* * * * * * * * *
“Kids these days!”
Sam was complaining. “They’re so damn meek and obedient! Now, when I was a youngster, we knew how to rebel! We really gave our
elders a hard time!”
“But
Sam,” I chimed in, “now you’re our
elder! How do you want me to rebel?”
But
I said that just to bug him.
He
was about to start spinning his beanie propeller – just like you just saw me –
when he caught my eye and smiled.
I
asked, “Why do you always spin that thing when I zing you?”
“This
propeller beanie hat has been in our family for generation,” my uncle-cubed
intoned. “It symbolizes Wisdom.” Then he gave it a spin.
That
was just when I made the exact same clever remark to him that you just made to
me. But Sam just laughed. “Politics,” he explained.
He
leaned back in his bean-bag chair and picked up his copy of the National Liar.
I forgot to tell you what he was wearing, didn’t I? Not surprising, my
adoptive-uncle-cubed was a very traditional man. He always wore the tribal
outfit; star-spangled headband, beads, tie-dyed T-shirt, rainbow suspenders,
blue jeans and cork sandals; and he smoke a big meerschaum pipe full of
seedless hemp. Just your typical Tortoiseland anarcho-eco-communal
techno-peasant.
So
he leaned back in his generations-old beanbag chair (its stuffing replaced ten
times, its cover patched, repatched, and piecemeal-replaced twelve times over;
was it the same beanbag?) and he picked up the National Liar (“Every Rumor
Unfit To Print”; shamelessly dedicated to the cause of subjectivity in the news
media; “All Reports Guaranteed False”; if you read it in the Liar, then it
isn’t true) and he turned up the fireplace (not a real fire – we hadn’t fixed
the scrubbers yet – just a solar-battery-powered heat lamp, but we called it a
fireplace just the same) and he scanned the National Liar’s headlines (“JFK
assassinates Reagan; Millions Rejoice!” “Stork Robs Sperm Bank” “ELVIS RISES
FROM THE DEAD!!! – Thousands Witness Saucer Miracle!” “Photographic Proof That Pigs
Have Wings!” “GOVERNMENT ILLEGAL – Mobs Rule World” “Gay Whale Weds
Godzilla – Judge Crater Presides” “HONEST POLITICIAN FOUND!!!” “Solar Nova –
World Destroyed”) and he said,
“Did
you know that Elvis was last seen playing cards with Bigfoot and the Tooth
Fairy aboard a flying saucer?”
“No,
I didn’t know that!”
“Well,
it isn’t so,” said Sam. “Which goes to show you that you shouldn’t believe
everything you read!”
And
he placidly continued to read the National Liar.
* * * * * * * * *
“I vowed to never
become like him,” said the ancient Tortoiselander, “but as you can see, I did
anyhow.”
* * * * * * * * *
So I wandered off,
and straightaway ran into Uncle Ted.
He said, “Do you
want to see the mountain? I’ve set up a telescope.”
“Through which
monitor?”
“I mean a real
telescope, one with lenses, on tripod stilts, that you have to look through!
Come on!”
A real telescope
on tripods to look through! Naturally I followed him. We went outside in the
chill evening air, and my uncle Ted showed me Mount Kah-Pey
through an genuine antique brass refraction telescope. It sure was pretty.
I mean Mount
Kah-Pey was pretty, though the telescope was pretty pretty too. I didn’t
notice; it was getting dark, and Mount
Kah-Pey was starting to
light up.
Uncle Ted
whispered, “Lovely!”
“I’ve never seen
it so brightly lit before!” I said. “Everybody
has everything on!”
“All the lights…
all the machines… on at full power,” Uncle Ted said quietly. Something was on
his mind.
“Oh, I get it!
They’re holding an Energy Potlatch!”
“That’s right,”
said Uncle Ted. “They have so much energy right now that they don’t know what
to do with it all. So they deliberately waste some.”
I complained, “We never get to waste energy here!”
Uncle Ted
explained, “We don’t have to, here.”
We took turns
looking through the telescope at the spectacle of people deliberately wasting
lots of energy. “Fireworks!” I cried. “Oh wow!”
“Almost as if
Kah-pey were still a volcano,” Uncle Ted said quietly.
I sneaked a quick
worried look at my uncle. He never
liked to use the V-word. But he didn’t look upset, just thoughtful, so I turned
back to look at the pretty fireworks.
Eventually Uncle
Ted said, “We’d better go. And fold up the ‘scope, will you? No point in
leaving it out here.” I carefully folded up the brass telescope so that we
could bring it back safe with us.
Sam caught us
sneaking in. He groused, “And it’s all the fault of that damn-fool preacher and
his rich-bitch doxie, the prude.”
It wasn’t a
terribly reverent way to describe the founders of the Neo-Conservative Party;
but Uncle Ted didn’t object. He just left, carrying the ‘scope back to the
storeroom.
My uncle-cubed
asked me, “You know who I mean?”
“I know who you
mean,” I retorted. “You mean Reverend Wryzill and Miz Constance!”
“The Reverend Doctor Wryzill, you mean,” he
mock-scolded me.
“The Reverend
Doctor Jackson Wryzill, you mean,” I
retorted. It was a fun game.
“The Reverend
Doctor “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” Jackson Wryzill, DD, MD, LLD, DDS, you mean,” my
uncle-cubed told me. “And the
renowned purity crusader Ms. Prudence Constance.”
I asked, “What’s
purity?”
“ ‘Purity’?! Who
taught you such a naughty word?”
I said, “You did!”
“Not me; you must
mean Miz Prudence Constance. Why, she was chairperson of the Chastity Crusade,
recording secretary of the Women’s Decency League, treasurer of the Anti-Sex
Harassment Force, and president of
the Guardians of, ahem, Purity.”
“What’s chastity?”
I asked. “What’s decency?”
Sam sighed hugely.
“More naughty words.”
“What’s Anti-Sex?”
“It’s what they
were harassing people for.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Now remember to spell it right, sonny! That’s W-R-Y as
in wry bread! Z-I-L-L as in Godzilla!” the ancient Tortoiselander insisted.
“And pronounce it right, too! That’s
‘rise-ill’, not ‘rizzle’! You hear
me?”
“I hear you,” I
said.
“And she’s Ms. Prudence Constance! M-S!
Period! P-R-U-D-E-N-C-E! Space! C-O-N-S-T-A-N-C-E! Miz PC, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I
said.
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