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Admiral Bulletin and the Internet Elucidation, Part III

Admiral Bulletin and the Daily Strip

On Christmas Day, 1937, Admiral Bulletin debuted as a three-panel daily comic strip, joining a field already crowded with established players like Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy” and Lee Falk’s “Phantom.” The art and story were the creation of Nigel Hartley, who brought a love of intrigue and a distinctive crosshatched Art Deco style to the endeavor. The strip was an international success, launching the following Valentine’s Day in the United States under the King Features Syndicate banner and eventually appearing in twelve languages across five continents. During the war, Bulletin dutifully chased spies from one end of the Allied theatre to the other, and Hartley continued work from his family home in West Somerset, though readership declined of necessity. It was, however, Hartley’s departure in 1952 that ended Bulletin’s long afternoon in the daily funnies.

Nigel Hartley was a Guardian of Manchester op-ed cartoonist and illustrator of juvenile adventure books before joining Glencannon Press. He is the creator of Bulletin’s London headquarters, referred to only as “the old currency bank” until Tad Maplethorpe’s 1942’s Admiral Bulletin and the Shadow at Oxford. The various employees and hangers-on of Eppings on High Street grew under his tenure as well. Hartley expanded one of Turner’s characters into the Robespierre we know today. He also created a “pre-decadence” version of Space Boy. Perhaps the most enduring trademark of Hartley’s comic was its most deliberate omission: In fifteen years, the strip never once revealed Miranda’s face. The character’s low-slung felt hat usually accomplished the trick, but when the hat proved inconvenient Hartley could draw from a seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. Shading, hand position, torches, and — in one memorable scene — mistletoe were among Hartley’s many tools of evasion.

Hartley’s eventual departure was predictable, given the history of Glencannon Press. In the original launch of the Admiral Bulletin strip, the headline had read: “By A. C. Vellum. Art by Nigel Hartley.” This was, of course, something of a diminishment of Hartley’s contribution, and he likely threatened to quit. With King Features Syndicate aggressively pushing Bulletin in the United States, and sales of the Bulletin books exploding, the editors changed the headline to “By Nigel Hartley and A. C. Vellum.” Hartley also began disguising his signature in the artwork at about this time. It was a touchy arrangement that never seems to have satisfied Hartley. In addition to his byline woes, Hartley was under constant pressure to conform the strip’s storyline to that of the books. By the early ’50s the books had taken on a sci-fi slant that bore little resemblance to the slow-burning urban intrigue that Hartley excelled at. The final straw came in March 1953 when ailing Glencannon Press sent Hartley a printed comic-script for the next four months in an effort to promote Admiral Bulletin and the Eudoxian Delay. Hartley had had enough, and quit.

His assistant Theodore Stackpole continued in his style for another five months, but readership fell off. Admiral Bulletin was cancelled in August 1953, with a month of Stackpole’s strips remaining. They haven’t been published to this day. Glencannon Press itself would dissolve within the next year, throwing Admiral Bulletin into the Turbulent Years After.

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Admiral Bulletin and the Internet Elucidation, Part II

The Golden Age

Though some still prefer not to accept it, there are few who could have matched George Packard’s qualifications to con A. C. Vellum’s name for 1933’s Admiral Bulletin and the Phoenix of St. Helena. A one-time contributer to the London Weekly Traveller, he’d visited the titular island in the 1920s and been on holiday for four years preceding the book’s writing — if serving a sentence for mail fraud can be referred to as “on holiday,” that is. As Jodi McRae of the Weekly Standard proved in 1993, Packard, a convicted con man, was indeed the same George Packard contracted by Glencannon Press in 1932. Seen in this light, Packard’s colorful history meshes perfectly with his Vellum writings.

Structurally, Admiral Bulletin and the Phoenix of St. Helena is a three-way conflict between a mysterious man obsessed with becoming the next Napoleon, Bulletin and his team, and a lovable/hateable con named Drinnian. It’s been seriously proposed that the final is a semi-autobiographical character. Drinnian’s schemes are uproariously funny, only to turn darkly bitter in his memorable final two scenes. Neither virtuous nor truly villainous, he plays the “grey center” that would become a recurring theme in many of Bulletin’s finest outings.

Packard continued to plumb the “grey center” to great effect in six successful books and thirteen short stories. The villain in 1934’s Admirable Bulletin and the Bombay Incident, while amassing the highest body count of any Bulletin foil up until then, reads like something approaching a tragic hero. In Admiral Bulletin and the Foreign Star, released in 1937, Bulletin falls victim to his own preconceptions regarding an ally from one of Stepford’s short stories. Packard’s “Admiral Bulletin and the Saipang Sting,” published in the May 1938 Cosmic Significance, runs Bulletin into some of the darkest pre-Image territory of his career, forcing Miranda herself to become essentially the hero.

Packard’s reinvigoration of Bulletin was well under way when Clifford Turner released his first Bulletin book in 1935.  Admiral Bulletin and the Desolate Rail brought Miranda squarely to the fore, forcing her to make resonant, human choices in an era of adventure writing still characterized by Lois Lane and Wilma Deering. Turner is credited with the creation of socialite occultist Lady LaChance and bush pilot Buggy Moran (both in 1936’s Admiral Bulletin and the African Rose) and the alien(?) cargo cult the Brake Men (in “Admiral Bulletin’s Lost Day,” published in the July/August 1938 Curious Tales). Turner liked to mine and cross-referencing earlier stories. He corresponded with the other Vellum authors, including Packard, to orchestrate plot and character lines that ran across multiple works, lending the Golden Age Bulletin books a sheen of saga.

Unfortunately for Bulletin, the real world was quickly encroaching on his world of cloak and destruction. The bombing of Glencannon Press’s offices in the Battle of Britain destroyed the company’s three largest printing presses, leaving them limping along with two smaller presses in Manchester. Clifford Turner entered the war as a tank mechanic, and was killed in North Africa in 1942. It’s not known exactly why Packard didn’t go to fight; after publishing “Admiral Bulletin and the Exact Timetables” stateside in January 1942’s Readers’ Digest (it was probably written earlier), he disappeared from public view until 1955, publishing two respectable detective novels and then retiring from writing altogether. Only three Bulletin novels were published between 1939 and 1945; the War had brought the Golden Age of Bulletin to a close. True fans — increasingly to be found abroad, and especially in the United States — were left to content themselves with the incomparable Nigel Hartley’s newspaper strip.

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Tentative Title: “Class Day” – Jack Scully

Scene 0:

[Fade in on the intercom. ]

THE PRINCIPLE’S VOICE: …should not have happened. And finally, on this class day, our congratulations go out to Mr. Goomba’s automotive class, who successfully took apart Financial Administrator Johnson’s Ford pickup yesterday and reassembled it on the roof. The administrators then responded by car-bombing Mr. Pickford’s new Pontiac outside of his science class, in turn causing the front office to be mail-bombed by the teachers, resulting in a slew of gunshots fired into the teachers’ office, which set events in motion which resulted in the bombing of my house, to be responded to with a strong letter. Also, the chess team will be meeting after school, and Mr. Horovitz reports that the nuclear reactor in the science lab is almost operational. That is all.

Scene 1

[By he doors to the main entrance of the school, the lone figure of PARKS stands. He has a pack on his back, and prefferably a pith helmet. ]

ANNOUNCER: [The voice of adventure, rather stuffy, perhaps British. ] …And so our hero, Sir Walter Parks Raleigh, 11th grader and captain of the chess team, sets out on an arduous journey. He must, at all costs, find the man who raped his hamster, Fluffy, and return before third period. [Quick cut to the hamster in question. ] Fluffy is said to be recovering nicely, though he hasn’t touched his food for most of the day. [Back to PARKS. ] With this in mind, our intrepid hero leaves behind the sweet confines of civilization, and goes off into destiny.

[As he walks off down the hallway, a paper airplane flys past the back of his head. A brief montage of innovative shots, many dramatic and slow-motion, of PARKS walking follows, overscored by dramatic music. At the end, PARKS stops and looks up. A shot, similar or identical to one of the first shots follows, revealing that he has travelled all of ten feet. ]

ANNOUNCER: Our hero realizes that this journey may become even more arduous than he at first assumed, and heads off for snacks. [PARKS turns and goes into the cafeteria. ]

Scene 2

[At the vending machines in the cafeteria. Parks enters, trying to crumple a bill into machine-usable condition. Three or four students appear from between or behind the machines, or off-camera, and waylay him. Some have spears and shorts, others guns, dark shades, and white tee-shirts. They carry him offscreen. The announcer’s voice continues underneath. ]

ANNOUNCER: He is then waylaid by giant Pigmies and 1950’s Cuban Communist revolutionaries.

Scene 3:

[PARKS is dragged by a Cuban revolutionary and a pygmy, fighting unsuccessfully, deeper into the cafeteria. He stops, and his eyes bug out. ]

PARKS: You!

[Reversal to the Cuban Communist revolutionary leader in a heavy khaki shirt and dark shades sitting, fingers crossed, at a folding table, flanked by his men. His men are in similar dress, and are all quite a lot bigger than he. ]

LEADER: So, we meet again. [Evil laugh. His men catch on after he is done that they should have been evil-laughing too and do so, but quickly stop. ]

[Back to PARKS, etc. ]

PARKS: But… but you’re the hall monitors-! What is this-? Why are you doing this-?! Where did these pygmies come from?!?

[Several characters, in turn, in close-up say: “Pygmies?” The pygmies then look at each other, scream, and run away. ]

ANNOUNCER: The pygmies are terrified of themselves, scream, and run away.

LEADER: Now then, getting down to business… You have been charged with trespassing on the lands of the independant state of Ezbulistan, founded at around 8:30 this morning, and extending from approximately over there, to about where ever else we want it. These charges being true, you must be executed. But first, [Addressing the seated spectators. ] any old business? No? Any new business? Very well. Comments from the public?

AN OLD MAN: Yes, I’d like a sewage system.

LEADER: No.

[Random requests from all over the school, such as… ]

MAN WITH A TOWEL AND SHOWER CAP STANDING OUTSIDE THE BOYS’ BATHROOM: I want a sauna.

JOCK STUFFING A FRESHMAN INTO A LOCKER: I want bigger lockers.

GIRL: I want a man.

BOY: I want a man.

TWO INTERPRETIVE DANCERS: We want… love! [At which point they are trampled by the giant pygmies in their desperate attempt to flee. ]

BOY: I want powdered wigs to come back.

BOY DRESSED IN A GIRLS’ CHEERLEADING OUTFIT: [Becoming suddenly self-conscious. ] …no, I’m fine.

–

LEADER: Very well, we shall begin the trial. Do I think you’re guilty?

PARKS: Yes.

LEADER: Then you are. Guilty as charged!

[All the previous “request” people gasp in sequence, including the interpretive dancers who the pygmies then trample again, coming the other way. ]

LEADER: [Laughs his evil laugh. ]

[The head of the Ezbulistan Department of Tourism then interrupts. He is wearing a sport coat and carries a hand microphone. He has his own light. He seems out of breath throughout, as if trying to keep up with the camera. In every cut, he has to get back into the shot. Nevertheless, he tries to put the best spin on things. ]

TOURISM: But, before we head over to the execution, I wonder if we might – take a moment to examine the many natural and artifical wonders – that greet you on a wonderous Ezbulistan vacation…

Scene 4

[A “Wet Floor” sign, by a puddle of water. TOURISM enters quickly. ]

TOURISM: See – the many rivers and streams of Ezbulistan’s national waterways.

Scene 5:

[By a potted plant. ]

TOURISM: – Thrill to our National Forest.

Scene 6:

[Two people play at a pingpong table. ]

TOURISM: For the sports enthusiast, Ezbulistan features a multitude of recreational outlets – and sporting clubs.

Scene 8:

[A single saxophonist butchers a few notes to a radio playing softly behind him. ]

TOURISM: Enjoy an evening with our national band.

Scene 9:

[A shot that shows most of the cafeteria. ]

TOURISM: [walking ] Yes, Ezbulistan; truly a vacational treasure. [Some smiling people join him from behind. ] And now, back to the exciting execution of the first foreigner to enter our country.

Scene 10:

[Low angle shot. Inside the auxilary gym. A bit of wind ruffles PARKS’s hair, accompanied by a more substantial sound effect. He stands proudly, arms tied behind his back, awaiting the inevitable. Shot widens to show his executioners – armed revolutionaries, ceremonially preparing to push him off the precipice. Wider shot for a moment, revealing that the drop off the bleachers is none-too-far, and cushioned at the bottom. ]

EZBULISTANIAN 1: You are charged with crimes against things.

EZBULISTANIAN 2: Yeah.

PARKS: So be it.

Scene 11:

[The desk with the LEADER and high officials of Ezbulistan. ]

Announcer: Meanwhile, a coup d’etat is underway in the state of Ezbulistan.

[A rubber chicken flops onto the desk before the LEADER and his high officials. They regard it with curiousity. Suddenly, it explodes (digitally). Afterward, the table is empty, the pygmies run on, cheering, and assume power by sitting down. ]

Scene 12:

[Back to the execution. ]

EZBULISTANIAN 1: Have you any last words?

[PARKS looks on nobly, and then looks startled, camera fast zooming-in on his face. ]

PARKS: You!

[Fast zoom on a lone, evil figure in the corner. The EVIL MAN chuckles. ]

PARKS: Wait! [But he is pushed off. The drop takes an excessive amount of time, the sound track, in fact, seeming to be paused while the men watch him fall. And they watch him. And they watch him. Just at the last possible funny moment, we hear him hit the mat (far) below. ]

Scene 13:

[A grainy, slow digital zoom on the rodent. A new, stuffy, but tension-filled announcer quickly voices-over. ]

ANNOUNCER 2: This is the story of one rodent’s courageous battle against the confining confines of society. Of what one hamster can be forced to do when no-one else is in its corner. A story beyond boundaries! A story of high drama! A story of sin and more sin, of love/hate/joy/lust/perversity, and above all, a devout lack of pygmies.

Scene 14:

[An on-the-floor, wide angle shot looking up, somewhere in the hallway. The EVIL MAN enters, and looks down at a spot on the floor just in front of the camera. ]

EVIL MAN: [sneering ] So… it’s you. Back again, are you..? What’s that behind you? [A standard revolver rises into the shot, just in front of the camera. ] Oh I see… You haven’t got the guts, though. You… a simple hamster, you haven’t got the guts!

[The gun fires. EVIL MAN falls out of the shot, dead. The gun looks suddenly to the right. ]

SCIENCE TEACHER’S VOICE: No no, not yet!!!

[A nuclear blast rips across the frame from right. Cut, briefly, to a shot of a nuclear mushroom cloud. ]

Scene 15:

[Somewhere in the school. ]

TOURISM: And so ends – our exciting story. Brought to you by the Ezbulistan Department of Tourism. Who would like to remind old friends and new that –

[A rubber chicken flops onto the floor in front of him. He looks at it. Quick cut to an exterior explosion shot, such as the federal building in the X-Files movie. ]

Credits:

[PARKS lying motionless, face down on the mat. He remains there, motionless, all through the excesively long credits. Finally, after the last title has scrolled off the screen, he raises a hand. ]

PARKS: [muffled ] I’m fine.

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Admiral Bulletin and the Internet Elucidation, Part I

The Origins of the Admiral

The long and often contradictory history of Admiral Bulletin is indivisibly linked to one man: A.C. Vellum. There’s only one problem. He doesn’t exist.

“A.C. Vellum,” along with Franklin W. Dixon of the Hardy Boys fame, and numerous others, carries the card of that exclusive shadow club of authors who’s output — though impressive — is more real than he. The Vellum name was registered by Glencannon Press of London, UK in 1923. He first appeared as the author of a small line of “Red” pulp-detective books (Red Rover, Red Sky at Night, Red Lights) published between 1923 and 1925, but it was “Incursion Isle,” published in Glencannon Press’s bimonthly catalogue/digest Curious Tales, in July/August 1927 that first brought Admiral Bulletin to the wider public. Signed with the Red- books’ familiar pseudonym, “Incursion Isle” told the tale of a fast-thinking admiral of the British Navy saving the mainland of some unnamed British protectorate from a (confusingly Hindu/Muslim) cultist and his secret army. Authorship of this first story is in some dispute; most believe it was penned by one or several of the editors as a hasty, last-minute filler.

The character was expanded and retooled into a globetrotting adventurer the following year for his first novel-length outing, Grief Comes to Blastingbridge. The novel, front-heavy but engaging, tells the story of Admiral Bulletin and his encounter with a partial cave-in of the largest quap (i.e. tungsten ore) mine in Scotland, and the aggrieved fraternal order that might have been behind it. It was written by James H. Howard — under the Vellum pseudonym, of course — who penned a number of mass-market mens books for Glencannon Press between 1921 and 1940.  Grief Comes to Blastingbridge introduced several of the staples of the Bulletin milieu, including the characters of Miranda (here as a cooly competent clerk for the mining syndicate) and Bulletin’s sometimes-mentor Dr. Posthaste. Consistent with Howard’s usual style, first names were rarely given, and then only for minor characters. (Howard preferred that his readers “not get too cozy” with his protagonists.)

The book was a success for Glencannon Press, and author Howard was commissioned to write a sequel. In 1929, the publisher released Admiral Bulletin and the Cretin Conspiracy. The story of a Mafia conspiracy to overthrow the government, this second Bulletin volume sold out two printing runs, and was widely pirated in German, Dutch and of course Italian. (In fact, a surviving copy of Ammiraglio Bulletin e la Cospirazione su Crete — where Bulletin mysteriously becomes a native of Naples — fetches more than a first edition of the English.)

The editors reacted to Howard’s Bulletin success by making sure that he would never write for the series again. They were afraid, no doubt, that the author would begin to command more than they were willing to pay. As a result, Bulletin’s third novel-length appearance was penned by a newcomer. Peter Stepford, a little known playwright and occasional author for Glencannon Press’s bimonthly, donned the Vellum mask for Admiral Bulletin and the Snows of Tan-Ana, serialized between September of 1929 and February 1930 in Reading Man’s Digest, and released in book form the following month. Stepford brought a love of dialogue to his spare adventure riffs, and set in motion one of the series’ most beloved character debates: that of whether Miranda is actually Bulletin’s girlfriend. He succeeded in leaving the famous question unresolved through a series of fairly uninteresting action sequences (as it remains to this day, with some caveats). As is typical of serialized novels, the narrative of the book is fairly unfocused; the only real spine to the story consists of the playwright’s delicious character tensions. Stepford’s performance was considered lackluster, and Ira K. Samuelson was hired to ghostwrite the fourth Bulletin book, Admiral Bulletin’s Last Exchange. Stepford would eventually go on to pen three more Bulletin books. Of these, only Admiral Bulletin and the Turning Sea begs mention as it contains the very first mention of the recurring lines “There’s no time left!” / “There must be!” (The exchange takes place between Bulletin and the unnamed captain of a Royal Navy frigate, and there are actually two lines in between. The 1970s paperback reissue omits the intervening lines, although they are restored in the 1998 Vintage trade.)

Ira K. Samuelson wrote three respectable Bulletin books, but it was the arrival of George Packard with 1933’s Admiral Bulletin and the Phoenix of St. Helena that would truly usher in the Golden Age of Bulletin.

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More Human Resources

Issue 149, for the week of 12/5/2004.

Toast Note: Presenting “Human Resources” comic strips 12-25. (Click here for Strips 1-11, in issue 145.) Medium: Blue ballpoint pen (museum issue) and red magic marker (museum issue) on recycled note pad paper (museum issue), improvised straight edges (museum/personal issue). Dedicated to the wage slaves of America, and the founder of the feast, Curious George.

Updated: Click here for Strips 1-11, in issue 145. Click here for Strips 26-41, in issue 158.

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Letter to the Editor

Issue 147, for the week of 10/24/2004

From the Boston Metro Weekend Edition, Oct. 22-24, 2004, page 29:

“NEW PAD ON NEWBURY”

WHEN CHRISTINA Capone moved from her digs in New York she had a bit of anxiety about abandoning the hustle and bustle of “the city.” She was ready to head back to her hometown of Boston, but didn’t want to trade off on her urban lifestyle. “I was nervous when I looked at places in Beacon Hill because there was nobody on the streets,” said Capone, 26, who works in the media department at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc. The solution — a modern, two-bedroom, door-man building on Newbury Street. Needless to say, she hasn’t missed a beat. “The constant motion is so important to me,” said Capone, while gazing down from her third-floor apartment at the consistent flow of shoppers passing Niketown and the oh-so-cosmopolitan diners heading into Armani Cafe. The floor-to-ceiling windows in her spacious abode help to absorb the energy of the city’s most fashionable street. The glass coffee table, khaki-colored couch peppered with primary-colored pillows and modern art on the walls pulsate urban sophistication. “The inside reflects the outside and the energy of the city,” she said. Although a posh place on Newbury can be a bit of a drain on your wallet, the convenience makes up for all the cash you’d be dumping into a car, said Capone. “My mentality is that there is no reason to drive. Everything should be in walking distance,” said Capone. Whether it’s a fresh salad from Scuzzi a block away, or a pasta dish from Piattini Wine Cafe across the street, everything is right at your fingertips. And, although Capone admits she does have a weakness for the trendiest purses at Luna, which she stores nicely in her walk-in closet, the rest of the swanky shops don’t tempt her. “I’m lucky that I don’t have a shopping problem,” said Capone.

FACTS: Name: Christina Capone – Age: 26 – Occupation: Media relations at Hill, Holiday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc. – Rent/Own: Rent – Size: Two-bedroom – Where: Newbury Street

– CHRISTINA WALLACE

Sent to the Boston Metro October 24, 2004:

Thank you for this weekend’s Home section profile of Christina Capone’s “New Pad on Newbury.” Might I, however, submit a somewhat different profile?

After five months of post-college job seeking, animator Matthew Rasmussen, 24, settled into an hourly-wage position selling tickets at a local museum. He now rents (not owns) a room in a four bedroom Inman Square apartment, which features a living room, a porch with peeling paint, and a mostly-functional kitchen. Rasmussen’s bedroom is tastefully appointed with a desk of his own construction, an oak futon, and a prefab bookshelf. A geranium by the window, perched jauntily atop a milkcrate, quietly pulsates urban sophistication when it needs to be watered.

Reader Lindsay LeClair adds:

Lindsay B. LeClair lives in an apartment with floors so uneven that even the

shelves are falling over, but it’s otherwise cozy and sunny, with a kitchen to

beat the band. She is cohabiting with her boyfriend of nearly five years,

which is terribly convenient — she would not be able to afford living in

Boston if she didn’t share a bedroom. It’s too bad, really, that this

convenient apartment is nowhere near a grocery store. The young couple was

really counting on Lindsay’s beater car to make up for that. All jokes aside,

the apartment is beautiful, convenient to the T barring, if convenience

includes strolling through an industrial, lifeless bioengineering square where

you’re pretty sure they’re actually TRYING to make the undead… or at least

that’s what it smells like. In spite of all that, Lindsay is very happy in

their new apartment.

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Wives

Issue 144, for the week of 8/15/2004

Toast Note: My typical strategy when I spend a few weeks tapping away at something I don’t really understand is to post it to the Space Toast Page and let posterity ridicule me. This is three seperate sketches on a theme. I’ll probably be embarrassed by this later, but there’s been worse in 145 Space Toast Pages.

It’s night, and I’m upstairs at my desk. She comes into the room and puts her arms around me, resting her chin on my head. I reach back and find her waist, never able to just accept affection. “How is it going?” she asks. Not well, I say. She hugs me a little harder and pulls me back. “Come play with me. You’re not going to solve it by staring at it.” My script has three things happening where they shouldn’t be, and they’re plugging the story before the second set of commercials. “Just come with me.” I have to write in my book, I say. I jot down my ideas, as they stand, to pick up later. She keeps wheeling my chair back. I finish fast, throw the pen down, turn around and kiss her. A compact brown face draws back, darker patches around her eyes that make them seem larger, almost glowing in the shadow from the desk lamp.

She tosses my shirt away. I feel her breasts against my inner thighs. She slowly runs her tongue up me, looking me in the eye with a playful edge of worship. Her tongue slides down, and she closes her lips over the end of my penis. Long black hair falls over her face, and she brushes it away with one hand. I touch the sides of her head, feeling the solidness, the smallness of her as she moves on me. Her head bobs gently. Her hair falls over her face again, and I fold it behind her ear. I can hear myself breathing. She redoubles her movements, and I have to shut my eyes. I push her head down and lift it back, pushing myself into her throat. She grunts a bit. I come, digging my hands into her hair. I open my eyes. She’s staring at me, lips still closed around me. Another, smaller spurt goes into her mouth. She’s so calm, her eyes looking back at mine, blinking slowly. I stroke the sides of her face again. I want to hold her. She pulls off and opens her mouth. There’s a little pool around her tongue. With a look so clear it’s almost a question, she closes her mouth and swallows. She smiles, and I need to hold her. I got a little rough back there. Did I hurt you? Lying against me, she shakes her head no, and rubs her ear against my chest.

Midnight or so, perhaps the same night, perhaps a different night. I can see the shape of the episode’s script in my head, and I’m untroubled. We’ve been fucking for so long I couldn’t come if I wanted to. She’s had her tense, shaky first orgasm, and its easier cousins. She breaths deeply and steadily, in and out with each slow thrust and retreat. Her eyes glow, half open, the only part of her face I can see. Little tears glint at the corners of her eyes. She puts her arms around me, and wants to be held.

Papers, in neat little piles, surround her at her desk. I come in and start to knead her shoulders. Her head rolls forward. “Oh that feels good,” she breaths. She rocks backward and forward, whispering encouragements, until the last knot is gone. Her back feels supple and hot. I kiss the nape of her neck and disappear again.

How is your mom? “She’s fine. She sends her love.” She puts the phone back on the charger. I’m not quite what she expected for you, am I? “No, you are! You’re good to me… but in terms of my mother’s shopping list? No.” Shopping list? “You were supposed to be Punjab, come from a specific village…” Even after your parents moved here? “Mom has connections. It’s just the shopping list. All moms do it. I’ll do it. But, see, unlike your mother, mine always had it in mind that she would end up choosing someone for me, even though she always said I could marry whoever I wanted.” I’ll assume this is an Indian thing. “That’s like saying it’s a Northern Hemisphere thing.” I’m sorry. “Don’t be.” And what did you picture? “You. Just darker.” Well, sorry, again. “We can’t all be perfect. By the way, are you going to work on your script tonight?” Yes, I have to.

* * *

I am to understand that, sexually, I had a number of bad American habits to be broken, when we first got together. I tended to hedge my bets, was concerned about things like performance and stamina — cheats to keep my sex life separate from my regular life, hence my obsession with it. The whole thing did indeed became far less stressful the more she got to me. She says she’ll tell me if I do anything wrong, but aside from “stop thinking!” (“Você está pensando!”) she’s been pretty mute so far.

That’s our girl. She’s so much like her mom. Tottering around. She’s got the same hair, brown, and always a mess. That little dress looks like it was stitched together out of whatever was left over from her mom’s outfit. Lots of earth tones. They both look a little like a shanty village. “Menina,” she scolds. Our little girl immediately changes direction away from the street. It’s all the same to her. She’s a little ship, and we’re her pylons. She runs between us, looking thrilled at the world.

Two years later. Our little girl has had a nightmare about mommy and daddy dying, and I’m rocking her to sleep. What can I say to her? Years before she was born, her grampy died unexpectedly; why couldn’t we? My wife looks at me, and I look back at her. Rocking.

Hmm. Our little girl has walked in on us four or five times without noticing anything unusual. Fortunately she’s used to mommy and daddy kissing. The bathroom door is inside our room; that’s the problem — like it was in my house growing up. I now feel sorry for my parents. Item #341 I will never bring up with my mom.

“You married a Brazilian, a sculptor, and a MassArt student — that’s three times you were warned.”

We’re below my mom’s house, dipping our feet in and watching the lake grow dark. She turns around and rests what’s left of her bun in my lap. I scratch her head absently and move our beer bottles away from her elbow. She chuckles. What? “Did you ever fantasize about a girl like me, Matthew?” I’m not that creative. “Sadistic, you mean?” Frankly, I wouldn’t have liked to get my hopes up. She stares at me until we hear a pad pad pad pad pad of little feet, closing fast.

* * *

Nordic. The irony of repainting the house in Denmark Nordic style is that Nordic comes from the U.S. The irony of us is that we both look Danish but have only been here once before. She withdraws the stencil. “Yes?” It looks great. She beams.

“Which way?” She takes my hand. I was overwhelmed, she was overwhelmed, now we’re thinking. Left. There will be a market by the train. We can eat down by the river. When does the Metro stop running? “Midnight.” She knows. She smiles, hair matted, two days without a shower, mares-tails sticking to her forehead. I have to kiss her.

The river flows by sluggishly at night. It brings up a memory. I don’t say it. She’s tucking into her bread. “I like Europe. I like these places.” She burps, putting her fist to her mouth. “I like how children here can just… be kids.” Another memory. I don’t say it again. I like being within five feet of you. She looks at me. There is a pause, then she looks away, smiling. “You want to have kids?” I nod. I’m still looking at her. I don’t think either of us was expecting that.

Copenhagen, for the first time. I’m trying to dredge phrases out of the phrasebook but I can’t stop bursting out laughing every few moments. (Poor guy at the desk.) I’m trying to say “Mr. and Mrs. Rasmussen.”

We’ve got the giggles out of us. It’s late. There are snores around us in the hostel. We’re on a top bunk. I rest the hand holding a condom in her hand, and she closes her fingers around it. No movement. Barely breathing. I kiss her. Her cheeks are flushed. She puts it on me, kissing me again. I slide her to me, still trying to be as quiet as possible. Every curve, the full length of her body, bulges solidly against me. I part her shorts, kiss her again, and move against her. I’m inside her. She breathes out sharply through her nose. I feel it against my cheek. I push in again. She exhales, and immediately draws a breath. Her face screws up. She breathes raggedly through her nose, body rigid, pressed against mine. I break the kiss, raise my head and listen with one ear as she pants quietly against the other. She grabs fistfuls of my tee-shirt. I rub my hand across her bottom, squeezing her. Our mouths come together again. She’s shaking a bit. Her hips jerk. A small creak from the bed. Her jaw spasms, and she whines. 3… 2… 1… Her body relaxes against mine. Her breathing redoubles. She opens her eyes, hair stuck to her face, glistening with sweat. The sight of her is more than I can handle. I bundle her in my arms, and come.

It turns out that, when allowed to, she makes quite a bit of noise. The house smells like paint. It’s a similar moment. We’re both coming back to ourselves. “Do you love me?” Yeah. “Will you always love me?” Yeah. She searches my face, looking from eye to eye. “Look at me, and love only me?” Hai. (It’s transitioned into a bit of a movie we saw, but I know she’s being semi-serious.) She looks in my eyes. “I can’t read people like you can.” I can’t understand people like you can. “Did you ever think about… this, before we met?” Of course. There’s an odd look on her face. “Am I what you expected?” Sometimes, I answer; remember that thing I wrote about it? “Yeah.” You kind of remind me of that last girl. She frowns. “I didn’t really like her.” Why not? She was the most human. “Yeah, but you didn’t really want her, like the first girl. And she wasn’t as cool as the second one.” I didn’t say you were her, I said you kind of reminded me of her. “Then did you ever fantasize about someone more like me?” I’m sure of it. Maybe a dozen unique daydreams and fantasies a week, of varying length and complexity — I only wrote down three.

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Finding Oz

Issue 141, for the week of 6/6/2004.

Toast Note: “Marboxian” can now be viewed online through Hash Inc’s new A:M Films web site. (I’m feeling happy… which is a big deal… for me.) Also managed to fix the too wide problem with the Space Toast Page’s JavaScript.