Goodbye to a chef, hello to a conductor

Just finished the next episode of BRYAN THE TYGER, in which we extend our leavetaking scene with Jim the Chef and then continue to the next town, where we meet an orchestra conductor and other fine folks.

[I got tired of graffiti-ing tygers onto junk ads, so, for the next few days, the obligatory images that accompany these announcements will be just lazy attempts at hand-drawing copies of ad photos with felt tip marker.]

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

Chapter Forty-Three

Chef Jim thanks us profusely for the fortune that I gave him; then he immediately takes a couple banknotes from the top of the cash-heap and hands them to the steakhouse’s owners while explaining the misunderstanding. Now, instead of screaming invectives at us, the owners smile and bow. Thus, all is made right.

“Well, goodbye, and good luck!” I wave to Chef Jim with my mighty right forepaw.

“Godspeed, my friends,” Jim Johnson returns my wave, smiling.

The only bad thing is that we forget to exchange contact info with our new friend; so I’ll never see him again in the future, unless an online social network is invented where we can rediscover each other; but, even then, the chances are low to nil that I’ll join and use such a network, because I find the Internet annoying.

So Myala and I begin to head off in the direction of the green, rolling hills to the northwest. We are now so far from the steakhouse that when we look back, Chef Jim appears as just the tiniest speck, and we can barely tell that he’s still vigorously waving to us. At this point I shout:

“Hey, Jim, do you think that you’ll continue to work for the steakhouse, now that you have some extra money?”

My voice echoes all over the hillside. Then I hear Jim’s voice echoing back in answer:

“No, I’ll probably quit this job and start a business of my own.”

When the echoes die down, I shout:

“NO! Jim, don’t start your own business: it’s too much of a headache. I strongly advise against it.”

Jim shouts back: “Then what do you suggest that I do?”

I ponder this question for a while, as Jim’s voice echoes and echoes and echoes thru the hills. When at last there is only the sound of birds chirping, I roar:

“Maybe purchase an island — a tropical island — and spend your days writing poetry and painting pictures. You might tan in the sun.”

After I say this, we turn and keep walking away in the green hills. Soon the steakhouse disappears over the horizon. I think to myself: “That was a long goodbye, but it was worth indulging in; for I am fond of Jim Johnson the Chef, because he took an interest in us. If we ever return to our castle in the Alps again after adventuring, and I get enough free time to sit down at the typewriter and compose my memoirs, I’ll make Jim’s scene as prominent as possible, to commemorate his character.”

Myala interrupts my interior monologue: “Look! a new town.”

Sure enough, a beautiful new town is emerging over the hillside.

“Shall we run?” sez Myala.

“Yes, let’s run!”

§

So we gallop until we reach the village green. Then we walk to the piazza.

Many people are bustling about the hardscape of the open market. (Curiously, there don’t seem to be any Orangutans here.) We greet each passer­by with a cat-kiss, and they all seem to like it. The humans remember us from taxiing them to and from Jupiter during the age of Earth’s climate catastrophe.

Now the small town’s mayor steps forth and welcomes us: “Panther Myala! Tyger Bryan! Welcome to Dullsville!”

We ask him what types of adventures this town has to offer. He dictates a list to his pageboy. The pageboy hands the list over to me.

Shaking the parchment, I declare: “We’re going to adapt this as our itinerary.”

The mayor looks proud. I pat the pageboy’s head with my forepaw.

§

Therefore, first, we go see a concert. It is the piece by Ravel which the poet Hart Crane once referred to as “that glorious Boléro”. The cockatoo rug beneath me is in frequent need of being patted out, as it keeps getting ignited by my teardrops. (For some reason, everywhere I go, I encounter these cockatoo rugs — not to complain: I really like them; I’m just noting a curiosity.)

After the show, the conductor approaches me. “I couldn’t help observing that you were moved by the performance?”

I quickly realize that he assumes my involuntary weeping was due in some part to his interpretation rather than to the genius of the composer; so I allow myself to indulge in a bit of honesty:

“It was too fast,” I say; “but a divine radiance pierced thru the mask nevertheless.”

The conductor is taken aback. He scans my vast Tyger-face in vain for signs of irony. Then he retorts:

“You don’t know anything about Ravel’s music. This was the only way to save the work.”

“You apostles—” I shake my head while smiling: “always saving what was never lost. You remove the best aspect of any creation, thinking you’re casting out the devil.”

The composer is infuriated by my reply. But later we make amends, when, after the concert, Myala and I proceed to the next-planned event on our small-town journey:

We visit a political rally, where I end up standing next to this selfsame fellow, the orchestra’s conductor, and we find that we’re on the same sides of all the issues:

“Isn’t it funny,” the man shouts to me while the crowd surrounding us is chanting the latest slogan, “that we can disagree so strongly about artistic and aesthetic matters, yet then find ourselves like-minded when it comes to politics!”

“I’m simply in favor of whatever helps the people,” I say, draping my mighty Tyger-arm around my new friend. “I’m for the possibility and potential of humankind; so I side with the masses, the demos, the nameless individuals everywhere: or, as Norma Desmond sez, ‘those wonderful people out there in the dark’. Whatever increases their power and lessens authority – I’m all for it.”

“Tyger Bryan, that was so beautifully put—” the conductor’s eyes are glistening, “I could just . . .” The fellow cannot find the words to finish his statement, so he leans over and kisses the side of my face. (I make sure that my fiery fur does not singe him.)

Later Myala and I dine at this conductor’s house. It turns out that his estate contains countless acres of land, which he has dedicated as a sanctuary for animals that are exotic to the region. Since he has so many of them, he allows us to devour one of his ostriches. It is a delicacy.

§

Then, for the rest of our journey, we visit a series of small shops. We order pastries from Albert’s Bakery; moose from Micah’s Meat Market; huge quantities of donkey-and-goat cheese from An­nabelle’s Milch Maze (a place that is entirely cow-owned and cow-operated); plus camisoles from Ava’s Clothing Emporium. (These latter garments are human-sized, of course; so we just purchase a ton and leave them all heaped in the piazza, right next to a sign we make that reads “Take and wear, please.” Then Myala adds, in caps: “LADIES ONLY!”) Not more than seven steps away from our clothes pile is an ornamental fountain in the midst of a pool; thus, women can climb in and float for a while, before walking around the town, if they prefer to look wet.

§

Also it turns out that this town, in olden times, had its own princess; just like in all those famous legends.

“Really?” I say to the historian who informs me of this (we are now visiting the hut of Dullsville’s historian). “What happened to her? I mean, why do you only speak of your town’s princess in the past-tense, as if she is dead?”

“Well . . . the historical truth is . . . she got kidnapped by a dragon,” the town-historian fights back tears.

“Are you kidding?”

“No joke.”

“Listen,” I say . . . But then I’m interrupted by Myala:

“No; listen to me,” sez Myala, while rising up on all four legs, “for I have a plan in mind already.” Then she looks directly at the historian (whose name is Howard) and sez: “Howard, have you ever seen the 1950 movie Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder?”

“Yes,” sez Howard the small-town’s lone historian.

“Do you remember the swimming pool that figures so prominently in that film?” Myala asks in earnest.

“Yes, of course,” Howard replies with breathy solemnity.

“Can you, by any chance, pull some strings with the local officials — I’m referring to the bureaucrats who work in the government here — and coerce them to transplant that exact same swimming pool out of the movie and into this town? It would be fine if they positioned it anywhere on the outskirts of the border – we just need a place to store the dragon after we slay it.”

The historian is flabbergasted: “You’re planning on killing the dragon and returning our princess to Dullsville?”

“Can you do the thing that I asked, with the movie’s swimming pool?” Myala is focused.

“O! O! Consider it done!” the historian picks up the rotary telephone and settles the receiver be­tween his shoulder and neck while dialing the passcode: 1-800-BRIBERY. When a bureaucrat answers, Howard convinces the fellow to send out several squads from his department to excavate that chunk of cinema’s spacetime.

After this, I Bryan the Tyger and Myala the Black Panther venture out beyond the borderline of this small town and slay the dragon that is holding captive Dullsville’s princess. Then we reinstate this damsel onto her throne and whisper a hint in her pretty ear: “Govern.”

Finally, we heft the corpse of the dragon into the swimming pool (which we had pre-drained and lined with silk, in accordance with the town’s burial code); and, after the funeral service, Myala and I slide a large sheet of plexiglass over the top of the pool, fasten it in place with concrete screws, and then caulk around the edges: Thus the dead villain is safely secured yet clearly visible beneath; and his stench cannot escape, but the townsfolk can still stroll past and view his limp remains preserved there for all of eternity. The glass is actually strong enough so that you can walk right over the top and look directly down on the dragon, if you dare.