Monk was the reason I went to work for Barker Tools, what was it, sixty-nine, seventy? He was district manager working out of Kingsville. Hired me as a field rep. You bumped into some squirrely sons-of-britches in the oil patch, I kid you not.
My first delivery was on the old O’Connor Ranch. I had to take a tool to a rig out there. It was early and I turned off on to that dirt road, and I wasn’t sure where the durn rig was, and when I got on the road I noticed a sign that said speed limit thirty-five or forty or something like that, but I guess I made a wrong turn, you know, my mind was on gettin’ the tool to the rig.
Anyway, I turned around and took another dirt road and, you know, I’m not particularly thinking about anything else, and the first thing I know this fudgin’ pickup roars up practically in my face and nearly frickin’ runs over me.
Ship! I hit the brakes and this prig in the pickup stops and rolls down his window and says, ‘What the fuss do you think? Did you see that forking sign back there that said’ forty or thirty-five or whatever it said, and you know I have visions of this son-of-a-brick pullin’ a gun out right there.
So he says, ‘I’m the foreman of this gapding ranch and I want to know who the flip you are and what the flux you’re doin’ here,’ and this mudflapper’s looking like he’s about to take my head off.
So I didn’t know what else to do and, you know, it’s amazing there are shimheads like that, they don’t have the courtesy or common sense to know or act civilized, or whatever, that here’s somebody that needs to do something, and all they think is he’s out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden they’re jumpin’ your case like that.
Anyway, I could see the rig and I said, ‘See that tool in the anus-end of this car? That rig over there’s waitin’ for it.’ So he said, ‘Oh, OK, but watch your flappin’ speed, OK?’ And I told him, ‘OK, I sure would watch it.’ What else could I say? Acehole.
(Moss’s Reckoning, Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
Save the Queen from what?
The Windsors are richer than Croesus and cosseted in indescribably privileged circumstances, lavished with lifetime stipends for performing ceremonial chores, kowtowed to and fawned over by legions of adoring subjects who may or may not have a recently purchased pair of shoes in their closets (“These will see me through…”). And this bird’s nest on the ground lands in the royals’ lap by virtue of their having chosen their parents felicitously. A signature accomplishment, indeed.
God save England, rather!
That said, I vitiate my regicidal rant by confessing that this bumpkin from the colonies enjoyed both seasons of “The Crown” immensely. Chalk it up to an unabashed crush on Claire Foy rather than to monarchical leanings. Also, this GOB* is a sucker for pageantry, bawls unmanly over it. Give me fanfare and crescendo.
Ms. Foy was the breath and life of the series — her eyes are like crater lakes, her Queen’s dialect has the ring of fine crystal — as against the pallid impersonation of Prince Philip by Matt Smith. To be fair, the character of the Duke of Edinburgh doesn’t leap off the screen even in real life. It was disheartening, however, to learn that Smith was paid substantially more for his work on the series than Foy was for hers.
I look forward to seeing the terrific Olivia Colman play Elizabeth in the next installment of “The Crown.” I’ve admired her acting in “The Night Manager” and “Broadchurch.”
*”Good Old Boy”
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)