Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 4

“Yeah, Moose,” Uncle Ernest said—pausing to raise his glass, as I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall with the swallow— “she was a beauty despite the strange get-up and the weirdest English accent I’d ever heard. Her talk was precise, educated but hard for me to understand. The closest thing I can compare her accent to is the speech of the older folks on Smith Island, off Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“Her vowel sounds were drawn out and emphasized—really funny, and I couldn’t help giggling a bit when I first heard her. And when she saw me laugh she gave me a dark look that would have killed a lesser man. ‘What are you doing here, on my island, dressed like some fool?’ she fumed. ‘Don’t you remember that death is the penalty for setting foot on this island?’ Her ‘can’t,’ Moose, came out as ‘cauln’t.’

“ ‘Well, Miss,’ I said, surprised at her anger, ‘I just dropped in to take a look at all of those pretty flowers and shrubbery that you have all fixed up here, and I thought they looked gorgeous until you walked out; now they just look kind of dull.’ She then looked at me and, believe it or not, I saw her melt right before my eyes.”

“Geez, Unk, I hope I’ll be able to think like that if I ever need to in the future.”

“Uh Huh,” Uncle Ernest said with a quick wink, “but the strange thing is that I don’t usually think that quickly; something told me that she was very special. ‘Please pardon my rudeness kind sir,’ she said in a soft, gentle voice, and, Moose, she then took my hand and led me through that exquisite garden, pointing out which flowers and bushes were her favorites. Believe me, the place would put any of the botanical gardens in the world to shame.

“Then we sat in an elaborately-decorated double chair, under a huge chestnut tree, and I was surprised to see that she was still holding my hand. I took hold of both of her hands, pulled her closer to me, and whispered in her ear that she was prettier than a frog’s ear. She drew her head away to look me seriously in the eyes and, seeing a twinkle there, her face lit up with the prettiest smile I had ever seen. Always remember, Moose, that next to a compliment, the thing a woman likes best is humor.”

“Right, Unk,” I sneered. “What do I care about that?”

“Oh, you will,” Uncle Ernest said, smiling as he rose to go through that screen door again.

Shaking my head over such a dumb uncle, I leapt off the chair, and ran over towards a young rabbit that was nibbling the clover near our lilac bush. As I approached, he raised his head and hopped off towards our dirt lane. When I ran faster after him he zigzagged frantically across the lane into the weeds of our South Field.

That guy was too quick to catch so I walked back and sat on our steep hill—the hill that I had sledded down so many times that winter—and  looked down towards the woods where Dave-the-Colored-Man lived in his run-down, gray house in the clearing. He lived alone and, when I climbed his steps and tapped on the glass pane of his door, he was always glad to see me and treated me wonderfully.

The best things about visiting Dave were hearing him play his guitar and shooting his .22 rifle. I would say, “Can you play your guitar for me, Dave?”

“Sho thing, ah kin, Sonny,” he would say, and get it from another room, sit down heavily on the old couch (he was a big man), and pluck out boogie-woogie tunes for about a half hour. I loved it and can hear still the deep, rich tones of that marvelous guitar.

I kept asking for more until he completed his repertoire, and then he would chuckle deeply, put the instrument away, and say, “We kin shoot the gun ef you want to, Sonny.”

“All right,” I’d say. “Great!” Then Dave would get the rifle and a small box of .22 shorts. Dave would walk over to his wooden well top to set up six or seven tin cans while I sat on his back steps holding the gun with the barrel pointing towards the sky. When he came back he’d load a round into the chamber—it was a single shot rifle—and let me shoot first.

If I missed, his large moon-brown face would light up and his deep, booming laugh would echo across the clearing in the woods. He would shoot next and we’d take turns until most of the bullets were gone. Then I’d run on up the path toward home and he’d wave and call out in his resonant basso, “Come see me agin, Sonny.”  [To be continued Friday, 8/03/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 3

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 3

“You know, Moose,” Uncle Ernest continued, “I was ready for an adventure that day in the park so many years ago. I ran home for some supplies—mainly a couple jugs of Ole Granddad—set up that balloon, climbed inside the basket, hit the inflation button, and rose gracefully above the busy streets of Wilmington on that splendid summer evening.

“Yes indeed, Moose, the wind was out of the west so I sailed east—over the Christina River, the Delaware River, and out above the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. When darkness fell I was still gliding east, so I just went to sleep. After all, the balloon was magical and I trusted completely the drunken guy who turned out to be a wizard or a genie or something. But I never could have imagined the power that was to come from that amazing flying basket.

“I awoke to the sound of cascading surf surging into the shore, and as I looked out at the sparkling whitecaps of the Atlantic, I realized that my basket was not moving but was hovering just above the shoreline, a gently-swaying cradle in the breeze. It was as if it had been waiting for me to wake before proceeding. And when I turned around, inland, I saw why.

“Extending as far as I could see—left or right or above—were pure-white chalk boulders. Moose, you wouldn’t believe the view as the balloon ascended: cliffs of chalk on one side and the blue Atlantic on the other. The balloon kept ascending high above the white cliffs and ocean for my birds-eye view—incredible!

“Then, abruptly, my basket drifted inward, over thatch-roofed cottages and small patchwork farms, some of which were being worked by farmers with large draft horses pulling odd-looking plows. Then my basket descended and started gliding above a river with sailboats of all sizes making their way in different directions. As I was swept along I could see a castle and a tower off to the right, and on the river, on the right, fairly close to the shore, was a wooded island.

“Well, that balloon sailed above the island, hovered above an opening in the trees, and descended softly next to a small cottage. When I climbed out I looked around and discovered that it was a perfect little park, a sort of miniature Longwood Gardens. I was about to take a stroll through the orchids when a young woman, dressed in a purple bathrobe, came out of the cottage wagging her finger at me.”

“Good grief, Unk! Who in the world was that?”

“Moose, I don’t know exactly,” he said, toasting me with his glass of bare ice cubes, “but when I get back I’ll tell you all about her; she was an amazing young lady for sure.”

When Uncle Ernest rose from the white-slatted chair with an audible effort of fatigue, I jumped off and skipped to the roots of our old maple tree. Springing up, I caught with both hands the lowest branch, did a chin-up, threw my leg over, and lay back, legs dangling and head resting on the crusted bark.

With the thoughts of Uncle Ernest’s eerie story in my head, I remembered the old Stubble’s house—the haunted house back in the woods. At the time, a fat, jolly colored man, Dave, lived in the house, and he said that sometimes at night, when he relaxed in his easy chair, he could hear footsteps on the stairs leading to the bedrooms.

He said, chuckling, that he would always sit at dusk and gaze at the wild animals meandering about in the clearing near his well (deer, raccoons, possums, and rabbits were plentiful back there in the middle of the woods). He said that when he went up to bed the chair would be facing the clearing, but when he came down in the morning the chair would be facing the stairs; the spirit of the house liked a different view. When I asked—wide-eyed at the weirdness—if the ghosts frightened him, he grinned as his eyes twinkled in that moon-round, shiny-brown face and told me, “No sahw, Sonny; da doan bodder me an ah doan bodder dem.”

Yes, indeed, Nina, I had and was to have a lot of fun with Dave-the-Colored-Man. I started thinking some other things about him, but just then I looked down and saw Uncle Ernest smiling up at me in his favorite white tank shirt and baggy pants, with his left hand on his hip and his right hand clutching the fresh drink. I turned, dropped, hung for a second or two from the limb, and plopped to the ground, anxious to hear what happened next.  [To be continued Tuesday, 7/31/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 2

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 2

While Uncle Ernest fixed his drink, I did a few forward rolls and, dizzy, sat up just in time to see a robin dart onto the grassy island next to our pump trough. She stood erect and motionless, proud red breast puffed out, and beak lifted high. She then skittered quickly across the grass with her body tilted level with the ground like a speed boat leveling into its plane. Stopping abruptly, she again presented that boasting chest and attentive head.

In a flash, she pivoted her body downward, placing her beak about an inch from the ground, with head tilted as if listening for some weak though important message. She stabbed the ground, bringing up a wriggling, startled worm. Repeating her quick-footed, level dash and her martial stance—with the frenzied worm dangling in her beak—she flew swiftly off towards the cedar trees as Uncle Ernest, clinking the fresh cubes in his glass, sat beside me with a grunt.

“What was under those leaves, Unk, a pile of money or a pot of gold?” I asked, excited.

“Moose, when that fellow disappeared like that I thought all that liquor finally killed all of my brain cells, even the strong ones. You know what it’s like when you wake from a bizarre dream sometimes. For a few waking seconds you’re still there in that wacky, absurd situation. You think that you really did just fly from the ground to the top of a tree three hundred feet away. Or, for those few seconds you really believe that someone you love—now dead—is alive, and you rejoice in it until the mind in short, quick, logical steps sorts out the fuzziness and pierces you with the truth.”

“Aw, Unk, stop it; you’re scaring me with that talk.”

“Sorry my boy, I forget sometimes that you’re just a kid, but you know dreaming can have the opposite effect. Something horrible can happen but when you wake up you’re relieved that you were only dreaming.”

“Yeah, that sure does happen to me, but what in the world was under those leaves anyway?” I asked again.

“Well, when I came to my senses I walked over to the park and started brushing aside that enormous pile of oak leaves, trying not to look like a fool messing with leaves that somebody took time to rake. I kept brushing them for a while and was about to quit when my fingers struck something hard. When I cleared all the leaves away, I found a large basket, big enough for several people to sit in. Inside the basket were rope and a gigantic balloon made out of some kind of rubberized canvas. Under the canvas was a round tank with printed letters reading: ‘Never needs refilling—press button to take off.’ ”

“Geez, Unk!” I yelled. “It was a hot-air balloon?”

“Right you are, Moose. And it was magical and from the ancient world, just as the guy I helped said, and I put it to use right away. When I get back, I’ll tell you what I did with it.”

As Uncle Ernest trudged towards the house to visit once again with Ole Granddad, slamming the screen door hard as he entered, I thought about what had happened one evening last week. My Pop and I went down to see old Bill Herman and his horse, Babe, for some reason or another. You remember old Bill from an earlier story don’t you, Nina? At any rate, while Pop was chewing the fat with Bill, I walked down to look at the pigs that were rooting up the ground in their pen. As I trotted towards the pen I heard a high-pitched squeal coming from the well area.

I ran over and there in the grass on the other side of the well was a black snake coiled around a young rabbit, squeezing the life out of it. The rabbit was whining to beat the band as the snake squeezed and maneuvered the rabbit’s head towards its open jaws. I ran over and whacked the snake with a stick till it slowly uncoiled from around the rabbit and slithered off into the weeds.

Well, Nina, I’ll tell you, I felt great about saving that rabbit. I rubbed it awhile, as it took deep breaths and shivered, and when I set it down it wobbled a bit but then hopped slowly and carefully out into the field. Feeling proud about myself, I started walking across the wooden top of Bill’s well. All of a sudden—in a split second—I was at the bottom of the well, treading water and trying to cling to the brick sides.

In the old days, Nina, the wells were dug by hand; the sides were bricked up, and the top was covered with wooden planks. To get water, you would lift up the hatch, throw down a bucket with a rope attached, and haul up the fresh spring water. A tin cup was always next to the well so you could take a long, slow drink.

Bill’s well was so old that the rotten planks couldn’t even hold the weight of a small boy, but I yelled my head off till Pop and Bill fished me out. Believe me, Nina, I was scared. Pop yelled at me and made me promise not to go near an old well ever again. My thoughts returned to the present when Uncle Ernest returned, grinned at me, and took a long, grateful swig of his drink.  [To be continued Friday, 7/27/2012

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 1

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Lizzie, Chapter 1

Nina, have I ever told you that my Uncle Ernest stayed on the farm with us one summer in the early forties? Well, he sure was fun to be with. I remember seeing him sprawled out on our wooden lawn chair one afternoon, so I skipped over, jumped up next to him, and watched as he opened his eyes to gaze at me. “What are you up to, Moose the Goose?” he asked, taking a nice, slow swig of his drink.

“Did you ever have any fun, Unk, when you were a young guy back in Wilmington?”

“Naaah, mostly boring stuff … but I guess I could tell you about one crazy thing that happened to me."

“Great!” I said, settling back in the chair with pleasure.

“Now then,” he began, “here's what happened. One day, I was walking around back by the park and past the St. Anne’s Church, just taking in the sights and smelling the burning leaves in the park, and as I was heading back home past the steel fence that surrounds all the back yards of the houses on Fourth Street, and ...”

“Yeah! Yeah!” I blurted out. “That’s the same fence that kept me from getting in the house when those Italian bullies were chasing me. The gate was locked and they caught me and started beating up on me. Remember? I think I told you how I hit one of the thugs with my beanie with the steel buckle on top. I nailed him right on the cheek and he started crying and holding his face.”

“OK, Moose, OK, I do remember when that happened. So, anyway, as I was saying, when I looked across Fourth Street toward the warehouse, I saw something unusual in the gutter. A black guy, wearing a filthy felt hat and oversized shoes with the soles flapping when he moved them, lay sprawled out along the grate. Dirty water was dammed against his shoulder and a rivulet curled under his neck and trickled through the grate, making a hollow tinkling as it hit the bottom of the storm drain.

“The guy was in bad, bad shape. He had crusted blood on his nostrils and was breathing hard and moaning. From the wine odor I could tell that he was just an old drunk. But do you know something? I just had to help him, so I pulled him up and got him to my house and into the kitchen. ‘Thanks Bud. Thanks Bud,’ he kept saying, as I fixed him some soup and coffee. It was after the coffee that it happened. The strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. His whole appearance changed. He sat up straight and looked at me across the table with wise, sensitive eyes. When he took off his hat, I saw an enormous ball of black hair rolled up in a bun about eight inches high.

“Then, in an eerie Far-Eastern accent he spoke, slowly and majestically: ‘I am from the ancient world, Sahib, a world of marvelous enchantments beyond belief.’ My eyes must have bugged out of my head, because he held my gaze, reached across the table, and covered my hands with his. ‘For your kindness,’ he continued, ‘you can share the magic of the old world. It is in the park beneath a large pile of leaves under the largest oak tree. Use it well, Sahib; you deserve it.’

“Well, before I could reply the kettle started to boil over, and when I turned back to him after switching off the burner, he was gone.”

“That’s too weird, Unk, too weird,” I said, in a trembling voice.

        “Don’t worry, Moose,” he said, roughing up my hair. “If you think that guy was weird, wait until I tell you what I found under that pile of leaves.”  [To be continued Tuesday, 7/24/2012]

Times of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 7

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 7

       "As I approached that same Wilmington dock, ten years later to the day, I saw from a distance a red glow. And when I got closer I felt a chill shoot up my spine. It was Afrodidy, sitting in the same spot, with her legs dangling rhythmically under the wharf and that crimson hair waving delightfully in the afternoon sun. Moose, she was smiling and waving as I pulled in, and she looked exactly the same as she did when I departed."

       "Let it go, Unk. Don't describe her again, please; once is enough."

       "Sorry, Moose, I hate to deprive you of her beauty, but I'll let it go. I will say that we had a special time together. We embraced for a long while, there on that dock, and I told her that I wanted her forever. And she sobbed a little and said, 'Oh, Ernie, my special mortal man. You must know that I am a goddess; I can live only in select moments of human life. But I will always be with you—alive in your memory. For now I can give you this, and it will be burned in your mind until you reach the Happy Isles. You have me till sunset tomorrow. You can decide what we do, where we go—anything.' So, Moose, I was one happy uncle.

              We loved with a love

              That was more than love,

              I and my Afrodidie.

       "And, believe it or not, I took her where I had offered to take Ellie, to God's Country, exotic Chesapeake City. Arm in arm we explored the town and the canal area, and in the evening we partied with the greats of the town: Captain Ed Sheridan, Joe Savin, Jay Sager, Dr. Davis, Ralph Hazel, Archie Crawford, Roy Foard, Frank Bristow, Clem Vaughan, Patty Carlton, Kitty Schaefer, and Bill Herman.

       "Didie said that Schaefer's devilled crab was the best in the universe. She loved the enchantment of riding the ferry back and forth across the canal, and as we embraced we watched the moonlight dance on the wake. We even went to Summit so we could ride the lift bridge up and down. We spent the night at the Inn at the Canal, and for our last day together I took her to White Crystal Beach. We danced on the boardwalk to the music from the jukebox, melodious love songs of yesteryear. Our last hours we spent loving on the pure-white sand, gazing across the Elk at Turkey Point, enhanced by the presence of the lighthouse, a distant white column against the dark green trees.

       "Yet sunset was approaching, Moose, and I thought that if I kept her tightly in my arms she wouldn't go. But in an instant—when the last dim glow descended—I felt a shock, like touching a spark plug. And instead of the wondrous Didie in my arms, I was hugging a forked tree branch, topped by a glob of seaweed. Just before she changed she put her lips against my ear and whispered, jarring alert my senses and implanting forever her words in my mind with tender gusts of warm breath: 'I'll never forget you, Ernie. Never forget you!' "

       I sat there, smiling, Nina, because as we talked our sun (mine and Unk’s) was setting. And soon he'd be gone and I'd be inside next to the radio, laughing with the laughter. Sure enough, that old Uncle Ernest jumped me, got me in a headlock, and knuckled my skull. But I escaped easily and asked him if he hadn't touched up some of those wild stories. He looked at me with a frown, and with mock anger asked: "Do you think your only uncle in the world could do that? You behave yourself, Moose the Goose."

       So then, Nina, I watched him trudge the shortcut across our long field towards town. His figure became smaller as he descended the hill. When he reached the corner intersecting the road to town, I saw him bob down the embankment and disappear behind the contorted maple tree that marked our property line. He would haunt the saloons until dawn, sometimes returning the next day and sometimes not. But while I sat there as the day died, I felt a sorrow come over me, and in my head resounded softly the words: "Never forget you … never forget you …"

[A new book (third of the trilogy) to begin Friday, 7/20/2012 – Days of Uncle Ernest]

Times of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 6

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 6

       "You'll be surprised to know, Moose, that I found Ellie and Mendy pretty quickly, thanks to a new GPS that I had discovered installed in the sub. That was Didie's doings, to be sure. When I found them they were still in a stupor, without a care in the world. So I did the only sensible thing I could do, Moose. I slung a limp Ellie over my shoulder and stuck my sword in Mendy's ribs, forcing him to walk ahead of us to the sub.

       "After a couple of days at sea they were back to normal, only now there was more bad luck for me. Instead of Ellie falling all over me, as I had expected, she was now in love with Mendy. That lobis drug had altered her mind, Moose. Nothing I did or said would bring her to her senses. I even told her that I'd take her back with me to marvelous Chesapeake City, where we could hang out in the Hole-in-the-Wall with Birdy the Bartender.

       “I enticed her with the thought of eating out at John Schaefer's superb restaurant, where his tasty devilled crab dish was the talk of the country. I tried to seduce her with the romantic notion of swimming in the C&D Canal, at the famous Burnt House Swimming Hole, where we could embrace on the grassy bank and watch the current swirl around the lighthouse.

       "But no amount of luxury, not even the charm and excitement of Chesapeake City, could convince her. The damage to her brain was complete, because she grabbed me by the shoulders, glared in my face, and yelled, 'Listen, Ernie, you goofball! My man is Mendy. Is that clear!' It was clear to me that she was deranged, but it made Mendy the happiest man in the world. So I took them back to Sparka, where soon they had a spectacular wedding. It was what Mendy had wanted all along so I was happy for them both. I was his best man, Moose and, when we said our good-byes, guess what they said they'd name their first son?"

       "I know, Unk, 'Ernie!' "

       "Sure thing, Moose—'Ernest Lunt Mendelus!' Doesn't that have a splendid ring to it? And it made me feel great as I headed back to Wilmington across the vast Atlantic.  [To be continued Tuesday, 7/17/2012]

Times of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 5

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 5

       "With that crisis over,” Uncle Ernest continued, “we could then make plans to free those poor Isrollerites. Before that, though, I had to help Patti's people with a major problem. You see, they had a custom of entombing their important people in the basements of stone structures. Well, I walked by one of them and the smell was unbearable. So I had a meeting with all the country's morticians. I explained and demonstrated the science of taxidermy.

       "Then I showed them how to wrap the bodies in layers of cloth to pickle them. I knew that if they did that the bodies would last a while and make the evening air a lot more pleasant. Tootie and Patti were especially happy because they told me that someday they themselves would be preserved that way and placed in the giant, pointed towers that I had built for them.

       "At last Patti and I were able to tackle the slave problem. We knew that Tootie was dead-set about freeing them because he liked the free labor they provided. But I had Patti on my side, and in the period of time when I stayed with the Isrollerites I got to know Mo very well. He said that he was the only slave that could swim because when he was a baby his mother stuck him in a basket and pushed it into the river. He said he used to dive from the basket and play among the lily pads.

       “Another remarkable thing about him, Moose, was that he was the only guy I had ever known who could get wine from a rock. That's right; he had only to tap his staff on any rock in the desert and it would spout out a fine, red vintage. Mo was proud of it, too, bragging that 3560 BC was a very good year.

       "Anyhow, we did some serious drinking together, sometimes partying until dawn. He had terrible hangovers, however, which interfered with his study of law. Yes indeed, Moose, I forgot to tell you that. On the sly, he was being tutored in law by a mountain guru, some brain with a long, gray beard and a booming voice. Geez, Moose, but I did feel sorry for Mo one afternoon. He was descending the mountain with an armload of stone law tablets that took him months to compile and engrave. Well, distracted by the hangover, he tripped on a root and broke those tablets into bits. He just sat on a rock for about four hours with his head in his hands. Another thing I remember is that Mrs. Mo didn't like me at all … complained that I was corrupting her husband.

       "Now, Moose, don't think that we goofed off with each other all the time, because one evening—before the hooch made us silly—we developed a plan for freeing his fellow Isrollerites. And one day, about a month after Patti cajoled Tony into departing, we carried out the plan. On a prescribed day, at dawn, all the slaves assembled at the Scarlet Sea, which was really an unguarded swampy area. We equipped each Isrollerite with hip boots, thinking that they could waddle through the swamp to freedom.

       "Well, Moose, bad luck plagued us because just as everybody showed up the crocodile god conjured up a hurricane. It struck hard, flooding the marsh and swelling the Scarlet Sea to a depth way over the slaves' heads. So there they were—millions of Isrollerites in their beanie caps, loin cloths, and hip boots—standing on the shore and singing 'We Shall Overcome.' "

       "God, Unk, that's awful sad!"

       "It sure was, Moose, and if it hadn't been for the cauldron of hot chicken soap that the mothers had prepared, they probably would have all caught pneumonia. And by that time, of course, Tootie's soldiers had gotten the word and were bearing down on them with their weapons drawn. But, guess what? I was prepared for something like this, for I had brought along several sticks of dynamite that were left over from the quarry blasting. I lit the fuses and heaved that dynamite to the middle of the river. Moose, you've never heard such a blast, but it left a huge, dry gap, allowing the Isrollerites to escape to the desert, and eventually they made it to their land of Bourbon and Honey. Tootie's troops couldn't pursue them because by the time they got there the river had surged back in deeper than before.

       "I mean to tell you, Moose, Tootie was furious with me. But with Patti's pleading and the recognition of how much I had done for his country, he relented. We even did some drinking together at a bar along the river. We were pals again, Moose, so I told him how to build a great dam across that river. Man, he was grateful, saying that it would be the next project, and that he'd name it the 'Great Ernie Dam.' And not only that, but he gave me Patti's hand in marriage, promising us a rancher overlooking the river, with water access, a wharf, and our own speedboat. Patti was ecstatic, and that night we celebrated and planned our wedding.

       "But, Moose, it was not to be. Shortly thereafter the country, Tootie, and I were devastated by the tragedy."

       "I knew it, Unk! Your natural bad luck again, right?"

       "Uh huh. Count on it, Moose. Here's the sad news. I was awakened one morning by cries of lamentations coming from the citizens. I knew something terrible had occurred, and when Tootie drove up in the Patti Wagon and approached me with tears in his eyes, I knew it was something personal. He told me that Patti was dead, bitten by her pet cobra, Aspi, who turned on her during the feeding. Well, we were all immensely saddened, but we stuffed her, wrapped her, and laid her in her massive tomb. After that I was really depressed, so after an extended farewell party I steamed off in the sub in search of Ellie and Mendy, my old girlfriend and buddy, whom I had left in a lethargic state in the Land of the Lobis Eaters.”  [To be continued Tuesday, 7/13/2012]

Times of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 4

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 4

       Just then, Nina, when uncle Ernest slipped into the house—as if it were planned—I heard a rattling coming up our lane, and when I ran over I saw the egg truck swerving towards me, trying unsuccessfully to miss the pot holes. Pop was expecting him, so he was in the chicken house loading up the egg crates. As the egg man backed his drab panel truck up to our hen house, I swung open the door, jumped in and yelled. "Hey, the egg man is here!" I mean to tell you, Nina, those hens went crazy. It was a breed called White Leghorns, and any unexpected noise scared them to death. They flew back and forth in there as if possessed, squawking and hurling themselves against the chicken-wire wall. Clouds of dust—dried chicken manure—filled the long room, stinking like mad and clouding visibility with ugly, brown smog.

       Breathing that stuff was deadly, so I flew out of there. When I opened the door that putrid dust seemed to follow me, and soon Pop emerged from the brown cloud, coughing and cussing. "God Almighty! I told you not to scare those hens. Don't ever go in there again, damn it!" He and the egg man had to wait quite a while for the dust to settle before they could load the crates into the truck. I felt pretty low, so I trudged on back to the yard chair to await Uncle Ernest's return. And it wasn't long, Nina, before he slumped next to me, happy with his full glass, to continue his story.

       "Yeah, Moose, Patti and I had a super evening, but around noon the next day Tootie's scouts brought news that a legion of fighting troops was marching towards the country. A general named Tony, who was one of Patti's old boyfriends, led the army. He was second in command to a guy named Jule, who was the emperor of Rheems, a powerful country that ruled the world at that time. He, too, I discovered to my regret, was a former boyfriend of Patti's. But she explained that she only pretended to be in love with them to save her country. 'Ernie dear,' she whispered lovingly in my ear, 'you're my first and only love.' Then she added in a firm voice, 'But you're going to let me handle Tony and that horde of troops.' My, it was hard for me not to take action, Moose, because of all the looting and plundering they did.

       "But, to make her happy I did what she said. I put on a beanie cap and went to live with the Isrollerites slaves. Tony was furious when he found out Patti had another boyfriend and, when he discovered that I had built that lion monument for Patti, he sent men up there to desecrate the face. They went up on ropes and used sledgehammers and chisels to destroy Patti's likeness. As far as I know that giant lion is still there. But I have no desire to see it, Moose, not with Patti's face damaged beyond recognition. But then, Moose, just as she said, Patti was able to control Tony. Yep, she sweet-talked him, charmed him somehow into sparing her country by invading and occupying England instead."  [To be continued Tuesday, 7/10/2012]

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 3

       "Then we drove to the top of a mountain and looked down on that great city by the river. The view was incredible. As the light diminished, we were in each other's arms, enjoying the intimacy I had been waiting for. We were girlfriend and boyfriend at last, and held each other until dawn. During the night we talked about a lot of things. I asked her why she didn't seem to like me on the day we met. 'Oh, Ernie, my Ernie,' she whispered, 'I loved you the second I saw you, but that remark hurt me—made me think you were making fun of me.'

       " 'What remark, sweetheart?'

       " 'The poem about my face being brighter than the sun. I thought you knew that the sun is our main god. It wasn't right for you to compare me to god and, besides, I'm dark complected.'

       " 'I'm sorry, Baby. I meant that as a sincere compliment—didn't know about your religion.'

       " 'We're a god-fearing people, Ernie dear,' she said, laying her head on my shoulder. Then she told me all about her faith. Besides the sun, they had a menagerie of animal gods: snakes, crocodiles, hawks, lions, cats, and a slew of others. She said that she even had a cobra named Aspi that she fed and worshiped every morning at dawn. I asked her if she ever worried about being bitten, and she said that it had almost happened once, but since then she had been more careful.

       “Patti and her people believed that when they died they would go on to an active afterlife, where they'd need everything they had while alive: food, drink, shelter, domestic animals, and slaves to serve them. And, by golly, Moose, that's really a good belief system, all those gods especially. In Chesapeake City, you know, most of the churches have only three gods: a Father God, a Son God, and a Ghost God. There's one church that's a little better because it also has a Mother God. And that's really lame, Moose, compared to Patti's multiple gods."

       "Yeah, Unk, that makes sense, the more gods the better. You never know when you're gonna need one."

        "You bet, Moose, but Patti and I talked about those thousands of slaves owned by her country. 'It's so sad,' she said. 'They're awfully deprived, having only one God.' She said that technically they're called 'Isrollerites,' and according to her, they wanted to leave the country and settle in some promised land of their own.

       “Anyhow, Moose, to shorten a long story, they had a leader named Mo, who once tried to provoke a rebellion, actually organized all of them for an exodus. But Tootie's army was able crush the uprising. This Mo was always stirring up trouble, using his supernatural powers to plague the country. One time, Patti told me, he summoned millions of frogs to pester the land. Yeah, the buggers messed up their picnics something terrible and—except for those who liked frog legs—were a real pain in the butt.

       "But, you know, Moose, I discussed the slave problem with Patti for quite a while that night, and I convinced her to help me set them free, that it would be better for her country in the long run. We made up our minds to set them free the next day. But, unfortunately, something awful was to happen that next day, something that made us postpone our freedom plans for quite a while. And so, Moose, if you'll sit tight, I'll tell you the painful story after I fill this empty, lonesome glass."  [To be continued Friday, 7/6/2012]