Genevieve; Spring Rushes Forth by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 18

Exhausted, un-entertained, or otherwise tending toward the relaxing blasé, with zero interest in a hominid tunic, Genevieve shut down her computer and went to her bed. She had no difficulty in going right to sleep. She intended to again vow not to turn it on again, but apparently in another case of boredom induced exhaustion coupled with the mildest of annoyances, had forgotten to, or didn’t have the required energy. Upon closing her eyes, the engaging and inviting visions immediately returned in a smorgasbord of frivolous and outlined pastels filtered through hackneyed as opposed to jaded, the differentiation considered semantical sophistry by the politely suffered dilitanti, lids of perhaps anecdotally persuaded viscosity; with a patina not duplicable by any sense deficient and ergo laughable and ludicrous manifestation of self-important techie spouted improvements available for free all over the net in an ostensibly if kind, unintentional display of its worth.

Genevieve, once again, thought that she had seen stasis prone sheep with locks still intact. With no shearers in her picture, she drifted and drifted, and drifted within the drift, and

....... You know what this is if you’ve been there, and never will if you’ve not.

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When she got up she sought out the kittens. She wanted to tell them an old time story that her dream resurrected, as she enjoyed seeing their reactions to her memories of old times.

Genevieve found them all lying right near the front of the path which led to Maureen’s house. They had learned that it was a good place to get an undisturbed doze, as most days Maureen got entranced by her fractal experimentation and lost track of time until darkness set in.

Sunshine and Teddy were the first to rouse from their catnaps, a full second ahead of the others. Yawning and stretching exercises were performed in quintuplets. A bit tentatively, Genevieve said; “Hi again. I have another story if you’re up to it.”

Five furry heads nodded or five necks utilized their hidden springs.

Genevieve thought that was a positive sign either way, and said; “When the first or second grade teachers wanted to have an easy day

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School; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.

they’d ask the class what they wanted to be when they grew up.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Wailer?”

Wailer said; “Actually I’ve given that considerable thought, and I’m leaning toward nuclear physicist, as of the moment.”

Genevieve said; “Very good; and you Tippy?”

Tippy slightly shrugged and said; “I’m on the fence right now; torn between some sort of uplifting participation in comparative religion; or ecumenism if you will, and the secular practicalities endemic to investment banking.”

Genevieve said; “Ummnn. Ummnn. That’s a tough one. I can appreciate your dilemma. Puff-Puff?”

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Puff-Puff said; “Eschatological cosmology with an emphasis on the non-esoteric.”

Genevieve enthusiastically said; “Very good Puff-Puff. More and more shops are opening in the malls every day. Sunshine?”

Sunshine said; “Magician, but more like Merlin than Houdini; though the border between them is surprisingly porous.”

Genevieve said; “Well, I guess either is capable of doing a stage act.”

Sunshine waggled vigorously and said; “Oh, sure.”

Genevieve said; “And last but not least, Tedddy.”

Teddy firmly said; “I’m not growing up.”

Genevieve said; “Well, that’s just a tad adamant. Don’t you think?”

Teddy scrunched his face and said; “Call it what you wish, but I have absolutely no intention of being so commonplace. It’s my life, and I simply will not grow up.” He folded his paws in front of him.

Genevieve said; “Well, we’ll just see about that, Buster. I wish you luck, but it kind of just happens, whether you like it or not.”

Teddy said; “Well, we’ll just see about that ...... Buster.

........ No offense intended.”

Genevieve said; “None taken. Okay, getting back to my old story, the teachers used to ask us this question in school every

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once in a while. You’d usually get a lot of doctor, nurse, cop, fireman, hairdresser, mama answers. One year there was a seemingly accidental aberration when a little pug said; ‘Al Capone.’ He must have thought that he was being funny, but the teacher probably wasn’t paying any attention, as she just said;

‘That’s good,’ and went to the next pup. It prompted the ones next to answer to start saying things like Albert Anastasia, Dutch Schultz, Mickey Cohen, Lucky Luciano, Legs Diamond, and the whole thing didn’t break down until someone said; ‘Meyer Lansky,’ prompting an ad hoc class discussion over technicalities, at which point the teacher apparently felt the need to intervene, clapped her paws, said; ‘Very good,’ and called on the next puppy who may have taken the hint and broke the spell by saying; ‘Lassie,’ the whole irrelevance of the

‘issues’ about Lassie being portrayed on television as being a female rough collie played by a male rough collie not to be of annoyance or ‘enlightenment’ to anyone until much later; it’s ultimate resolution perhaps being a function of servile abject apathy coupled with the ‘hilarity’ of the jokes previously one hundred times obligatorily and painfully grinned at. Can you understand that at your tender ages?”

Puff-Puff said; “Yes. Fortunately we have been inundated with excellent teachers.”

Genevieve continued; “Good. Jeremiah was a little black dog

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Jeremiah; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

and he and I were the only ones to ever say cowboy. Perhaps today it would be more appropriate to say cowperson. Anyway, as a result of that we became rootin’ tootin’ partners for a while.”

Wailer interjected to say; “Nah, we don’t pay much heed to that politically correct stuff. But, what’s a cowboy?”

Genevieve smiled and continued; “Getting there. Picture an eschatological cosmologist with an emphasis on the non-esoteric without one of those big booga eye things to look through.

Anyway, never one to step on a dream, at that time I didn’t tell Jerry that there were no more cowboys. The fencing off of the open range and the establishment of law in the west had sent them the way of the

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Inside of old classroom; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

buffalo by the 1880’s. Up until then, a cowboy was an animal herder who generally tended cattle and did other ranch-related things. Some were gunfighters, and those are the best remembered today, but a purist would contend their inclusion in the group without a major sized asterisk. So, I didn’t have any particular ambition, but when I heard Jeremiah say ‘Cowboy,’ I was thinking

‘Absurdly cool’ and went along with him.

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“The Herd Quitter” by C.M. Russel; public domain.

I’m glad doubly that I didn’t say anything negative as the directors loved and still love putting them in films. At my end, I can’t recall exactly when I learned that there were very few want ads for cowboys here in Poochville. But I did and sadly had to make some adjustments .......... planned for some yet-to-be-determined future date. I mean if that wasn’t enough, all hope was lost when, pursued, Kirk Douglas and his horse Whiskey made it over the Sandia Mountains only to get totally blown away by Archie Bunker’s toilet bowl truck on Route 66. ‘American Standards’ best porcelain lie smashed all over the highway. It stopped all traffic for hours. I mean like, Marcel Duchamp, get a truck full.

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Highly stylized poster of “Lonely are the Brave”; property of the author.

You might have thought that Jeremiah and I had formed a permanent disreputable ranch cowhand bond; but no such luck. As soon as he saw the man on the moon, he decided that to be a theoretical astrometrician was his calling.

Colored pencils; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

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My lack of interest in anything yet classified wasn’t any sort of problematic priority until I neared college age and had to pick a major and minor. You’ll have to understand that back in antiquity the colleges offered no cowboy majors or even minors. At the time, the closest thing was Kirk, Whiskey, Sandias, and Toilets for two credits and on top of that okay, it got mixed reviews for being a little too arty, but I don’t care because I liked it.

Bastion of learning interior, right after janitorial services; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

Fruitlessly attempting to get back on the plebian notion of topic, I mean you couldn’t even get much ‘Gun Studies’ back then unless you went down South, and I never could take hot, humid, and stupid at the same time.

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Mom sent me to take some sort of test which would determine what one was best suited for. I must have got 100 on it as it asked questions like ‘Do you prefer to be outside or in?’ and

‘Do you prefer a strict schedule?’ No brainers, you know; maybe the second indicative of some value judgement. But whatever, you couldn’t be wrong.

Maybe two weeks later the test results were mailed to us and it said; ‘No particular interest in anything.’ I was truly hoping they’d be a bit more helpful and mom was out and out perturbed.

At first I thought that she was perturbed with me, but somehow it came out in the course of incoherent, rambling conversation that that was not the case at all, as she fully understood that feeling. Apparently still unaware of management consulting standard operating procedures, she was annoyed that she paid some expert $40 to tell her what she already knew.

But really things always have an uncanny way of working out. When she considered my like disinterest for a while she concluded that I was suited for literary pursuits. I took English Lit and it proved to be the basis for a middling, but happy career of living from inherited wealth right here. God bless Poochville and tax-free inheritance laws.”

Kitten enjoyment was indicated both through their unquestioning rapt attention and their tendencies to open their

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mouths to say nothing. This should never be confused with the mechanics of a yawn. Their yawn quota was fulfilled by their over-the-shoulder viewing of Clement’s laptop.

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