ ~ For orphaned foundlings as Blackjack and I, the sun, and moon sometimes became our only constant companions:  real, in our imaginations, as any human.  Luny Mum, Poppy Sol, and I know I’ll be their ‘lad’, even when I reach 100.  (I tell how Mum, Sol, and I first came acquainted in Tales of the Fiction House.) ~ ~

Mum’s beam is my flashlight.  I examine Sheralee’s resting place.

With my knuckles, I tap on it, all around.  Solid, except for one place.  The coffin’s floor.  “Tap, tap.  Blonk, blonk.  It’s hollow, or partly so.  ‘Could it be…?’  I don’t finish speculating because a certainty takes its place.  ‘This is another of Blackjack’s hiding spots for his secret Abolitionist plans.  He wanted them, at last, revealed.’

Gently I pry at the bottom.

No movement.

I get a screwdriver and poke with it.  Fruitless.  I get a hammer.  No better not.  No resting place can be desecrated.  An archeo-apologist such as me must understand this more-so than anyone.

“Tap it thrice.  Tap it thrice,” I hear a voice repeat outside the window.  I look up.  A shadow passes in front of a smiling Luny Mum.

“Oh it’s you Captain Polly.  Nice of you to visit.”  She lands on the windowsill.  She stares at Sheralee.  She opens her beak wide.  Her tongue upturns, just slightly.  That’s her melancholy smile – but a smile just the same.  “You knew her well, didn’t you Captain Polly?”

She coos softly, “Sheralee.  Sheralee.”

I follow Captain Polly’s instructions as she motions with her head and says, “Bottom.  Tap.”

Gently on the coffin’s floor, “rap, rap, rap”.  The wood lifts, as if it’s slow spring loaded.  I lift it.

Revealed:  ‘Today’s find.’

Well, that would be understatement.  It’s a tightly packed stack of paper.  I remove carefully.  Don’t smudge, crinkle, or tear – an archeo-apologist has no room to make apology for a wrong move.  His or her mistakes can never be corrected.  I leaf gently through the pages.  The words.  Written so small.  “But I have my magnifying glass that’s so powerful I can even see Higgs boson in a single squint.”  I say to Captain Polly.

‘You’ll never get a chance to see a single word,’ I hear.  I look up.  Captain Polly’s beak hasn’t moved.  A shadow slides behind me.  I turn quickly hoping Blackjack’s returned.  It’s not him.  I squint, trying, but unable to see clearer – the man – who has a rusting, ancient-looking handgun, a kind I’ve never before seen – something of another era.

Surely, he’s not after vital information – vital over a century and a half ago, not today.  Yet, he cocks the gun and aims at me.  Captain Polly doesn’t react.  Either she can’t see him, or she’s pretending not to – coming up with her own scheme on how to foil him.

‘I’ve been trailing Blackjack through too many centuries and I aim on taking that information back with me.  Hand it over,’ he growls.

NEXT TIME:  Will my archeo-apologizing flip history?  Or was Blackjack’s visit all an elaborate ruse to shed, once and for all, some villain on the trail of Eternity.  Journey with me on the Underground Railroad to find out.

©2012 by Raji Singh

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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