Tales From the Crossroad Volume 1 Read online

  The Worster legs are not considered the speediest, even among the somnolent limbs of my fellow Sluggards, but I outshone myself that day. It was as though I was running on someone else's legs entirely, which sounds quite awkward when you come to think of it. What one imagines is trying to get someone else's feet and ankles and calves and knees and thighs and hips (moving from bottom to top, as it were) to work under you, which seems frightfully complex. Perhaps to simplify matters I should say it was as though I'd suddenly become Eric Liddell or that Jew Harold Abrahams at their Olympic peak, or even that fleet-footed Negro, Jesse Owens. I was literally flying so that I didn't even feel my toes on the ground, and in less than ten seconds I had caught up with Slick and Gertrude and forever closed their mouths by the bold stratagem of opening their necks.

  My skill with the razor was increasing, I'm proud to admit. Two quick motions, and both of them were pumping their lives' blood out on the close-cropped grass, a hybrid, Uncle Tim once told me, of imported Kentucky bluegrass and some English stuff named arrenatherium avunciam, though I may not have the spelling quite spot-on.

  Aha, thought I, now I no longer had to worry about Aunt Delia discovering my expertise with horse dung, nor did I need to be concerned with Uncle Tim's cow-creamer being stolen. Then the thought crept into the Worster mind that it might be a very good thing indeed if I didn't have to worry about Aunt Delia and Uncle Tim at all in the future, to avoid permanently the thought of falling into disfavor with my dear but at times demanding auntie and her softspoken spouse.

  I removed the late Mrs Spattery's long, full skirt, belted it tight at the waist, and used it as a rucksack, into which I dropped the heads of Marjorie Bucket and both Spatterys, the expressions on whose faces were far more alarmed than was Marjorie's. I tried to give them a bit of a smile, but to no avail, since the grins kept drooping into gloomy-Gus style frowns. Throwing the bag over my shoulder, I labored on.

  Hortense Crayne was where I thought I should find her, in the garden, reciting Tennyson to a horde of butterflies who seemed to be ignoring her, but who might really have been enjoying the dickens out of The Lady of Shallot, for all I knew of butterflies' literary tastes. "Oh, hullo, Bernie!" she cried in her piping little voice, her eyes all aglow. "Would you like to join me and the little multi-colored laborers of the pistils and stamens for a bit of verse?" I swear to you that I am not concocting this language from whole cloth. Actually, for Hortense, that passage was closer to Hemingwayesque than usual. "Oooo!" she squealed, "what's in your sack? Are you gathering mushrooms, those night-blooming sentinels of the woods that serve as the faeries' parasols?"

  "Right ho. In a nutshell," answered I.

  "Ah, and is that a mushroom-cutter you bear, a device to wickedly part them from their wee little stems, and deprive the faery folk of their brollies, Bernie dear?"

  "It is indeed, my sweet, musty little mushroom," I said, insuring instantly that no further sugar-soaked morsels of verbiage would come again from that thin throat, its arteries so close to its pale skin. Plop, into the bag went her head. The butterflies seemed vastly relieved.

  To chronicle the rest of the day would be superfluous, unnecessary, and repetitive, though not necessarily in that order. One was much like another, and I'll spare the details, touching merely on the broader strokes. Uncle Tim I found in his study, and Aunt Delia in the drawing room. I was able to dispatch both rather easily, adding their heads to my makeshift sack, which was by now beginning to get a bit soggy. I went into the kitchen in search of something else I might use as a bag for my collection, and if it were waterproofed so much the better.

  Monsieur André was up to his usual chefly activities in the kitchen, and from the looks of the prep. area he was making his famous crepes de la Boulogne or something akin. He peered at me, raising his furry Provençal eyebrows at the sight of the dripping rucksack. I'd learned enough by now to keep the razor in my pocket, since most of my victims had found the sight of it somewhat disturbing.

  It was then the thought unexpectedly sprung upon me of giving André extreme severance, to coin a phrase, from my late Aunt Delia's employ. Now understand, there was no good reason why I should be forcing André into that abyss of uncertainty already entered by Bucket et al. His demise would do Bernard Worster no earthly good. The motive was lacking, if you see what I mean. Still, I just felt it was something I simply had to do. It was the same kind of obsession that a small boy feels when in possession of a catapult and Brazil nut and in close proximity to a toff in a topper.

  "What 'ave you zere?" André asked me, eyeing me narrowly.

  "Where?" I replied. That I did not produce my razor and leap upon him instanter may be explained by the fact that he was holding a rather long and sharp kitchen knife with which he was slicing avocados or abercrombies or one of those obscure veggies.

  "Zere – in zat bag?" he queried, gesturing with his large knife.

  "Why…goat's heads," I replied, coming up with it rather swiftly, I thought.

  "Goat's 'eads?" He looked a trifle dubious, understandably so.

  "Indeed. Aunt Delia expressed some peckishness for goat's head cheese, and the local goat head purveyor just dropped these off, and since I was on my way here, I thought I'd just bring them by."

  The question of whether or not André would have accepted this display of Worster persiflage will always be moot, as just then the fabric of the Spattery woman's dress, silk or crepe or chenille or whatever they're making them of these days, gave way at last, and four severed heads, including those of his employers, came bounding out of the sack, bouncing on the white tiles of the floor like footballs in need of a good inflate. André reacted as expected, with an extremely Gallic shriek of dismay, and in that convenient moment I produced the razor and did what, if 'twere to be done, then 'twere well to have been done quickly.

  In another few ticks I had added André's dome to the pile, which I now placed in a sturdy sack which had formerly held potatoes. It was a tad dusty, but I heard no complaints from the new tenants. Then off went I to find the survivors, Gustie Fink-Tottle and Rodney Spade.

  On my way, I ran across a housemaid, a footman, and Seepings, the butler, whose weakness, imbecility, and age, in corresponding order, allowed me to perform the duties of my new office of Lord High Executioner of Binkley Court with ease. Along with the additional weight in my sack, I was tickled pink by the fact that my days of paying hush money to Seepings were at last over.

  My confrontation with Rodney Spade, however, was nearly a rum go all 'round. When I spotted him coming across the lawn, the expression on his face wasn't so much that of a man who has just spied the bounder who stole away the affections of his beloved as it was that of a chap who has found the headless corpse of that same beloved in the garden and has just spied the bounder who is holding a bloody sack in which that beloved's head is quite possibly contained. It was no wonder he was a trifle piqued.

  "You bastard!" he shouted in that big, bullying voice of his. "You mad, insane, homicidal bastard!" the adjectives of which might have been true enough, but to question the legitimacy of B. Worster was slightly beyond the pale, I thought.

  It was apparent that Spade was not to be easily mollified, and as he proceeded toward me like a juggernaut, drawing the sword part from out his sword-cane, I have to confess that the hairs on the back of the Worster neck came close to emulating that old porpentine gag of Jeaves which I utilized earlier in this chronicle. Still, I stood my ground, trying to remember some of that "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" wheeze, though it seemed inappropriate considering my band of brothers were a potato sack full of heads.

  As it turns out, I needn't have worried. I took out my trusty razor, and when Spade lunged I parried, and the razor just snipped a full two feet off Spade's blade. He stood there aghast and unmanned, if you're a proponent of that Freud fellow, as if wondering how on earth his mighty and erect blade had suddenly been reduced to a nub, but he hadn't long to wonder. Now all that remained was Gus
tie.

  As Hortense Crayne was to gardens and woods, Gustie Fink-Tottle was to lakes and ponds. Newts were his passion, for some reason unfathomable, I'm sure, to even Freud, let alone B. Worster. And there he was, on the shore of that mirror-surfaced lake on the west lawn of Binkley Court, lying on his tummy, his face right at the water's edge, on the lookout for newts and insensible to all else. It was like potting those fish in that barrel.

  I walked softly up behind him on Uncle Tim's carpet-like hybrid of bluegrass and arrenatherium avunciam (pardon the sp.), and did what you might well expect of me, if you've been more than skimming this tale of mine. He uttered not a peep, which was best, since Gustie can be frightfully whiny when the spirit moves him. His blood drifted onto the surface of the lake, making for quite a visual spectacle, spreading on the water like red posy petals. It looked so lovely that without even thinking I opened my sack and tossed, one by one, the heads of my relations, sweethearts, and acquaintances into the lake, rejoicing in both the loft I was able to get and the plashy plop with which they struck.

  I had half expected them to sink (detached heads are heavy, to which the Worster biceps can personally testify), but they floated buoyantly, even festively, upon the waters, and I sat down by the topless tower of Ilium that Gustie's corpse had become, still twitching as though he had ants in his corduroy pants, and just enjoyed the view for a time. The various heads, ten all told, bobbed like apples in a tub, and I could make out the various features as they slowly turned in the gentle breeze, Spade's Roman nose, Hortense's dimpled chin, Aunt Delia's double chin, and much more.

  I felt extremely at my ease, just the way I always did after Jeaves had gotten me out of a predicament and all was well with the world again, only better. There beat within the Worster bosom a magnificent and warming sense of self-accomplishment, of a man who had taken the bull by the teats and rectified the situation. Who needed Jeaves anyway? B. Worster was in the pink!

  The phrase came unbidden, inspired in part, I fancy, by the pinkish tinge the waters of the lake were acquiring from the items floating therein. I sat there for the longest time, holding the razor in my hand, watching the heads, gleefully bobbing along, the occasional sparrow descending to pick at a particularly toothsome bit.

  After a time, however, I started to feel queer all over, a bit fainty, like one of those swooning lasses that Aunt Delia used to write about in her stories for Milady's Dressing Room, that women's journal she used to edit and publish with Uncle Tim's money. Perhaps, I thought, a dandle of the Worster tootsies in the refreshing water would buck me up.

  But as I undid my spats and prepared to struggle with the laces of my shoes, I found that my feet came right out without having to untie them, and also that said feet had shrunk significantly. Indeed they resembled tiny hooves more than feet. This fairly alarming discovery, along with the rather unpleasant, almost charnel, taste in my mouth, put in me the desire to return to the house, rest the poor appendages on a comfy ottoman and have a whiskey and soda with a gathering of ice, but I knew it would be a tough go trying to keep on my trusty brogues for the hike back to the manor house.

  Necessity, as Jeaves always tells me, is the mother of invention, and I instantly saw before me what might make very serviceable shoes for my severely redesigned feet. A long pole lay by the side of the lake, probably to extend to overzealous swimmers who had not the strength to return to shore on their own, and with it I was finally able to fish out two of the heads, those of Rodney Spade and Hortense Crayne. Setting them as firmly as poss. on their neck stems, I pressed, one at a time, my greatly reduced pedal extremities into the tops of their pates until each foot popped through like a tooth into a chocolate-covered cherry.

  Though I had expected the result to feel somewhat sploogy, it was less than unpleasant, although the fit of Hortense's head was a bit tight, due, no doubt, to her smaller brain cavity. The restriction of my left foot (the one in the Crayne cranium) caused me to limp a bit as I walked back to the house, and the trailing locks of Hortense's platinum hair tended to get tangled up in the occasional weed or twig, but finally I hobbled in through the front door and made my way to my room to retrieve the pint bottle of spirits that I had secreted among my cravats.

  When I entered my bedchamber, the first thing that greeted me was my reflection in the full-length mirror upon the closet door, and I confess it gave me quite a start. I scarcely recognized the bird therein as the reflection of your kindly narrator, B. W. For some unfathomable reason I was wearing a top hat (which I hardly ever do these days), had grown a good twelve inches, and had turned into what, on first glance, resembled Al Jolson all dolled up with burnt cork for a minstrel show. As I looked closer, I realized that it would have been well nigh impossible to sing "Mammy" with the mouth now residing beneath the Worster schnozola. It seemed to be filled with those big hatpins I'd seen that image of Sambo wearing, and I thought of myself, as though in the third p., Now there's a lad who'll be a hit with the ladies should a strong March wind blow up.

  Or perhaps not. To be honest, I looked a fright, and should the Bucket or the Crayne have been able to see me now, they would have cancelled the nuptials in an instant. The rest of my garb seemed to have been tailored from what appeared to be some sort of skin, and Hortense might possibly have been able to derive some frothy romanticism from the material of my right sleeve, which had a tattoo of a heart and an arrow though it, with the legend, "MUM," just beneath.

  I must admit, however, that the ensemble fit rather well, though the lines of the jacket pockets were rather compromised by the bulging batches of chopped-off human fingers that protruded from them. Jeaves, I thought, would much have preferred his master in even the abhorred yellow weskit as opposed to this decidedly non-Saville Row wardrobe. Or so at least I fancied.

  Then my thoughts turned to something else entirely. Being that there was no one left on whom to use my exceedingly well-tempered razor, I thought very seriously about cutting the Worster throat itself. I suppose I'd become so used to the practice that I was finding it nigh impossible to stop, like one of those Chinks who smoke opium in Limehouse, admittedly bad for the health, but quite difficult to put down the pipe and sign the pledge. I looked avidly at my shiny black neck in the mirror and considered precisely where to make the first and probably last incision. Since I was to go, I determined to go out in high style, a Worster to the end.

  Then a polite clearing of the throat turned me about so that I saw my man Jeaves, impeccably togged as always, standing in the doorway to my room, his face imperturbable as additionally always. "You seem, sir," said Jeaves in his calm, gentleman's gentlemanly voice, "to be in a bit of a predicament."

  "Right ho. You've touched the nerve there, Jeaves," said I, pleased at least to hear my voice coming from that pin-cushion of a mouth as clearly as ever. "And I'm wondering if you might just be able to help me put things in perspective. A whiskey and soda might be a fruitful start."

  "I shall endeavor to give satisfaction, sir," he replied. Then, of all the odd things that had happened that day, the oddest thing of all occurred. Good heavens, what next, do tell! I hear you chorus, and tell you I shall, after leaving a sufficient amount of excess verbiage for the suspense to build to epic props.

  What it was, was this: Jeaves laughed. His features creased up like cuffs in a hot pants-press, and he guffawed a guffaw the likes of which I'd never heard before and could not have expected, particularly after having witnessed his greatest display of mirth being a soft smile.

  "Satisfaction indeed! Worster, you toffee-nosed prat," he said, grinning with all his teeth that I had never before noticed. I suppose I'd always thought of Jeaves as a gums-only type. "What goes around has finally, thanks to my patience and that razor, come around. You've done it all, just as I'd hoped you would, your worthless snob, you smarmy, ignorant poseur, you bigoted, racist, selfish, elitist, inbred leech on the body politic!"

  Well, honestly, I mean to say, I was stunned. Toffee-nosed? The Worster beak has
been called many things over the years, but toffee-esque has not been one of them. "Now look here, Jeaves," said I, anxious for such verbal abuse to cease and desist.

  "No, you look here, Worster, you swine," he said, his unexpected and alarming smile quite gone now. "I've put up with your shite for long enough, watching you evade the Army in two wars, while my brothers gave their lives in the Great War and my nephews gave theirs in the present struggle, and you and yours completely ignored anything beyond the bounds of your goddamned clubs and cricket matches and country houses. And all the time I got you out of your stupid, minor scrapes and made your cheap, illicit assignations, always waiting, waiting for the time when my chance for revenge on you and your entire parasitical way of life would come, as I knew it eventually should, you being a boob of very little brain."

  "Ah, yes, Pooh!" said I, finally grasping one of Jeaves's literary allusions.

  "Very good, sir," said Jeaves with a trace of irony, as I understand the word. "Then the razor came into my possession from my cousin, pitiful and foolish man that he was. He didn't believe the tales, and when he had received the razor, he used it to shave with – "

  "A thoroughly understandable position to take," I observed.

  "Not when you know its history," Jeaves said in a voice that made me go creepy-crawly all over. "Not when you know that it takes blood wherever it can, blood for the spirit that dwells within it, and enters the bodies and souls of those whose blood it sheds."

  "Ergo," I said, "this spirit egg you mention is within young B. Worster e'en as we speak?"