A Muse Bouche Review: November 2024
Dear Readers
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Welcome to our eleventh edition of 2024. The theme is Insult.
“I married your mother to have children. Imagine my disappointment when you came along.” That was Groucho Marx, the king of the insult. Or at least one of them. One finds insults galore in the letters that Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra, far more vicious than the relatively benign barbs of Caroline Bingley or Lady Catherine de Bourgh. As Alice Roosevelt Longworth is reputed to have said: “If you don’t have something good to say about someone, come sit by me,” so let’s see how biting our contributors can be this month.
The A Muse Bouche Review Team
Featured: Meeting Miss Geherty (Joseph P. Garland) Fiction
Ashes in My Mouth (David M. Simon) Fiction
A Decent Man (Marian L Thorpe) Fiction
The Anniversary Present (Ron Ross) Fiction
The Testamentary (Don B. Smith) Fiction
Making the Best of It (Arlene Davies-Fuhr) Fiction
The Testamentary
Don B. Smith
I, Joshua Tremont, am the wealthiest man in the world. No, check that, I am the wealthiest man the world has ever known. If you translate my wealth into US dollars it would be about seventeen trillion. Of course that is a silly measure, because people use grocery bags loaded with thousand-dollar-bills to buy a loaf of bread, if they can find a loaf of bread to buy.
The world has gone to hell, literally. Near the equator daytime temperatures soar above half the boiling point of water. All water has evaporated there, and sparse rainfalls have no impact. World-wide out-of-control fires have turned carbon stored in trees and open-air coal deposits into carbon dioxide, sometimes carbon monoxide. Reliance on carbon-based energy set the table over three long centuries. The oxygen content of Earth’s air is now depleted to less than half the levels of even a hundred years ago, replaced by carbon dioxide.
Compounding this disaster, most of the world’s forests are gone and gone with them is nature’s capacity to recycle carbon dioxide into its constituents of oxygen and carbon through photosynthesis.
Climate and economic migrants have overwhelmed almost every national border and government. A hundred million Bangladeshis perished trying to enter India, to escape the rising ocean levels. A hundred million Chinese perished in the fight to take over Russia’s vast North, but China succeeded. Then China had to fight off two hundred million migrants trying to move North from the Indian subcontinent through the Stans, and to push Europe back on its heels. There was no fight as three hundred million Americans and their undocumented fellow travellers moved into Canada’s North.
Every city at or near ocean level is under twenty meters of water. Acreage of arable land worldwide is down by eighty percent.
My base is in a still habitable place, Tasmania. I call this base Excalibur, after King Arthur’s sword. Tasmania declared independence from Australia eighty years ago to stop migration from the North Island, itself overwhelmed by migrants from Southeast Asia. Our population of about a hundred million people is already too many for our resources to support.
We have armed ourselves and welcomed the Australian fleet and the US Pacific fleet to our defence by admitting their crews and dependents as residents. We destroy unwanted or unscheduled watercraft or aircraft that intrude into our economic zone with no questions asked. Last year we had to destroy a submarine that penetrated Macquarie Harbour. We are fighting a war for survival.
The start of my fortune was an invention whose time had come. My Carbonout Masks have a cannister that breaks down carbon monoxide into carbon and oxygen. It stores the carbon, leaving the oxygen to increase its percentage in the incoming air. I did not patent the cannister. To get a patent I would need to disclose how it works. I don’t want anyone to know how it works. Rule-of-law is a thing of the past in many parts of the world, so patents offer little protection. Instead, the cannister is designed to self-destruct if it is pried open, preventing reverse engineering.
The cannister needs to be replaced every six months when the absorbing medium clogs with carbon. I am the only person who knows how to make Carbonout Cannisters, or at least my company is. Security is an interesting challenge because keeping this secret is central to my plan.
The second phase of my fortune-building came when the US dollar followed other world currencies into hyper-inflation as supplies and goods on world markets became increasingly scarce. I was building Excalibur in Western Tasmania and found it increasingly difficult to buy construction materials and other supplies, even though I had several ships circling the globe looking for them.
To solve the currency instability problem, I launched a cryptocurrency. I named the units Jennies after my daughter, Jennifer. To make sure the Jenny would be valued around the world I set up a closed market for Carbonout Masks. They could only be purchased with Jennies. To establish a nominal value for Jennies I pegged the price of Carbonout Masks at one hundred Jennies.
I used Jennies to purchase the goods and services I needed, and I paid the people working for me in Jennies. Soon other people started using Jennies in their commerce activities, so I needed to monetize a basic float. To do this I bought blocks of treasury shares into over a thousand companies, using Jennies. The companies used their Jennies to stabilize their businesses, meet their payrolls and pay their suppliers.
In this way Jennies became the dominant world currency in less than a decade. It also meant I became the controlling shareholder in over a thousand companies. My holdings are now so vast it is impossible to comprehend their complexity.
I am in complete control of Jennies. I am the only person in the world who can create Jennies. A system called blockchain prevents anyone from counterfeiting them. In effect, I created my domination of the world’s economy out of nothing more than a worldwide belief in the value of Jennies. I guess that makes me the world’s all-time greatest marketer too.
I have set up an institute of higher learning at Excalibur. I recruited a handful of the world’s top academic managers, paid with Jennies. I asked them to create the world’s finest technical university by recruiting the world’s top science, math and engineering PhD students and the most promising young professors. I set the cut-off age at thirty years. Math and science geniuses peak out in their mid-twenties, and I wanted the best of the best. I also wanted a team that would hold together for at least ten years to carry out my plan.
Recent scientific studies indicate that all land-life on earth as we know it will be extinct within the next fifty years. Part of my plan involves the development of an antigravity drive that will propel a spacecraft at ever-increasing speeds, followed by gradual deceleration as it approaches Planet BK223. Planet BK223 is earth-like, orbiting the dwarf star BK2A, about six light years away. This antigravity drive will interact enroute with a range of celestial bodies to provide propulsion.
The spacecraft is the other part of my development project. Although it would take twenty-seven years of our Earth time for the transit, the high speeds the spacecraft will attain will slow the passage of time on it. Thus, its internal elapsed flight time will be only fourteen years. During most of the fourteen years the pioneer passengers will be in suspended animation, served by a flight crew of only ten people.
The plan is to establish a human colony on Planet BK223.
Two years ago this plan was placed in jeopardy when a group of anti-business anarchists broke through our digital security barriers and accessed the secret formulation for my Carbonout cannisters. I needed to act. If this technical information became public, my monopoly would be broken and the resources necessary to continue the development of my extra-terrestrial colony would end. That could also undermine the value of Jennies and crash the entire world’s economic system.
I ordered my Chief Security Officer, Clement Singh, to track down the monsters and arrange accidental deaths. They most likely already had enough information to complete the steal, so there was no other way to seal off the breach. Two days later he came back to tell me that one member of this evil group was my daughter, Jennifer. They had recruited her by convincing her that my Carbonout system should belong to mankind, not just to its inventor, me. Her high access clearance gave them entry.
What could I do? Jennifer vs mankind? After talking it over with my wife, Jennifer’s mother Astrid, I made the fateful choice. I thought Astrid agreed with my decision.
Astrid turned me in.
That is my testimony, and I stand by it. I did what was necessary. I had no real choice. Clement Singh, my Chief Security Officer, was only following my orders and should receive clemency as should those carrying out my mission.
After reviewing the testamentary submitted by Joshua Tremont we note that he confesses to his crimes, shows no contrition, and still believes he was justified in the murders of seven Tasman citizens including his daughter Jennifer.
This obsession is an insult to the rule of law and to our intelligence and is not acceptable. It is our unanimous decision that the trial judge’s imposition of the death penalty was appropriate and should be carried out forthwith.
The execution of Joshua Tremont and the collapse of his business empire ended the last possibility that humans could avoid extinction.
Image by Peter Schmidt from Pixabay
A Decent Man
Marian L Thorpe
https://bsky.app/profile/marianlthorpe.bsky.social
Six men to their three, and Wulf was wounded. Reluctantly, Rothgar signalled to the others to lower their weapons.
“Throw them away. Your knives, too.” The man who spoke wasn’t the biggest among the six, but Rothgar had already identified him as their leader. He tossed his sword aside, took his knife from his belt. Considered, for a moment, throwing it at the man. But all that would mean would be five against three, and the five would be very, very angry. He sent the blade point down into the earth instead. Behind him, he heard Andric and Wulf do the same.
This was his fault. The scatter of boulders where they’d made camp, near a stream in a valley bottom, had allowed them to be surrounded in the dark. Andric had argued about stopping. But Wulf hadn’t been able to go any further: he’d been feverish, and there was water both to bathe the wound in his thigh and to slake their thirst. They shouldn’t have brought him, but the cut hadn’t seemed serious. They’d all survived worse.
“Who are you?” he asked now, in the early morning light. The other man had spoken Casilan, strongly accented but understandable. “What do you want with us? We have no money, nothing of value save our weapons.”
“Your weapons are what we want. You and your weapons, to be precise.” Spoken mildly. The man appeared relaxed now, his sword held loosely, his stance open. A ruse, Rothgar thought. If he or Andric or Wulf moved, they’d be cut down before they’d taken a step.
“Why?”
“You are fighting men. Our king has need of you.”
“King of where?” Rothgar demanded. Somewhere on the Nivéan coast, he guessed, from the men’s appearance. Dark hair and eyes – like half his own people, after generations of intermarriage with the Kidar – but with skin the colour of pale amber. Traders who looked like this had come to Sambët with silk and pearls, some years.
“Cyrenne.”
Rothgar blinked. Cyrenne was – he thought – on the south coast of the sea. What were men from so far away doing in Odïrya? If they were in Odïrya. He wasn’t sure. They’d been travelling for some days, trying to reach a border fort, or a town. Moving south by the sun and stars, keeping to forest or marshland whenever possible. Places pursuers on horseback would find difficult.
“What does the king of Cyrenne need soldiers for?”
“To fight. What else?” A thread of amusement in the mild voice.
“I assumed that,” Rothgar replied, patiently. “Against who?”
“The Temülchid. You have heard of them?”
Rothgar heard a sound from Andric. Disbelief, he thought. Or maybe surprise. Nothing from Wulf, except his harsh breathing.
“Heard of them? We fought them, ten days ago. Or no. We were slaughtered by them, outside the walls of Sambët. How can they be a threat to Cyrenne?”
An assessing look. “You are alive. Did you run away?”
“Fuck you,” Andric growled, stepping forward. Rothgar put a hand around his upper arm, stopping him.
“We were sent.” Rothgar’s tone was flat. “To bring word to Odïrya, to ask for help.”
That steady stare again. “Your commander sent a wounded man?”
“It’s a shallow cut,” Andric protested.
“Maybe. But I can smell the fever in him. He is no use to us. Or to you.” A gesture to one of his men, who stepped forward, drawing his knife.
“No!” Andric struggled, but Rothgar had his arm. Andric twisted, striking Rothgar, but on his chest, not his belly. Two men grabbed him. One held a knife to his throat.
“Wait!” Rothgar held the Cyrennian’s leader’s eyes. “Wulf” – he indicated the wounded man – “should have a weapon. To go to his god. It is our custom.”
“No!” Andric howled. “You cannot. Rothgar, how can you –”
“Andric.” Wulf’s voice was quiet. “Let it happen. The wound is infected.”
“No! You just need rest.”
“Rest will not be enough. The red streaks are growing. I will die, either way. Quick is better.”
Andric looked at Rothgar, seeking confirmation. At his leader’s nod, his face contorted. He closed his eyes. “Give my brother his knife.”
The Cyrennian nodded. “Tie his hands first. Then do as these men ask.”
Rothgar forced himself to watch, meeting and holding Wulf’s eyes. Andric was on his knees, his hands over his face. The blade that took Wulf’s life was sharp, the cut made cleanly. The man wielding it had done this before. There was a lot of blood, but it was quick.
Wulf’s knife had tumbled from his grip as his life fled. His executioner picked it up, sliding it into his own belt. “A good blade,” he said.
Andric made a sound, half a sob, half the growl of a cornered animal. “The knife should be buried with him,” Rothgar said, keeping his voice calm.
“There’s no time to dig a grave,” the Cyrennian leader said, equally calmly, “and it’d be a waste, leaving it with the body.”
Rothgar considered, saying nothing for several heartbeats. How much could he ask? “Put him up on the rocks, at least. Not our custom, but the country people around Sambët sometimes do, keeping to their old ways. Better than the bare ground.”
“Their old ways? You are not of them?” This man was quick.
“We are Várganni, not Kidar peasants.”
“Whatever that means.” The Cyrennian sheathed his sword. “Does this one” – he pointed his chin toward Andric – “want to help raise his brother?”
“Andric,” Rothgar said. “His name is Andric Trivson, and his brother was Wulf. I am Rothgar Ruricson. May we know your name?”
“Tahir ab’Hatim.” He stepped forward. “I will help place the body on the rocks. Then we must move.”
“I don’t want you touching him.” Andric was on his feet now.
“Andric. We cannot carry him alone. Someone needs to be up on the boulders, to take him,” Rothgar said. He turned to Tahir. “Will you do that?”
“Of course.” Tahir signalled to another of his men. They began to climb the rocks, picking a path up to the same nearly flat-topped boulder Rothgar would have chosen. The height wouldn’t stop the foxes and wildcats, but leaving Wulf there felt cleaner, somehow, than on the soil.
“Rothgar,” Andric said in their tongue, in a voice as cold and sharp as broken ice, “I do not want those men touching my brother.”
“Then he stays on the ground, for the insects and worms.” Like most of their compatriots on the fields near Sambët. Unless the Temülchid, afraid of disease, gathered and burned the bodies. Tahir and the second man were watching from half way up the tumbled rocks.
“These men are not our enemy,” Rothgar said in Casilan, so that Tahir would understand. “We have a common foe.”
Fury rose in Andric’s eyes. His neck and cheeks reddened. “They took our weapons. We are captives. Prisoners.” Heat now in his voice, and his hands had become fists.
“For now.”
“Fuck you, Rothgar,” Andric said. “I told you those rocks weren’t a safe place to camp. Tahir!” In Casilan, he shouted, “You asked if we ran away. We did. We are cowards, not—”
Rothgar’s fist collided with Andric’s chin. The smaller man fell and lay still. Rothgar looked up at Tahir. He rubbed his beard, debating what to say to the Cyrennian.
“He speaks the truth,” he said finally. “The only command to seek help in Odïrya came from me.”
Tahir considered this. “Had you the authority?”
“No. I am only a captain.”
Tahir didn’t reply. He climbed down, indicating to his man to stay on the rocks. Another climbed up as Tahir descended. Together, not needing words, the other two men helping, Rothgar and Tahir took Wulf’s body to its resting place. Rothgar arranged his limbs, placed small stones on the eyes. It didn’t matter, really: this was only dead flesh. Wulf was wherever Wulf was, and the carrion birds wouldn’t be deterred by pebbles.
Below them, Andric stirred. He tried to sit up, then collapsed again. “Is he a good soldier?” Tahir asked, watching.
“Yes.”
“Except he thinks he is a coward. He reacted, when I asked if you ran away. You did not.”
Rothgar shrugged. “He heard an insult. I didn’t. We could have stayed and died, or retreated and live to fight the Temülchid again.” He gave Tahir a level look. “I didn’t intend to do it in Cyrenne.”
“But you will.”
Did he have a choice? “Tell me,” Rothgar said. “How can they be at Sambët and Cyrenne at the same time? Are there so many of them?”
“There must be. Although they are not yet to Cyrenne, but some distance east. But they will come.”
Rothgar digested this, thinking of stories he’d heard. “Is it true you defeated them twenty years ago?”
Tahir nodded. “Cyrenne and Halachia, together. We will do it again.”
That might be bravado, Rothgar thought. But if they had, then he could learn things, useful things, and the man beside him had acted with decency this morning. He pushed a hand through his hair. “You’ll take a couple of deserters? As volunteers?”
“You’ll vouch for Andric?”
“He’ll come around. But don’t give him his knife or sword back for a few days, until I get him to understand it was the Temülchid who killed Wulf. Your man just gave him mercy.”
Tahir nodded again. Then he grinned. “On one condition. We have a boat on the river, not too far away. When we get there, Várganni, go for a swim. A long one. You stink.”
Image: Illustration: After Igor Svyatoslavich’s fighting with the Cumans, Viktor Vasnetsov, 1880, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Making the Best of It
Arlene Davies-Fuhr
Her sister Barb leans forward, laboriously wedges herself out of her favorite wing-back chair, then hobbles to the phone. Her arthritic knees shoot pain up both legs. After the sixth ring, she says, “Hi. Absolutely, John. That would be delightful. See you on the 25th then. Oh, by the way, my sister is visiting. Any chance I could bring her along? Great. See you. Looking forward to it.”
Barb eases back into her chair. “John,” she informs Jane, “is Doctor McEachern, a prominent neurosurgeon from Boston. The same fellow who, a few years back, built an impressive country home in Nova Scotia overlooking the harbor.” Jane is already aware that for several months every summer John and his wife Lena are Barb’s neighbors. Today Barb adds, “John’s inviting us to a party at his place a week from Friday. Course he says you’re welcome. Should be loads of fun, considering who the Doc plans to include. Course, we’ll sure have to bulk up before we head over. We won’t find much that’s appealing there. The Doc and his wife follow a crazy diet.”
The invite thrills Barb but unsettles her sister. In this burg, Jane knows only one person and she suspects schmoozer extraordinaire Barb will ignore Jane as soon as they join the party. How insulting to be forced to fend for oneself in such an awkward circumstance.
Barb continues, “There’ll be lots of prominent lawyers, doctors, and socialites. It’s fantastic we’ve been included, isn’t it?”
Fantastic is not the word Jane would have chosen and she considers begging off with a migraine. On the other hand, Jane is curious. She decides to attend to view firsthand the interactions of society’s upper echelon.
On the 25th, the pair arrive as the party is in full swing. Jane grabs a drink then snags a stool in the corner by a window where she’s squished against the glass. At least schooners in the harbor and colorful houses provide a distraction.
As Jane swirls her drink, she’s surprised to see a handsome young man plowing toward her. He has spied a folding chair and edges closer. He extends a hand with a hearty, “Hi there. Haven’t seen youse around. I’m Liam. A pleasure to meet. And you are?”
“Jane, Barbara Knickle’s sister.” Jane risks another glance out the window even though she is being rather dismissive and insulting.
Liam plunks himself down, crosses his long limbs, then launches into his spiel. “As you likely know, I am in the business of providing amazing upscale wines to folks all up and down Nova Scotia’s South Shore. I’ve visited hundreds of prestigious wineries in Europe, which means I now stock the best full-bodied Shiraz and Cabernets. I see you’re enjoying one now. Perhaps it’s one of mine.”
Jane takes another sip and replies, “Really, I’m not sure. It’s red and that’s good enough for me.”
Liam continues, “Well, I’m sure with my help you’d become a connoisseur. You’ll definitely be in for a treat given my extensive collection. I also got my mitts on very impressive Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay, if sometimes white’s more your thing. Can I tempt you with my snazzy brochure?”
Jane takes several swigs before responding blandly, “Actually, I’m visiting from Alberta. I’m leaving in a few days.”
“Alberta, eh? Well, isn’t that something. I was born out there. What part are you from?”
Jane mumbles, “Edmonton.”
Excitedly, Liam shares, “That’s incredible. I grew up in Old Glenora. Do ya know where that is?”
The question is insulting, as anyone who has been in Edmonton for more than a few seconds knows the prestigious Glenora neighborhood. Jane offers a withering reply, “Of course.”
Undeterred, Liam continues, “I attended Glenora Elementary, then I hoofed over to Victoria High School. Do you know where that is?”
The question is more than insulting; it’s tiresome. After all, Jane’s lived in Edmonton for 25 years.
“On 109th Street,” she replies icily. “My daughter attended there. It’s quite the school for theater and performing arts. She studied cello and voice and is now performing in Les Miz.”
Liam jokes,“Well, give her my congrats. Hey, here’s some trivia for ya. Do ya know the comedian Leslie Nielsen once attended Vic?”
Before Jane can squeeze out an answer, Liam launches into a diatribe about one of his high school escapades. He snorts, “Once we pranked a teacher good. Me and my buds set a paper cup full of marbles upside down on the teacher’s desk. When class begins, I ask, ‘Mr. Smyth, what’s on your desk?’ When the teacher moves the cup, marbles ricochet all over the floor. It’s really wild. Then we shout, ‘Mr. Smyth, you’ve lost your marbles.’ Clever, eh?”
While Liam has been reminiscing, Jane was watching her sister over by the appetizers, waving her wine glass as she chats with several suave gentlemen. Jane must have unconsciously sighed as Liam gives her a strange look.
Slapping his forehead, Liam says, “Jeez , if you’re from Edmonton, I must tell you I’ve opened a wine store in Lendrum strip mall. Do you know where that is?”
Liam’s constant questions are offensive, but Jane wearily admits, “Sure I know Lendrum. It’s actually very near my place.” She imagines that if Liam were an astute fellow, or an enterprising businessman, he might present her with a coupon for a 10% discount on her first order. But no such luck.
Finally, Liam asks, “Do ya work?”
Jane doesn’t possess the stamina to regale him with any of her bizarre work experiences. She blandly replies, “I’m an English instructor at Grant McEwan College.” Although she can’t help playfully adding, “Do you know where that is?”
Liam, oblivious to the jab, replies, “Yup. That place is something.”
Liam begins to scan the crowd for a more conducive customer. To assuage her boredom, Jane is surprised she does not really want the boorish fellow to wander off. She feigns interest and asks, “How did you get into the import business in the first place?” Afterwards she might follow with, “How’re things going these days?” And then perhaps she will inquire, “What’re your future plans?”
Jane finds the party has definitely perked up, now there’s someone to kibbutz with. Their disingenuous interactions make the evening memorable, even if it is in a rather disparaging sort of way.
Image by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay
Ashes In My Mouth
David M. Simon (@writesdraws)
Christ on a pogo stick, this year’s Hot Issue cover story, the biggest, baddest insult comic since fucking Rickles, and Rolling Stone sends you to interview me? What are you, twelve? Did you unhitch from your mama’s tit and climb on your tricycle to come down here?
Okay, okay, relax, I’m just yanking your dick. We can do this, but on my terms, which means you let me tell my story my way, and keep your pie hole shut.
The first thing everyone wants to know is, why become an insult comic? I could have done observational comedy—yawn—or rapid-fire jokes, or prop comedy—Jesus, poke me in the eye with a stick, better yet poke Carrot Top in the eye with a stick—or just about anything else. Insult comedy is a dead end, right? My villa in Positano begs to differ, believe me when I tell you that people love to be shit on, but that’s not really why I do it.
Here’s the reason I’m an insult comic—it tastes good.
Before you ask—pie hole shut, remember?—I’m not being figurative. I’m not a figurative kinda guy, if I say asshole, I mean your little brown pucker. I was being literal. Insults taste good.
Let me start way back at the beginning. Most kids’ first words are mama, or dada, or love you, or some combination, right? Mine was ugly. Partly because my sister, three years older than me and a spiteful, jealous bitch, some things never change, whispered in my ear that I was ugly every chance she got. But that’s not the main reason. The thing is, the word ugly tasted so good my little ass swooned every time I said it.
Don’t get your Underoos in a bunch, I’ll explain. I assume that hippie rag of yours hires reporters of at least minimal intelligence, so you’ve heard the word synesthesia. I’ve memorized the definition, courtesy of some overpriced hospital: synesthesia is a condition where the brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses.
That means these poor assholes who suffer from it are all twisted up in the head—they see sounds, hear colors, like that. Even a twenty watt bulb like you gets the idea.
I have it, synesthesia, a really fucking weird version of it, and believe me, every case of it is pretty fucking weird, just as a base level, so that’s saying something. Basically, I taste words as I say them, and different types of words have different flavors. A lot of words—prepositions, determiners, the boring words that exist so that what you say doesn’t sound like gibberish—have a neutral, boring flavor. Kind of like unsweetened oatmeal. Verbs can be fun. Gallop tastes like crispy bacon, for instance. Fuck, when used as a verb, tastes like oysters, but when used as an adjective—it’s a pretty fucking versatile word—tastes like a chili dog.
Pay attention, numb nuts, here’s where it gets interesting. Insults, words with cruel, mean, abusive, disparaging connotations, the words I’ve built a world-class career around, taste like something the gods themselves have for dessert only occasionally, because they don’t feel they deserve it. Imagine layers of flavor and texture, at once delicate and bold, a symphony of decadent delight. Sometimes, if I string the words together just right, I have a shuddering orgasm without even touching myself, just from the taste. Yeah, that good.
On the other hand, words of love and affection, of kindness and complements, taste like ashes in my mouth.
I didn’t understand any of this at first. I wasn’t diagnosed until my mid-teens. As a little kid I assumed everyone was like me. I just knew what felt good and what didn’t. No, smartass, this did not make me a popular kid. Nobody likes a mean kid, my family included. My parents, the poor schmucks, did their best to accept their asshole of a son, but I heard my mother crying in her room on many nights. My sister already hated me for existing, so I just gave her more fuel for the fire.
When I started school, it was a dumpster on fire floating down a river of toxic waste. I had no friends. I did alright as far as the work went, I’m smarter than the average neanderthal, but I was a social pariah. Even the teachers hated me.
That all changed in middle school, when I discovered my calling. I became the class clown. I was a merciless god, dispatching mere mortals with brutal verbal precision. Nothing had really changed, I had always been an asshole, but now I had an audience that appreciated it. There’s a certain segment of the population that finds the kind of shit I do absolutely hilarious, and my middle school—shout out to Maple Heights Middle School, and especially Vice Principal McMahon, who paddled my ass on an almost weekly basis—was filled with them. My guess is they’re still fans of mine to this day.
High school was more of the same. In fact, if anything I was worse. Crueler. By then I had perfected my craft, combining insults in ways that maximized their flavors. And if the words were seasoned by my victims’ tears, even if it was purely psychological, so much the better. I wish I could say I cared, but honestly, I was too busy chasing the taste to give a shit.
Alright, look, this is depressing me. Let’s skip ahead. I went to college at Ohio State, where I was barely scraping by, mostly because I rarely went to class. By that point I was completely estranged from my family, so when my parents pulled the plug on tuition, it wasn’t a surprise. I dropped out, but stayed in Columbus, living in a shithole and working a series of odd jobs that I kept getting fired from because, you know, I’m not a people person.
I drank a little in college, but once I dropped out I took it up seriously. I had finally found something I was good at besides hurling insults. As it turns out, insults taste even better with a mouthful of bottom shelf vodka.
Which brings us around to when my life blew up, in the best way, and the man, the myth, the legend, I’m talking about myself numbnuts, was born. I staggered out of my usual watering hole, a dive where everyone had learned by harsh experience to leave me alone. I couldn’t find where I had left my car, probably a good thing. I wandered around the Short North, and eventually found myself in another bar, which happened to be in the middle of open mike night. My pickled brain decided it was a good idea to sign up.
I have very patchy memories of what happened next, but I’m sure you’ve seen the video someone in the audience shot, the whole fucking world has. I got up on stage and spent twenty minutes spewing insults at breakneck speed, ripping through one asshole after another. All I really remember is how glorious it all tasted.
Nearly fifteen million people watched that video. Inside of a week I had my first agent, and six months later I was working a showroom in Vegas. A career was born. A hateful, possibly evil career, but a career nonetheless.
That brings us up to date. Am I happy? Are you stupid? Don’t answer that. Have you been listening? I’ve alienated everyone I’ve ever known—family, friends, the few that I’ve had, business associates. I’m on my third agent. I make them a ton of money, but they just can’t bear to spend time with me. I have plenty of sex, but the kind of people I attract—starfuckers, standup groupies, men and women with a kink for degradation—aren’t exactly in it for the long haul. It’s hard to fall in love when you can’t say the word without gagging. Bottom line, I am one lonely motherfucker.
And we’re done here. I’d say thanks, but there’s a pretty good chance that when this interview drops, a shitstorm is going to roll on in and wash away my career. Then again, there’s no accounting for peoples’ taste. I might be more popular than ever.
Now I think it’s time for you to climb on your tricycle and haul your ass back to Rolling Stone, you teabagging fuckhole of a shitbiscuit.
Damn, that tasted good.
Meeting Miss Geherty
Joseph P. Garland (@JPGarlandAuthor)
On my first day as a maid in the house of the Irish-American Charles Geherty in a fashionable part of New York City in 1870, I was shown throughout the house by Biddy O’Casey. We were both maids from Ireland, though I’d only been in America for little more than a month.
We were back in the kitchen after the tour, waiting to be called to bring breakfasts to the ladies of the house, Mrs. Geherty and her daughter Mary. Minutes after the housekeeper had taken up the tray to the house’s mistress, Miss Geherty’s bell rang. Cook soon had a tray ready for her as well. In addition to a napkin and silverware, it had a pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, a cruet with milk and a bowl with sugar, several slices of well-done toast in a caddy, and bits of butter on a small plate.
Biddy looked at me. “This is the most important thing you may ever do in this house,” she said in sudden seriousness. “You will meet Miss Geherty. Miss Mary Geherty. She has good days, and she has bad days. She is…well, you will see what she is. Never, ever not call her ‘Miss Geherty’ when you are with her. You cannot say it too often, I assure you.”
Cook shook her head amiably at Biddy’s remarks, and I picked up the tray. I followed Biddy up the servants’ stairs, the silverware clattering with each step, to the third floor where the family’s bedrooms were.
Biddy knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. Miss Geherty had drawn the curtains open and when we entered she had put herself upright in her bed with her back against a pillow leaning on the headboard as I set down the tray on a small table against a wall. Biddy poured coffee into the cup and handed it and its saucer to her mistress. Miss Geherty lifted the cup, took a sip from it, and returned it to the saucer.
Holding it in her hand, she turned to me, her head moving up and down before she spoke. “So, you are the new girl.”
“Yes, Miss Geherty.”
“My, you are pretty.”
I looked down, never having heard such talk..
“Have you nothing to say to that? What is your name?”
“I am Róisín Campbell, Miss Geherty.”
“Rah-sin Campbell?”
“No, Miss Geherty. Roe-sheen.”
“One of those Irish names. And where are you from, Roe-sheen Campbell?”
“County Limerick, Miss Geherty.”
“County Limerick? I don’t know that I have ever met someone from County Limerick. Can you recite a limerick for me?”
I was embarrassed.
“Perhaps another time, then. Are you a farmgirl?” She took a second sip of her coffee.
“Yes, Miss Geherty.”
“Did you grow poh-tay-toes?”
“No, Miss Geherty.”
Mary looked at me harshly. .
“Well, Róisín, what is it that you did farm?”
“We are a dairy farm, Miss Geherty.”
“Can you read?”
“Yes, Miss Geherty.”
“How did you come to read, Róisín Campbell?”
“I was taught at the local school, Miss Geherty.”
“Biddy here can read only tolerably. Ain’t that right, Biddy?” Miss Geherty did not deign to look at Biddy when she said this. I believe her were trained on me and my own were trained on the floor.
“Yes, Miss Geherty,” Biddy said.
“Have you ever read a book, Róisín Campbell?”
I looked up. I was not fool enough not to know I was being patronized but also knew enough to not pay it any mind and I again lowered my head.
“Yes, Miss Geherty.”
“I will say that you are a failure at being able to converse with someone, farmgirl. I will not ask you what you have read and whether they had pictures. The two of you may go now. Biddy, I will need you in thirty minutes. Do not bother bringing the pretty girl with you.”
“Yes, Miss Geherty,” Biddy said. She and I backed up, curtsied, and left the room.
As we were nearly to the kitchen on the servants’ stairs, Biddy paused and turned to me. She was again very serious. “She don’t like you. She hates even the thought of not being the most beautiful woman in the house.”
“What do you mean?”
“Róisín, you may be a country girl, like me, but sure you know how pretty you are.”
I was again embarrassed. That Miss Geherty thought so frightened me. But Biddy made very clear that I needed to have Miss Geherty like me. But what if she did not by the accident of my face? From what I could tell in our brief initial encounter, Miss Geherty was not unattractive. She seemed tall and very thin, with no bosom. Her hair was dark, almost black, and her skin was fair, with traces of freckles drifting across her face. In this regard, she very much resembled her mother in build and, save for the freckles, in her face.
There was nothing, I supposed, that she could do about her looks, and Biddy and I finished our task with Miss Mary Geherty and were set upon our other duties, with Biddy tending to me.
Later, when Miss Geherty went out for the day, Biddy brought me to a group of rooms on the fourth floor, at the back of the house. “You must see this,” she insisted, and she said it was where the family’s clothing was kept.
The largest room had but one window. To the right were various items of men’s clothing with perhaps two dozen pairs of shoes on shelves by the floor. To the front, Biddy said, was Mrs. Geherty’s clothing. It nearly filled the wall. But the balance of the room, with far more outfits than were Mrs. Geherty’s, contained, Biddy said, Miss Geherty’s things. The sight left me speechless. Every woman in my village, and beyond, could have two or perhaps three of the gowns and dresses and there would be plenty left over for all the women in the next village.
“One must never wear the same dress twice,” Biddy said, her smirk directed in a different direction from earlier. “Miss Geherty goes out up to four or five times in a week, though not so much in the winter. Sometimes twice in a day. Mrs. Geherty, on the other hand, is a homebody to her daughter. She goes out no more than twice in a week, usually with Mr. Geherty.”
Miss Geherty had done Europe, the tour of London and Milan and Venice and especially Paris with her mother. And unlike her mother, Biddy said, her experience—the clothing in Paris and the well-defined hierarchy of London—took. She learned the place of those who served her and how they were to be treated and since such treatment was fully in accord with Mary Geherty’s natural inclinations, she happily applied them upon her return to New York.
Looking at the room, Biddy led me closer. “She will not wear a dress again, yet she keeps each like a trophy. She spends much of her day at fittings. Though she sometimes gets something at Arnold Constable or Lord & Taylor.”
“How can they afford them?”
“Beats me. Mr. Geherty did very well in the War, I hear. He seems to be doing well since then, too.”
Biddy explained that she had been at the house for four years and that she was at another house for the prior two. She came to New York six years before Róisín, and she was taught to be a domestic servant at the House of Mercy.
“I should have had nothing if it wasn’t for the good sisters. I’m happy enough in service. I can send money home. A brother has already come to New York since me. He works on the docks. I hope a sister will come, too.”
Biddy, I understood, was continuing the tradition begun in the Famine years of being the first in a farm family to come to America and provide the means for brothers and sisters to follow. I was fortunate in that my family was not poverty-stricken as was Biddy’s or, I knew, the others who worked in the Geherty House.
With Biddy’s blessing, I ran my hands across the hung garments. Velvet dresses, walking dresses, and ball dresses. Biddy described them to me as we toured the room. White llama jackets, overskirts of lace, and traveling dresses in black silk for when Miss Geherty traveled to Stockbridge in western Massachusetts where, she explained, the family kept a house.
“But,” she informed, “they have never been invited to Newport or Saratoga and they never will be. Thank goodness for that. Then she would need dresses for croquet-playing and going to horse-races and yacht-races and receptions and parties and who knows what else.”
I could not calculate the cost of this collection and would later learn that each of the houses on the street, in this neighborhood—and in better neighborhoods—had rooms just like this. Where women who thought they were not pretty enough in the eyes of other women who did not think they were pretty enough kept their outfits. Not that they would ever venture into such a room. They would, as Miss Geherty did, receive the delivery of a newly made dress and have it placed in the room. They would direct a maid, as Miss Geherty did with Biddy, to collect the dress on the afternoon of the evening on which it was to be worn.
The maid would assist in the dressing, beginning with the undergarments and ending with the delicate robing of her better. A selection of jewels—Biddy could not resist showing me the house’s jewels—would be brought, and the lady would select those appropriate for the occasion, and the necklaces would be draped and the rings would be placed and the earrings would be hooked and the mistress would carefully walk down the steps in the front staircase to the practiced admiring glances of the men in the house to be led to the carriage that would take her to a party or dance or ball where the women would smile and nod and assess the inadequacies of all the women they had not seen since the day before and would not see again until the day after, with the same ritual repeated again and again, ad infinitum.
I was fresh in New York but even I understood the absurdity of this, but so did Biddy and all the others in service at the Geherty House. Perhaps even the Gehertys did. But it was and always would be.
This is an excerpt from the author’s Gilded Age novel Róisín Campbell. An historical note: The reference to the number of dresses in Miss Geherty’s closet is a reflection of the reality of life in an 1870s fashionable home. This I learned from a source that reproduced an itemization of such a woman’s closet in 1870 that was produced in a litigation.
Image: John Singer Sargent: Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler (Mrs. John Jay Chapman), 1893. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This is a bit out of time. Sargent is the inspiration for John Ellis, the mentor of Clara Bowman in A Studio on Bleecker Street. The Smithsonian: “According to Sargent, twenty-six-year old Elizabeth Chanler had ‘the face of the Madonna and the eyes of a child.’ This portrait shows a beautiful, well-bred woman who has learned to be strong.”
The Anniversary Present
Ron Ross
The teacher sat in the staff room, blissful and content, taking a short break from class. It was his tenth wedding anniversary and he felt happy about life. But he knew there was a gathering storm and wondered how long it would be before it broke. As it transpired, not long.
The door to the room flew open with a crash and his wife strode in like an avenging angel, her eyes wide, her teeth bared, her wrath unbridled. She looked beautiful, even in her Attila-the-Hun mood. She was waving a letter with one hand, and pointing a menacing finger at him with the other. Is this a joke? she wanted to know. She was humiliated, she hissed. She was insulted, she snarled. She was furious, she growled through gritted teeth. Well, he’d already figured that part out.
He wasn’t going to let her outburst spoil his happy day. “Let’s go for a coffee,” he suggested, giving her a disarming smile. Without waiting for a reply, he took her hand and led her out into the hallway. The hallway would soon be full of students changing classes and there would be a cacophony of shouting and laughing and metal locker doors clanging and banging. But for the moment the hall was empty and silent, save for the sound of his wife’s heels clacking on the tiled floor. She continued to grumble, waving the letter in the air like a marooned sailor trying to signal a passing ship. He let his mind drift. He was determined to stay in his happy place.
Perhaps he should have bought her a different anniversary present. Something soft, like fabric. Not something metallic that she could use as a missile. And he could take her to a favourite restaurant for a nice anniversary dinner. Japanese or Italian? It didn’t matter as she could stab him just as easily with a chopstick as a fork. But she will have calmed down by then, he reassured himself. Maybe.
As they settled into the car for the short drive to Tim Horton’s, a small cloud of doubt crept into his sunny sky. Perhaps he really had made a mistake with that gift. Oh, there was no doubt in his mind that he’d done the right thing. And that confirmation letter was unavoidable. But maybe, just maybe, they should have had a discussion before he enrolled her in the Anger Management classes.
Image by kalhh from Pixabay
November Team Showcase
A Muse Bouche welcomes one new contributor this month. Ron Ross began writing in the early 1970s, submitting articles for local newspapers in Brampton, Ontario. He has written numerous non-fiction essays and articles. These articles are mostly scientific, historic, or related to famous people. In the last four years he has written non-fiction articles exclusively for Tree Talk, a monthly magazine produced by the Guelph, Ontario retirement community Village by the Arboretum.
Arlene Davies-Fuhr has a Masters Degree in English as well as a Masters in Theological Studies. Arlene enjoys writing poetry and has published a book on biblical psalms. Recently she wrote a three-act play and has published a children’s book about Zola: The Zany, Zippy, Zealous Pig.
In Don B. Smith‘s business and university teaching career he wrote dozens of proposals, reports, cases and teaching notes, all fact-based. He started experimenting with creative writing in 2019 to fill the empty hours after losing his wife of 63 years to leukemia.
Joseph P. Garland, as J.P. Garland, has done some editing and republished his romance Coming to Terms. Several excerpts from the book have been included in prior issues of the review. His Becoming Catherine Bennet is available on KU and also on Audible.com. (First Chapters.) He has also adapted his AMBR submission of a few months back involving Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy entitled “Mr. Darcy’s Regrets” from June 2023 into a novella entitled The Omen at Rosings Park, also available on Kindle Unlimited and as an Audiobook on Audible.com. He has also started a newsletter and those interested in getting on the mailing list can contact him at JPGarlandAuthor@DermodyHouse.com. He has also published the pieces from AMBR in something called A Compilation.
David M. Simon has published The Wild Hunt: Novella 2 of The Wild Hearts and Hunts Duology (Part 1 is Renée Gendron’s Ninth Star) as well as Trapped in Lunch Lady Land, a middle-grade fantasy adventure.
Marian L Thorpe‘s eighth and final book in her historically inspired speculative fiction series Empire’s Legacy, Empire’s Passing, is out in paperback and as an ebook. (Empire’s Daughter is the first part.) She has numerous titles available; they can be found at her aptly-named website, MarianLThorpe.com or at Books2Read. Marian’s short story On Shining Wings is included in the anthology Historical Stories of Exile, published by Taw River Press. She is currently working on An Unwise Prince, the first book of The Casillard Confederacy.
