The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    ARTHUR OF THE ROUNDISH TABLE: The Lady of the Forest Capitulates

    Lisbee, the Lady of the Forest checked in on Sir Boner to make sure he was not doing something...er....that seemed to be in his very nature.

    He seemed to be half awake as his fever broke and he was hallucinating:

    Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, the British Aristocratic economy needs help.  Our neighbors, our friends, our constituents, they're hurting and there's not a member at this Roundish Table on either side of the aisle that doesn't understand that.  And I think everyone in this chamber on both sides of the aisle understands that Congress needs to act and act now to help British Aristocratic families and small businesses and help bring confidence back into our economy. 

    "How about the family who called me about the fact that the bread winner's hours are going to be cut from 40 hours to 20 hours?  He can hardly make his payment.  What does it do for him?  Absolutely nothing.  And so, my concern about this is that we have to have a plan that will work for the British Aristocratse, work for families, work for small businesses and help get our economy going again.  I don't think this bill does it.  I hope this bill works.  I really do, for the good of our country.  But my concern is that the plan that's outlined will not do what we want it to do.  That's why Aristocrats came to the table with what we thought was a better idea, a plan that will create twice as many jobs as the bill that we're dating and at exactly half the cost.

    "But our ideas weren't considered.  We weren't allowed in the room.  We weren't allowed to participate at all.  And all the talk about bipartisanship that we have heard over the last several months went down the drain.  Now my Plebian colleagues know that I know how to be bipartisan, even when we were in the majority.  I have worked with many members on the other side of the aisle to bring bills to this floor that truly were done together.  But we would usually start at the beginning of the process.  Not only were we not included in the beginning of the process, we weren't included at the end f the process. 

    "I'd suggest that you vote no."

    It is a good thing I did not vote no when I found you in a pile of deer leavings, do you not think?

    Boner awake from his hallucinations and stared at the beautiful Lisbee.  Who are you?

    Well, a fancy thanks I gets for savin the likes of you unfair knight. Ha!

    Where am I, how do I find myself here?

    Well we met just a few days ago and you have, evidently recovered from an infection that came from a break in your leg. As a matter of fact we had several conversations before I found you again in never never land!  You do not recall me at all unfair knight?

    You are Lisbee. Now I remember. But I went into a dream, I was at the Roundish Table once again, making my pleas on behalf of Sir Cheney. What happened to Sir Cheney.

    Oh he was done away with by a girl.

    What?

    Sir Cheney was done away with, as you so eloquently put it, by a fourteen year old girl, Flower d'Arc.

    How doest thee knoweth this.

    I knoweth this because when I found you the Grand Tree of the Forest told me so you idiot. Ha!

    You talk to trees?

    I speak with all creations of our Lord & Savior dunce. (Blesses herself carefully)

    But how could a mere girl destroy the most vibrant and powerful man of our age? It makes no sense. Sir Boner swoons again.

    Lisbee cradled him. She always liked to cradle the sick, regardless of their political leanings. It was part of her make up so to speak. As he slowly responded, the Lady of the Forest began to feed him some soup with special herbs, it was not exactly Cambells or Liptons, but it was all she could muster so to speak, even though she really had not yet discovered mustard yet but it had a distinct tang due to the roots she had found decades ago in the forest.

    Slowly he sipped from the sustenance he had been offered and came to his senses. Sort of, I mean how many of the British Aristocracy ever came to his senses except Churchill from time to time but then again, he was half American and had a sense of humor.

    In a few days, Sir Boner was able to sit erect, so to speak, no puns intended...well kind of intended but come on, I am attempting to create some interest in this drivel for chrissakes. (Blesses himself just in case)

     

    Oh thank the Lord (blesses herself) you are up and about, so to speak. Now you can carry your own waste out of here.

    What? Oh my lord, I am so embarrassed, I.....

    Oh my lead boar takes care of such thing. Has an RN you know from one of those web universities. But he has potential and for some reason he really likes your waste. Which is more than your compadres at the Roundish Table I gather.

    Oh, goooooooooood. How did you know come to know about my experiences with the Roundish Table of late? Did we speak of such things?

    Sort of unfair knight. You were pontificating in your hallucinatory state, ranting and raving that no one would listen to you anymore. It was rather humorous you know. Ha!

    Why doest thou continue in referring to me as unfair knight. What did I ever do to you.

    Well you kept filling the bucket underneath your cot. Hahahahahahahaha

    Just then there was a knock at the door.

    As she opened the door, the Lady of the Forest beheld a rather strange and wondrous sight. A naked man had appeared carrying a satchel of sorts. He was slim and good looking but pale, even with his sunburn. His hair, what was left of it was askew. And she did not even have to ask him his shoe size. Ha!

    He promptly collapsed on the floor of her home. Get up and help me with this Sir Bones or whatever they call you.

    Boner immediately arose, slightly light headed but proceeded to the door and helped Lisbee load the new visitor onto the cot.

    Time to change buckets, Lisbee said as she placed a clean bucket under the cot. What the hell am I running here, some sort of treatment center?

    Quickly the Lady of the Forest covered the stranger's privates as well as his publics. It appeared that the vagrant had some chills. Oh my God, another one with the ague. What is a mother to do?

    Madam, if I may intervene...

    Madam? What the hell is that. I do not run a brother ye unfair scoundrel. I am a Lady...

    All right!! All right. I am dense, all us repubs are, but I hear you. Lady, I mean to say Lady....I know this man. He is a magistrate of one of our most Western Counties, adjacent to that strange and despicable place known as Wales... Give me room Woman!!!

    Lisbee was to taken aback by Boner's tone. She thought: I thought him less than a man until he showed me some spunk. At last, a man in the house. But then again this new guy, even with no surety as to his shoe size......

    Sir Boner examined the knight on the cot and saw that he had no wounds. He appeared to be breathing all right and there was a light on his countenance that caused him to.........

    He is one of those girls who seems to come in the spring

    One look in his eyes and you forget everything
    You had ready to say
    And I saw her today, yeah...

    Chorus:

    A younger girl keeps a-rollin' 'cross my mind
    No matter how much I try, I can't seem to leave his memory behind
    I remember his eyes, soft dark and brown
    I'll bet he'd never been in trouble, or even in town
    A younger girl keeps a-rollin' 'cross my mind


    And  I shouldn't  hang around, acting like his brother
    In a few more years, they'd call us right for each other
    And why
    If I wait I'll just die, yeah...

    A younger girl keeps a-rollin' 'cross my mind
    No matter how much I try, I can't seem to leave his memory behind
    I remember his eyes, soft dark and brown
    I'll bet he'd never been in trouble, or even in town
    A younger girl keeps a-rollin' 'cross my mind

    What the hell is this all about? the Lady of the Forest thought.

    First I find a boy who ends up being a man, then I come across a man who needs my help and the first man turns out to be.......No wonder I never find my way out of this goddamnable forest. (Blesses herself, kind of)

    The next day the second transient appeared to have gathered his wings, so to speak. He was up and about and after awhile, actually remembered who he was and where he had been.

    Where am I? How did I come to be here?

    Geeeeeeeeeez, this is the same dialogue over and over again for chrissakes. Cannot you do better than this Dickon? Thought our Lady of the chatroom...er...Forest.

    But you are the Governor of Wallshop County. You are the venerable Sir Sanford. You used to run a hardware near London called: Sanford and Sons.

    Oh, I remember that. That was me dad's and mine. Then I was recruited by that Chinky guy. And I entered the Aristocratic Party and they accepted me, even though I had this Southern Drawl.

    Where have you been Sir Sanford?

    Well, the terrible onus of governance became such a terrible....I could not take it anymore. And then that herald found out I had been boinking this broad in ...where that Evita broad was....and then my wife took quite umbrance from all of this hullabaloo and she was in her menstral cycle and all that....

    Are you well enough to travel my favorite governor who has the closest thing to my own tan and countenance I can remember?

    Why yes I am, as he looked at the cool blue yes of his patrician partner.

    Sir Sanford did not even bother to get dressed. He and Sir Boner bid their respective adieus, leaving some silver and some gold the governor still had in his teeth.

    As she watched the two flitting down the forest path she heard Boner singing:

     

    At last my love has come along
    My lonely days are over
    And life is like a song
    At last the skies above are blue
    And my heart was wrapped up in clover
    The night I looked at you
    I found a dream that I can speak to
    A dream that I could call my own
    I found a thrill to press my cheek to
    A thrill that I have never known
    You smiled, and then the spell was cast
    And here we are in heaven
    And you are mine at last

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8FHwsATN0E

    I have had it with repubs and aristocrats the Lady of the Forest called out. I mean and they did not even play Queen. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

    ENSIGN, GET IN HERE AND CLEAN UP THIS BUCKET

     

    The boar promptly returned to do his duty.