The Defenestration of Bob T. Hash III Read online

  The reason Bob had taken this rather odd step of disguising himself as Señor Gonzalez was that he had decided that he was not going to board his conference-bound flight as per his busy businessman’s picture book schedule at all. The original, the irreplaceable Bob T. Hash III, captain of industry, grammarian of the people, favorite citizen of Belmont, today of all days was going to take the unprecedented step of actually absconding from the picture book—and he had decided that disguising himself as Señor Gonzalez was the best way to make that escape. From the evidence of two earlier but halfhearted trial escapes (slipping out of a meeting into an unscheduled fire drill; hijacking a battery-powered milk cart that then became entangled with Signor Brambilla’s impatient Ferrari—see also Accidents Involving Italians), Bob suspected that any attempt to stray any distance in his own guise as Mr. Hash was likely to come up against gentle but firm resistance whereby he, Mr. Bob T. Hash III, would be reined back into the fold. He concluded that extricating himself from the gravitational clutches of the picture book required both greater guile and greater sheer physical speed. He had further observed that, despite the many trumpeted similarities between his own picture book universe and the Spanish one, Señor Gonzalez seemed, generally speaking, to get more leeway than he himself did. Señor Gonzalez was allowed to turn up late for meetings, for example; Señor Gonzalez got to take siestas. Bob noted that on weekends when he himself had to mow the lawn, Señor Gonzalez was allowed to lie in his garden hammock by the lee of an orange tree and smoke a cigar. Señor Gonzalez always seemed to be jetting off to Acapulco on vacation. Hence Señor Gonzalez, hence a flight to Acapulco…

  On that glorious sunlit morning there would depart from Belmont International Airport a plane bound for Acapulco, its runway takeoff divinely synchronized with the more modest lurch of a certain bird stand back on Remington Drive. For this Bob T. Hash III, alias Señor Gonzalez, possessed in his pocket two valid tickets—one for himself and the other for Miss Scarlett, his personal secretary whose stenographic skills would no doubt prove as indispensable in exile as they had done in the picture book office. Bob had in fact been conducting a clandestine romantic affair with Miss Scarlett for some time and now, putting his romance to good use, he believed that having Miss Scarlett—disguised as Señora Gonzalez—perched on his arm would lend a certain Latinate authenticity to his impersonation of Señor Gonzalez as he passed through the flight gate and thereby increase the likelihood of escape.

  Generally speaking, the inhabitants of Belmont are a contented people, and the last thing one might expect is for Bob, as its chief citizen and picture book linchpin, to try to run away from it. (“So, that’s two one-way tickets for Acapulco. Cash or credit, sir?”) On the other hand, Bob didn’t want to risk having any Goody Two-Shoes invisible hand stepping in again to right any wobbles, as per that improvised fire drill (he’d set the alarm off himself using a miniature mallet on the pane of a miniature window in a quiet part of the accounts department’s corridor) or the farcical jaunt on the milk cart. Bob was entering quite uncharted territory here; nobody had ever tried to abscond from the Forward with English! picture book before—the very idea seemed absurd! Who could tell what to expect? In many ways Bob was embarking upon as intrepid and as foolhardy a journey as those taken by pre-Columbian mariners when they first made their way toward the curling weir lip at the edge of a flat earth ocean.

  Which is why he’d had to go to all this bother with the disguise. Anyone wondering why he—that is, Bob—wasn’t aboard his scheduled business flight might think he’d taken the initiative to rig up a glitch scenario to be incorporated into a more nuanced future version of the Departures and Arrivals page—and so might focus their initial attentions, for example, on how the meeting might cope without his attendance, as opposed to tracking down an escapee. While if he, as Bob T. Hash III, was meanwhile spotted hanging around the airport after his scheduled flight had taken off, Bob knew that an alternative flight would be arranged on the spur of the moment to make sure that he made it to his meeting on time. (No problem, Mr. Hash, no problem at all. We were just thinking of slotting in an extra flight when we saw you!) Sooner or later, of course, his absence—his real absence—would be noted. But by taking these precautions Bob hoped that by the time any real alarm bells started to ring, he and Miss Scarlett would be well beyond any gravitational pull of Forward with English! and so be free at last from its clutches.

  So, when he got out of the taxi, instead of heading to his usual flight gate, Bob T. Hash III, alias Señor Gonzalez (inhabitant of the Spanish colonial villa with an orange tree and hammock in the garden) took himself to the airport mezzanine cafeteria, from where he could keep an eye on things in the concourse below—a huge vaulted space filled with the echo of heels and the muted cathedral-like babble of voices, all dwarfed by the smoke-tinted sheet of plate glass and the space-age sweep of the architect’s roof; all of which contributed to a late 1950s, early 1960s planes-with-propellers feel to the place. Sheltering behind yesterday’s edition of El País and the down-turned brim of his fedora, Bob was sipping on a jet-setting milk shake when he heard the seductive spaceship aquarium voice of the woman on the public-address system announcing the details of his flight—that is, the one that Bob T. Hash III was supposed to be going on.

  Minutes later, still rooted to his little table, Bob watched passing through his flight gate an ordered gaggle of persons: the marketing men; commission motivation managers; mid-ranking salespeople; qualified hydrologists; nattily dressed grammarians; and the ubiquitous, feisty, nearsighted grandmother with her equally feisty trolley case—his regular companions in flight. The line (Br. Eng.: “queue”) passed through the gate, all boarded the plane, all were now fixing their seat belts and having a quick last flick through the emergency landing procedures—everybody except for the Spanish millionaire with the milk shake.

  A last-call announcement brought out a big glistening bead of sweat on the middle of Bob’s forehead: this was because Bob knew that this was the last moment there’d be a chance to backtrack, to bang down that globe-trotting milk shake, shake off any crazy notion he’d ever had of running away from his picture book life! Still time to rip off that false mustache, dash across the airport concourse, and pant up to the flight gate where Pilot Armstrong would be there to personally tear his ticket stub and the nice-looking hostess would hand him his complimentary gin and tonic: “Glad you could make it in time, Mr Hash! Here, let me help you with that suitcase.”

  But minutes later, having resisted, with palpitating heart and emboldened blue eyes, Bob watched his silver jumbo jet being escorted through the shadow thrown by the building he sat in like a milk cart. Against a backdrop of gray-pink runways shimmering in the pallid morning heat he watched the upswooping trails of spent carbon turn mauve-brown through the window’s Polaroid filter. The roar of its jet engines was overdubbed by the hissing sound of a short-skirted waitress frothing some milk with the proboscular nozzle of an imported coffee machine. Bob’s imagination instinctively ran forward to the scene at lunchtime’s seminar: “Gentlemen, I’m afraid Mr. Hash has missed his flight. Let us hope he can catch the next one and be with us for the afternoon session. Let us proceed in the meantime with a preview of last quarter’s sales figures….”

  That Bob’s scheduled conference-bound plane was able to leave the runway tarmac at all without his being actually aboard it was the first concrete evidence that his own destiny was not so utterly welded to that of the picture book that Belmont could not survive without its lead protagonist at least for a few moments—and who knows for how much longer. Encouraged by this knowledge, Bob checked his wristwatch, made a minute straightening adjustment to his mustache, and deposited a generous pile of pesetas by the polystyrene container of his two-thirds empty milk shake. It was time for his rendezvous with Miss Scarlett.

  Miss Scarlett was waiting for him, as per their arrangement, at the international news kiosk, browsing through the Spanish edition of Good Housekeeping disgu
ised in film-starlet’s sunglasses, a three-day solarium tan, and a glamorous silk “anchors-and-knots” head scarf. With studied casualness and no word of greeting, Bob settled his suitcase farther along at the car magazines and began, at random, broom-broom, to read one; both browsing, like strangers at a bookshop, oblivious of each other’s existence. Not till an announcement came over the PA system did they look up from their magazines and exchange a stolen look of acknowledgment through their respective pairs of inscrutable sunglasses.

  It was the announcement telling passengers intending to take the flight for Acapulco to assemble at gate 17.

  4

  Asking for Directions—“nel mezzo del cammino”

  You are Señor Gonzalez, attending an important business conference being held at an idyllic Alpine resort. On a free afternoon you go for a stroll along the lakeside promenade. Returning from your walk, you discover your hotel has gone missing. The site where the hotel once stood seems to now be carpeted with a variety of dried nuts and seeds.

  (Note to language instructor: Student is to imagine approaching various passersby for help. In each of the following skits, the passerby will give one of five possible responses. Student is to select the response that, in his opinion, would most likely put him back on track. In this exercise students may be blindfolded and “twirled round” to enhance a feeling of genuine disorientation.)

  a) The first person you decide to ask is a tall man in a pin-striped dinner suit, with a bow tie and Brylcreemed hair. He has just crossed the road with a fawning gait and has a silver tray tucked under his arm. Why not ask him?

  YOU: Excuse me, sir, could you tell me where the Hotel Bristol is?

  MAN IN A DINNER SUIT:

  (i) I’m afraid the lamb is off today, sir.

  (ii) No, I think you’ll find that our other customers actually quite appreciate the air-conditioning and would prefer me to keep it switched on.

  (iii) It’s delivered from the industrial kitchens by the quickest means on the market.

  (iv) No, I said you cannot use the back of my tray as a mirror.

  (v) Just fill out a complaint form and leave it in the box and I’ll make sure the duty manager sees it.

  b) That was bad luck. But look, there at the side entrance to that very grand edifice with mansard roofs and a row of flags over the portico, there’s a man in white flannels and a tall pastry chef’s hat taking a cigarette break. Perhaps he’ll be more helpful?

  YOU: Excuse me, sir, but I’m not terribly familiar with the street plan around here. You couldn’t perhaps direct me to the Hotel Bristol?

  WHITE-HATTED CHEF:

  (i) No, thanks, I don’t smoke.

  (ii) Leave in low oven for an hour and forty minutes, basting now and again.

  (iii) No, this hotel does not lend out maps.

  (iv) Now knead gently—adding yeast.

  (v) Je suis velly solly, I no speako English today please.

  c) Sitting on a lakeside bench admiring snow-topped mountains is the chambermaid who changed your bed linen this morning. Could she perhaps apprise you of your mislaid hotel’s whereabouts?

  YOU: I hate to disturb you, but I wonder if you could direct me to the Hotel Bristol.

  CHAMBERMAID WITH DOILY APRON, FEATHER DUSTER, LONG BLACK LASHES:

  (i) No, sir, we only change them once a day.

  (ii) I’ll be bringing more complimentary soaps tomorrow.

  (iii) Take it by the corners and we can fold it together.

  (iv) It was destroyed by fire a few years back.

  (v) Right enough, sir, it’s corked: I’ll just nip down to our cellar to fetch another bottle.

  d) The olive-skinned almond-eyed trilingual receptionist with the jet-black ponytail from the Hotel Bristol is reading a book and sipping an espresso under an umbrella at that lakeside café at the end of her shift. Maybe you’ll have more luck with her?

  YOU: Good afternoon, Miss, I would be most obliged if you could show me the way to the Hotel Bristol.

  OLIVE-SKINNED ALMOND-EYED TRILINGUAL RECEPTIONIST WITH JET-BLACK PONYTAIL FROM THE HOTEL BRISTOL AT THE END OF HER SHIFT:

  (i) It’s not bad so far, but I’m not quite sure where it’s all leading to.

  (ii) Yes, “al dente omelette”—you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. I’ll pass that on to the lady who writes out our menus.

  (iii) It would spoil the ending if I told you!

  (iv) I believe it’s in Bristol.

  (v) Well, okay—but remember I have to be back for the start of my next shift.

  e) Nobody seems to have been very helpful so far. Now try that little news kiosk selling postcards and maps run by the gentleman with the cloth cap (bearing a striking resemblance to Bert from the kiosk in Belmont).

  YOU (surprised): Ah, Bert, so it is you! And what might bring you to this neck of the woods?

  INDEFATIGABLE UBIQUITOUS LOYAL FACTOTUM BERT PEERING ASKANCE AT YOUR FALSE MUSTACHE: Good to see you again, Mr. Hash. Let’s just say I’m filling in here as a holiday favor. How may I be of service today?

  YOU AGAIN: Well, actually, Bert (scraping seed from shoes), I was wondering if someone could tell me how to get to the Hotel Bristol.

  INDEFATIGABLE UBIQUITOUS LOYAL INDIGENOUS-CARTOGRAPHER BERT, UNFOLDING STREET PLAN FROM HIS STALL: Certainly, Mr. Hash…. Now, let me see. Well (pointing along the lakefront), see that big building over there, that’s the back of the mall. Your office building is only a few yards away from the entrance…but you’ll know your way from there, I guess, Mr. Hash!

  YOU, SUDDENLY NO LONGER CONCERNED ABOUT EVER FINDING THE HOTEL BRISTOL: Sure will, Bert—and thanks once again for your help. Let’s just run through that again to make sure I got it….

  5

  The moment I recognized Matilda’s sleek feline calf in the bedroom window against the pea-stone drive—my heart most strangely a-patter—I dashed into the en suite bathroom to straighten my necktie. Quite who I thought I was going to pass myself off for, and quite how I was going to explain how that person, whoever they might be, had come to be in her house, I hadn’t worked out yet. But, according to some absurd logic forged on the spur of the moment, I decided that if I could at least do up my top shirt buttons and amend my blindly constructed Windsor, then Matilda might find the idea of an intruder a little less surprising—or more to the point, a little less disagreeable. Perhaps then she would be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt—who better to explain such a bizarre story than a well-dressed business gentleman with a genuine Windsor?

  Yet what a surprise I myself got when I reached the bathroom sink and took hold of the flailing strands of my weightless experimental necktie. So perfect was the resemblance, so uncanny the likeness, that for several moments I actually thought I was looking not at my reflection in a mirror but through a window at Bob T. Hash III, who, for reasons of his own, had decided to backtrack from the airport after all. Had he himself dashed into the adjacent room with the same bright idea of straightening his necktie? At some newly constructed window between here and some freshly constructed bathroom. There was the same swept-back mane of Brylcreemed hair, that same manly mandible jawline, the same air of affable tycoon, like a youthfully middle-aged Robert Lowell who, laying aside a tortured poem on the weekend and throwing off his cardigan, might play Frisbee on the lawn with his children.

  I stuck out my arms like a windmill, and Bob did a windmill arm back. I put a thumb to my nose and waggled my fingers like a one-armed air flautist, and Bob did this too. I tried on the spare pair of Bob’s thick-rimmed Clark Kent glasses (perched by the toothbrush container on the ledge of the sink) and saw that the same quizzical not-got-a-clue-what’s-going-on-here-Miss-Lane look that Bob sometimes has on his face was now on the face I could now call my own.

  Considering the potentially infinite permutations of physiognomic features I might have actually found myself with in my human disguise, it seemed an uncanny stroke of luck that I turned out to have been cloned from Bob T. Hash III. On
the other hand, on a little reflection, such duplication may not be quite as far-fetched as you might think. Though I’d be hard-pushed to explain the actual molecular workings behind my pharmacologically inspired metamorphosis, one can well imagine that whatever principles governed the grosser physical change, they may well be related, at the cellular level, in an analogous way, to my natural gift for mimicry. The logic being that if my parrot self was ever going to adopt human form, it would most naturally take the form of the person who had taught it the rudiments of civilized speech.

  My tie as straight as a plumb line, I ran out of the en suite bathroom and bounded down the stairs. By the time Matilda’s latchkey scraped in the front door lock, I was back in the living room. The poor cage was dead. Surveying the mess, I realized with sudden full force the patent absurdity of my situation: What was a duplicate of her husband up to in her living room, and where on earth was the mascot household parrot when we needed him? I was simply going to have to bite the bullet and ride along with the clone business—pretending I really was Mr. Hash. I was going to have to explain three distinct things to his wife: 1) the fallen bird stand and chaos of seed; 2) one missing African gray parrot; 3) why her husband (not due back from his business trip till the evening) was back so soon. Somehow I was going to have to tie these things up into one plausible, compact little story—and get it right the first time.