The Slavic Missionary

The head Slavic Missionary, an irritable man by the name of Emmet Crawford, wore a flatcar cap with a quail’s foot pinned to the hatband. He believed that the quail’s foot represented chastity and good-faith, two basic tenets of the Slavic Missionary faith. He carried an Old Testament, a handgun, three marbles and a stick of spearmint chewing gum. He liked the word crapulence and used it whenever he could. People were crapulent, as were dogs, cats and pigs. Some food was crapulent, hocks and knuckles, stewed mutton and crab salad, to name but a few. Blue Cheese was crapulent. Old cowboy movies were crapulent. Feces and bile were crapulent. And finally, crap was crapulent. The headmaster of the Slavic Missionary was possessed with bad-faith, promiscuity and crapulence. ‘If pigs could fly everyone would want one’ oratory voice (he said) ‘Habitué corpus excelsior morale’s’ (he said saying) basso staccato. He liked old cowboy movies and chewing tobacco, gunslingers and banditos. The poorhouse poor queued in front of the Slavic Missionary hoping for a bowlful of watery soup and a crust of dry bread or a peek at the headmaster hissing crapulence under his breath.