WordWhore

Spencer Montgomery, Male Writer
Journal Entry
November 10, 1954

It has been a most frightening week here in Stumps. Margaret, Cook, and I journeyed to this hallowed ground a fortnight ago, seeking solace after the death of Our Little Dog Two. Funeral services were held in the parlor. Later the same morning, we ventured out of the manse for the first time in months. Spiggot, Cook’s eldest son-in-law, acquired a pilot’s license last September. My Dear Margaret had the foresight to store Grandfather Lucien Dogma’s fourteen Curtiss Jennies in the mucked stalls of Edna Erdbecker’s cousin Frinkle Maye’s mule barn (Right behind the corning shed). The mule barn is a mere four miles from the compound (That’s as the crow flies. As the great blue heron flies? Maybe a bit further.) We flew to Stumps in record time, but as we landed, confusion reigned (instead of King George IV ).

To begin my story, I must explain a few things. Like how we came to own these aeroplanes. Grandfather Lucien, a very VERY close friend of Billy Mitchell, married seven times. Each wife one year and two days older than the previous. All his wives had flaming red hair and acne. They were clothed in only WAC uniforms until the day they died. Grandfather, being a member of the famous WWI Scabbard Squadron, befriended, post-war, the well- known leifling spander — General Sir Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of the British RFC and together the men purchased a gaggle of bi-planes which they converted into puddle jumpers and members of the aeronautical ballet troupe “The Dancing Jennies”. Grandfather’s third wife, Villhomenia, was a successful wing-walker for three years, until she became “unsuccessful” and the search for a fourth wife was on.

Which brings me back to Stumps and the death of our dear Two.

Grandfather’s widow, Sandra Dee, wife number seven, lives in nearby Tuglett. She is able at maintain her dignity but little else. Her great-great-grandtoddler, Linda Marie, came to stay at Sandra Dee’s flagrant familia compound whilst her parental units begat another spawn of Satan, this one rumored to be a male. A few weeks went by with no incident. A Small Toddling Child. Innocent enough, you say? What havoc can be wreaked by a mere smidling of a human? Incredibly horrid amounts, I regret to inform you. The toddling child, age 16 months, is the evil twin of ever-kind and fawning Miss Dear Child Our Louisa May. When Linda Marie, the evil toddling spragger, saw our darling little dog Two, she lunged for him, fell down the steps into the vestibule below, and landed upon the landing which contained a sleeping — you guessed it – little dog Two. Smashing his fragile ribs and spine to bits with her massive jaw just before her face hit the slippery Parkayed floor.

As we wept by Two’s gravesite, I found myself stroking the ruptured duck on my lapel and remembering dear old granddad. It’s hard to keep tenses straight when one is in mourning, is it not? I shall endeavor to separate the past from the now, the passive from the active. The whip from the whale, the concubine from the literal. A difficult if not impossible task, I fear.

What without our Two, shall we become? The future is dim. Downright teggiphined and full of swamp foglicks. Our peaceful little Lesser Dismal Swamp pocosin is challenged by events outside of our control. I loathe describing the death and subsequent mourning of anything I hold close to my heart, whether it be the Ace of Clubs or a small canine. Our dear Two. Gone forever. It renders me almost grammarless. Loathsome task, this journal… making me recall the horror that befell Two.

But hark! Even as I type, someone enters the rose garden, screeching my name. There, under my vestibule window, I note with undue surprise as I spy my newly monikered “Killdear Deathmother” Sandra Dee herself, Linda Marie-less, with a pic-a-nick basket. She totes the luncheon suitcase in both hands. Actually, upon further consideration, I note she is not carrying it at all. She lugs it. Drags it behind her like a spent fragment of yesterday’s split pea soup. Aha! There! Look! I spy a wriggling mass attempting to withdraw its tiny carcass from within the framework of the basket. T’is a mere sprite-lette. Oh! My Lord! Can it be?! Why! Yes! It! Is! A young not-yet-tainted Frampton’s Gregorian! Where, in the name of everything Dear Margaret holds holy, did she find such an animal? Those pups are fantastically difficult to find and come at a wallet-withering cost of over two thousand trinkets.

My step-grandmother spies me standing behind the drapes of the vestibule window above her. “Spencer, my darling most step-great-grandson of lo’ these many years! Come down here this moment! Pursue my challenge and mogait across yon moat. I have a marvelous surprise for you and Dear Margaret. For Cook, even… or at a slant. I’ve come across a breeder with a registered Frampton Gregorian bitch. It’s a stellar day for us all as I have purchase TWO of the lovely beasts…” she pauses to wipe the spittle from her mouth and hack unpleasantly into a linen napkin. After regaining her composure and attempting to right her tilting prosthesis, she continues, “One for me and one for you, which makes the pup your little dog “Three”. Mine, of course, will be Four, but we’ll worry about semantics later. Come quickly, lad, see what Step-Great-Nana has brought! Grab the quivering Margaret from her perch in the rear library and fling her down the port stairs to greet me. Alert the Prize Patrol.”

So, tense-true or grammatically incorrect, I relate a portion of my story to you, pert journal of my listing spinal significance. The ending of the tale — which involves the hair-raising flight of the Curtiss Jennie across eastern North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound — will have to be continued at a later date as my oven just sang out a three-toned warning, allowing as to how the Tater Tots are done. Prepare yourselves for the true story of Oscar the one-armed bootlegger.

Sincerely on this day and not the next one,

Spencer Montomery, Male Writer