O:JA&L Prose Discourse
Fiction: Novel Excerpt
James Joaquin Brewer
TELEMACHUS CONSULTS MENELAUS
(Re A Ranger: Rust and Recreation)
(a self-contained chapter from Dublin Downs, an experimental novel based on The Odyssey)
NOTE: Dublin Downs is a cartoon opera epic—a graphic novel without pictures but containing Supra-Titles [Trademark Pend.] as befits its sometimes overtly theatrical moments. Its Hero, Boom-Boom Brancusi, is an All-Star Quarterback in the Planetary Football League. (The story is set in the future—when almost all countries of the world began fielding American Football teams). B-B, who has washed up on Hawaiian shores after the SupraBowl in Dublin, seems to have some mutated literary DNA from two characters who had difficulty returning to their own respective versions of a patient Penelope (one guy Greek, the other Irish). This excerpt offers ambiguous views of what might happen when a young man dares uncovering what happened to his missing “heroic” father. Background regarding its genesis may be viewed at the following site: https://twelvewinters.com/brewer-commentary-on-menelaus-meets-proteus/
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SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
From the widened roads to narrowed streets, through Mercedes-laden construction traffic, the borrowed VW Rabbit weakly wound its way toward Tiburon and found the grounds of Marin County’s greatest taxes, those spacious lawns and palatial houses of the lavishly landscaped Redmund Rust estate. As the alien vehicle approached, the Red Ranger and wife Elena were debating different ways to host a special gathering, a family reunion with a double excuse: both son Digger and daughter Rhominy had sent texts that morning—such an unexpected coincidence!—announcing from separate distant cities (Sydney and Los Angeles, respectively) their plans to marry long-time lovers, roommates labeled theretofore as “really significant others.”
Two seasons ago, as her father was preparing to travel from his California home up to Seattle to start the annual grind of a Seahound training camp in beastly hot July, Rhominy had called to say (while blurring the timeline and fudging some facts)“I have finally met the most awesome guy! Daddy, he’s the one and you know I don’t lie!” Deuce was a glossy-magazine and runway model of meticulously manicured components, with skin so smooth, so sleek it seemed to be lacking human pores. Busily booked for West Coast work, living for a year now in Los Angeles, he was the stepson of none other than Ace Shield, Seattle’s superb free safety and also their punt-returner nonpareil. While visiting his father at a previous Seahound training camp, Ace’s son had watched with near-jealous admiration as his dad worked out—and Deuce had observed as well, with perhaps greater admiration, a bright-eyed woman who had also spent that day in Seattle, watching her own father endure the strenuous drills. By that year’s opening kickoff day, Rhominy had relocated from Tiburon to L.A. to take a hair-stylist job in Hollywood—and shortly thereafter a dewy-eyed duo of “Seahound Children” had commingled young bodies in what a high-energy real-estate agent described to them as “a mid-price-but-still-fashionable-enough” condominium.
And now it was that the Red Ranger and his elegant Elena were cheerfully preparing to face the upcoming prospect of sharing a suitably expensive festive invoice with hot-footed Ace—their mutual investment in the celebratory glory of hosting a one-of-a-kind wedding reception in late October, a legitimate La-La Land Suntanned Halloween Xtravaganza at which all invited witnesses would become ga-ga jealous. Such mutual efforts would appropriately accommodate the Rhominy-Deuce alliance, but less effort would be required from the Red Ranger and Elena to take care of their son. Digger Rust’s intended bride was the brilliant offspring and only heir of B. Blair Butterly, CEO and CFO of Australia’s largest yogurt company, where Digger had enjoyed his first meaningful employment as a college intern within the “international strategic promotions” department. (One of B. Blair’s memorable executive decisions was the rejection of his future son-n-law’s problematic product promotion proposal code-named “Taste A Mysterious Crust Down Under.”) The wedding was being planned by the bride’s family and would occur in Sydney in the middle of May. A special place was being excavated deep in the heart of Redmund Rust for his pre-AI but still intelligently designed son, now a twenty-four-year-old Technology University of Sydney doctoral candidate in forensic biologics whose “secret” biological mother was yet unknown to Digger. A contracted lease of at least nine months had (so long ago now) loaned a lady’s naturalized and non-deportable loins: her papers were impeccably U.S. customs-compliant, prudently in place well before the Rusts would meet and interview her.
Beautiful Amada Bolano was an experienced private tutor—labeled by Elena as “bespoke”—who came armed with a Stanford degree in Spanish linguistics. A well-schooled, well-groomed senorita from a ‘burb of Barcelona, she had ten well-polished nails plus even more polished manners. And her flourishing long-hand-inked signature—Elena had it analyzed the day after that first interview—was a graphologist’s delight. It beautified the legal paperwork signed over two decades ago, a document with the original purpose of guaranteeing to teach Elena Rust strategic phrases to speak (with impeccable pronunciation) to Stardate, the Rusts’ generously compensated Mexican maid, helping to create and maintain an efficient relationship with least offense to immigrant-sensitive sensibilities. After coming to trust the lovely tutor (whose handwriting revealed her traits of “loyalty, veracity, and discretion”), Red and Elena would later propose some additional—“transcendent”—responsibilities: they would pay la profesora substantial dinero to present the Rust family with an additional heir—a brother, they prayed, for the first and only other: their fair-haired, light-headed, beloved daughter, Rhominy, whose complicated entrance into the theatre of life had left an inoperable exeunt wound in her wound-tight mother’s womb. The nightly prayers of the anxious pair had apparently been heard; their preference was fulfilled within a short half-year. (Upon hearing the good news, the father-to-be had quickly confessed not a bit of disappointment to his lovely Elena that the naturally generated hoped-for results had happened so relatively quickly—needing but a limited number of un-artificial attempts by Redmund and Amada to achieve the desired success. He chose to interpret his wife’s immediately reacting eye movement as a sophisticated and understanding wink, but he was never fully confident that this was her complete intention.) So it was that Rhominy received her playmate brother, a matador-eyed boy with naturally golden skin—courtesy, perhaps, of the woman now returned to her native Barcelona. Digger grew up as a precociously intelligent kid conversing quite eloquently with Elena in English, y Spanish además by age four.
O Patient Multi-Media Audience Member maybe waiting for a potentially panoramic scene, I’ve been waiting for the right moment—and this might be it—to inform you of an astounding discovery: whether mental images are triggered through eyesight or driven by internal imagination (with or without eyelids being open), scientists at California Institute of Technology recently proved that the human brain uses the same set of neurons to “see” each variable object you envision. Imagine that! That is why you need not have the slightest sense of aesthetic guilt as you employ the imaginary motion-picture camera in your mind to frame a variety of wide-angle shots of the Red Ranger’s ambiguously neo-rustic estate. As you pull back to a mid-range perspective, you can begin to appreciate the energy of the recently reunited married couple whose magnificent shared dwelling this continues to be—despite the complicated pair’s most recent “misunderstanding” when, after it was confirmed that the Seahounds’ SupraBowl opponent would be the Iron Knights of London, Elena made an ill-advised off-hand remark unsubtly implying she had once been good friends with a veteran London linebacker and his banker brother. But setting aside that somewhat-saddening scenario, the social atmosphere now for both family and support staff is buzzing in relief and celebration, with Elena on her latest designer telephone purring forth fresh PR news to selected dot-com correspondents, including special contacts at the Chronicle, the Times, and North America Today. To further the already festive feelings, the long-time Rust chef has taken the initiative to audaciously ring the Mill Valley Mime & Gelato Concern. A trim man and correspondingly slim woman, each in red-and-white-and-blue-mint face, are dancing without sound on the stage-sized, front-porch space after delivering two large tubs of spumoni espresso fudge and placing them carefully on a table under two marvelously marbled shade-providing columns.
In a painfully less-celebratory situation, however, note nineteen-year-old Steve Brancusi at the wheel of the embarrassing VW—with his new friend Miles Stoner contributing suitable curses in hopes of coaxing the reluctant Rabbit (borrowed from Miles’ sister, Polly) up a steep, paved, inclined plane leading to a wrought-iron multi-barred entrance gate, where Snute, Elena’s sensitive Danish gardener and overall grounds caretaker, is approaching on foot to ask about the visitors’ business. After only a sentence or two of their attempts at a cordial reply, Snute turns toward the house and strides like an inexperienced Olympic race-walker to find Red Rust, the Master of the Mansion.
SNUTE (whisper-droning in a monotone):
“Two teen-aged boys dressed in fashions from last season have arrived in a car with an engine they’d best not shut off for fear of its not starting again. Shall I shrug them off? They claim personal business to conduct with you, Red Ranger. To me they look like strangers. My best-dressed guess would be they seek fanatic autographs or selfish photo ops—the better to barter on e-bay. Shall I politely shrug them off, shoo them away?”
THE RED RANGER (nose twitching as if repelling something just smelled):
“My wife employs you to whack weeds and plant seeds. I don’t recall resume bullets claiming you also read minds. Even driving to our home today, Digger’s been delayed. He put his Porsche in a roadside ditch but called to say he will be on his way thanks to gracious strangers who hitched him up with a winch. I wish I got additional shares of Seahound stock for every time my boy got help when he was traveling away from home. Go get these kids and bring them up! While you’re at it, take a look at the car: sneak a helpful peek under the hood, check the oil and coolant, charge the battery, even call our mechanic if something’s not right. Make yourself useful—oh, don’t act like a snob!”
Snute sneezes and scoots, Adam’s apple bobbing in a Granny Smith throat, Red’s words of implied rebuke seeming to stimulate his dormant, completely unseasonal, psychosomatic, allergic reaction to anything vaguely resembling male energy or passion.
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
Snute guided the two young men toward the Rusts’ guest garage, capacious and sparkling clean behind electronic doors, bidding Steve to park their persistently shabby-looking car on the stainless-steel floor of a structure representing the ideas of homage architectural to the form-should-follow-functional school of housing one’s guests’ failing cars: providing sanctuary up on adjustable racks or down in a spacious bay in this not-merely-decorative but certainly damned practical and useful two-hundred-nine-thousand-dollar custom-built garage. Snute himself changed the oil, replaced all the coolant, then inspected the plugs and did go ahead and call a family mechanic to test for worn transmission parts.
Seeing such obvious evidence of “customer service,” Steve Brancusi and Miles Stoner exchanged looks of amazement and exclaimed their thanks to now-friend Snute. Then together this trio took strides along a white-stoned walking path past a Japanese flower garden to complete a stroll of fifty sparkling yards toward the famous red-doored entrance that featured the Rust family crest high up at its top. The faux-ruby crystal that coated the brass-based door afforded this entrance an aura of flame whenever afternoon sun burned a window through the clouds. Elena claimed, though Red usually disagreed, that during sunrise through a fog-filtered sky the light fell like rain to extinguish the fire and leave shades of pink rose on the special door, which was Red’s first-anniversary gift to his wife. Steve stood and stared, pupils shrinking from the soft barrage of light. Miles dropped his jaw in awe after mumbling sounds of compliments.
A Mexican maid in a dress of indigo dye, its fabric protected by a crinkled apron of blue-and-crimson linen, gestured gracefully to point the guests down a muraled hall (football images on the wall) toward a pair of private bathing rooms, inviting the two boys to freshen themselves prior to formally meeting the host and hostess of the house. She then added in her impeccable news-anchor English that she was certainly not implying that either of them appeared to her unclean—just that they were welcome to relax. (Snute had just whispered to her how deadly tiring the driving must have been.) Saying gracias-pero-no gracias in a tone of awkward politeness, Steve reassured this well-meaning woman that the recent drive had not been that long—although the traffic definitely had been jammed and some angry god or goddess of the highways had stabbed pins in an effigy of the used (and abused) VW Rabbit. In any case, they affirmed with smiles, they had bathed but a few hours before and felt sure they need not re-wash so soon.
Possibly amused (her face did not betray her), with a fluid pivot she turned and led them through a door and down a hall and up a gleaming escalator, then through a second door and down another hall, and then through a final door that led them out toward sunny air. The deck was made of stained Canadian cedar, as were the carved chairs awaiting them. They took seats in front of two little tables, woven from obviously expensive wicker, no doubt certifiably “authentic,” probably hand-crafted from far below the southern border. Expensive spring water, imported possibly from above the northern border, sat in green bottles next to chilled tumblers of sun-reflecting crystal betraying no hint at all of the copyrighted Planetary Football League logo that promotion-happy PFL personnel too frequently branded on otherwise classy souvenir memorabilia for players and fans.
Okay, Friend Reader, the time has come! (Or at least a relevant time has come!) Focus your eyes on the entrance to the deck as Redmund Rust appears in the flesh—the fabled Red Ranger, middle brother of the tragically horn-hung Charles Stewart Rust, the two older sons of the troubled patriarch A. E. Rust. Does not Red, brother also to the avenging youngest one, Rusty, remind you of a fighter in title-bout trim inside those close-fitting sweat-clothes of purple and red? (But unlike Rusty, who at least attempted to restore some version of the honor Charlie had lost when wife Letty had allowed herself to be seduced by that Chicago Bug kicker Chad Castgrave, Red had never entertained the notion of engaging in slugging fisticuffs with that low-life Bug.) In the host’s hands is a platter of thinly hammered gold from which he offers his guests sushi left over from the day’s luncheon celebration of the news of his children’s marriage engagements.
STEVE AND MILES (rising simultaneously, speaking simultaneously):
“Thank you, Mr. Rust! Thank you, Sir!”
Red Rust seems to savor the gratitude, and is apparently amused at how quickly the offered seaweed and rice is disappearing through the lips of his two youthful guests—while the separate sashimi sections lie forlorn and ignored.
THE RED RANGER (speaking pleasantly, quite cordially):
“This is only a second-hand snack, boys. There’s a full-course dinner available later if you two have the time. You look, each of you, familiar. I guess we’ll puzzle through that later after you feel fed and hospitably relaxed.
Red grabs two morsels of reddish raw fish, one in each hand, and pops one in his mouth. His satisfied grin ends only at the sound of a relatively far-away phone bleating like a lamb. A man appears—not Snute—and whispers into Red’s ear. The Seahound All-Star excuses himself politely. The call is not long, and Red is soon back, just in time to hear one of his visitors exclaiming something in late-teen tones to his early-twenties friend.
STEVE (over-enthusiastically?):
“Man, Miles, these digs are so almost unbelievable! The carpets, the drapes, and hand-carved banisters! Look down at that more-than-Olympic-sized pool . . . I can’t see the end of it! Does it flow to the ocean?”
You decide, my Multi-Media Audience Member: is that look on the face of Red Rust simply that of a proud house-holder or is it absolutely smug? Do you see a clue of any kind in the way he sketches what possibly resembles a dollar sign in the air with a forefinger still bandaged from an injury sustained in the ninth period of the SupraBowl? Or is the gesture only random and empty of significant messaging?
THE RED RANGER (more than candidly):
“Well, hell, boys, I’ve an Olympic-sized residence for an Olympic-sized ego. I won’t deny it, won’t apologize for it. I hope I’m building Heaven on Earth. If I truly believed in the God of my nursery school teacher, old Mrs. Dawkin, I might be content with a hut for now and a castle in clouds later. You know—after I’m passed over. As it is, I’m operating under the commercially popular notion that an old beer slogan was close to correct: Ya Only Go Around Once. A recent strange and superfast up-and-back trip—checking on some important Seahound business with a retiring teammate moving to Toronto—plus what had already happened returning from Dublin following victory in the SupraBowl . . . well, some of these recent encounters on the road—the road of life you might say—seemed to re-enforce the reality of rapidly arriving inevitable mortality. There were times—not too many, but for sure a couple—when I feared I’d not safely see wife or home again, even during the game itself. There were times during one of the five Sudden Death overtime periods when I felt so delirious it occurred to me I might die on the Dublin field: become another cosmic asterisk in history’s comic-book of doom.”
Apparently (1) the Red Ranger considers this a solemn statement, and (2) he has reason to trust his two guests with the implications of such a solemn statement. (You have no doubt discerned that teammate Reston Stoner, father of Miles, had called more than once to alert his fellow Seahound to expect these young visitors, following Steve’s visit to San Francisco the day before, when he had met the Stoner family for the first time.) Here, the host bows his head in momentary dejection. Here, his guests look at one another in perplexity. Here, their host looks up again.
THE RED RANGER (speaking with some unexpected version of “optimism”):
“Of course, there’s usually a positive self residing in some mysterious place in each of us, residing simultaneously with a too-often intruding self of negativity. But it’s our frequently dormant self of hopefulness that seeks and finds the inspirational energy that sometimes hides within an invading misery—yes, wakes and finds: otherwise, the battery of the human soul cannot remain charged! You see, despite my recently invading sense of measured mortality, something potentially positive happened during the flight from Seattle to San Francisco, the last leg of my travel home from the SupraBowl in Dublin. I was lucky to be seated next to a first-class infomercial entrepreneur, a visionary executive from a major U.S. apparel corporation—she happened to be also a PFL fanatic—who offered me once-in-a-season opportunities, sweet deals: payment potentially in millions for flacking their line of men’s underwear. There would be Red Ranger New Year’s calendars produced with a minimum of three-dimensional effect—holographic pull-out posters of me wearing hip-hop boxer shorts, both loose-fit and tight-fit—whole nine-yards and-a-half! I tell you, boys, Young Men I should say, modesty and a memory of my mother in Heaven forbids me to elaborate why this executive’s clothing company wanted me. However, I should say that each promotional item she proposed to me would be truly classy—guaranteed to be in oh-so-exceptionally good taste, a portion of the profits possibly going to a charity.”
The Red Ranger’s invisible chin inclines and declines behind its re-growing beard. Four eyeballs of guests widen.
THE RED RANGER (warming to the subject with twinkling eyes):
“And this same entrepreneur told me too that she had both hands down deep in the innards of the latest home-pet trend: specially bred miniature lambs that grow up to be sheep, only they’re sheep the size of a squirrel! Apparently people will patiently raise them to shear in the spring for spinning just enough wool for two well-bred socks, making a great gift for their pet-loving, well-to-do, hard-to-please, maybe-not-too-afraid-to-look-jaded family friends. These micro-mini-bred lambs come with a customized kit that includes a special combination spinning wheel and loom plus an assortment of dyes. Distributorships are pricy, but the concept’s bound to rocket! I’m thinking of getting in below ground floor. I’m considering it entirely prudent to think of a new career for when my days as a pro PFL player come to their fated end.”
Redmund Rust moves his palms upward and downward, perhaps indicating his willingness to consider more than one side of a question.
THE RED RANGER (for the first time in halting tones):
“So there’s a couple of good-news, non-gloomy glimmers for the non-gridiron future of yours truly, Redmund Rust. Each yin must have a yang, or is it the other way around?”
He moves his palms downward and upward, indicating his willingness to reconsider previously reconsidered perspectives. The young men shake their heads, amazed, puzzled, well under the ambiguous spell of this voluble monologist—and eager to hear more unexpected, extemporaneous, fascinating (even troubling) revelations from the mouth of a widely acknowledged larger-than-media sports Hero whose family’s life has been challenged so recently by scandalous strife—especially that of Charlie, Redmund’s big brother, though probably not limited to him. With solemn face, the Red Ranger resumes.
THE RED RANGER (a tear forming in his right eye):
“Yes, on the trip home I made a good solid contact, from the materialistic perspective at least; but while I chatted and dreamt of dollars, someone humiliated my brother Charlie. No doubt, you’ve heard if you’re a regular listener to sports radio call-in shows: a bad Bug from Chicago committed what the legal beagles and parish priests call Premeditated Adultery One—without an extenuating circumstance, no shred of excuse, no discernible motive other than emotional greed and physical lust. I speak, of course, of that PFL now-pariah Chicago kicker Castgrave; but I will not neglect to attach boat-loads of blame to the maiden name of shameful Letty Kearn, her willingness to act as Castgrave’s mate in unmaidenly voyages that made that scenario the scandal it would become. This is all by way of suggesting that the net effect at the end of the day for me—the bottom line, despite a palace, the pools, some bling, the big bucks . . . Well, no bit of such flash will ever quite balance the debts that are owed. None of it will ever bring pride to equal the shame dumped upon the Rust Family name . . . But thanks be to God for those revenging actions of our honorable little brother Rusty from Los Angeles, who was not reluctant to apply punches to that bad Bug’s face—and other places too. And maybe even more thanks to God if the weddings of our son and daughter to their loving partners also aven—er, restore . . . luster to the family crest and what it used to stand for.”
“So screw the enviable economics of our current situation. They cannot change the historical fact that one of the most hideously disgusting trysts imaginable ripped off the reputation of our older brother. I’m guessing you have seen or heard about big headlines in some of the more sensational local tabloids—maybe been bombarded by some artificially unintelligent blogs and/or channel-surfed the so garish coverage on all the Microphonious sleaze-streaming shows. By now, for all I know you may know more about our beleaguered family, even more about the scandalous skeletons rattling around in our larger-than-walk-in closets, than my own so-battered imagination now perhaps paranoically suspects.”
Steve and Miles betray similar “uncomfortable” expressions, perhaps intended to convey that they know less than the Red Ranger’s battered imagination could be presently “paranoically” suspecting.
THE RED RANGER (right eye now dry):
“But the suffering in my soul is not restricted to the humiliation of my brother Charlie. As I speak, in addition to B-B, I think there are two or three Seahound teammates still unaccounted for. I would surrender much of my estate—and the money it takes to keep it up—and live far more simply, possibly renting a shack on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, if that would guarantee to all worried wives and all sons and daughters that every missing player would be safely returned. Even regarding all those who did make it home to their families I am close to clinically depressed—now deeply distressed—by all the hard-to-heal SupraBowl injuries inflicted on my mates. Yes, I ache for them all! And that especially includes your missing father, Steve . . .
Dear Multi-Media Imagineer, perhaps a tear is forming in one (or more) of your eyes? The Seahound All-Star stops his talk, stoops forward to study the eyes of each of his youthful visitors. He does this deliberately and methodically, his half-sunken gaze roaming slowly from one to the other.
THE RED RANGER (a tear forming in his left eye):
“I consider myself a mostly honest man. Recently I’ve become confident that despite a few past disputations Elena and Rhominy and Digger would now support my contentions regarding our collective family futures. My no-longer dormant hopeful self, down deep in my . . . soul . . . believes Boom-Boom too would say . . . would claim that maybe . . . But . . . but . . . regarding honesty, it’s true that a few times I have even been called brutally honest. I would be less than sincere if I were not to admit I feel sympathy more intensely for that just-mentioned man on our team. No player dedicated himself to selfless accomplishment in the way that your dad did, Steve. His performances, in the playoffs first, and then later in the SupraBowl in Dublin, are destined to remain unexcelled. B-B’s fate might be to be remembered as the All-Time Greatest Quarterback. Mine may be but to merely fear he is dead—to carry that thought, that horrible possibility, right up until it’s proved and then to long lament that proof. I wonder if some pirate . . . a modern pirate . . . whether on a ship or an airplane, or maybe behind the wheel of a stolen and repainted military truck, has played a part in . . . something to do with a gambling mob maybe? A ransom-tardy kidnapping? Oh regardless, Steve, each day that elapses makes me miss your father more. But knowing how his disappearance affects me can only make me wonder how you and your family can . . . brace up . . . under the omnipresent pressure of not knowing with certainty the fate of his . . . Well, boys—men—if there were only some things I could do now—take action—to relieve the anguish of cherished wife and mother Mari—and keep kindled those sparks of a faith I pray she retains still, faith her man will come back.
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
As his ears sensed the depth of Red’s sad sentiments, Steve felt his chest constricting with emotion. Swallowing hard over the hot lump in his throat, he attempted to resist a pooling of tears across his pupils. Blinking hard, seeing this Red Ranger’s face as a silvery blur, he moved a hand to his lap and fingered his napkin. It was only then that his host concluded it was time to “officially” recognize this specific guest, confirm to Boom-Boom’s boy (to himself as well) that his earlier suspicions had indeed been well-grounded—suspicions generated even before those phone calls from teammate Reston, father of young Miles (who had quickly become a truly fast friend of Boom-Boom’s son during yesterday’s visit to the Stoner clan). Redmund Rust wondered now how best to react—try to neutralize the awkwardness of this occasion, give B-B’s boy appropriate comfort without overcompensating (overcoddling?) his youth.
While the Red Ranger’s brain groped in vain for suitable phrases, Elena appeared on the deck as if emerging from a stage magician’s mist, silently, instantly. Had she been there all along? Surely she hadn’t been, for no one there could have failed to notice a presence as radiant as that of Elena. Accompanied by Stardate, the Mexican woman who had greeted the guests earlier, the Red Ranger’s wife, “mistress of the mansion,” wearing a bright red tank-top of silk plus walking shorts of similar silk, seated herself to share the benefits of afternoon sun. In vain she waved both gold-nailed hands to keep the two guests seated as they completed the manly, mannerly, smile-filled motions of rising for a lady-no-longer-in-waiting. Moving back to his seat, Steve awkwardly succeeded at “politely” shaking the hand of his hostess.
Stardate placed beside Elena a small, blond-wood spinning wheel plus loom, then handed her a thick booklet, an illustrated how-to manual whose cover featured color pictures of miniature lambs. Removing her jade-framed sunglasses before squinting down, Elena carefully draped this precious booklet across her gleaming knees—bronzed by combining natural sun-rays with a personally customized blend of seven artificial moisturizers—then precisely positioned her profile “just so” (just so her husband Redmund could admire).
ELENA (low-voiced, “throaty” like a talented lounge singer):
“Darling, I won’t interrupt your business with these young men; but before I return to reading about my unique new hobby, I need to say—at risk of tip-toeing across some boundary of civilized etiquette—if this were a streaming gambling show, one like It’s A Wise Child Who Knows . . . or one of those kind . . . I’m thinking I could guess the parents of at least one of our welcome guests, and have some accumulating winnings added to my on-line game account. This must be a Brancusi—yes, Boom-Boom’s bright son. Right? No-one unrelated to that Seahound All Star could have this distinctively resembling face!”
Note, Careful Observer of Faintly Flirtatious Drama, how easily she dazzles Boom-Boom’s son with a smile of such grace that through your ever-available “state-of-a-certain-art” opera glasses you can tell he feels fevered flesh and flushing face and skipping beats of racing heart—his blood-pulsing jaw seemingly in danger of dropping out of its normal alignment. He watches her wordlessly as her liquid lips loosen again, ready to release her voice as a melodious breath of flowing tones like fluttering notes of a lengthy flute or those of a shorter forest-wood recorder.
ELENA (hesitating, in tones so soft they are almost inaudible):
“Steve . . . and Miles too—yes, your face signals to me you’re Reston’s youngest boy—I offer an obviously awkward self-introduction, will apologize without hesitation with respect to my . . . connection . . . to a bit of trouble at the end of the playoffs. I was . . . involved . . . in a few things that made it . . . tough on each of your fathers, and even tougher . . . of course . . . on my now-understanding husband. Yes, I confess, I caused a problem—a major misunderstanding of sorts—affecting that . . . community of Seattle players and their followers. It is possible I contributed . . . difficulties . . . for some of those Seahounds—perhaps not related to the more-than-heroic performance of your utterly fantastic and always incomparable Boom-Boom—but maybe made it harder for some of his teammate Seahounds to prepare for that ultimate contest in Dublin against the Iron Knights of London. You’ve possibly seen the latest . . . perhaps even the most notorious . . . edition of People magazine—so I make few attempts to elaborate upon what is relatively factual and what is mightily misleading. I am reasonably certain you know what I mean.”
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
Steve nodded dumbly at this declaration, his heated head in slow motion, up and down once, and then up and down for a second time, his burning eyes—not dry, but not now blurry—unable to leave the face of this goddess who spoke perhaps more than ironically yet somehow still sweetly. She had stopped smiling, however, and was becoming undeniably somber, with vocal variations now frequent and awkward, their tones becoming more muted brass than smooth flute. Two critical questions occurred to her two thoroughly uncomfortable guests: (1) Is it too much information? (2) Is it too little information?
Elena provided protection to irises of usually icy perfection via the midnight simulation of her two-grand Parisian sunglasses: frames of jade, lenses dark and classy, a glossy recent gift from her recently-but-no-longer desperately disappointed husband. Mysteriously, Red was reacting . . . minimally . . . to his wife’s enthusiastic identification of Steve and Miles, and he similarly betrayed no reaction to her subsequent “confessional” disclosure.
ELENA (a bit more confidently, in a stronger voice):
“Red, my sweet, Steve’s resemblance to his father is surely as obvious to me as it was to you. Boom-Boom’s pigskin-cradling fingers and thumbs are extra-jointed in the same way I noticed are those of our guest. I observed that while shaking his hand. And, too, his eyes, his chin, even the wave of his hair as well! And while we were acknowledging aloud his father’s more-than-heroic accomplishments under less-than-fair conditions of competition, I watched as his young forehead furrowed: he was overcome by heavy and heartfelt emotion.”
MILES (speaking for the first time since Elena’s entrance, in “reverent” tones):
“Yes, indeed, this new friend I met only yesterday at our house in San Francisco is certainly the son of Boom-Boom Brancusi. But there is more . . . Ms. Rust . . . to the family resemblances than double-jointed digits! True, I have known him only about twenty-four hours, so maybe what I say is spoken out of turn. It’s just that . . . hmm . . . I think he possesses sincere modesty and seeks no special favors for an accident of birth. Your reference to his father touches Steve’s heart and mine. But with reference to my father, Dad advised us to share the sad quest we are sure you have guessed has sent us to your door. Yes, Reston Stoner, an off-season Admiral of a Bay Area Tourist Cruise and Seahound Teammate to you, Mr. Rust, but only ‘Pop’ to me, has provided me as traveling companion for Steve Brancusi’s call on you today. Yes, my new friend requests your guidance. With a father far away and victim of a fate unknown, there’s trouble in Seattle for him and his mom. The future of Boom-Boom’s wife—remember she’s his agent as well—certainly seems uncertain. No one currently in Seattle has stepped forward strongly enough to be confidently counted on to help. This son’s father’s sad disappearance has robbed not only the Brancusi family, but it could also jeopardize the Seahound team itself if it loses now the face of the franchise, its most potent protector. Even its Owner, Ms. Holly Hill, seems somehow or other to have become MIA.”
Miles’ listeners seem stunned (Steve maybe more than the others). Who knew Reston Stoner’s twenty-one-year-old kid was not only confident and courageous but appropriately eloquent when called upon to “move the ball along”? Impressed, engaged—close to enraged?—the reddest Seahound linebacker is ready to exclaim thoughts through the small flame of his barely-there, re-growing moustache and beard.
THE RED RANGER (passionately):
“Miles! Yes, Miles! So well said! And Boom-Boom’s only child before me today! Steve, if you only knew the depth of my affection for the great soul who created you! Without his heroic example to inspire me, where would I be today? I told Owner Holly Hill after our tragic trip home that if Commissioner Peterson would send a PFL jet to swoop down upon your dad to ensure a safe delivery from wherever he now is, I would play one more full season in this expensive and dangerous league for damn-near free—that is, if it were only guaranteed, oh most certainly, that I’d be on B-B’s team. I might contribute most of my salary to a charity of the Brancusi family’s choice. Plus, on a purely personal level, making permanent bonds between Boom-Boom and me, between my Elena and Mari, we could add an apartment to this mansion you visit today, rooms designed for your family’s convenient pleasure should you desire personalized accommodations when traveling near Marin, this convenient county we have chosen for our off-season living. Thus two sets of lives could intertwine in social interchange, on holidays or any days—friends forever . . . until rust reclaims our arms and legs . . . and dark dust defames all records of our games. I wonder, however, if Commissioner Rose Herself would be a touch too jealous to allow me to engage in such salary schemes—PFL precedent-setting paranoia on her part. And it pains me so to say it, although I have heard some others say it, maybe she preferred to have B-B be hassled instead of sailing home smoothly through the clouds with me. Although I’m certainly not aware of what her motive could be . . .”
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
Along with the elongating shadows settling on the deck itself, a momentarily awkward shadow suggestive of sadness flickered across the face of Red Rust’s wife, a face laced with tears at hearing Ms. Peterson spoken of that way—my Rose by any other name . . . the distant lady from whom Elena was now disinherited was, yes, yet her mother . . . Brancusi’s only heir then sighed, wondering why Elena should cry.
MILES (as though “venting”):
“Mr. Red Rust, son of tragic A. E. Rust, in the Reston household your name is uttered with nothing but respect. Whenever my brothers and sister or I would ask about you, our father would praise your lucid intelligence. Hoping, then, that I won’t overstep a perimeter of protocol, I suspect you would agree that this suddenly lachrymose mood could cloud our thoughts and rob us of reason. Times spent in your presence are much too precious to spoil with hints of depression . . . Let’s make efforts to keep everything in respectful perspective—be as positive as possible for as long as we can. Night will fall fully without our pulling at its curtains. Don’t misinterpret—I would give way to a deep depression and experience all sadness if members of my immediate family or one of my closest friends were found to be dead or maybe held hostage to crime. How could one remain actually cheerful in the face of something like that? What comfort could one find? I would spend my days contemplating pictures, perhaps some in a scrapbook, most in my mind, and I no doubt would weep . . . “
THE RED RANGER (voice suggesting he is . . . stunned? confused? alarmed?):
“Young Stoner, I guess your words are sometimes clear and sometimes rational but always to your credit to have said them. I would expect these . . . insights . . . from someone with more years—more life experience—than you. I can have no problem in understanding the way you were raised by my reliable Seahound teammate Reston. In these so-troubled times it is easy to identify a child whose father neglected none of the old familial graces—some of those not always familiar to each of your peers! Your dad certainly did marry well, chose exactly the right lady, and the pair of them did a hell of a job raising you and your siblings. It won’t be long before he hangs his fleet cleats, spends autumn afternoons at a warm hearth with warm-hearted family—instead of feeling his ribs shiver from some tackler’s elbow or hearing air gush from his helmet-squashed lungs. But you’re correct—enough of tears! You’re right to say we should ward off invited depressions. Especially on this day!—this day on which, just before you two arrived, we had just finished celebrating news of two other children of Seahounds: our son Digger and daughter Rhominy, each soon to be married to partners they’ll love! So Miles, in support of your notions, I second your emotion and vote we take our supper earlier than usual. Later, then, Steve and I can reserve our likely grim talk for fresh morning.
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
Red pressed a button to summon an assistant; about a minute later graceful Hal Lyons brought steaming linen: white towels sprinkled lightly with refreshing drops of lemon. After cleansing their hands then returning the linen, each of the men arose, ready to go inside to a dining room. Elena, seeming distinctly distracted, dabbed a hot towel to her forehead and whispered to her husband. She chose to excuse herself for a moment. The Red Ranger knew she wanted to visit her drugs, partake of the certain pill of tranquility shipped from abroad, a pill powerful enough—when taken only in careful quantity—to obscure certain sad memories, prevent recollection of the recent torrents of tears caused by her indiscreet action in the not-so-very-distant past. However, these capsules of such compassion (the fruit of a chemist’s white thumb), these so tiny containers of substances that might cushion the present imagination as well as some past realities—cushion those things to the extent she might even contemplate with calm Mother Rose Peterson Herself someday tucked lifeless in a coffin . . . well . . . yes, there was an inherent drawback . . . The pharmacist, Dame Paula Nation by name, one-time lover of Lord Richard Tuton, a professional boxer from London’s south end before becoming a part-owner of the PFL’s Iron Knights, and now also having profitable business interests in bruises and wounds and those things that could heal them or make one forget them—yes, still a business partner of no-longer-lover Dame Paula (whose apothecary was licensed, was legal, an establishment establishment where the elite might meet and greet the UK’s most beautiful people as they popped in and out to turn in prescriptions, designer descriptions of how to murder pain)—but oh, this Dame had warned Elena! Dame Paula—strangely educated in the mazes of Cairo, where she studied her arts in an underground school, taking a class from the club-footed astrologer who was once a great surgeon but became a servant savant to dark-arted seekers—yes, Paula had warned the guilt-ridden, once-upon-a-time rival for Lord Tutons’s . . . favors: “It’s a bit of that old Alice O’Wonderland,” she had said to her still favorite customer and long-reconciled friend. “You must take the time, employ properly calibrated tools to measure those granules just so! Remember that—as re-told by my favorite flight attendant, Gracie Slick—one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. If you mix in too much, you will forget what you want to forget, but you might forget many other things as well, welcome things worth retaining; but if you mix in too little, O you’ll not only remember it all—all those things you think you need to forget—but you’ll likely lose your inhibitions about telling it all!” Thus had advised a well-intentioned woman in the clearest of cautionary tones, as heard on the sound-file sent with such air-shipped prescription.
In a huge pantry behind the huger kitchen, Elena separated the ends of a capsule and shook most of its contents into an unusually tall glass of the imported fizzy water she intended to drink with dinner. Whether through simple carelessness or an anxiety-driven diminution of her normal coordination, more than a little of the capsule’s precious white contents drifted to the blond-wood floor, eluding her attention. Hearing husband Red call loudly from the dining area, Elena hurriedly took quick sips then carried the glass to that wedding-anniversary dinner table, carved from a single chunk of pale-pink quartz, with a jersey-numeral “5” inlaid in green at the center. She took another sip of her unlikely elixir and sat down to dine as attentive Hal Lyons circled in the background with a salad cart of appetizers and a variety of chilling beverages (of which Elena would not partake). Signaling a desire to take part in the pleasantries, Redmund’s wife shared a bright smile and began to address the two guests.
ELENA (voice ever-so-wispy):
“Boys, sons of Superstars, you probably know that my mother, Rose Peterson, has meted out many rulings and directives to control the PFL. Many so-called pigskin experts from the sidelines and the press-box claim that long ago the League would have folded without her vigorous vision of its future far-flung international possibilities. Who would have predicted that top teams would come from places like Singapore or Slovakia? Now sometimes her most controversial PFL rulings are in one’s favor, but sometimes they ignite one’s anger. I myself—and, yes, too, even sometimes my husband—have been punished with minor-but-still-highly-debatable penalties as a result of a couple of her allegedly ‘equitable’ decisions. ‘Fair to All Teams’ and all of that. As pigskin fans, you probably have read more than a little about some of those . . . rule-interpretation controversies . . . Yup! Such is the life of professional players and the families and fans who love them and . . . and . . . religiously follow The Game. But let us rest now an hour and relax with our fine food. Why don’t we share a few relevant perspectives on pigskin experiences?”
O Lover of Multi-Media Literacy, observe with all the innocence your imagination can muster how Elena gazes over the rim of her cylindrical glass, smiles at her husband, and swallows more of her sparkling concoction. The next few minutes are managed by efficient Hal Lyons as he ministers to the early-evening diners. Cleanly plated oysters with fresh discs of lemons and dollops of horseradish are placed all around, complemented by a medley of multicolored veggies. The boys select muddle-berried lemonade while Red requests Exclusive Ale from Edinburgh. Elena glances toward the oyster-slurping boys and raises her glass in salute.
ELENA (voice not as wispy as before):
“I’ll start things off with a tale of my own. And don’t worry—I won’t bore you boys with little details, minute microscopic irrelevancies. No, I will disclose a secret feat related to Boom-Boom’s heroism, an example of so carefully conceived courage on Dublin’s old sod. Actually, to be accurate, the feat took place not on a turf of literal gridiron battle but rather upon smooth carpet in the penthouse suite of the hated-opponent hotel. Dressed like a waiter in servant’s tuxedo, an All-Star Quarterback crept in disguise to the Iron Knight rooms, where, essentially undetected, B-B viewed a thick London playbook while room-serving pizza and burgers and beer. Of course, as soon as I entered the room, I recognized him. How could I not, despite deceptive disguise? As he walked toward the exit door I followed to ask him just what it might be that he thought he was up to in that Iron Knight room; but he smoothly eluded providing any answer, absurdly pretending there was nothing amiss—only claiming he could just as logically ask the same suspicious question of me! For a moment, it seemed from his face that he feared I’d go betray him—expose his identity to those SupraBowl foes. But I rushed him right out toward the hall, across to the lift. We entered, punched a button, and descended to the lobby’s Stanislaus Bar. I offered to buy him a drink and promised not to reveal to his SupraBowl opponents any part of his trickery if only he’d agree to leave right away—go back to his Seahound hotel without mentioning me—avoid all further risks! But, was he wondering more about me than I was wondering about him? I quickly considered the clues—knew why he was there. But B-B could not have known that Red and I had had a bit of a . . . blowout a week or so before. You boys don’t need to know a detailed . . . backstory, just an old unfortunate misunderstanding, certainly, about a previous friendship I had enjoyed long ago with a couple of Iron Knight . . . personnel. Regardless of that—and getting back to the game—B-B’s mind was definitely on the SupraBowl: he said right then and there he felt confident of things working out, insisting that the Seahounds of Seattle were indeed well prepared, had a game plan for demoralizing the Iron Knights of London— and after declining my offer of a . . . peace-making drink, he quickly agreed it was best for sure to leave pronto. But ever a clever and wily one, occasionally unafraid when fear should be applicable, on his way toward the door your dad opened his coat and much in the mode of stereotyped raincoated peddlers, revealed in the faux serving jacket’s inner breast pocket a page torn from that Iron Knight playbook. ‘Some Filthy French Draw Plays?’ He snickered at his own devilish wit, then started striding away to vacate the vicinity of the risky rivals’ camp. He could not resist, however, a last little dig. Spinning around, he held high that playbook, cocked it down by his ear, pretended to toss a Hail Mary pass—only to drop it accidentally to the floor! An Iron Knight cheerleader of my brief acquaintance, male, in his full rally costume, emerging from a separate lobby bar, looking rumpled and raw, looked over at B-B, and then looked down at it, and leaned over to the floor to grab at the book. He could clearly see that key word ‘confidential’ right next to an Iron Knight logo. He squinted. Then he nodded. He looked up suspiciously at the ‘waiter’ before him—then quickly noticed me standing there too. He knew who I was, of course—yes, we had partied together for just a few minutes not two hours before. He mumbled something hasty—and nasty—about spying or cheating. That shoulder-length wig making up part of Boom-Boom’s disguise was now tilting askew on his shaking head and this Iron Knight acolyte shouted out loudly “I know this guy!” Then he turned to me in supposed friendship to ask me if everything was totally cool or if there might now be something we were expected to do to foil your dad’s plans for those prized playbook pages. But I swiftly led the mascot from London to believe I had smartly and so secretly tricked B-B. It is gospel, boys, I can come across so convincing if I really want to be! Also, it helped considerably that this rally dude was apparently inebriated. Staying on point, staying in focus, I whispered a few cleverly false words about my having planted a deceptive set of false formations that had nothing at all to do with any of the true London Iron Knight game-day plans. He winked at me and gave all the pages back to your father. I escorted the naive Knight guy back to his bar of choice saying we had time to make up more fake stories over tonic and gin.”
TMI? Or NEI? Too much? Not enough? The son of Brancusi certainly seems perplexed, Dear Football Fanatic, and I would guess you, too, O Believer-in-the-Rulebook-and-Associated-Principles-of- Sportsmanship, are similarly confounded. To judge from the look on the face of Steve, if Elena’s intention had been to narrate an account of Boom-Boom’s wily tactics and thereby make his boy Beam-Beam with pride, she has failed utterly. She, seemingly, notices not the expression of silent consternation on the face of at least one of her guests and at least one of their hosts. She continues to sip demurely from her imported ambiguous liquid.
ELENA (voice not bombastic but occasionally bold):
“You see, boys, I had finally regained my moral vision. I had finally seen the brightest of lights. I knew I wanted to return to Seattle, in favor again with my dearest husband, the wonderful man who hosts our table tonight. I was sincerely repentant for sins I had committed, and admitted the inane insanity of considering leaving this man—even if ever so briefly—a perfect husband, the one I’ll adore until the day I am dead. There is no use denying those mistakes I have made. I realized just how much I needed to change—to patch things up. But the truth is not nearly as evil as the Microphonies or tabloids would have you fully . . . believe.”
The actually humiliated Redmund Rust looks more than alarmed at what Elena is saying. His lips look paralyzed, his entire face appears frozen. Miles looks radically embarrassed, is struggling to maintain a neutral expression. The potentially humiliated son of Brancusi is unable to remain silent.
STEVE (voice unnaturally flat, emotionally non-committal):
“Maybe I misunderstood what you just told us. Did you just claim my father stole a playbook from those Iron Knights the night before the . . . ?
Before his wife can answer, watch Red Rust swallow the last foam of his third bottled ale, his lips no longer paralyzed, his face no longer frozen.
THE RED RANGER (voice cracking):
“A revealing choice of anecdotes, Elena, but far less than half the story! Boom-Boom’s strategic and tactical skills go way beyond pilfering precious pigskin playbooks! In my long career, I’ve seen many who were strong and fast and smart; but none holds even a faint and flickering candle to the great Brancusi when it comes to the question of consistent cunning. I will illustrate further what his wit lets him do. Boys, after the eighth period—the fourth overtime—on that boggy and damp field in Dublin during the ten-minute rest break between overtime periods, when we two sneaked to our foes’ locker-room in the uniform color of those inexorable opponents, the Iron Knights of London—yes, the pair of us in no-longer pressed pants or laundered jerseys as they had been when purloined the night before by my sincerely repentant wife in case we’d have need of some last-minute tactical tricks—astonishingly enough, as B-B and I neared London’s locker-room, who should appear but my loving Elena herself!
At this, Elena quaffs the remaining quantity of fizz from her talisman tumbler. Creases of confusion creep across her forehead. O Meticulous and Opera-Glassed Watcher, read her silent but articulating lips: “I did?”
THE RED RANGER (voice perhaps stronger, maybe finished with its cracking):
“There she was, several yards away, back half-turned, in the warmest flesh a woman has ever walked in, wearing a navy-hued below-the-knee skirt and a neutral yoga exercise top betraying neither Seattle nor London logo. But at first, I can confess, I was uncertain about certain motives. I can almost claim a paranoia—maybe some Mafia don who bet on the Knights put pressure on my wife to . . . to . . . somehow have me and my teammates undone! I know now, of course, that was far from the truth! But you did, Darling, distract my attention, forced my mind from a previously exclusively top-priority plan! And that part-owner Iron executive with his obvious muscles, his matinee looks, and no-doubt armored-car bucks, was standing right next to you in obvious infatuation!
With your back now turned completely away from me, three times I over-heard you speak to him about Seahounds, Elena, dropping player names to impress that rich dude? But it seemed to me, Oh My Precious, your motives were inscrutably mixed: your words seemed to praise us, our names left your lips in tones of musical grace, making me think for a moment we should stand up taller—perhaps to give out greeting, though not exactly to come out of our disguised hiding and cancel our deed. I realize now my major misconceptions or . . . misperceptions . . . had roots in exhaustion and gridiron injury. I could not think straight. My ankle was bent, groin gouged, pointer-finger broken . . . But Boom-Boom made sure we steeled-up our courage, didn’t dare expose to those others our Seahound identities. If I had been all alone, I would have rushed to your side, Dear Elena, to turn you around, to see your face, to redeem any apology, to reclaim you as mine—to affirm that our love could become stronger than ever! Yes, all that our Boom-Boom could tell—he knows me so well. Like metal to magnet I could have snapped straight to you. Oh indeed, no doubt, and buddy B-B Brancusi could relate—he would be craving wife Mari with equal intensity had it been she strolling there upon our weary path. Small sound from my big mouth must have touched Boom-Boom’s near ear: a sigh, not a swoon, but soon maybe a moan, something more would escape from my lips, involuntary, profound, inevitable reaction to that sight of you, Elena, My Loving Darling.”
Elena’s husband turns in her direction, sets down his fourth bottle of ale, reaches his condensation-cooled hand toward her warmer palm. She gives it to him gladly, her face a thesaurus for words like “astonished,” “amazed,” or even “discombobulated.” Steve and Miles have become ancient statues of silence.
THE RED RANGER (voice as if humming a lullaby):
“Yes, you, Elena, my only true love, a woman whose presence transcends The Game. In a moment of weakness both braced knees began to buckle, a foot stepped an inch or more toward your back. But my Boom-Boom steadied my thigh and silenced my all-too-obvious sigh—forced a shoulder-pad against my jaw, kept my lips clamped against my teeth, successfully prevented a further noise.”
STEVE (muttering in hot and irritated tones):
“Way TMI! Or way NEI!”
Redmund Rust, in his ale-fueled trance, seems to trust that whatever he is disclosing is totally appropriate for all ears present to hear.
THE RED RANGER (words occasionally but inconsistently slurred):
“Thus shafely we watched from inshide their locker-room, disguised we each were in tactically muddied and wrinkled London Knights’ garb as their frantic Coaches chalked up X’s and O’s and ranted about offense, railed against the defense, plotted new plays to deliver the sudden-death goods—to tote a title to Merrie Olde England, to that Immortal Bard’s backyard! But the players’ words of response were far from Thakespearean, unless you consider them groundling oaths from smelly taverns, fit for only clownish ears. It wash Anglo Saxon muttering but barely Elizabethan! Inept were their attempts at invoking inshpiration! Yeah, O thought they did? Can they claim Slakespeare’s name as part of their tradition? And speaking of the playbooks, the famous impostor of Avon—who didn’t write those plays!—would not have wanted to root for such crude UK vulgarians!”
Hold your breath, My Devoted Accomplice, as Red’s fourth bottle begats yet a fifth after the back of his hand wipes wet off his spilled-upon barely-there beard.
THE RED RANGER (weirdly sighing, vocal energy dying):
“But thanks to Boom-Boom we heard all they had to say—and sneaked safely away . . . Undetected we left their overtime huddle, returned to our own, told what we had heard in there—in the lair of our foe. Changing jerseys from Knight back to Seahound, we prepared to take advantage of the news to be used in our nearly endless struggle toward PFL supremacy.
STEVE (sounding ingenuous? literally innocent? pathologically disillusioned?):
“O Seahound Captain, PFL All-Star, son of A. E. Rust, forget the Iron Knights and dwell only upon the nights of irony. First in the list is a fact to offend me. I hear you both saying my father’s a cheat, used tricks less than honorable . . . And then it occurs to my immature mind if my dad’s wit could be that clever, as wickedly clever as you each describe, then how is it he’s not clever enough to haul himself home? Riding in an airplane or floating in a boat to his home in Seattle seems simpler to accomplish than sitting London-jerseyed in an Iron Knight locker-room spying their game plans! But as you ruled earlier this evening, such discussion can wait completion till a fresh day is upon us. I need some time for pondering the unvarnished cause of my wonders—weird wonders. So we accept, Miles Stoner and I, with odd gratitude, your . . . gracious invitation now to spend the remains of a restful evening beneath this . . . your peaceful, maybe protective, roof.
For the first time in a long time Red’s mouth remains closed. He swivels his neck to look at Elena. Her features seem drowsy, her smile pasted on. He looks back at the boys and nods in somber—if not sober—agreement, then signals to Hal to round up more food.
SUPRA-TITLE
[Trademark Pend.]
Almost an hour later, after desserts were devoured, a welcome suggestion was broached by the hosts that they all retire early to get good and healthful rests now that the afternoon sun was shrinking its way to full evening, its declining light determined to hide the sorrows spoken of openly in that different light of earlier day. Elena called for Stardate and tiredly requested that beds be prepared (guest-room sheets of sapphire satin topped by delicate ivory comforters, stuffed with down but not to bursting, enough for warmth but without much weight). Soon Stardate returned, and with a flashlight as long as the handle of a chimney-sweep’s broom led Steve and Miles outside across a flagstoned walk, up across a hardwood, red-stained bridge spanning the huge aquarium where three fluorescent fish flashed and winked in the silver-slivered growing-moon-light night, then on over to the outside elevator of pink-tinted glass that took them up seven floors to a quiet, skylit, place for safe sleep.
About the writer:
Mr. Brewer’s “Juan and Donne” appeared in O:JA&L in 2023 and his “Pilgrim Ways and Voices” in 2025.
Image: Fourth Down, No Time-Outs Left (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2026. Public domain via Midjourney AI.
Other work from J.J. Brewer available on O:JA&L:
Prose Discourse: Fiction|Short Story||James Joaquin Brewer|”Juan and Donne”
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
The O:JA&L Free Presses Masters Series
The O:JA&L Free Presses Masters Series (from OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters) gathers acclaimed writers for concise, downloadable chapbooks that pair fresh work with candid reflections on craft. Each installment—often framed by an interview with an associate editor—opens a window onto how masters of poetry, prose poetry, flash fiction, and related hybrid forms build voice, compression, and surprise. Designed as a reader’s invitation and a writer’s toolbox, the series celebrates literary art that moves fast, cuts deep, and lingers long after the last line.
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Prose Poetry and Flash Discourse
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Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
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Mark Budman on Flash Fiction & Nonfiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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Ray Gonzalez on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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Michael Martone on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
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Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
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Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
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Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
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MIixed Forms: Haibun, Haiga, & Tanka Prose
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Roberta Beary on Haibun
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