A Parade To Remember: Part II of Look Ma. He's Bent!
And the end came quickly. On the very next day, several conscientious DoGooders in the Central Council joined the sanctimonious minority DoNothings, who had been incessantly impeaching Billy's character from the start, to create a majority sufficient to give President Bumkin the heave-ho.
Once the wheels were set in motion, the Bumkin's departure from Capital City came with dizzying speed. A team of handsome Clydesdales was hitched that same afternoon to the Bumkin hovel, which, you will recall, had been sitting on its wheeled frame beside the White Castle from day one. As Cheslea and Hilda rushed to load their earthly belongings into the hovel, Billy entertained a series of foreign dignitaries with whom he had curried favor, hoping for some tribute or to land a lofty position in some foreign consul.
By the time the sun had begun to set, a mob was gathered outside the White Castle. Some were there to bid the Bumkins a fond adieu, others to taunt them and to toast their political demise at the hands of what would later be alternately described as a "vast left-leaning" and a "fast right-hand" conspiracy. The rostrum from which Billy had addressed the people so often, along with the Bumkin hovel and the broken hulk of WANk's bent effigy, provided the props to a scene whose background was the White Castle itself.
Not long before sunset, a sergeant from the Castle Guard rapped officiously on the castle's weathered oaken doors. Moments later Hilda emerged, followed as always by the Grimm. Next came Cheslea, and then Billy, and lastly, a horribly agitated Woody.
Billy, you see, had promised Woody that they would always be together in the White Castle, and that if Billy ever did leave, Vice President Woody would ascend to the presidency, becoming the first arboreal President of the United (or any other) State. You can understand, then, how badly Woody took the news that instead of becoming a hero to the world's flora, he would be going down south to become a cigar store ornament.
The ensuing tantrum was a sight to see, one that no one who witnessed it will ever forget. The wooden boy started by hopping angrily from one twiggy leg to the other, one-two-one-two, and then his twiggy arms began to whirl in furious circles. The combined kinetic affects of the hopping and the whirling soon sent the pathetic creature flopping onto his back, where he bounced and flailed with heedless abandon. After a while, the odor of sawdust began to waft through the crowd, which watched aghast every excruciating throe.
Towards the end, the pitiful creature erupted with a series of scratchy percussive wails that no species of fauna could fathom. Presently his thrashing escalated to truly manic proportions. The odor of sawdust took on a tinge of campfire, until at last, Little Woody the Wooden Boy ground himself into a pile of smoking sawdust, which was summarily dispatched by a passing zephyr.
And that was the end, the very end, of Woody.
As horrific as Woody's demise was, the Grimm's, which began even as Woody swirled into oblivion, was even more so. First its flesh began to wrinkle and come apart, quite literally, at the seams. Where the multicolored patches of skin parted ways, putrefied globs of innard and muscle oozed down the monster's contours. After a while, the Grimm began to shake, imperceptibly at first, but then more and more noticeably, as strips and splotches of flesh glopped onto the ground in a writhing, fetid circle.
The shaking grew progressively more violent, escalating into a wrenching series of staccato rattles, until the monster, rather mercifully I'd say, just flew apart like a watermelon smashed with a sledgehammer. All that was left was a bloody skeleton lying in three parts on the exact same spot where moments before the zephyr had dispersed Little Woody's remains.
A troupe of stray dogs approached shyly and sniffed at the pile of bones from a few feet away, but they wouldn't go any nearer.
Neither Billy nor Hilda seemed to even notice these grotesque goings-on. Instead, Hilda was busy checking and rechecking the contents of the Bumkin hovel while Billy carefully surveyed the crowd. When she was satisfied that nothing had been touched, Hilda sat down resolutely in a rocking chair on the back porch and, raising her nose high into the air, gazed disinterestedly into the distance. Cheslea ran past her mother and into the bedroom, sobbing. I skulked into the crowd with the brim of my hat down over my eyes.
And then here came Billy, mounting the lead Clydesdale with a flourish and waving a plumed general's hat he had purloined from a gnome on the castle lawn. Without a word he kicked that horse in the ribs and gave out a rebel yell. The proud beasts strained for a moment to get the old home moving, and then as they gained momentum, they began to trot briskly down the stone driveway and onto the yellow bricked Avenue, heading south as a particularly scarlet sunset reflected momentarily off the White Castle's onion dome.
Billy rode that horse without looking back while Hilda rocked grumpily on the back porch looking like a genuine Arkansaw granny.
The throng rushed in behind the departing mobile hovel like a wake following a riverboat. My mind went back to another sunset years before, back when I didn't believe in gremlins or ride tornados.
"Good riddance!" hollered more than a few spiteful DoNothings.
"God bless you!" gushed more than a few bedeviled DoGooders.
The people ran on and on behind the Bumkins like rats after the Pied Piper, jostling each other for a better view and trampling any who couldn't keep up the pace. Here and there someone on a horse or donkey eased through the eddies in the crowd. Scores of bicycles and a unicycle or two weaved about at the edges, and several haywagons bumped along bringing up the rear. A dozen or so of Billy's lovers waved breathless goodbyes as they straddled the shoulders of a strapping rugby team that bullied its way to the forefront of the mob; in their enthusiasm, two or three of the gals accidentally lost their upper garments.
I saw amid the throng quite a few happy convicts who had been released from prison still sporting their stripes, some at Billy's whim, others for a price. I also saw several suspicious types, perhaps swarthy agents of a mad bomber or well fed spies from Enemy Number One, lurking around corners and peering at the passing parade from darkened windows. And I could swear I saw the DoGooder head of the Central Council, to which Hilda would soon be appointed, smugly counting a stack of bills outside a prosperous DoGooder travel agency.
In years to come, Billy would indeed land a prestigious post in a lofty, if impotent, foreign body, while Hilda would cling to her broad seat on the Central Council, doing little to distinguish herself from the long shadow of Billy's "legacy." Cheslea left the United State for a while, too ashamed to face the scorn and ridicule her father had earned the family. As for me, I've remained in the PR industry, which, luckily, pays little heed to the kind of behavior my boss in the White Castle engaged in.
I'll leave you with a little bit of innuendo that circulates to this day at soirees and brunches in Capital City. I must once again beg your indulgence, as the subject itself, like so much regarding the Bumkins, defies decorum.
Rumor has it that a shortly after they left the White Castle, Hilda took advantage of an unguarded moment to separate Billy from that infamous member of his with a meat cleaver. An even deeper and darker rumor has it that she did the dirty deed only after learning, oh so belatedly, about the gremlin in Billy's goober, whose powers she hoped to harness to her own ends.
Whether Hilda really lopped off Billy's louie or not, we'll probably never know. He and Hilda ceased cohabiting a few months after departing the White Castle (though they kept up the appearance of marriage for political reasons.) I do have it on good advice that a certain mad scientist was called to Billy's penthouse apartment at about the same time the meat cleaver rumors hit the grapevine, though why I cannot say.
There's no point in speculating about the gremlin itself. The little critters are completely unpredictable. There is one thing, however, that I can say with some certainty. That gremlin eventually left Billy Bumkin and is out there somewhere to this very day making more mischief from some poor politician's pecker.
I still live and work in Capital City. I know the gremlin is out there. I keep my eyes peeled for any indication of who might be its latest victim.
But considering all the shenanigans going on in Capital City these days, there's just no telling where the little fellow wound up. |
