NO. 48: CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK – UNCLE VANYA MEETS THE GOWNED GUNSLINGER TURNED WORD FLINGER

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh (archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing)

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.

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. 

Unearthing, almost daily, more stories and whimsical histories of Fiction House residents and writers.  Continuing here is my great grandmother Shelva.  She’s a little Moscow girl of the 1870’s, going on about Uncles so endearing to her.

PART I:  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY WONDERFULLY ECCENTRIC FUTURE UNCLE – WILLIAM-WILLAMINA – but, first…

     It is 1850’s America – a decade before I am even born.  Their Civil War to free the slaves has yet to begin.  My kooky Uncle Vanya, adventurer, trader, a searcher for life’s simple joys,travels there.  He brings precious things from Mother Russia to sell.  He buys, inexpensive but unique west of the Atlantic items – oh, cowboy carvings, Indian trinkets, fake gold that looks real – things Muscovites never-before see, but willing to pay a grand price for.

Uncle Vanya’s sea passage is free, even shows a profit.  By day, he’s a dungareed, shirtless coal shoveller in the ship bowels.  “Two tons is your quota, Vanya.  No quitting til you reach it,” shouts the gang boss.

Then, as the gallant, debonaire Chameleon that Uncle Vanya is, he scrubs and changes into a tuxedo, the works – Uncle cleans up nicely.  He becomes a pristinely attired dinner and gambling table guest of European aristocry.  This most always means for Vanya, sumptuous joys in the belly, fat joys to the pocketbook, and, later, grand joys within the ballroom.

“May I have this waltz, mi lady?  Did anyone ever tell you?  You bear a striking resemblence to the beautiful Grand Duchess Christina.”

“Dear Vanya.  You are a sweetie,” says the non-gullible matron.  “Shall we dance!”

(Let me just stop a moment.  I do not consider my loving Uncle Vanya kooky.  I say that only playfully, as jest.  Uncle likes it when I do.  But Papa truly believes Uncle is, just that – kooky.  “Your Uncle could teach math, science, language, or philosophy at any of Moscow’s great Universities or Gymnasiums (pronounced Gim-naseums), Shelva.  It is high time he leave his airy life behind.”)

In America, Uncle Vanya sees things in certain places that disgust him.  “Feh!”  I can just hear him say as he spits on a sidewalk.  “Never did I think I would see anything viler than then the Czar’s boot-grinding system of peasantry.  Never!  And in this free land.  Ach! So many are not free.  But there is hope.  As in Mother Russia, where so many strive to remove the yolk of peasantry.  So too, are there those here helping to free those who are enslaved.”

It is under these circumstances Uncle Vanya meets my future uncle, Uncle William.  But on this night, Uncle Willam is Willamina.

PART II:  THE RUSE OF CAT BOXING ALONG THE OHIO RIVER 

Uncle Vanya’s gaming vice gets him in trouble as often as his attraction to a pretty face.  But tonight, one will save him from the other.

Cash changes hands frequently as Blackjack Fiction both touts and referees ringside.  He wears top hat and tails – to signal, ‘I am the Ringmaster.’  The ring is a roped off three by three feet area of the riverbank.  The catbatants, in shiny satin shorts mill nearby, trading the variety of imported catnip stimulants their trainers supply.  Small torches barely light the gathering-around spot for the dozens of men and a few women.  “Place your bets folks,” Blackjack hawks.  He waves his hands continuously.  “First up:  We have a six-rounder twixt undefeated felines.  Win or lose these tough Tabbies will give you your money’s worth.”

Blackjack glances at Uncle Vanya.  This is their first meeting.  Uncle’d heard about this ‘sport’ and wagoned in from not-far-off Cincinnati where he was buying and selling.  (Vanya’d later introduce Cat Boxing to Russia, where it would become the passion from highest Royalty on down to vilest Cossack.)  “Well stranger,” says Blackjack sizing Uncle up one side and down the other.  “Haven’t seen you here-bouts before.  You look like the type who recognizes a thoroughbred hisser.”

Uncle Vanya, always one anxious to join joyfully in, and to please, (that’s another weakness – one that seems to harm only him) he says, “Da, mine friend.  Back in Moscow the pusses follow me down the streets as if I have sardines in my pockets.”

“Then lay yer rubles down and we’ll get those pockets filled with so many coins no sour fish would ever fit in.”

“Ah, but I have only dollars, mine friend.”

The crowd laughs.  “The rubled rube,” someone jibes.

“We’ll accept those too,” Blackjack says.  He leans and whispers to his flowing blond-haired associate in a crimson gown who holds the bets.  “I’d wager he’s conniving.  Using the naivete ruse to achieve some edge.  Doesn’t matter, eh Willamina…”  Blackjack circles his arm aound his brother’s smooth, bare shoulders and squeezes.  “…A single Russian ruse can’t trump a pair of Ohio fakers.”  (Grand showmanship!)

“Make it quick,” Willamina whispers in Blackjack’s ear.  “Just got word that Kunta and Turt are bringing in a half-dozen instead of two.  We could make good use of his wagon.”

As Willamina stares at Vanya for a few seconds too long, Vanya notices.  Willamina winks at him.  Vanya smiles and studies Willamina’s softly contoured face.  So familiar.  So pleasant and alluring in the shadows.  ‘Was she on the ship?’  Willamina sways so gently, grasping the dollars and beckoning men to pony up more.  ‘She moves as if she could be a ballerina,’ Vanya thinks.  ‘Did I see her performing Schvaan Lake in New York?’  He is intrigued by this hinterland Goddess.  It distracts him from his usually golden gambit.

PART III:  THE BOUTS                                                 

These are muzzle-less matches but bare-paw is prohibited.

The first fight is a laugher.  One tabby slips on a slick spot of the clay riverbank.  Never rises.  The next one is no better.  In the second round, a Siamese takes a left paw to the snout, sails over the ropes, ‘plunk’, right into the Ohio.  “Neee-owww!”  Has to be netted out, sopping.  Automatic disqualification.  Bout after bout, Uncle Vanya loses.

Blackjack says to Willamina, “He’s not concerned.  Pretending distraction.”   No one hears their conversation midst Siamese’s continually echoing, tormented ‘Nee-owws.’

“Distracted by me, it appears” Willamina coyly observes.  “Well that’s happened before.  Though in this case it might be part of his scheme.  So let’s change ours a bit, Brother.  Need to check on our shipment anway.  If he follows me, we’ll know how to proceed – with one final all-or-nothing bet.”

Blackjack nods.

PART IV:  A SUMMER NIGHT’S ENCOUNTER

Blackjack watches Vanya leave.  He’s confused.  Vanya doesn’t follow Willamina.  He goes the opposite way and disappears into the darkness.  ‘A single ruse can only bluff a pair of fakers,’ Blackjack speculates.  The bell rings and the next catbatants come out, tamp gloved paws, and the cat fight commence.  ‘Up to you to call his bluff, Willamina,’ Blackjack thinks as he does double duty as referee and announcer.

~  ~  (editor note:  I must point out, as some of you know who are familiar with the abolitionist and underground railroad history of the two brothers that William/Willamina wrote of under the nom de plume ‘Golden Boy’ Golden:  This, and many of the well-publicized Cat Boxing Tournaments of the mid 1800’s were well-orchestrated facades for their activities.)  ~  ~

     What Uncle Vanya sees when he circles out of sight and arrives back at the river a few hundred yards from the Cat Boxing, pleases him greatly.  Willamina hikes dress slightly to be able to wade into the muddy water and help a half-dozen ragged, runaway slaves to shore.  A glistening six-shooter is one hand, to battle any possible slave catchers.  The raft the escaped slaves are on is roped, and towed by a giant shelled creature, the likes Uncle has never seen.  Its fin-claws anchor into the mud as it trudges to the shore.  “Another fine job,” Willamina says, petting Turt’s beak-snout.

Uncle Vanya is about to run over and say, “Don’t Dearest, he’ll bite it off,” but restrains when Willamina says to a stately and nattily-dressed negro man, obviously Captain of the escape,

“Blackjack and I have been trying to angle a tricky Russian out of his wagon to haul everyone, Kunta.  If we don’t succeed, appears it will be foot travel from here on.  That is getting ever more dangerous.”

An odd glee overtakes Uncle Vanya.  This unexpected encounter gives a chance to assist downtrodden, as he can only occasionally do in his own Motherland because of the Czar’s iron grasp.  And it will give him an opportunity to be near, and get to know, the lovely Willamina.

He rushes back to the Cat Boxing ring and proposes a fool’s all-or-nothing bet to Blackjack.

Before any of the onlookers can shout, “Don’t be a stoopid Roossian,” Blackjack shakes Uncle Vanya’s hand and says, “You are on.”  Blackjack grasps the man’s hand for moments longer than he would most men’s as he studies him.  He sees a look he cannot explain and then says his gut feeling to himself.  “I see in his eyes, he does this for more than money or chance.  This man is as Golden Boy, and Kunta, and I.  He lives, breathes for much more than monetary return.  Well, I guess a single Russian ruse every now and then can trump a pair of Ohio fakers – or at least play them to a draw.  All, undoubtedly, with the help of Willa… um, Willamina’s beauty and charm.  Now, just where will that lead?”

Blackjack continues his act so no one else, possibly slave catchers, might possibly catch on.  “Start the bout.  I’ll take your wagon, Russian, and leave you to walk back to town.”

NEXT WEEK:  AN ILL-FATED ROMANCE    

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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No. 47: UNCLE VANYA MEETS THE GOWNED GUNSLINGER TURNED WORD FLINGER – A SHORT TRILOGY

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh (archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing)

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.

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. 

PART I.  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY KOOKY UNCLE VANYA

     Just unearthed; Shelva’s young girl writings as she anxiously waits, from her home in Moscow, the trip to the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg for the International Cat Boxing Championships.  It is the 1870’s.  She writes…

Oh how I yearn for the good old days the 50’s and 60’s must have been.  I have heard so much about them from mine Uncle Vaters at Ternya.  He was then, and still is an adventurer.  One day, I hope, he will invite me along for one of those grand voyages.

Kind of a rubbery-face Chameleon:  Uncle changes his look at whim.  Suave, debonaire, statuesque but limber, he can be a swaggering be-medalled Italian Count one day.  He’s a raggedy, hunching, no- account Mongolian Falconer the next.  So many languages he knows.  He seems to learn one fast as I eat a bowl of Mama’s wonderful Borscht.

As does Mama, he despises the Czar.  Unlike Mama, he doesn’t bother cursing him.  Uncle Vanya uses his Chameleon ways to steal priceless objects from The Winter Palace.  He befriends the Czar’s curators, carefully gaining their confidence while posing as an art historian, or expert in antiquities.  On another occasion, he was the Czar’s trusted servant.  A few times, he cozied up to the Czar himself; mimicking, perfectly, foreign dignitaries the Czar had even met.

Uncle replaces the priceless items he pilfers – paintings, jewels, and ancient figurines – with replicas he meticulously creates.  For the longest time the Czar’s curators do not realize they’ve been duped.  Sometimes they never find out.  “He is a great artist,” I often tell Papa.

     “Ach!”  Replies Papa.  “He is a con artist, a counterfeiter.  “One day Vanya’s kooky ways will be his undoing.”

“Maybe I’ll see some of Uncle Vanya’s artwork when I travel to St. Petersberg,” I tell myself.  “Maybe I’ll see Uncle Vanya.  Hmm!”  Maybe he’ll be a Sultan?  Maybe a Swami?  I imagine.

When we drop him at the station and he boards the train for St. Petersberg, he kisses my forehead and says.  “Dear Niece.  It is imperative!  If you by chance to recognize me when you arrive at the Palace, do not say or do a single thing that may give me away.”

“I shant, Uncle.”

I shall hide this writing.  Where only I can find it.  Not want some Cossack to find it.

That would be end of Uncle Vanya.

Uncle Vanya doesn’t sell the nation’s treasures for a vast profit, only a medium one.  The money is for the cause – Revolution – or to help country peasants.  He smuggles the items, across the sea, to America, to Muscovites who moved there.  They preserve the treasures, so the Czar doesn’t sell or give them away.  When the Czar is deposed they’ll be returned so all Russians may enjoy them.

So intentional is Uncle’s good deeds.  So intent is he on doing them.  When does Uncle Vanya’s kookiness take over?  It is when the gaming fever afflicts him.  Then, his entire life becomes – Chance.  This is what I am afraid may occur ringside at the Cat Boxing Championships.

That is why it is good that I will be there.  ‘But remember, Shelva,’ you must keep reminding yourself.  ‘You must do nothing to give Uncle Vanya away.’

NEXT WEEK:  PART II.  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY WONDERFULLY ECCENTRENTRIC FUTURE UNCLE – WILLIAM-WILLAMINA.

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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

No 46: CAPTAIN POLLY AND CECILY COBRA GO ‘AFLYIN

Posted on June 9, 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.

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. 

     The founder of Fiction House Publishing, my great-great grandfa James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, visits Moscow in the 1870’s.  He meets my great grandmother, Shelva, a little girl.  So infatuated with tales he spins, variations on creature themed fables told by 7th century Lindian mystic, Carpier, she creates her own.  In her lifetime, they number in the hundreds.

Midst my archiving of the Fiction House, I believe I’ve discovered the first she wrote.  It was tucked away in her every day writings.       

*                                  *                                  *

     “Feh!”  Mama says as we sit by the crackly fireplace in the parlor.  “Nyet!  Shelva does not need to visit the Czar’s Palace and that is that.”

My heart sinks.  Blackjack has a personal invitation.  He’s offered to take Papa and me.  (Blackjack’s going for the Cat Boxing Tournament so popular now in our country.  Who is more deserving of an invitation?  He invented the sport.)  This may be my only chance to see this grand marvel of all Mother Russia, The Winter Palace, that I learn so much of in school.

“But Mama,” I plea, trying to make her understand.  Her icy stare, so cold that I believe it could freeze the fire, hushes me.

“Now Mama,” says Papa.  “Shelva will learn from…”

Mama rises and pokes a burning log.  I just know she is imagining it as the Czar’s posterior.  Her words are stern.  “No self respecting Muscovite should set foot in that Cossack Conclave, Papa.  I’ll not have our daughter treading where plans are made for the spilling of our countrymen and women’s blood.”

Blackjack wisely chooses not to get involved in our family dispute.  He pretends to whisper something to Captain Polly.  She is on his shoulder.  He pats Cecily Cobra’s hood.  She is stick straight, standing beside him.

Papa will not be deferred.  His moustache tilts to and fro as he speaks.  “Now darlink wife of mine, you must remember.  Our noble countrymen and women built the Palace.  We have as much right to be there as any Romanov.  One day, we shall.  Until that day, youngsters as Shelva must see what the Russian people are deprived of.  This will give her genration strength.  To help change things, as we quietly try to.”

Papa’s eyes fix on Mama’s face.  She looks away.  I can see by the scrunch of her cheeks – she knows Papa is right.

Mama’s way of giving me permission to do something is odd.  It isn’t to say simply “Da” to counter a once firm “Nyet”.  Instead, it comes by way of an always-ready insult, to he who powers over the people.  She pokes the log-butt, unmercifully.  “Feh!  If ever I see the Czar.  It will be midst the Revolution.  Intentionally I will regurgitate my meal all over his gold crown – while still he wears it.  He is so tall, that will mean he must be groveling under mine and my fellow Russians’ shoes for me to be able to.”

Hiding my smile, I run to my room before this odd form of Mama’s permission might be rescinded.  Regurgitate?  What an odd word, that never before have I heard.  I look it up in my dictionary.                                              

     I do not know why I do, but I begin writing this little story.  “This one is for you, Mama,” I say to myself:

*                                  *                                  *

     Up our still warm chimney Cecily Cobra climbs.  ‘Ouch, ouch, ouch!’  There she meets Captain Polly who perches on a spire.  “Ready to go,” squawks the Captain.

‘All set,’ hisses Cecily.

“This one’s for Shelva’s Mama,” declares the bird.

‘Yes for Shelva’s Mama,’ agrees the snake.

Captain Polly flies to Cecily.  She seizes her rubbery middle section in talons.  Away she flies.  At first Cecily’s dangling weight pulls Captain Polly, low.  Poor Cecily almost plunks into the onion domes of sky-reaching cathedrals.  Cecily hoods her eyes.  She’s fearful of becoming flat as a latke against the brick sidewalk if Captain Polly loses grip.

Such a sight the citizens of Moscow behold!  Most have never seen a Lindian Cobra.  All silvery, shiny, like a lightening bolt streaking above the city.  Let alone one being ferried by a South American Macaw, her spread plumage rainbow-ing the clear blue horizon.

Captain Polly catches sight of the flattop hat of a uniformed Cossack officer.  “For Mama,” she screeches as she ‘poops’ slimy yellow, white, and green wretchedly reeking slime.  “Aark!  Aerial bombardment,” Captain Polly screeches, barely getting the Cossack’s attention.  He glances up.  The goop plops his long beard, streaking it with the colors of the revolutionists’ flag.  He cannot see citizens behind him that begin cheering wildly.  As he spins wildly, trying but failing to make a mental list of their faces, he flails his fists upward, at the duo.  Captain Polly gains altitude, unable to hear his curses.

‘One down for the cause,’ Cecily smiles.

Captain Polly calculates a proper trajectory for hauling a snake Cecily’s size, and adjusts her flight path accordingly.  They gain altitude.  Captain Polly lets the wind do the work, and she stops flapping.  She sails and swoops.  Cecily un-hoods.  She’s just in time to experience entering a misty cloudbank.  Never in Lindia had she been higher than tree boughs.  Cecily whooshes out mystical flute-like sounds to show her reverie.  Captain Polly joins in, whistling accompaniment.

They fly to their destination, St. Petersburg.  Each are happy and determined in their mutual thoughts, ‘Yes!  This journey we make is for Shelva’s Mama.’

They swoop from the clouds.  Cecily squints down.  She cannot believe what she sees.  ‘Do mine eyes deceive me?  Can it be?  Yes it is.  As unbelievable as it might be.  There is…my archenemy, the Mongoose.  Thousands of miles from home, as am I.  What luck.  I was planning to dine on small land creature this cold country has to offer.  But now, the warm blood and meat of that furless tramp will coat my throat.  Swoop low, Captain Polly,’ says Cecily.

Captain Polly obliges.  She strafes the grassy hillside.  The surprised mongoose claws defensively upward.  Too late.  Cecily seizes him by the scruff of the neck.  ‘No battle here today,’ thinks Cecily.  Mongoose screeches are deafening as cobra poison fangs sink deep into him.  His pointy claws, and razor teeth, deadly in ground battle, scratch helplessly at the air as Polly flies upward.  In only seconds, Mongoose goes limp.  His carcass dangles like a disabled kite, as Cecily munches, carefully, not to loose grip of her meal.  Finally, he disappears down Cecily’s bulging gullet.  She licks her blood stained fangs in satisfaction.  ‘Blech!  He’s a sour one, but he’ll do.  One less Mongoose traipsing the land.’

*                                  *                                  *

     I set down my dip pen for a moment to rest my hand.  It is suddenly weary from writing.  I laugh aloud for a moment, “What a funny word is Mama’s, regurgitate.”

‘Aerial-ly,’ I think, ‘the trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg for Captain Polly and Cecily is so much quicker than for we humans who must take a train as Papa, I, Blackjack, and his battling cat soon will.’  I stretch my fingers and then return to Captain Polly and Cecily’s flight.

*                                  *                                  *

     Parrot and Cobra passenger circle low, just above the Winter Palace.  They search the balconies and lush, scented gardens for the object of their desire.  They soar and swoop for hours.  They’ll not be deterred.  Finally, from double doors emerges the Czar.  He strolls among the flowerbeds.  His long, straight moustache teeter totters as he casually sniffs tea roses.  “To rid the stench from his nostrils of the bodies of good Russians, he’s disposed of,” Mama would say.

Never have Captain Polly and Cecily seen gold as shiny as his bejeweled crown, or silk as red as his cape.

     The aerial pair circles barely ten feet above him, right straight above him.  “Aark!  Ready.  Aim…” squawks Captain Polly.

     ‘Fire,’ concludes Cecily, and she regurgitates the mush-like muddy Mongoose, atop his crown, head, and cape.  A once-eaten Mongoose is the vilest thing one can ever smell.

‘This one’s for Shelva’s Mama,’ critters crow to one another, as they watch the Czar drop and roll in the roses, “ouch, ouch, ouch,” to scent away the stench.

As dutiful servants rush out with vats of water to douse and clean the Czar, the aerial pair departs the Palace to return to Moscow.

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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

No.45: HOW A TALE IS BORN (REPOST)

Posted on June 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.

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.

The telling of tales has been a grand part of human history.  We escape to other worlds with Carpier and Hans Christian Anderson.  We adventure ourselves away in 1,001 Arabian nights, and travel the Canterbury trails seeking old thrills, new again.  Aesop offers us lessons as Hoffman delivers the unbelievable.

I am inspired by Carpier, an eighth century foundling,who transforms himself into a Lindian mystic.  He roams the countryside inventing simple, magical tales and fables to ease the burden of the poor and bereft; to lift their spirits.  The stories are short, as is he.  He grows to under four feet.  He lives long; well over 100 years, and so his stories are many.

He tells them to those who cannot read or write.  So, they are never written down at the time of their creation.  By word of mouth, they pass from one generation to the next.  Some lengthen, some shorten as time passes.  Some are divided in parts, or multiply, as they spread throughout the land.

Early in the 18th century, an ancient Lindian seaman compiles the thousands of Carpier tales he’s heard in his life.  The Book of Carpier comes into the possession of James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, founder and editor or Fiction House Publishing (mid 1800’s).

Eventually he melds old tales with new.  They mostly center on small animals, as Carpier’s stories.  They are written by Fiction House’s chief writer William ‘Golden Boy’ Golden, and published under the title, The Lore of the Lindian Woods.  The tales take place in both the Lindian Forest of Asia and the Lindian Forest in America (named for the many countrymen and women who settled in the nearby Cincinnati community.)

The world is all the richer for those known and unknown storytellers who weave their webs of intrigue. 

~ ~ Editor note: the novel,   Tales of the Fiction House relates versions of Carpier’s offerings, and his often dangerous pathways taken to pursue his call to oral storytelling.  ~ ~    For a short accounting of how Shelva Fiction, Blackjack’s daughter-in-law continued the ‘Lore’ in the late 18th century, visit Tales of the Moscow Nights.

©2013 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.)

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

No. 44: TALES OF THE MOSCOW NIGHTS

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh (my great grandmother Shelva’s little girl wonderings and wanderings)

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.

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. 

Many are the nights in the 1870’s summer that mine brutter Ivan must be away – at the mandatory for boys Youth for Czar Conclaves.  He is such a sweet brutter, I hope it does not make he and the others sour as the Cossacks who command them.

I cross my fingers and wish it.  Then I, as our superstitious housekeeper from far off Vladivostok advises, blink three times, pull my hair twice, stand as a one legged crane for six seconds, and then swallow a bug.  Well, I do all but the last and hope I haven’t spoilt a spell.

For a while I have the lonely glums without Ivan at home.  But Mama and Papa’s visitor from America, via Lindia, the Publisher, Blackjack Fiction, tells us tales from his books The Lore of the Lindian Woods.

Some are ancient stories and fables; others not so old.  Forest creatures live magically, almost as humans in their make believe world.  They are short, little tales.  Both children and adults enjoy the lessons they teach.  I know this because the smiles on Mama and Papa’s faces are as big as mine when Blackjack acts them out after supper.

Later, at night when I am glummed, missing Ivan, I wander our house watching our pets at play.  I imagine another world, their near-to- human one.  I magnify the creak of a rafter into a tree collapsing.  I see our cats Alexa and Ragamuffin feverishly pulling from beneath the massive trunk, by the scruff of the necks, hundreds of trapped squirrels, raccoons, and lizards.  The thankful creatures give a grand parade up and down the staircases.  They toss fresh sardine beads and squishy baubles soaked in catnip, and then, out the door.

I see shadows, cast by someone’s lantern as they pass by on the sidewalk.  I imagine Captain Polly, who has flown in from America to visit her friend Blackjack, is leading an aerial assault by of a clutch of vultures.  They dive bomb the Czars craven Cossacks who are raiding a peasant village.  Three or four vultures seize each Cossack by the seat of the pants and carry them all away, and ‘PLOP!’ drop them into dirty ponds where they ‘glug, glug’ disappear forever.

Then there is Cecily the Cobra, who accompanied Blackjack to Russia from Lindia:  As she climbs the kitchen rafters seeking an invading rat or mouse, I create a tale of her encountering arch enemy, the vile-snouted, near-furless, conniving Mongoose.  A violent poison fang and razor sharp tooth battle ensues.

‘HISS!’  ‘GRR!’  ‘Thump, thump, thump.’  They tumble head over hood, avoiding the others teeth and fangs.  Mongoose, he tries to bite into Cecily’s neck, and rip her into many pieces.   Cecily dances away and tries wrapping herself around his body to squeeze him til he bursts.  Ew, the smell of their breaths and the putrid odors whistling out of them, you don’t want me to try to re-create.

The thick rafters suddenly block their actions from my sight.  I cannot see what happens.  One of them, maybe both, falls.  I cannot tell by the deafening ‘SCREE!’ sounds cutting into my ears, which it might be.  ‘PLOP!’ into Cook’s burbling stew pot. Good riddance to either or both.  I don’t like snakes, and though I’ve never encountered a real mongoose, I don’t think I’d like those ratty creatures either.

*     *     *

Brutter Ivan and I often played one of Russia’s most popular child’s make-believes, Cossacks and Rotters.  I still enjoy it though I am now mature pre-teen.  I shall teach the household animals all the rules and surprise Ivan with a Lindia Woods version when he is released from the real Cossack and Rotters camp.  I smile.  I can just imagine Cossack Captain Polly commanding.  “Aark!  Hand over all your valuables, Serfs.”  Rotter Cecily Cobra, she is pinning the necks of Alexa and Ragamuffin to the floor, and is seizing their cat food.

I cross my fingers, blink thrice, pull hair twice, balance, as a crane, and this time I am so determined that Ivan repel Cossack ways, I even swallow the bug.

YES!  It works – at least in my imagination.  Ivan revolts against the Czar by shedding his Cossack attire.  He leaps to the defense of the helpless felines and liberates them.

I am so thankful.  Blackjack’s lore of the Lindian Woods has helped lure away my glums.  Ah yes.  As Blackjack so often says, “Enter your imagination, and, voila, GLUMS BE GONE!”

Next Week:  Ready to meet the Czar?

(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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No 43: MY FIRST THRILL OF THE WAGER

Posted on May 18, 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.

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. 

(My great grandmother Shelva recounts her first taste of gambling as a girl in Moscow.)

A long corridor stretches past my bedroom.  One night I awake to a series of ‘thumps’ there.  I get out of bed and turn the gas light on low.  Too scared a burglar might be out there, I lock my door.  Reflexively I pull my nightgown tight to my chest.  Afraid, I grab a candlestick to protect myself – in case the vandal has a weapon and might break down the barrier between us.

I look through the keyhole.  What I see puzzles me, yet I smile.  Captain Polly and Cecily the Cobra appear to race the twenty feet length of hallway.  The Macaw’s a swift flight; the snake’s a steady slitherer.  Not just once, but over and again they race.  You never know who will win.

That not knowing sends a burbling heat wave up my spine.  My neck and face burn.  I rise and look in the mirror.  My eyes are glazing over.  My cheeks appear the reddest rose.

I recognize this look.  I’ve seen it in others:  In kooky Uncle Vanya when he leaves for the horse races – then it is a tense look of excited anticipation.  When he returns, it is the same look, but now a deflated, almost morose one.  The horses he’s bet on have lost once again.  I see the look, the rich glowing of anticipation, whenever I watch Blackjack Fiction training Ragamuffin for the Czar’s Cat Boxing tournament.  I shudder.  Will I see Uncle Vanya’s deflation when Blackjack returns from the bouts?

I never, never want to look the way Uncle Vanya looks when he returns from the horse races.  I tell myself, ‘Shelva, you must never let yourself get to a place where you feel that way.’

Yet, I am drawn back to the keyhole to watch the Macaw – Cobra Grand Races.  And I am shouting excitedly in my thoughts.  “Go, Captain Polly!  You can win.  I’d bet my prettiest dolly on it.”     

NEXT WEEK:  We’ll be off to the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg for the Cat Boxing Golden Paws Championships

 

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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

No. 42: THE QUESTION TARNISHING MY GOLDEN MOSCOW SUMMER

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Raji Singh

Happy Mother’s Day,Shelva, and all mothers!

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.

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.

(In slices of life Great grandmother Shelva serves vignettes about her building friendship with her future father-in-law ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, when she was a pre-teen.)                      

“Are you planning to kill the Czar, Blackjack?”  I nervously ask.

Finally, on the veranda, I am able to muster courage to question what I’ve suspected – ever since seeing him milking venom from the fangs of his Cobra, Cecily; then, overhearing him talking cryptically to her of his plans of what he’d do with the poison vial.

“Just think what the Czar’s Cossack enforcers might do to you if they find out, Blackjack.  Unspeakable, terrible tortures.  Then they will murder you.”

I am desperate for him to say, to quell my dread.  “Don’t be a silly child, Miss Shelva.  I’ve no desire to kill anyone.  I am only in Russia to visit your family and take part in the Czar’s Cat Boxing tournament.”  Instead, Blackjack is silent.  I believe he sort-of just smiles.  I tremble, in fear for him.

Captain Polly, summering in Moscow, flies to my shoulder and whispers mischievously, “So he says, Shelva.  So he says; aark!”

THE MONTH OF JUNE:  BUILDING A FRIENDSHIP     

Why should I care what Blackjack might do?  Someone I’d never met before summer began, who brought into my parent’s home a deadly serpent that would be the cause of lifelong scary dreams?

Because, aside from my brutter, Ivan, never have I such a close companion as Blackjack.

Papa’s ever busy at University.  Mama’s hither, thither in her valiant causes.  Ivan is spending much time at the mandatory for boys his age, Youth for Czar Conclaves.  Blackjack’s out, about seeing people he says are important to what is “private business”.  When he’s not involved in whatever this secret work is, ‘Oh pleeze, don’t have it anything to do with crossing the Czar, Blackjack,’ he and I enjoy much of the warm Moscow daze together.  He shows card tricks in the parlor.  In the sewing room, I teach him embroidery.  Midst the luscious perfume of the garden courtyard, he reads aloud from his publishing house’s collection; for him, Captain Polly helps me dramatize Pushkin passages.

I wipe the back of my hand across my brow:

“Oh how the years are fleeting!”

     Captain Polly, hidden in a tree, answers,

“Aark!  We must all go under the eternal vault.”

     After this, Captain Polly, Blackjack, and I – in Blackjack’s boxing parlance – we ‘word spar’.

“In America it’s called ‘shooting the breeze’,” he says.  “I wonder what they call it in Russia, Miss Shelva?

“Aark!  Kremlin klatter,” Captain Polly interjects.

I shrug.  Whatever it is, it is great fun.  We do it so I may learn better their Ameri-kan and they, my R-r-russian.  But also, so maybe Blackjack can understand what it is like to have a daughter.  And that I can feel I have an uncle who is not, kooky-like, as the kooky Uncle Vanya I already have.  My thoughts are of Blackjack so often that summer, no silly girl crush, but, as a daughter.  (Nearly two decades later I’d marry his son, James my sweet druzhyna.)

My Golden Summer I fall in love with the son, I’ve not met, but Blackjack tells me much of.

Forget the Czar, Blackjac, pleeze.  Take me to visit James in America.  Mama, Papa will allow it.  (I can dream, can’t I?)

I content myself by writing letters to James.  Of course, I am too shy to mail them.  As a sister, Captain Polly recognizes my lovelorn.  She whispers supportively, “Aark. he’ll like you sister Shelva,” and she gives me a most delicate fallen feather.  I use its tip as a dip pen to create the prettiest prose.  I write tiny, on paper hardly the size of my thumbnail, so that, maybe no one else would bother to read them but me.  I insert them in little handmade envelopes and pretend to mail them by placing them in my bureau.  Sometimes I dream Captain Polly sneaks them out, carries them to James in Amer-ika, then returns with letters from him.

JULY:  BUILDING A CONTENDER   

Blackjack and I often stroll in the park.  Along are Cecily, and Blackjack’s cat-boxer-in-training, Ragamuffin, and my dear feline Alexa.  Captain Polly perches on our shoulders, or sometimes, Cecily’s hood.  I stay far from Cecily as I can.  I swear Ragamuffin and Alexa make cat eyes at each other on our journeys.  Little kitties on the way soon – who knows?

“These jaunts are good training workouts for Raggy,” Blackjack says.

‘Oh Blackjack.  All the good I heard you did helping the oppressed in America’s Underground Railroad.  I can’t believe you’d hurt another, even the Czar.  Tell me you won’t.  I care for you so much I’ll believe anything you say.’                        

     The so many mice we see?  “Not meant for you Raggy,” Blackjack says.  “Only grass, plants, and an occasional bug:  We’ve got to maintain you as a lean, mean, pawing machine.”  So, Cecily tracks the rodents.  There is no competition for the pests from Alexa.  She puts up her nose to them, but swoons over sardines.

Now and then Blackjack puts Ragamuffin’s tiny boxing gloves on him.  Raggy stands on his hind legs, sparring with Cecily.  Captain Polly referees, often flying between, breaking up non-lethal clutches.  Oh, the looks we get from passersby.  Jealousy, maybe?  They’re wishing they had a Lindian Cobra and a South American Macaw to help train their cat boxer?

AUGUST:  BUILDING A HOME 

Probably our happiest hours are those spent designing and fabricating my dollhouse.  Even now as an adult, I still have it.  In it resides many darlink little dollies.  I must take a moment to tell about this wonder.

Blackjack says it is a replica of the Fiction House, in Amer-ika.

‘One day you will be mistress of that grand home.’  What a wonderful day – when your fancy comes true.

It has cedar shake shingles and bright mosaic tile walls like the real Fiction House, mica windows replacing stained glass.  Best of all!  It has, just like in the one it models, ‘secret hideaways’.  In them, I treasure-away my letters to James, and my precious Faberge miniatures:  A carnelian camel with ruby eyes, silver flowers overflowing a rock crystal vase, and the tiniest of cameos.

Most valuable, but not most cherished – those would be the letters – is a delicate china Faberge egg of the Fiction House, barely longer than my hand.  (I wish I knew how Blackjack came by it.  He’s gotten to know so many people in Moscow.  ‘Are they involved in your ‘private’ business, Blackjack.  Pleeze, no.’)

The Faberge Fiction’s intricately mitered emerald cornices crown walls of black pearls.  A sapphire-plumaged, diamond breasted Captain Polly clutches the pink garnet rail of the widow’s walk.  Wings unfurled, she seems to lift the Fiction House from within the porcelain top oval of the egg.  The bottom sits on Turt’s intricately carved mahogany shell.  His upraised fin-claws hold all firmly, as Atlas the world.  (Nowadays my insurance broker says, “It should be locked safely away in a safe deposit vault, Mrs. Fiction.”  I say to him, “Feh, heresy.  Something so beautiful, it should always be seen.”)

Blackjack and I built my dollhouse so it folds up to appear a svelte suitcase.

With only it, and clothes on my back, one day I must make haste to escape belovet Mother Russia who is rampaged over by her un-lovink Cossacks.  Good come from bad.  I meet; marry belovet druzhyna.

SEPTEMBER:  BUILDING A LIFETIME

Maybe if a daughter we have, she will play with the Fiction dollhouse.  If son, his granfa Blackjack will build with him what was our other construction project of that summer – a Cat Palanquin for Ragamuffin.  “So Raggy will have his own cat-sel when he enters the Czar’s palace.”  So beautiful:  twisty walnut spires rise above antimacassar curtains.  Inside the castle-shape bamboo carriage, a velvet cushion.  It will allow Raggy’s tush comfort before battle.

SUMMER’S EPILOGUE

     Sadly, the season is ending.  This makes me cry.  Blackjack wipes my face with his handkerchief and brushes my tear-matted hair from the corners of my eyes.  As Captain Polly claws at the cat-sel walls and pulls on the buttresses with her beak making sure they’re sturdy, Blackjack talks to me caringly.

“We will have many more beautiful summers together, Miss Shelva.  Maybe in America.  Or here.  I know that question you asked when the season began haunts you; makes you wonder if that could be possible.”

“Is it true, Blackjack?  Do you plan to kill…”

“Shh, Miss Shelva.  I couldn’t talk about it then, nor can I now.  It is for the sake of you, your Mama, Papa, and Ivan’s safety.  And for the sake of those people I meet with, and the good of thousands of your countrymen and women.  One day you will understand the reason for my facade.  Please, just trust.”

I’ve come to love the gentlemanly Blackjack Fiction dearly.  I’ve heard so much about all the good he did in Amer-ika.  What can I say, but “Yes”.

NEXT WEEK:  We Journey to the Czar’s Palace

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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

No. 41: CONCERTO PETITE FOR MISS SHELVA

Posted on May 5, 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.

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. 

   Horrified by deathly choices she believes Blackjack Fiction is making, Shelva writes of her pre-teen epiphany that gives her courage to confront him.

*     *     *

     It is only an impromptu three-minute piece that Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky plays on the piano in the music room in Mama and Papa’s house, but my world feels a blissful eternity as the sweet chords engulf me.  Have the heavens yawned open to release all their angels to surround me in their most beautiful harp strains?

Captain Polly, whom Blackjack Fiction has told me so much about, arrived Moscow a few days ago.  (“She’ll fly hither and thither, but she’ll always find me when she wants to, Miss Shelva,” Blackjack said when she landed lightly on my shoulder in our garden courtyard and reached out her claw to introduce herself.)

Now, perching outside the window as Maestro Tchaikovsky plays, she unfurls her sleek wings of blue, gold, and lavender and conducts the birds of the neighborhood who are just briefly a chorus to his playing.  Then Captain Polly tucks in her wings and they stop – admiring the music they surely must believe is equal or grander than theirs.

I feel and hear my heart, beating in rhythm to the gentle, swaying sounds.  It is as if the music tugs at, melds with the essence of my being, and I become one with it midst the crescendo, and then a final flourish, and then an end.  Tears flood my cheeks.  I look over to the only other audience, Blackjack Fiction.  Never before have I seen this in him.  Maybe, never again will I.  He weeps at the haunting notes of the Maestro.

“Concerto Petite for Miss Shelva, I shall call it,” Tchaikovsky says as he rises from the piano bench to take his leave.  His touch is hot, electric, as he strokes my hair.  (Will I ever wash it again?)  No matter the thousands of more times I hear the piece performed throughout my life, I will remember it as he plays it this warm summer day.

Blackjack wipes his sopping face with a handkerchief and returns to the business of the day.  “Maestro, I believe you will find our publishing arrangements quite satisfactory.  The world wants to know your life story, and there is no publishing house in the world better equipped to tell it than Fiction House Publishing.”

I follow them to the front door, wanting to be near Mother Russia’s renowned composer for the ages.  His long, straight hair is jet, facial features sharp, eyes intense, showing his complete immersion in his artistry.  His matching black suit jacket and pants, and his slightly scuffed shoes, reflect the unassuming nature of his demeanor.  Seeing him walking down the streets of Moscow, you would not know this was Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, the Great, unless you’d seen him at some time in a grand concert hall.

The full and complete commitment to the artistry that resides in his soul affects me nearly as much as his music.  Even though I am still a little girl, his song makes me realize I must do what the music of my heart, the most beautiful music there is in this world, tells me.  Now, so powerfully it says, “Have the courage, Shelva, to confront Blackjack with your suspicions.  Confront him, and maybe save his life.”

When Blackjack comes back in from seeing Maestro Tchaikovsky off, I nervously but courageously ask.  “Are you planning to kill the Czar, Blackjack?”

NEXT WEEK:  A Confession?

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

No. 40: AN INVITATION FROM THE CZAR: ‘COME BOXING WITH ME’

Posted on April 28, 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.

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. 

After the brutal Crimean War, to assuage the sometimes bestial nature of humans, a war-like sport rises to prominence in Mother Russia:  Cat Boxing.

From the back alleys of Moscow, to the Czar’s lavish Palace at St Petersburg, cat, scratch-less, fever grips the nation.  That my great-great grandfather, the renowned American publisher James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, is there is no coincidence.  He invented the ‘sport’, over 40 years before, along the Ohio River.

     (My great grandmother Shelva, Blackjack’s daughter-in-law to be, one day, writes of these, her girlhood daze, in Moscow.  Her story begins with…)  

A knock on our Moscow door, I answer.  In the glittering daylight, so shiny a gentleman in a white uniform bows to me.  His bullion epaulettes tousle in the breeze, while his well-groomed beard, moustache, and dark hair are immoveable.  Without speaking, he holds out a heavily- engraved-in- gold envelope.

“Mama, Papa not home.”

Still, no words does he utter.  He is an emissary of the Czar I know, by his appearance and the grand, jewel-encrusted carriage drawn by four white steeds awaiting him.  Glad Mama not here.  She despises the Czar:  Would spit in the face of anyone having to do with him.  Papa’d abide him, while mentally spitting on his ceremonial fur boots.  (All the while, they preach to brutter Ivan and me.  “Ach!  Don’t spit, mine deti.  Is nasty habit.)

I do not know what to do, so I take the envelope – all that gold!  It is weighty as it looks.  The courier whisks royally away.

It is an invitation addressed to Blackjack Fiction.  He is in his room.  I go.  The door is ajar.  I see Cecily Cobra rising from her basket.  She and Blackjack are face to face, eye level.  She seems to be peering over his shoulder at me.  Something tells me, I had better not enter.  I wait patiently – indeed, yes I am eavesdropping.  I will learn my lesson.

Blackjack begins stroking Cecily’s throat.  She enjoys it, swaying, almost swooning, mid air.  She sniffs his mouth, contenting herself with his familiar breath.  Blackjack takes a small drinking glass.  He encircles the inside of Cecily’s fangs with the rim.  Slowly he pushes down on her hood.  Whitish venom trickles from the fangs.  Such milking, I’ve read of, yet, cannot believe.  How did he learn how to do that?  WHY would he try such a dangerous thing?

He uncorks a vial and mixes the venom with the vial’s clear contents.  He sniffs it.  “Whew!”  He tells Cecily.  “This dosage will work quite well, my dear.”  Then he whistles and calls.  “Ragamuffin.  Come here my little champ.”  The foundling kitty he’s adopted comes running between my legs and into the room.  His stiff gray hair tickles my bare ankles.  I must stop myself from laughing.  Ragamuffin’s no scrounger anymore.  He’s sleek, svelte – ‘no king of the alley’, but no longer a sickly scardee-cat.  Blackjack’s been treating him well.

What I see next is hard to believe.  Blackjack takes the tiniest pair of leather boxing gloves from his valise and begins fitting them onto Ragamuffin’s front paws.  He ties them tight and puts Ragamuffin on an end table so he faces Cecily.  He rings a jingly bell, and says, “gentleman and gentlewoman, lets have a clean bout.  No striking, hissing, scratching.  No hitting below the whiskers or the hood.”

‘What has Blackjack been teaching that dear Kitty?’  I wonder.

Ragamuffin stands on his hind legs and begins swiping at Cecily.  ‘Whhoosh, whhish’ – paws find only air because Cecily swerves quickly out of the way.

“No!  No!  No!”  Shouts Blackjack.  “Get in there.  With your whole trunk, Raggy.  “Don’t hold back.  Don’t be afraid to take a few lumps.  I guarantee the opponents the Czar will have lined up for you won’t.  Like this Raggy.  Watch.”  Blackjack moves on Cecily.  He thrusts.  She swerves – ‘whhoosh, whhish’ – air fists.  He gets closer.  His uppercut misses.  Cecily thumps him on the nose.  He comes back, able to tap her snout lightly.  She sniffs, holds hood erect, as if to say.  ‘Didn’t hurt a whit, Blackjack.  You’ve barely the clout of an anemic mongoose.’

I am so lost in the oddity I am seeing I forget I’m holding the heavy letter.  It slips from my fingers and ‘thumps’ against the oak floor.  Cecily startles, takes her just seconds to leap from the basket and onto, around my knees.  She slips up my body, puts her eyes to mine.  I feel her fork tongue brush the bridge of my nose.  I smell her gamy breath.

“NO!  Cecily,” Blackjack shouts.  “We are guests.”  He comes over and strokes Cecily’s throat to calm her.  Ragamuffin follows, paw petting Cecily’s tail and my ankle at the same time to show we are all tovarishch – friends.  Blackjack apologizes, as the gentleman he is.  “I am truly sorry for this Miss Shelva.  Cecily can be too protective at times.”

“I…I…”  I cannot speak.  I point to the letter.”

“Ah, I have been expecting this invitation ever since I arrived in Russia,” Blackjack says.  He uncurls Cecily from me and returns her to her basket.  I quiver in deep relief.

“You know the Czar, Blackjack?”

“Don’t know him.  But he knows of me, Miss Shelva.  I am the one person in this world he wants to meet.  I have something, the only thing, he does not possess.  He desires it.  Believes, he will take it.  It is my task to see he doesn’t.  If I succeed, I shall profit handsomely, and become a wealthy man.”

NEXT WEEK:  What will Blackjack do with the vile mix of venom, and the-who-knows-what?

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

 

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

No. 39: THE MYSTERY OF THE DISAPPEARING CATS OF MOSCOW

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh (excerpted from my great grandmother’s treasure trove of writings about her 1870’s girlhood)

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.

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. 

Part I:  PORTRAIT OF CECILY – a frequent and honored guest at our table one Moscow summer.

We always dress for dinner:  Mama, I, our best white dresses, brutter Ivan, in miniature of Papa’s black suit.  Cecily curls on a dining room chair beside companion-benefactor, Blackjack Fiction, always nattily attired in his Ameri-kan tailored matching suit, waistcoat, and slacks.

Cecily’s satiny hood is a sparkling abalone hue in the candlelight cast by crystal chandelier.  Cecily seems to bow reverently down as she peers at her dish.  She politely devours her serving of – well, you don’t want to know what sort of raw creature innards.

They dangle from her fangs, and then, slide slowly down her infinitesimal throat.  You can see the crinkly outline of the…

I barely gag out the words, “Cobras will eat that?”  (I think this is why Ivan, when he grows up, becomes a scientist:  So intrigued by the swallowing reptilian reflex.)

No one sits on the other seat beside Cecily.  Finally one evening, Ivan braves near, scooches into it, observing closely, eventually stroking the innards-full throat.  “No, don’t do that brutter,” I am about to protest when I see, Cecily likes the touching.  She makes an almost cat purring sound.  After that, Cecily and Ivan, best of friends:  They take many a leisurely walk-crawl together.  (You’ll never see a busy city sidewalk clear quickly as during their promenade.)

On another evening, as Cecily belches appreciation after finishing her bill of fare, Papa says.  “My goodness, Blackjack.  I am glad you arrived with Cece when you did.  Our rodent infestation – Ach!  Who would believe?  In such a nice neighborhood?  I am aghast at the current state of…”

“…our rodent dilemma,” Mama says, completing Papa’s thoughts, as usually she must.  (Papa’s a brilliant instructor at the University, but sometimes forgets the point he’s trying to make from one sentence to the next.)  “The Professor, Ivan, Shelva, and I, we all thank you and Cecily Snake, Mr. Fiction,”  She certainly solved our rodent problem in short order.”

PART II:  CECILY AND I, mostly Cecily, solve the mystery of the disappearing cats of Moscow.

After a hale and quite sincere speech that, basically, says, “You are welcome, my most gracious hosts”, Blackjack changes subjects slightly, and observes.  “I love cats.  They’d take care of Moscow’s entire rodent dilemma.  But, journeying your fair city, I find none.”

“Truly an oddity,” confirms Papa.  “Since the Crimean War’s end – fewer, fewer felines, finally, phht, not even one afoot.”  I like how Papa’s goatee bounds upward when he uses his favorite expression, phht.

“Some say,” Mama puzzles.  “That the war poor have taken to eating them.  I do not believe this.  Never have Muscovites been so down as to do something like that.  Am I right, Papa?”

“You are, Mama.  The way they just, phht, disappear into the ether.  You’d think they were more precious than…”

“…than GOLD,” I say, beating Mama to the finish.”  Papa smiles.

Entering to clear the table our family’s cook, Vampira, Ivan and I call her behind her back.  She’s always lurking like one of those scary ghouls, listening in on conversations.  You’d almost think she’s a Cossack spy for the Czar.  But you know she’s not, just a busybody, how might some say, a yenta.

Cecily hisses at Vampira when she tries to remove her dish.  There’s an animosity ever increasing between the two ladies, fangs drawn one might say.  Seems to me Cecily has the upper fang, by the way Vampira tries avoiding her.  Seems to me Cecily senses or knows some secret about Vampira.  Cecily’s eyes shift to Vampira.  She studies her.  I wonder; is Cecily trying to piece together some clues Vampira’s innumerable facial ticks might reveal.  Are they ‘giveaways’, ‘tells’, only a real snake might recognize in a human snake.

I put my brain to calculating, imagining, speculating, as the grown ups around the table talk of wars, Czars, and Cossacks – things of little interest to an adolescent girl.  I’ve just finished reading Chekov’s little known foray into mystery, The Adventure of the Speckled Boa , so my mind becomes that of a snaking sleuth.  ‘Hmm?’  I deduce.  ‘Look at all those little hairs collecting around Cecily’s tiny nostrils.  They’re white and black.  That’s a clue.  They couldn’t have come from the innards she just ate.  If they came from a Muscovite rodent they’d not be that color.

‘Aha.’  I think of something that seems funny, but not important at the various times it happens.  Cecily’s taken to quietly slithering up to behind Vampira, and sniffing her housedress.  It is always dirtied with similar fine hairs.  Blackjack has told us often that cats and cobras have a special affinity for each other:  So now, I speculate.  ‘Cecily suspects Vampira with having something to do with the missing meow ’ers.’

It is just a theory for me now, mind you.  Yet, it is one you will see will pan out to be true.

PART III:  THE CAPTURE

For first time in long time, I think of my missing kitty, Alexi.  So sad!  I cry and cry!  Alexi disappeared not long after Vampira arrived.

There is a knock on the front door.  Vampira lets in our string bean-tall neighbor, Mr. Bhoratski.  Introductions made, Mr. B. offers, “I’d like to hire your Cecily for a few days to solve my rodent woes, Mr. Fiction:  as does everyone on the block.  I hurried over, selfishly wanting to be first.”

“If it’s all right with her,” Blackjack says.  “Cecily and I are not averse to picking up some spare rubles along our journey.  And she so does love her grand sport, mouse-ing.”  Everyone looks to Cecily.  She moves her hood, as in a pleasant nod.  Then her eyes focus on the door to the kitchen as if to indicate, ‘But first some unfinished business.’  Vampira’s in the kitchen.  Ivan and I follow Cecily in.  Cecily corners Vampira near the sink.

“Get ‘vay frum me you cold blooded whure,” Vampira shouts, seizing a skillet, extending it like a shield.  Never before or since do I see Cecily so angry.  She combination growl-barks like a bear; she lion roar-screeches.  Cecily’s innard-foul breath blast furnaces into Vampira’s face.  Vampira gags.

Then the loudest ‘clang, clunk, clang, clank’ you can imagine.

With her tail, Cecily knocks away the skillet.  It ‘clangs’ off the porcelain sink, ‘clunks’ Vampira’s head (“ouch, ouch”).  Finally it ‘clangs’ open the soundproofing door of the garbage chute, breaking it from its hinges.  Downward, ‘clanks’ the door and skillet.  You can barely hear them land, ‘thud’.  But loud as Cecily’s growl-bark – roar-screech, is the echoing chorus of ‘scree, scree, hiss, mee-oow’ echoing up through the now-open metal chute.

PART IV:  SWEET FREEDOM 

Thumped, but suddenly freed from their dark, smelly hold are dozens of cats.  Their claws are like fingernails on a blackboard as they scratch and claw their way up the almost horizontal chute.  They leap, blinking, into the bright light of the kitchen.  The poor, innocent trash smelly scare-dee cats, they run in wild circles around the kitchen.

‘Vampira’s the cat-napper, cat-stasher’ Ivan and my eyes say to each other.  ‘But why?’  No time to speculate because the wild cats knock us down.  Vampira’s already downed, from the skillet’s dizzying ‘clunk’.  The cats know their captor.  They leap on Vampira, biting, scratching, and clawing her.  Vampira howls like the vampire she probably truly is.  Her scars resemble the red and white stripes of Ameri-kan flag I have only, up to this time seen pictures of.

Vampira knows she’s been revealed for what she is.  She begins tossing the cats away so she can rise and make her escape back to her Carpathian Mountain lair.  No such luck for Vampira:  Cecily flops onto, anchoring her.  ‘SSS,’ Cecily opens her mouth wide and keeps her fangs poised inches away from the Carpathian nose crag.

Mama, Papa, Blackjack, Mr. B., rush into the kitchen.  Blackjack opens the window so the felines may flee to freedom.  “They will become Moscow’s Adam and Eve, and replenish the city with a fine new line,” I hear Blackjack say.  (A side note:  Later on, they’ll also, in a cat pack, find the garbage collector who was Vampira accomplice, and give him his biting, scratching, and clawing comeuppance.)

Papa and Mr. B rush out to find a policeman to arrest Vampira.  Vampira’s limbs pretzel into undoable knots beneath Cecily’s roping imprisonment.  Her face and tongue resemble soggy, droopy pancakes.  Ignoring Vampira, Mama, whose grown fond of Cecily, sits beside her and pets her head.  “Poor Cecily.  You’ve gone through such an ordeal.  But it’s all over now.  Just relax dear, and try not to think of the horrors you’ve seen.”

Blackjack joins in.  “Moscow will have a big parade for you Cecily.  You are a hero.  I would not be a bit surprised if they erect a statue to you in tribute.”  Ivan smiles broadly at his nightly walk-crawl mate.  Watching Cecily I’d swear she smiles back just as widely at him.

As for me, I’m still leery of Cecily, despite her heroics.  After all, she is a poisonous serpent!  I edge, backward.  I bump into Blackjack.  “Meow.”

I know that meow.  I turn.  Blackjack’s holding… “ALEXI,” I shout.

Blackjack hands her to me.  “She stayed here, Shelva.  She knows her home.  She loves her special Shelva.”

I pet her hundreds, thousands, millions of times.  She’s a lot bigger in size from when I saw her last.  But she is so skinny, eating only garbage scraps during her captivity.  I give her milk.

“Meow.”  This next meow I hear is sad, lonely, just the opposite of Alexi’s joyous.

Blackjack picks up the skinny, gray ragamuffin brushing against his ankle.  “Come to me my little foundling tovarich.  I was once just like you.  Looks like I’ve found a nice Russian cat friend for Cecily and myself.  Welcome to the House of Fiction ,” he says.

EPILOG

Ahh!  A happy end to this mystery of the disappearing Moscow cats.  In the weeks that followed, working with police, Cecily sniffed out-sensed out, dozens of such cat prisons as she discovered at my house.  Police tell Mama, Papa (quoting them exactly for their words etch my memories all these years later.)  “There was a ring.  Cat-nappers like your Vampira were selling them for big rubles.”  Then, the police would say no more, as if they were afraid:  adult men, feh,  scare-dee cats.

But word spreads among animal lovers:  That the cats were disappearing, for the sake of sinister pleasures of the Czar.  This talk ferments and revolution brews, causing jitters amongst the hierarchy.  In my imagination, I see thousands of felines roaming the halls of the Great Palace.  But, for what purpose?

NEXT WEEK:  Cat Boxing at the Palace

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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