Maqabim Twins of Hashmonaiym

The day before The Feast of Octave of St. Camillus the sky turned gray. Up until that day the sky stayed put swinging in its celestial hammock. That day the sky slipped off its hanging bed. As skies are wont, wont not or wont to, it fell falling into the white snowy earth, taking with it a harem of stars and whatnots. My clod blest your weary bowl, admen. Days such as these had the man in the hat unnerved, fretful that he might fall falling into a harangue. Having fallen into a cranny before, he feared he might do so a second time; and that, dare say he, was not a harangue he wanted to experience a fourth, third or second time. On winter days the legless man drank Potboy’s Coco with vanilla extract. He lived for cold wintery nights when he could sit back with a ball of Scotch Gravy and a finger of milquetoast, both sides buttery sweet. As this was not to happen he sat in his druthers thinking of ways to out fox the world, a world he had come to despise more than anything, all things, ought to be despised. Abhorring as he did, abhorring and loathing filling up most of his time, of which he had so little, each day falling like a shadow onto the next, he felt a crick in his neck, just above the shoulders and below the knob on the base of his skull. Were he but a boy, a waif of a boy, he’d spend his time jacking the ball or tipping the top, two boyish games he missed more than Scotch Gravy and buttery sweet milquetoast.

The Fortaleza brothers of Mato Grosso do Sul despised dogmen and gadabouts. As they were the sworn enemies of the dogmen, the feud going on for 127½ years, they swore to kill any dogman they saw, be he the biggest or the littlest. Fatso Fortaleza, the biggest of the brothers, swore more than the others, claiming that the biggest of a brotherhood was sworn to swear more that his brethren. On the eve of The Feast of Octave of St. Camillus Fatso Fortaleza ran into the biggest dogman, the two eyeballing one another from a fair to middling distance. The biggest dogman, his hair tied up in a Sumo wrestler’s topknot, charged bellowing towards the biggest Fortaleza brother, Fatso Fortaleza, checking to see if he’d brought his stoking blade with him, ran towards the fattest dogman, the two meeting halfway, a boy bouncing a rubber ball stuck in between the two gargantuans, his tongue stuck out like a liverish worm. The biggest dogman and the largest Fortaleza brother (Fatso Fortaleza), came together, squishing the boy, tongue wagging, between their gargantuan bellies. At that moment, from his perch atop the Waymart tower, the Witness hollered ‘…leave the poor boy be, you gargantuan misfits…!’

There are no Fortaleza brothers (of Mato Grosso do Sul) or a brotherhood of sworn enemies. They are impish thoughts thought by an impish imp. Nothing happens of its own accord, nothing. All things have a beginning and an end, a middle and a just short of a middle. All things being equal, which they never are, equality being a sham, a trick, a fool’s tale.

The Maqabim (Μακκαβαῖοι) twins came by way of Hashmonaiym over the mountain across the glade and dale. They barter Maccabees’ linen for salt, sugar and tobacco, the twins known for their lack of concern and small hands. The day after the day the Witness fell to his knees, the sky opening, rain splashing onto his weeping face, the Maqabim twins arrived in town looking to barter. Neither either, either the Witness or Dejesus knew why the twins had such puny weakly hands, the going account being that they’d boiled them in scalding beetroot oil, their hands shriveling up like icy grapes. As wives’ tales go this one seemed plausible, the truth having no place in wives’ tales or scalding. When the man in the hat heard that the Maqabim twins had arrived in town looking to barter, he got out his best haggler’s cap and went looking for the twins. His haggler’s cap was fashioned from carp skin, the inside band made from eel and stretched quail. On the brim was a wren’s foot cameo, a gift from a Bedouin haggler with the whooping and a clove lip.