Cold Cuts, Part Five: "Black" Curtains

It's Boxing Day, folks, and you all know what that means. Or maybe you don't. I didn't for the longest time. The first I heard of "Boxing Day," I swear I thought it had something to do with bare-knuckle prizefighting. It was kinda hard to picture -- an entire nation taking the day off to brawl with each other -- until I realized every day is Boxing Day for me and my brother. Then I could get a grip on it. A slippery, entirely erroneous grip, but it was better than nothing.

Now, of course, I know better. On Boxing Day... well...alright, my grip's still pretty slippery, but I know it's got something to do with packing up old junk you don't want and foisting it off on someone else. So I can't imagine a better day to present unto you the last dribs and drabs salvaged from The Black Dove. Next week, a new year will dawn...and I'll have to get off my lazy butt and dawn up something new to fill up this here blog....

Describing -- nay, over-describing -- a mysterious old man's peculiar way of speaking:

*    His voice was so raspy-rough he sounded like a frog that had gargled with sand before smoking a cigar the size of a baseball bat.

*    Now, Old Red's got a temper on him, that's for sure. But usually it's of the suffer-no-fool-gladly variety...and more often than not, I'm the fool. 

*    Among Diana's many other charms were good looks, a quick wit and a willingness to tolerate the company of a certain under-educated, over-forward drover. (That would be me, of course. When it comes to women, Gustav's over-backward.)

And, last and very possibly least, my brother has himself a throw-down with beautiful lady-dick Diana Corvus:

*    "I'm trying to help," Diana said.

     "I wouldn't call what you been offerin' help," Old Red growled back.

     "Don't call it anything, then. Just stop being a stubborn ass and accept it."

     "Better a stubborn ass than a stupid one."

     "I'd say there's little difference between the two when the stakes are high."

     "Well, then I guess it's a good thing I take everything you say with a fistful of salt. Cuz otherwise, I might be insulted."

     "Believe me -- when I insult you, you'll know it."

     "Oh, I do know it. And what's bein' insulted is my intelligence."

     As I listened, stunned into silence for once, I began to wish ears were more like guns or boots -- something you could drop off to be mended and polished and returned to you good as new. Because surely my ears were in need of a thorough de-waxing, re-boring and all-around spiff-up. There was simply no way what they were reporting back to me was true: that my brother had finally overcome his tongue-tying fear of all things feminine just in time to get into a hissy-fit flap with the very female I favored most in the world.

     And to top it off, I couldn't even make out what they were fighting about. The more barbed Diana and Gustav's exchange became, the more I got that feeling that comes on you when you watch a married couple bicker. They might be giving each other grief about who let the butter spoil or how much to pay for a new plow-horse, but you can tell that's just the topmost layer of it. Underneath, they're really arguing about something else, something only they understand -- or perhaps only half-understand themselves.

Next week: I have no earthly idea.

Otto "Big Red" Amlingmeyer
December 26, 2008