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| Elgin's fabulous Fountain Square, circa 1890. |
"Home!" he gagged. "Home!"
"Wassat?" said the driver. "Home? I told you boy this is far's I go. I ain't no lim-o-zeen driver!"
"No, monsieur," croaked Percival as he wiped the grime from his lips with a perfumed handkerchief. "I just meant that..."
"Yo crazy is what you is. Yo a little light in the shoes, too," he quipped as he snapped the bus door closed like a pocketbook, slammed the gear shift home and took off down the hill with a shrill grinding of gears.
"Wait!" yelled Percival, choking again in the growing cloud of dust and gravel. "My suitcase!"
But either the driver didn't hear him (that was Percival's rationalization) or he just really didn't care (that was Percival's realization).
"No matter," he said in his best Pollyanna voice as he brushed off his jacket and straightened his tie. "Maman will sort it out. C'est la vie!"
He pulled out his pocket watch to check the time and paused to gaze at Bernice's photo which he had pasted inside the watch cover like a lover's locket.
"I'm coming, ma chère! I'm coming!" he murmured as he started down the dirt track to his mother's estate, Kildare.
Estate, however, may be an overgenerous description of what had once been an expansive and successful family farm. Percival's grandfather--Big Percy, they called him--had staked his claim and cleared the land 75 years before. Short on suitable timber and cash, Big Percy built his house out of sod against the highest hill on his parcel of 200 acres. It was warm in the winter, cool in the summer and he found it pleasant to sit on the sod roof and catch the gentle breezes at the close of a hard day's work. The home was low maintenance, too. Daily grazing by his milk cow and small herd of goats kept the sod roof neat and trim. It was everything Big Percy had hoped for, and he fondly named it Kildare after the local country doctor (the doctor was nonplussed).
It took a few years for Big Percy to get his farm up and running but once he did he was determined to marry. One day, he put on his best Sunday suit and took the train to Elgin where he attended a lavish reception for the local dairy barons and their families at the famous Old People's Home. The reception was followed by a concert across the street in Central Park where the Elgin National Watch Company Band presented "Souza-palooza: An Evening With John Phillip."
At first, Big Percy was a little overwhelmed by the experience. He was unaccustomed to the luxurious life that Elginites so clearly enjoyed. He was dazzled by the two-seater outhouses (His and Hers with last year's Sears-Roebuck catalog!), easy access to comfort food (six hobos, one fire, no waiting!), and high style (overalls with stripes!). There were so many available, healthy women to choose from and he was a little awed by their poise and stunning beauty--some still had their own teeth!
He considered turning tail and heading home in the face of such superiority until he glimpsed a woman in the band. Her name was Roseanne Zinzin and she was the daughter of a highly respected French watchmaker (Monsieur Jean Vachement Zinzin) who had put Elgin watches on the map. Roseanne was also employed at the watch factory and she played a mean tuba in the company's world-renowned band.
Big Percy was completely smitten with her. He loved the way her dull, auburn hair swallowed the failing evening light. He adored the way her face purpled to rival the setting sun when she sustained a note. He swooned over the deft manner in which she emptied her spit valve on her shoe. Even the way she chewed gum (like a cud) between numbers captured his heart. He had to have her.
Roseanne, for her part, was bored out of her mind with her life. She resented her father for taking her away from her beloved Saint-Ouen just outside Paris to live amongst the bourgeois Americans, and she dreamed daily of escape.
She was smart enough to know that she was too lazy to do it on her own and that it would take all her feminine wiles to ensnare a man she could control. She had made an exhaustive and critical review of her assets along with a careful study of American men. Her best strategy, she knew, would be to play to her strengths. In other words, she would play stupid.
Big Percy, meanwhile, was flying blind. Being unfamiliar with the intricacies of Elgin high society, he boldly asked the next man he saw for assistance. As it turned out, the man happened to be one of the "right" people and Big Percy soon gained an introduction to Monsieur Zinzin who, due to his poor English and Big Percy's nonexistent French, found himself impressed with the young, rich chevalier from the fabled American South.
A brief, whirlwind romance followed, and both Big Percy and Roseanne were privately thrilled with their respective good luck. Big Percy was amazed that Roseanne so obviously loved him despite his humble origins and lack of assets while Roseanne was ecstatic that an hour or two of giggling and fawning had bagged her an American millionaire whose rustic ways were undoubtedly compensated for by his vast land holdings and palatial plantation home.
They both pushed aside their unease over the language barrier (Roseanne was too lazy to learn English, Big Percy too stupid to learn French) and rushed to the altar with different futures. She envisaged mint juleps, hoop skirts and festive cotillions while he pictured strong coffee, overalls and fall harvests.
The journey to Kildare was different for each of them as well. Big Percy, eager for home, felt that it took forever while Roseanne, eager to escape Elgin, felt that it didn't take long enough. She found the distance suspect. While she was ignorant of American geography, she thought the stately columned homes of Dixie were much further south, and when Big Percy borrowed an asthmatic mule and a dirty vegetable cart to deliver them from the station she was smart enough to know that something was amiss.
"Où sommes-nous?" she asked.
"What's that? Ooh?" said Big Percy, totally confused. "Oooh? Oh! You think it's pretty, yes? Wee? Oooh?"
Roseanne stared at him blankly, equally confused.
The wagon ride home would have been uneventful had it not been for the mule. Overburdened by Roseanne's prolific trousseau, the mule expired three quarters of the way home with a loud "Weeee HAW!" Big Percy was forced to pull the smelly cart himself while Roseanne walked beside him in growing terror.
When they stopped at what Roseanne believed to be a mud hut for livestock and Big Percy moved to carry her over the threshold she promptly burst into tears. "Merde!" she screamed and punched him in the face.
It is said that there are five stages of grief but, for Roseanne, there could only be one (anger) and she made it her life's work to visit that anger on Big Percy every chance she got for the remainder of his life.
Big Percy, for his part, tried to make the best of things (and to shut her up) by giving her the things she wanted. He bought a team of horses and a smart little surrey, and he planted wildflowers on the sod home's roof. Eventually, he built her the finest house in all of Hamilton County. In return, she bore him one child, a daughter. Finally, he gave her the one thing she wished for most of all: he died.
Over the years, Roseanne groomed (spoiled) and molded her daughter Alice into a younger version of herself. Like Roseanne, Alice, too, longed for escape but, like Roseanne, she was too lazy to go any further than the sod house roof where she would spend hours looking out over the surrounding fields and picking wildflowers.
After Big Percy died, Roseanne hired two or three local men to work the fields but, being lazy themselves and only hired help, Kildare began to decline long before it had reached its zenith. With a rapidly deteriorating inheritance, Roseanne worried over what Alice's future prospects might be.
She was smart enough to know that Alice was too lazy to secure a future for herself and astute enough to know that it was left to her to find Alice a husband. Being lazy herself, she confined her search to the hired help.
One sunny afternoon, Roseanne walked down to the barn where her three hired hands--Ray, Bert and Jack--were idly watching a pair of coon dogs sunning themselves in the yard. One of the dogs, Rufus by name, was diligently licking himself while the men watched with rapt attention.
"I wish ah cud do that," sighed Bert.
"You do that an' that dog'll baht you," said Jack.
Roseanne quickly turned her attention to Ray, the least of the three evils.
"Pardon monsieur, puis-je parler avec vous?" asked Roseanne.
Ray simply stared.
"Oh, never mind," muttered Roseanne (she'd finally learned English), "just come with me."
From that point forward Roseanne saw to it that Ray and Alice spent a great deal of time together--alone. When Alice finally announced she was pregnant one morning over breakfast, Roseanne immediately and nonchalantly produced a loaded shotgun and a minister who pronounced the couple man and wife in time for lunch.
Alice and Ray were happy enough to have two children: Charlie and Percy (as he grew older he preferred Percival). Ray, now master of Kildare if only in name, doted on Charlie who was everything a man could want in a son--tall, strong and handsome. Percy, on the other hand, was Roseanne's favorite and she taught him French, schooled him in etiquette and enthralled him with tales of all things "fantastique."
After Ray and Roseanne's tragic deaths (they were gored to death by a herd of male goats the pair mistakenly tried to milk one foggy morning), Alice was left alone to raise her sons. Charlie was increasingly dismissive of Percival and his "fancy" ways and Alice felt increasingly protective of him until he reached the age of 30 and she supposed that Percival might benefit from a trip to the outside world.
"Toughen him up!" insisted Charlie, and so she sent him on a Petit Tour to the fabled city of Elgin. Percival, reluctant at first, acquiesced by kissing his best girl Bernice good-bye, packing his suitcase and hiking into McLeansboro to catch the next train north.
Percival spent four glorious weeks following in his grandfather's footsteps and touring the great sites of Elgin: Woodruff and Edwards, Juby's Pharmacy, Al's Café--the fabulous Douglas Hotel! Now Percival had come home again and he was hard pressed to decide whom he missed more: his mother, Alice, or his sweetheart, Bernice. It was Charlie, however, who met him at the door.
"Hullo, Percy," he said with just a touch of derision.
"It's Percival," huffed Percy. "Hello, Charles. How are you?"
"I'm fine," said Charlie. "How was your trip?"
"It was wonderful--magnifique! But first I simply must see Bernice. I've missed her so! Tell me, where is she?"
"She's dead."
"What? How? How?! What's happened?" cried Percy. "Quel horreur! Oh, my heart! My love is gone! Cruel world!"
"Um, hey, Perce, you do know Bernice is a milk cow, right?" asked Charlie with genuine concern.
"Of course I know!" snapped Percy. "That doesn't make her any less special! How did it happen?"
"She wandered off one day and stepped in front of a thresher down at the Hayter place. Tore her to shreds. We had barbecue for a week."
Percy could manage nothing less than a strangled shriek in reply.
"You doin' ok there, Percy?" asked Charlie.
"How can you be so cruel? How can you just blurt out something as horrific as that?"
"Well, Percy, I don't have your education and what you call refinements. I'm a pretty simple, straightforward man and I calls it as I sees it."
"You should have softened the blow and taken my feelings into consideration." insisted Percy. "You should have let me down easy!"
"How, Percy?"
"Well, you remember how Bernice used to go up on the roof of the sod house to eat the early daisies?"
"Yup, I remember."
"And do you remember how, sometimes, she refused to come down and I would spend hours making daisy chains and placing them around her neck?"
"Yup, I remember."
"You could have told me that Bernice is on the roof--Bernice est sur le toit."
"Bernice est sur le toit," repeated Charlie.
"You're not pronouncing that right. Your accent is horrible. Try again Charles. Bernice est sur le toit."
"Bernice est sur le toit," repeated Charlie testily.
"No, no," Percy said, clapping his hands like a schoolmaster. "Bernice est sur le toit. Sur. Le. Toit."
"Bernice est sur le toit," said Charlie, this time louder and a little angry.
"No, don't be stupid," sniffed Percy. "Saying it loud and wrong only makes you look big and stupid. Try it one more time."
"Bernice est sur le toit," repeated Charlie.
"All right, that's passable. I'm sure it's the best you can do," he added acidly.
"Thank you," said Charlie, unfazed. "So, I should have told you Bernice is on the roof and then told you she stepped in front of a thresher, right?"
"Mon dieu, no!" said Percy. "Then you should have told me that Bernice caught cold up on the roof. Bernice a un rhume. Try that."
"Bernice a un rhume," repeated Charlie.
Percy cast his eyes heavenward with a dramatic flourish and shook his head in exasperation. Charlie simply stared at him.
"All right. So I should have said she's on the roof, she's got a cold and then told you she stepped in front of a thresher, right?"
"No, of course not!" Percy snapped. "Then you should have told me that she passed peacefully in her sleep. Bernice est décédé dans son sommeil. Can you say that?"
"Bernice est décédé dans son sommeil," said Charlie with a vastly improved accent.
"Oh," said Percy, noticeably impressed. "That was actually rather good. Well done Charles! Bravo!"
"Thank you," said Charlie with a little bow.
"Now," said Percy. "Where's mother?"
Charlie sighed deeply and said, "Maman est sur le toit."
Editor's note: this story is based on a joke told by Ronnie Corbin on his BBC show "The Two Ronnies" circa 1978.
