The day began and ended without a middle or an in between. Everything that happened, happened at once, right from the start to the finish. In Bucharest the Bucuresti family run a small dry cleaning business, the mother working the giant presser, the children folding and tying the cleaned shirts and linens. The father, a lazy man by nature, sits in the shade of a three-trunk oak tree counting jute bugs and eating mille-faille. When its time to work he heads for the hills behind the house, where the cows low and the sheep baa-baa-baa, and hides in the underbrush beside the roiling brook that has neither a beginning nor an ending. When he’s not sitting in the shade of the three-trunk oak tree, counting and husking jute bugs and shad flies, he hides in the underbrush in the rolling hills that overlook the valley glen below where his wife and children press and dry other people’s shirts and soiled bed--linen. He is lazy by nature, a cheat and a skate by avocation.
Rajasthan Lamba met Richie Goulding, Reggie Wylie, Gertie MacDowell and Mrs. Mastiansky at the Ormund Hotel on a snowy winter solstice day. Rajasthan Lamba claimed to know the whereabouts of the missing whore’s glove, and assembling those who shared an interest in whoring and gloves, Reggie Wylie being particularly fond of women’s haberdashery, was going to divulge its locality. Mrs. Mastiansky, known for her gruffness and evangelic face, said ‘…where is it, where’s the damn glove...?’
Joshua Ratingen knew Molloy who knew Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois who knew a man with a clubfoot from Cambridgeshire who knew a Bobby from Ipswich Suffolk. Having once been in a rough-up with a member of the constabulary, a cockish man with a constabular cap and a nightstick, Molloy was wary of blue buttoned men wielding sticks. Alma Dejesus was acquainted with Gertie MacDowell who was friends with Lela’s grandmother. Lela’s grandmother was acquainted with Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois whom she met at the one of the many feasts she attended. Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois was friends with the clubfooted man from Cambridgeshire who was acquainted with the Bobby from Ipswich Suffolk. Mrs. Mastiansky, proclaiming her constitutional rights over the missing whore’s glove, was disliked by all but Reggie Wylie, who found her gruffness and evangelic face appealing.
The shamble leg man and the alms man were friends with the Seder Grocer who was friends with the owner of the Greek Deli who befriended strays and dimwits. All this befriending tired the man in the hat, so he lit a half cheroot and smoked quietly in the discomfort of his lean-to, the tarpaper walls bluff bluffing in the gelling wind. He could care less about missing gloves and rector’s closets, statues and titivations; all he wanted was a moments peace from all the bickering and lollygagging, a day away from the day-to-day, simple peace and quiet.
Pettifrauds and naredowells, pipsqueaks and dimwitted halfwits, they could all go to blazes for all he cared. He inhaled and exhaled, puffing plumes of gray-blue smoke from the holes in his nose, sticking the tip of his finger through the rings that circled round his head like bees in a bonnet. ‘…tomorrow is another day…’ he said through a curtain of blue-gray smoke, ‘…the day after today and before the day before tomorrow…’. Snubbing he stubbed the cheroot out in the tin next to the bedstead, a cockscomb of bluish-graying smoke disbanding into the blank space over his head.
Rajasthan Lamba met Richie Goulding, Reggie Wylie, Gertie MacDowell and Mrs. Mastiansky at the Ormund Hotel on a snowy winter solstice day. Rajasthan Lamba claimed to know the whereabouts of the missing whore’s glove, and assembling those who shared an interest in whoring and gloves, Reggie Wylie being particularly fond of women’s haberdashery, was going to divulge its locality. Mrs. Mastiansky, known for her gruffness and evangelic face, said ‘…where is it, where’s the damn glove...?’
Joshua Ratingen knew Molloy who knew Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois who knew a man with a clubfoot from Cambridgeshire who knew a Bobby from Ipswich Suffolk. Having once been in a rough-up with a member of the constabulary, a cockish man with a constabular cap and a nightstick, Molloy was wary of blue buttoned men wielding sticks. Alma Dejesus was acquainted with Gertie MacDowell who was friends with Lela’s grandmother. Lela’s grandmother was acquainted with Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois whom she met at the one of the many feasts she attended. Monsignor Fontenay-sous-Bois was friends with the clubfooted man from Cambridgeshire who was acquainted with the Bobby from Ipswich Suffolk. Mrs. Mastiansky, proclaiming her constitutional rights over the missing whore’s glove, was disliked by all but Reggie Wylie, who found her gruffness and evangelic face appealing.
The shamble leg man and the alms man were friends with the Seder Grocer who was friends with the owner of the Greek Deli who befriended strays and dimwits. All this befriending tired the man in the hat, so he lit a half cheroot and smoked quietly in the discomfort of his lean-to, the tarpaper walls bluff bluffing in the gelling wind. He could care less about missing gloves and rector’s closets, statues and titivations; all he wanted was a moments peace from all the bickering and lollygagging, a day away from the day-to-day, simple peace and quiet.
Pettifrauds and naredowells, pipsqueaks and dimwitted halfwits, they could all go to blazes for all he cared. He inhaled and exhaled, puffing plumes of gray-blue smoke from the holes in his nose, sticking the tip of his finger through the rings that circled round his head like bees in a bonnet. ‘…tomorrow is another day…’ he said through a curtain of blue-gray smoke, ‘…the day after today and before the day before tomorrow…’. Snubbing he stubbed the cheroot out in the tin next to the bedstead, a cockscomb of bluish-graying smoke disbanding into the blank space over his head.
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