No 8: A TALE OF TWO BIRDS

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

‘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.

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

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No. 7: LEATHER, WHIPS, AND GUN-RUNNING ON THE RANGE – WHERE THE ARMS ARE BOUND

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder: James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction

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. ~ ~       

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©2012 by Raji Singh

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No. 6: ARCHIVING THE FICTION HOUSE PUBLISHING COMPANY

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

     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 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

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No. 5: SHERALEE, YOU’VE COME BACK TO ME

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction

“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’s 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

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No. 4: “SHERALEE, COME BACK TO ME.”

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder: James Thaddeus Fiction

ARCHIVING THE ONCE-RENOWNED FICTION HOUSE PUBLISHING COMPANY:

Rustling through my great-great grandfather, publisher James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction’s artifacts, I come across a miniature pine coffin, hardly bigger than a jewelry box.  It’s simple, the kind that entombed many a Civil War casualty.

I “creak” open the lid; a sour smell of formaldehyde escapes.  The corpse – a stuffed tan pigeon.  Bronze, silver, and gold metals, with delicate tufts of color-filled feathers hanging from each, adorn puffed chest.  There’s a small plaque – ‘Sheralee Flew Beyond Duty’s Call.’

A melancholy sensation overcomes me.  I can almost feel my great-great grandfather’s hand on my shoulder, his brandy breath warm on my neck as he pines, ‘Sheralee, come back to me.’

Sheralee’s a game bird, nearly half a wing missing.  She seems to sleep peacefully.  I stroke her gently, as if I’m afraid of disturbing well-earned eternal rest.  Her leg moves.  Her body moves.  I pull away.  A lidded wooden cylinder, hidden inconspicuously beneath good wing had slipped, causing the convulsion.  She’s a carrier pigeon, I realize.

I’d heard stories about Blackjack and William ‘Golden Boy’ Golden, his half brother and chief writer.  They utilized these jet fast birds with homing instincts – to deliver messages in their clandestine ante-bellum abolitionist endeavors.

‘Wherever you saw the tracks of the Underground Railroad, the valiant birds were sure to be winging it not far overhead,’ Blackjack says reflectively.  ‘Those were brutal times.’

Inside the cylinder, I find paper rolled so tight it springs at me like a Slinky toy when I begin unwinding it.  I squint to be able to read the small print – Blackjack’s writing.  It was reminiscences about the 1830 s, old Cincinnati, meeting Sheralee’s ancestor.  Sheralee’s aunt was one of the carrier pigeons who carried romance correspondences between Harriet Beecher in Cincinnati and Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle.  (You met the aunt in the last posting, when Blackjack met Harriet.)

I bring out my specially-ground magnifying glass – ‘SOO powerful – it could (almost) view the Higgs boson subatomic particle in a single squint.’ – It has to be strong, to be able to read the tiny script Blackjack and Golden Boy used to get as much information onto a not too-weighty mini scroll attached to the stick-like pigeon leg – so the bird wouldn’t list, falter, and fall.

I squint to read my great-great grandfather’s words:

~ ~ “They’re wearing me out,” I heard Captain Polly squawk aloud as she landed on the perch outside her gabled, swinging door bird entry to my publishing office.  She was gasping.  Her trip from Cincinnati to the Kansas Flint Hills where Golden was running guns to Free Staters wasn’t so hard, but the 400 mile daily, often time semi-daily trips were becoming a drag – aerodynamically speaking of course.

I brought her usual bill of fare, sunflower seeds, apple slices, lightly sugared water.  As she gnarred and lapped, I removed the correspondence from Golden Boy.  The ever-same plea:  ‘Raise more money from sympathizers.  For more guns for the cause.’  And then, Golden Boy’s never same coded directions:  on how to get them to him for disbursement.

I studied the strained, gray look around Captain Polly’s eyes.  They said, ‘HELP!  I need HELP!’  She was a dirty bird from the journey.  Dust browned her lovely, long yellow, green, and blue plumage.

Captain Polly and I knew each other so well, for over 30 years.  She visited Mariner and me often at the wharf-shack when I was growing up.  She’d known him aboard ships for 30 years before that.  She didn’t refuse my hand as I reached to stroke her.  I guess she’d do about anything for me, including killing herself in transit – ‘for the cause’.

“I’ll get help,” she suddenly squawked as she looked up from her feast.

“Sheralee!” we both said in unison…

Off she flew.

Captain Polly seemed to know the whereabouts of just about any flyer within a 1000-mile radius.  Unless Sheralee was off maybe cruising the Galapagos with Darwin, Captain Polly would find her. ~ ~

NEXT TIME:  Captain Polly’s Air Corps, featuring Bird Colonel Sheralee, aid the cause.

©2012 by Raji Singh

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No. 3: CHARLES DARWIN’S VICTORIAN ROMANCE

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

RESURRECTING THE FICTION HOUSE

My hired ‘experts’ jokingly, good-naturedly call me an archeo-apologist.  It is because of my zeal for my reclamation project – that of unearthing and archiving files, notes, books – over a century’s worth of information on one of America’s oldest, most prestigious publishing houses – Fiction House Publishing.

Often the work overwhelms me.  When that happens, sometimes I become careless in my separation of fact from fiction.  But the experts, professional archeologists, and anthropologists all, do not pardon any of my historical misinterpretations (my ‘archeo-apologizing’).

“Unblemished”, will be the term to describe the accuracy of my work, with their knowledgeable assistance, as onward I archive, collate, and now, finally – present.

But wait.  Fact and fiction for me is a blur.  That trait is I truly believe, engrained in the fiber of my being by my orphan circumstances.  As a youth, I would slip into my imagination to cope.  So comfortable in my cocoon of make-believe, the fiction of it all became fact.  In my imagination, I sought out and befriended my great-great grandfather, James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, the Fiction House’s founder.  He too was orphaned, but 140 years before.  Ahh!  Best of friends, though we never met.

Our common orphan heritage – it binds us yet today.  Our oneness and solidarity so colors my resurrection work that ‘archeo-apologist’ is probably what in fact I’ll always remain, because though my name is Raji Singh, a Fiction is who I am.

Now, here is a short excerpt from Blackjack’s publishing journal that briefly shows his orphan background that so played a part in leading him to the hierarchy of 19th and 20th century publishing.  And, within it – the answer to my last posting’s question, with whom was Charles Darwin beginning his romance – ‘THE literary romance of the 19th century.’

~ ~ I watched her for so many consecutive Sunday mornings.  It was the mid 1830’s.  I think I was 11, maybe 12.  Just before daybreak, I’d rise; look out the porthole of the wharf-shack where I grew up.  By the banks of the Ohio, she’d be standing, arms outstretched.  Her long black hair, an ebony river all its own, flowed in the breeze.  Or maybe her hair was a flag, waving in the bird that flew up the Ohio and landed on her shoulder just as the sun started its rise.  Her frame was post-straight, like the sensuous figureheads on the ships bows that I imagined beckoning me to accompany them on adventures as they departed the docks.

I was entranced by this woman, not like a boy with his mother, aunt or sister; or a near teen with a female not more than ten years his senior.  She was mystical, magical.  Someone, I just knew who harbored secrets of emotions few others did.  I wanted to breathe in full the scent of those emotions; to caress, to hear their siren call, somehow even taste their culinary delight.  I knew, at that moment, she would lead me to the vast banquet that is pure, virginal joy.

‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ Mariner so often ‘adaged’ me as we spun tales of our days, by night’s lantern light of the crate-wood wharf-shack – Home.  (Mariner was my father, friend, brother, teacher.  Every book I ever voyaged into was because of this man who couldn’t read a word.)

Today, I would venture to meet my living bow figurehead.

“Hello,” I shouted, but the word came out barely a whisper.  She turned as I approached.  She was unwinding a paper from around the bird’s leg.

She smiled.  “A letter from my soul mate.”

I wasn’t disappointed.  “How did the bird find it?”

“She’s a carrier pigeon.  She brought it.  All the way from a ship, thousands of miles away.  In a few days, she’ll return to my Charles with a reply.  Charles is such a keen man.  He’s trained them to do things one would think unimaginable.”  She put her finger to her mouth, giggled, and then put her finger to the pigeon’s beak.  “Shh!  Our romance is a secret from our papas.  For now.  But one day we’ll tell them.”

“Did his ship launch from Cincinnati?  What’s its name?  Maybe I know your Charles.”

“You’d not have met.  He left from England, on HMS Beagle.”

Maybe one day we’ll meet.”

“Perhaps.”

We sat on the rocky bank and talked for hours that Sunday.  And for countless hours on what seems now like hundreds to come.  My – banquets of Sundays.

“I’ve seen you tell your tales to the gathered dockworkers,” she said.  Their smiles are a joy to behold as they listen.  How many nickels and dimes do they fill your capper with?”

“Sometimes six, ten, once even a dozen bits.”

“You should write down your tales, and sell them.  Think of all the others who could wear such smiles also.  If you tell better than you write, there are scribes for hire.”

Thus did Harriet Beecher plant the seed in my thoughts.

Fiction House Publishing would be the thriving result. ~ ~

Read Blackjack’s story; and, how Harriet Beecher Stowe came to write, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in Tales of the Fiction House.  Published by the resurrected Fiction House Publishing.

NEXT TIME:  Blackjack returns to the Fiction House, over 150 years after he founded it.

© 2012 by Raji Singh

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

No. 2: Charles Darwin – ‘The Beagle Has Landed’, the Evolutionist Encounters the Editor

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Raji Singh

UNEARTHING THE FICTION HOUSE

I am discovering the most intriguing material as I archive through, cataloging the dusty old library and files of my great-great grandfather, James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction.  He founded Fiction House Publishing in the 1830’s and ran it for much of its over century in existence.  Though he was quite successful, hosting influential authors of the era, the two Harriet’s, Stowe, Tubman, among others, some correspondences show his literary judgments weren’t always at their best,

Dear Charles,

Love the ‘Voyage’ angle.  But, Gal-op-ogus?  Who could even pronounce it?  Instead, how about a cruise to the Virgin!!! Islands.  Just the anticipating of the romantic or illicit content could really build your readership base for future books.  Just think about it, will you Charlie.

Sincerely,

Your Publisher……

Dear Herman,

Lose the whale and the surf.  Stick to the turf.

Sincerely,

Possibly your former Publisher…..

Though lacking the shelf life of Melville’s or Darwin’s later works, The Fiction House’s Travels with Moby, and The Beagle Has Landed, were extremely popular in their day.

Join me in my journey as I unearth the works, papers, and letters of some of America’s literary giants, best sellers, and mid-listers.

Thank you—Raji Singh.

NEXT TIME:        ‘Tediously going through ages-old notes on faded scraps of paper, edited, re-edited books that never saw the light of day, collating, archiving – what drudgery – then I found it, the thing that made it all worthwhile – The Darwin Letters.’

“Dear Charles,” began THE literary romance of the century…

Posted in archeo-apologist, satire, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

No.1: The Journey Begins…

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Raji Singh

UNEARTHING THE FICTION HOUSE – An archeo-apologist’s archiving of the publishing home to some of America’s most noted writers and notorious characters of the past two centuries.

Our Founder: James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction

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