Overland to the World
The Cerberus Blues to the Rescue
Pugs, Prayers, and Portents: Geoffrey Snow’s Eccentric Morning
Geoffrey Snow was a Northerner. Though raised within earshot of the Durham bells, he wasn’t a Geordie; he loved properly pronounced vowels, and consonants; disliked football, weak brown ale, and dogs.
The final score of a game never fizzed out his natural effervescence. What was more depressing than a Newcastle United victory? Knowing another wouldn’t come again until, perhaps, a Brexit deal.
Was he even British because he was so devoid of vice? Like stopping after four pints of stout? Wasn’t the arrogant thing so dash Edwardian? Who else but Austin Powers wore an ascot? Was he merely a self-made satirical manifestation of his own insecurities?
His ability to take the piss from himself, however, ultimately convinced most of being a half-pint of cider British.
It was impossible to be a Romantic without being labeled something offensive —like being French, or worse, Continental.
Being a tortured Romantic required energy. At five in the morning, the impracticality of melancholia revealed itself in his inability to shave. Geoffrey inspected the gash in his reddish beard.
The new razor was a ghastly decision. The chip was noticeable, but was it worth shaving off his inaugural personality?
Sitting on the toilet, combing his short, dirty blonde hair with his fingers, Geoffrey knew the Great Poets never had to postpone depression. Since no alarm clock regulated Byron and Shelley, they could marinate a broken heart.
Geoffrey awoke three times. For a reason he knew all too well, he put on his shoes before his trousers. For fifteen minutes, he looked for his specs. They were on his face.
The culprit for such insomnia was the 3x5 bubble envelope on his nightstand.
The most significant decision of my twenty-nine years comes down to posting this thing. He soon collapsed and stared at the cracked ceiling. What more can happen to me now?
A recomposed Geoffrey Snow scuttled out of his flat in Brent Cross, a suburb in Greater Northern London, near the Brent Cross Shopping Centre and the M1 motorway, and crossed the street for the Royal Letterbox.
He hesitated and trembled. The envelope moistened between his lips. He scraped nervous fingertips across the bald gash. Should I do this? Am I foolish? An idiot? Everyone — including his own mum — said he was. The envelope, however, generated momentum of its own.
He knelt to tie his Buster Browns, closed his eyes, and despite being consciously British and devoutly secular, he prayed as if writing “dear diary.”
Dear God, what the hell am I doing? I’ve been reduced to using an apostrophe!
Was anyone watching? Would declarations tarnish his dapper, urbane, and cosmopolitan veneer?
A warm liquid, however, soon squirted onto his trousers. Leaping forward, screaming, “Ahhh,” Geoffrey embraced the letterbox, his right leg soaking.
Geoffrey’s neighbor, Jenkins — no one knew his first name — perhaps not even Jenkins — was escorting his team of desert-beige blighters for their morning constitutional. Jenkins, a jolly, rubicund chap, disguised his intelligence in seeming madness. On some days, with no football, his white beard resembled St. Nick. Just prior to a game, more Dumbledorian. And when Chelsea wasn’t winning — or worst — lost — Gandalf the Grey and Suicidal.
To Geoffrey, his beasts were thugs, not pugs — and all named after Chelsea footballers. Over the years their names had changed, depending on the roster.
One larger thug and Captain, Geoffrey’s urinating nemesis, pranced hysterically on the pavement. The thugs were like the mythical three-headed dog guarding the Gates of Hades; the image of Cerberus chilled Geoffrey because, being a Neo-Symbolist, he wanted this Quest to lead to salvation rather than damnation.
“Oye! Geoffrey Snow? Is that you, mate? Violating Our Majesty’s letterboxes now?”
“Your thug just urinated on me!”
“`is name Batshuayi,” Jenkins said, gathering the blue-checkered leashes. “Is it `is fault, yeah, that you were kneeling in supplication at `is usual piss spot?”
“Supplication? I was lacing my shoe!”
The pugs wore blue and yellow knitted outfits emblazoned with the Chelsea Football Club insignia. Smashed, crinkly little faces poked out of the ruffled, knitted turtleneck collars. It was the handiwork of the lovely Mrs. Jenkins.
Jenkins juggled a pooper-scooper and leashes in one hand and a freshly picked bouquet in the other. He pulled his green satin robe across his chubby chest and hoisted his Chelsea FC boxers over his belly.
“I suppose a prayer before one of your adventures was in order.”
Why defend himself? He examined the envelope, sniffed, and shook his head. Jenkins was alluding to Geoffrey’s job as a Tour Director for Educational Travel Adventures.
“Batshuayi, did you piss on that too? Batshuayi? I’m talking to you!” Jenkins pulled on his leash. “‘`e’s still learning his new name. Was the missive terribly important?”
“Just a small matter of possibly altering the course of my life.”
Jenkins placed his hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder. “Being as you’re a religious man, Geoffrey, perhaps God directed you `ere for Batshuayi to piss on it, as a warning to you — perhaps some divine prognostication. Maybe as an omen, you know. A portentous sign to signify…”
“Do you think God directed Batshuayi’s genitalia?”
“God works in mysterious ways, as I’ve `eard. So what were you praying for?”
“I was — mentally — mentally — digesting.”
“Mental is right. Prayer by any other name still doesn’t give confidence in our Royal Mail.”
“I was meditating on whether — ”
“What’s that on your beard?”
His hand immediately covered his chin.
“It’s nothing, yeah — nothing,” Geoffrey said, backing away. Suddenly, he felt a squashed banana on the bottom of his shoe..
Overjoyed, Jenkins commended Guéhi the Pug on his perfectly formed stool. “He’s `ad a terrible time lately with the loose ones. It’s Chelsea. When they lose, he gets the runs. But they won last night!”
Just then, a jealous Loftus-Cheek the Pug jumped on Guéhi and nipped his ear, causing Batshuayi the Pug to yelp and retreat behind Jenkins who wedged himself between the two. Jenkins yelled about them playing on the same team.
“Just like footballers,” Jenkins said, “always wanting attention. They’re drama queens, you know!”
Geoffrey sat on the pavement, digging the feces out with a twig. Without looking at Jenkins, he said, “This package has caused me considerable anguish and — ”
“If it means anything, we’ll pray for you. Now, we’re not religious, unless you’d call a religion. Then Amen!”
Jenkins called his Trinity of Thugs to his side. While swinging the bouquet over his head like a baton, he sang:
“For we are Chelsea And we are supreme, We’ll never be mastered By no northern bastards, And we’ll keep the blue flag flying ‘igh…”
Geoffrey spotted lights in the neighborhood and the creaks of closing windows.
“Flying `igh, up in the sky, We’ll keep the blue flag flying `igh, From Stamford Bridge to Wemberley, We’ll keep the blue flag flying `igh.
Bringing the bouquet down in front of him, Jenkins lowered his head and said solemnly, “Ahhhh — men.”
With six feet of leash trailing, Ruben Loftus-Cheek the Thug casually circled Geoffrey, sniffing the ground around Geoffrey’s shoes.
“Being a Geordie I suppose you’re a Newcastle fan?”
“I’m one of those unenlightened few who dislike moods to fluctuate on the success of a single team.”
Jenkins lowered his head. “I’ve never met no one more into sassy syntax and elaborate elocutions. We’d think you’re one of those International Continentals, prayin’ and pontificatin’. But why you `ate dogs so much?”
“It’s just that I always preferred the company of my own species.”
“Did you `ear that, boys? He’s `omosapiencentric!”
“I have an over-developed sense of self. I do not need the lapping of unchecked love every minute to know I’m a fine person. I can do that very well myself.”
If his life was a Greek play or a Biblical tale, the gods were definitely doing everything possible to torment the Young Hero.
Just then, Geoffrey tripped over the leash wrapped around his ankles. With his back on the pavement, Geoffrey raised his leg as Jenkins helped him to untangle the leash.
He pleaded “Okay, okay,” to stop the tongue-licking torture. Didn’t he want to hear about this package?
“I would imagine that would be none of our business.”
Geoffrey took a deep breath. What gave him more joy than telling everyone about his mad love pursuits? “You see, this package contains a roll of film with the words ‘Develop Me’ inscribed in delicate calligraphy on a cream-colored placard. It is for an Italian woman of exquisite beauty and charm who I met last year in Rome.
Her name is Stefanie. We had a wonderful time, Jenkins, wonderful, you see, but then two weeks later, her fiance Luca, found out, and started looking for me. I heard rumors of a knife. My Italian is good enough to translate the words pasty arrogant white bastard, blood, and death.”
“That was your trouble, mate. Italy! What’s wrong with Brighton or Torquay?”
“I’m actually not sure he’s Italian,” Geoffrey said. “He may be Sicilian. But it looks like the wedding plans may be — well — ending — and this little package here — ”
The thugs pulled on their leashes. “Sorry, mate, we need to leave. The missus needs the flowers they picked. It’s the little things that spice the marriage soup!”
“I’m sure the four of you make quite a husband!”
Just then, Batshuayi the Thug snatched the envelope and shredded the missive. It contained twenty-four pictures of his devotion and love: like — a picture of Geoffrey playing the guitar with sunglasses, and a card that read: “I’m singing the blues without you.” And another one: bananas on his head with a sign that read: “I’m bananas without you!”
“Batshuayi did you a favor, mate. That’s the stupidest thing we’ve ever ‘eard! What’s wrong with British women? You’re a dashing lad, mate — while not fully in your senses.”
The 24 pictures in that film role uncoiled like a leash. The sun ruined all the romance.
Should Geoffrey have thanked the thugs for his deliverance? He collapsed on the pavement — hitting his head and briefly passing out. Was this from ennui rather than a concussion?
How long did he remain there? A snorting and a sniffing sound startled him out of his dream. Was it a dream? Or did an angelic face appear in the sunrise between the gray clouds above him? Then that voice! Was he hearing things? Then — a soft, wet tongue on his cheek. Warm and lovely — was he aroused in this fantasy?
“It seems like you’ve `ad a horrid morning!”
It was Mrs. Jenkins — almost identical in every way, minus the white beard and the thugs and the gruff manner. It was her Scottish terrier — or Terror, as he called her, lapping his face with slobber and sobriety.
Geoffrey smiled.
She heard all about the ordeal. “And I came out with a fresh cuppa Yorkshire black tea that should restore you to ‘ealth!”
Geoffrey cupped the fine china and sipped. Strong and perfect.
Where could he find such a woman as The Wife of Jenkins?
Mrs. Jenkins said, “My son, free your ‘ands of shitte if you want to ‘old something good. Didn’t your mum none ever tell you that?”
“I’ve been in the habit of neglecting fine advice.”
Dawn broke over the stone houses. He looked at his watch. It was time to depart for Heathrow, but not until he finished the tea and listened for more sage advice.
“Did you like the flowers?” Geoffrey asked.
“That’s the fifth bunch of flowers ‘e’s brought ‘ome this week,” she said. “And it’s always to apologize for some rigamarole or other. If he could turn me house into a desert, I’d he ‘appy, but we all must count our blessings.”
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