When Unshakably Morose Flo Met Happy Horace Noosemaker At The Hobo Christmas Party

 

One's Happy. One's Unshakably Morose.

Deep in the woods near Glencoe, hugging herself against the Pennsylvania chill, Unshakably Morose Flo was relieved to find Knee-Brace Kenny, not so much for his company, but for his knowledge of the location of this year's Christmas party. "I don't know why I bother with this nonsense," she groused as they walked. "I won't know anyone there but you and Laura Delite - and Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick, of course."

"Barb said you'd say that," Kenny laughed. "That's why she sent me out here to make sure you don't change your mind and keep walking clear to Pittsburgh or some such. Also, I'm supposed to remind you that by the time you're halfway through a cup of Laura's famous hobo eggnog, you'll be best friends with every last merry-maker present."

"When has that ever happened?" she groaned. "Alcohol only amplifies my misery, and makes me want to drag everyone else down with me. Remember last year?"

"Listen you," Kenny barked with a stomp of his ratty boot in the snow, "I'm on a goodwill mission, here. If I show up without you, Barb will literally stab me."

"I'm not sure that qualifies as goodwill."

"Be that as it may, you're coming with me. Barb's hobo Christmas party jamboree and hootenanny is the event of the year in these parts. Plus, she has a new man friend she wants you to meet..."

It probably goes without saying that Flo had not always been unshakably morose - or any other kind of morose - but see if that stops me. Flo had not always been unshakably morose - or any other kind of morose. Half of her life ago, when she was thirteen and still called Florence, she had been a well-adjusted girl with a normal life in the suburbs of Chicago. She went to school and to church, played with her friends, respected her elders, and loved America. 

That was 1921. In the span of that year, her existence lurched from girlhood to hobo-hood. First, someone convinced her father that when the Chicago River ran green on St. Patrick's Day it was because the city had replaced the water with colored beer. He dove into the cold water, started drinking great gulps of the stuff, and managed to drown. Florence's father was a bit of dullard. Then, a few months later on a trip to the beach, her mother went for a swim in Lake Michigan and disappeared beneath the waves. Her body was never found, save for a foot that washed up near Waukegan. As so often happened with the 700 Hoboes, orphanages and boarding schools didn't agree with young Florence, and she joined the wanderers and vagrants of the hobo nation. And she was morose. Unshakably so.

She stopped in the snowy woods of south-central Pennsylvania and glared at Knee-Brace Kenny with equal parts sadness and anger. "A new what?"

"Man friend," Kenny said.

"She wants me to..."

"Meet," he said matter-of-factly. "Come on. It's Christmas Eve. Goodwill! Festiveness! Whatnot!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she growled. "But I ask you again - do none of you people remember last year? Wasn't there a man friend for me to meet last year, as well?"

"There was."

"And did it go well?"

"It did not."

"I'll say it didn't. Barb ended up stabbing the guy."

Kenny laughed. "This guy's really nice. He's been here all day, helping us get ready. Happiest man I've met since before the depression started."

"Ugh. What's his name? What's his story? What's wrong with him?"

"They call him Happy Horace Noosemaker, and nothing's wrong with him. He's a nice man."

"Noosemaker? As in, nooses? For the hanging of people by the neck? Until dead? Well, that's just swell," Flo sighed.

"No, no. He just makes nooses. I think it's the only knot he knows how to tie, so he makes them all the time. I'm pretty sure his belt is just an oversize noose."

"And why is he Happy Horace? What is there to be happy about, anyway?"

"I don't know what to tell you, Flo. The guy's just happy. He's been through all the same noise the rest of us have - death and poverty and dirt and violence and hunger and cold and hardship - the whole nine yards, but he says his soul is happy, so there you go."

Flo shook her head. "Fine. I'll try to keep an open mind. Say - how'd his folks die?"

"Who said his folks died? Why do you always ask that? Maybe they're alive and well, and living in Topeka," Kenny offered.

"They're not, are they?"

Kenny coughed. "Well, no. Horace's old man worked for Henry Ford, and he was killed on the assembly line one day when a bear got into the plant."

"Marvelous. And his mother?"

"I think his mother is in a nursing home in Detroit, actually. He mentioned going to see her for New Year's." 

"Really?"

Kenny paused and studied his shoes for a moment. No, not really. Look - we're here. Be nice. It's Christmas."

Fifteen minutes later, after two cups of Laura Delite's famous hobo eggnog, Unshakably Morose Flo was introduced to Happy Horace Noosemaker.

It did not go well.


The preceding Christmas drivel was prompted ("Goodwill") by friends old and new at Our Write Side, in their weekly feature Two Word Tuesday.

The Return Of Hollering Martin Mandible

'Tis not the nightingale, but the lark...

Hollering Martin Mandible surveyed the alley, filled from edge to edge with mirth and celebratory boisterousness, and it pleased him to no end. 

"I can't believe you all came!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "What a homecoming - I am truly overwhelmed. After all that I've been through, I wouldn't have been surprised to have been greeted by the songs of crickets, and the sad gurgle of the storm drain emptying into the creek."

Most of the assembled revelers let out a cheer of equal parts celebration and sympathy. One of the revelers - the one who was only eight - turned to her mother and asked, "Why is he yelling? Is he angry? And what's wrong with his mouth?"

The child's mother placed a silencing finger to her daughter's lips. "Quiet now, Margaret. He's happy. He's just so very happy to be home. It's been so many years since he's been with his kin - I don't blame him for being a little rowdy. And his bottom mandible hangs a half-inch lower than it ought to, resulting not only in his odd appearance, but also in a ten to twenty-decibel increase in the volume of his voice. Now, mind what your father taught you, and be kind, hospitable, and welcoming. This is a very, very good day."

"Okay, Mama," the girl said, skeptically. "I'll be nice."

The sounds of amorous crickets and the babbling brook carried on at the same volume they always had, but tonight they were overwhelmed by the happy cacophony of reunion, of story and song and drink and the making of merry. It was a rare thing indeed for a hobo to make his way home, but Hollering Martin Mandible had done it, and his friends couldn't help but rejoice. Twice, the celebrants had stopped gabbing, banged on their various drinking vessels, and demanded words from their guest of honor. Twice, their friend had given them mere platitudes, as in the opening quotation, above. By the third go-round, it was clear to Hollering Martin Mandible that they needed to hear more.

"My friends," he hollered, hands extended in surrender to popular demand, "my brothers and sisters in spirit, I stand before you in August of the year of our lord, nineteen forty... nineteen forty... um..."

"Seven!" One of his friends offered.

"Yes - in nineteen forty-seven, I stand before you to say that I have seen another world. It is fully two years since we all wept with joy at the end of the second World War. It is said that we are a nation reborn, and I cannot refute that notion. Now, now. I hear your boos. I hear your consternation. And your misgivings are not without foundation."

"Those of you who know me well will surely know that my jaw became deformed long before I joined the ranks of the hobo nation. I worked at a steel mill in Johnstown Pennsylvania, and I got clipped by a runaway ore car, on account of not looking both ways before crossing the ore car track that I had crossed without looking seven thousand times before. Blah blah blah - yes - sorry, I don't mean to bore you, Barb. Please don't stab me."

"And most of you know about the untimely deaths of my parents - my pop, choking on a soda fountain CO2 hose on a bet, and my mum, by firefly overdose, two weeks later. But what you might not know is that I tried to enter the World, not just this past year, what with all the postwar jobs and all - but also in 1939."

[Oohing and ahhing from the assembled party people]

"Yes, it's true. Twice now have I ventured into the office, suit on back and coffee cup in hand. And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, in 1947, as in 1939, it is entirely the same. I could describe for you at great length the intolerable physical conditions of torturous so-called air-conditioned comfort, the monotony, the degradation, the hopelessness, and the self-loathing, but for one thing - nothing I can say would do justice to the wretchedness of the modern electric office. And for the other, and more significant thing - there is no sky."

"I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, 'Gee, Marty - air-conditioning and ashtrays and a steady income - what's not to like?' And I hear you, loud and clear. But hear this, brethren: No. Sky. There is no sky, in there. There's also no dignity and no honor and nothing whatsoever to be proud of, but think no further than... no sky. That is why I have returned to you, today. It is not that I couldn't make a go of it in that world. It's not that I have something against suits or paychecks, or pretty secretaries or any of that sweet noise. It is simply that in their world, there is no sky."

"We get it, Martin," one of the revelers affirmed. "The life of the hobo is just plain better. We're just wondering why you yell so much."

Martin Mandible thought for a moment. "I... I don't know. I'm just naturally loud, I suppose. Joie de vivre, and all that. Anyway - it's really good to be back. I'll never forsake my stick and bindle for a suit and briefcase again. You have my word."

Tonight's missive was prompted by my friends at Studio 30 Plus, who asked for something with "boisterous" and/or "rowdy."

The Decryption Of Gyppo Moot, The Enigma Machine

Translation: "Hoboes welcome, but most boil up before entering town."

Gyppo Moot was a gifted man, and unique among all of Hodgman's 700 Hoboes. 

Like most of his brethren in the wandering unwashed transient workforce of the 1930s, Gyppo was adept at reading and writing cryptic hobo messages. They were scrawled on telegraph poles, sheds and barns, and their purpose was to inform the 'bo behind you - be it an hour or a year behind - about the surrounding area; cops, friendly ladies, dogs etc.. What made him unique was his unmatched ability to encrypt his messages, leaving the 'bo behind him to guess their meaning. He had a way with hieroglyphs that made utterly indecipherable messages look completely normal. It was said that once, a hobo attempting to read one of his coded signs was stricken insane.

No one knew where he could have obtained his gift. His formative years and his transition from the real world to the hobosphere were unremarkable. His father was a French Gypsy, and his mother, an English Army nurse, emigrated alone to the United States with their unborn son in 1919. She never told the boy (given name Winston) who his father was - partly because she wasn't sure who it was, and partly because it didn't matter. When Winston was nine, his mother was crushed to death beneath a collapsing iron fire escape, while walking home from the library. Clutched in her dead hand was a book for her boy - a book called "The Call Of The Rails." It inspired Winston to leave his next home - obviously an oppressive New York orphanage - a few years later, and embark on a new life as Gyppo the hobo.

On the road, he was a typical hobo in all ways except for the signs he scrawled as he crisscrossed the country. Sadly, his track-side messages were so brilliantly encrypted that none of his fellow hoboes were able to read them. They were not understood or appreciated until many years after Gyppo's death, when all the code-breakers came home from the war and turned hobo, in the second half of the 1940s.

A few examples:

[large stick-figure dog (smiling), small stick-figure dog (frowning), crucifix, top hat] was assumed to mean "Watch out for the little dog, and free meals at the church as long as your head is covered." However, when properly deciphered years later, it was discovered to read, "I will never outlive the guilt of knowing that my mother died going to the library for me, while I played stick ball behind the shoe factory with Jimmie Belisle and his brothers, instead of doing my math homework."

The message [stick-figure woman, stick-figure cow, smiley face with halo, Ford Model A with an X through it, lightning bolt] was misinterpreted as something along the lines of "Keep walking brothers - there are no free waffles in this town, and no matter how friendly a lady looks, she will run you over with her husband's car." No one at the time reckoned that the real message was "My feet hurt so much, I don't even want to talk about baseball. I just want to stop walking."

Finally, if you saw [lightning bolt, bird, bird, upright-walking stick-figure cat, frowny face, star, chicken leg, wheel, dog, upside-down dog, stick-figure cop], your natural inclination would be to dab three drops of hobo wine beneath your right earlobe, curtsy to the sky, recite the Lord's Prayer aloud twice, and keep on walking because no one here was going to hire you.

You'd be wrong.

That message, Gyppo Moot's last, actually read "My Dearest Hobo Brothers and Sisters, I am aggrieved. I remember, when I first hit the road, hoboes were decent. They might not have been saints, but they had respect for each other, and for human life. But lately, guys - I don't know. I walk and I work and I keep to the Code, but all around me, I see 'boes stealing and stabbing and pissing on the street. I see hate and hate and hate. I go to church, and I hear more hate, disguised as God. I don't even like gum anymore, since that time I saw it fashioned into an effigy FDR and hung from the underside of the 3rd Street el. Why, I don't remember the last time I saw a hobo do anything nice for a non-hobo. Isn't it hard enough out here, surviving this way, without so much fighting and infighting and rage and stupidity? Whatever happened to 'We're all in this together?' I don't want to sound like some old-timer from Reconstruction Days, but boy, this is just crab apples, fellas. Does 'Do unto others' ring a bell? How about 'Judge not...' No? Well, nuts to this world, I say! I'm going to save my pennies, buy myself some new clothes, and go back to real life. That's what I say to your hate and your stone-throwing and name-calling. I'll get myself a job. I know it won't be much - probably lucky to find a broom to push or a furnace to stoke - but I'll do it, and I'll do it with a smile on my face, and when you hoboes come around, I will not know you. I won't hate you - I'll answer your hate with compassion and love. But I will not know you. We are no longer brothers."

I won't share the story of Gyppo's death, weeks after he left the above missive on a bridge outside of Trenton, but suffice to say it was ugly and sad and involved machinery. I will share that the "Moot" was added to his moniker posthumously, since his hobo brethren were aware that he was a human coding machine, but his brilliance was completely useless, with no one able to decode any of his signs.
  
This post prompted as usual by both John Hodgman and his list of 700 hobo names, and by my friends at STUDIO 30 PLUS, who wanted to see "reckon" or "guess" in the post.

Two Notions, In 100 Words

Firstly...

I've said it before (HERE), and I'll say it again. Super Bowl Monday needs to be a national holiday. Even if you're not a sports fan - if you don't even watch the game - that Monday is always pointless.

See? Pointless.

Secondly...

I count the days until Pitchers And Catchers Report, and I get eye rolls from non-fans. Listen - It's not about baseball! It's an idea. It is the notion that Spring is coming. Sure, there's some winter left, but it will end, and that relief is hard to describe to someone who doesn't loathe it as I do.

 

...hope.

 

Once again into the wilds of the 100 Word Challenge. Try it - it's fun!

As The World Spurns

Clear the street - laundry emergency!

"Out of my way, people!" spat Antigone Spit, as she barreled through the shoppers on Main Street. Her best friend, Mallory Many-Bruises, trailed twenty feet behind, struggling to understand not only Antigone's rush, but why she appeared to be starting to undress as she hustled up the street.

"Say, where's the fire, Antigone? And- whoa! Don't take those off! Have you lost your mind? If you have, I'll help you look for it, but I assure you, it's not in your trousers!" 

Mallory's many bruises complained bitterly, but she managed to catch up to Antigone, just as she made a hard left into the Uptown Laundromat and immediately began disrobing in earnest. Mallory quickly doffed her long, raggedy coat, and held it up between her frantic friend and a handful of stunned launderers.

"What on earth has gotten into you? This is the expensive laundromat. We should go to the one on Tenth."

"It's fine," Antigone said, slipping her makeshift burlap dressing gown over her head. "Two loads for twenty-five cents. It's worth it."

"That's ridiculous. How is it worth what I assume is your last two bits?"

"I have to wash these clothes right away," Antigone insisted. "Loving Vincent Hugsalot is back in town."

Mallory Many-Bruises needed no further explanation. But for the rest of us...

Born Vincent Gates, he had been a hobo for fifteen years, since just after the economic catastrophe of 1929. He described his childhood home outside of Chattanooga as "the most huggin-est house in America," where even the mailman got hugged daily. Within weeks of the onset of the Great Depression, he lost his job at the lumber yard, his sister married and moved to California, his younger brother moved to Atlanta to look for work, and his parents died in a beekeeping accident. His transition from life in the world to life on the road was a story oft repeated in 1930. It was hard, blah blah blah, but he learned and survived. 

Vincent's affectionate nature made hobo life even more challenging, as he was simply unable to meet a person without attempting to hug him or her. The wandering homeless of the thirties were not huggers, and thanks to a glandular disorder, Loving Vincent Hugsalot was an especially smelly and lousy hobo. No one wanted to touch him. His embrace attempts were universally spurned, from Chicago to New Orleans. When he did manage to land a hug, his unwilling partner would flail and struggle, so that it looked as if he was wrestling a giant, flapping duck. Once, he tried to give Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick a friendly greeting, and he was quickly stabbed.

"Oh, Antigone," Mallory said, "You should save the twenty-five cents, and just burn those clothes."

"I got away after only a few seconds, so a good hot washing machine should do the trick," Antigone said. "Honestly, as gross as he is, I feel bad for the guy. All he wants to do is hug people, and no one - no one - will hug him back."

Mallory nodded. "I once saw him try to hug Overly Familiar Fung. That guy loves everybody, but even he was having none of it. It must make him terribly sad." She sighed heavily, and the two women fell silent for the duration of Antigone's emergency laundry session, as they ignored the disapproving stares of the non-hobo patrons - something to which they had become well-accustomed.

Ninety minutes later, as they approached the railroad tracks at the end of Main Street, they saw him. Loving Vincent Hugsalot was trudging along the tracks alone, heading out of town. They stopped, and Antigone groaned at the sight of him. Mallory turned to her friend.

"Hold my bindle, Antigone. I'll be back in a minute."

"What? What are you going to do?" Antigone asked.

"Many bruises be damned - I think it's about time somebody hugged that man back."


This post brought to you at the prompting ("Unrequited" and/or "Spurned") of my friends at STUDIO 30 PLUS. Check 'em out!

Challenged

By 1986, space shuttle launches had become routine, so I can't recall why I recorded this one (maybe because it was an early-morning launch, and I thought it would be more spectacular than most). When I got home from class around lunchtime and turned on the TV, I thought it peculiar that they were still live, on the air. 

A mission delay, I thought. 

Tom Brokaw said "let's take another look at what happened this morning." They rolled those few critical seconds of videotape with only the cockpit-mission control audio, and the fateful "Go for throttle-up..." 

It haunts me, still.

My first 100-WORD CHALLENGE! Try it - it's fun!