Soup for the (Evil?) King

Soup for the (Evil?) King


I love soup.

It was one of my favorite dishes my Mother made when I was a child, especially her chili, which I’d look forward to like it was Christmas. Sometime early in elementary school I checked out a picture book from the library titled Soup for the King by Leonard Kessler. The simple story burned its way onto my brain like a stove tattoo; I must’ve been starving when I read it the first time. I identified with the soup-loving monarch, and Kessler’s fable and the appetite for soup stayed with me through adulthood. I taught myself how to cook homemade soups and stews in college and afterward to stretch a very small budget.

I recently purchased this book out of nostalgia, something I haven’t seen for 30 years. I was surprised by how much I recalled. Yes, I must’ve skipped lunch. However, reading it as an adult revealed a morbid element invisible in my childhood reading.

Soup for the King goes like this - a king and his queen are sitting at their dining table. The King is a jolly-looking fellow. He says he wants soup for dinner. The Queen is sick of soup. She wants something else, but oh no, the King wants soup. Cratchedy and ratchedy, she starts to bother the royal cook about the next day’s soup, needs more salt, blah, blah, blah. Of course, the Cook is a proud imaginary jackass and he quits. The Queen is worried and scared. At dinner, she makes several suggestions to supplant soup - all of which he refuses. He don’t want any of that shit, Queen! “I want soup!” he says. Then she tells him the cook quit, and alongside a huge picture of the poor King weeping - the Queen says it’s time to find a new cook.

So, the King’s men arrange for a contest to find a new soup cook. Cooks from all over the kingdom line up outside the castle. Meanwhile, the story switches to a poor tailor and his family eating dinner. And what are they eating? PIZZA! No, soup. They are too poor to eat anything but soup, and the tailor? He fucking hates soup! His wife sends their boy to sell some soup at the market so they can buy some MEAT! Of course, the boy gets misidentified at the castle for a contestant. The King lines them all up and loves the boy’s soup, and sends for his family to live at the castle so the Mother can make his precious fucking soup EVERY DAY FOREVER! At the end, everybody is happy! The King gets soup and the poor tailor gets to eat every kind of meat and cheese that will give him a heart attack in a few months.

As a child, I LOVED the ending of the story. Everyone got what they wanted. Thinking back on it before I bought the book, I imagined the last page of the story - with the Tailor, his wife, the boy and the Queen sitting at a table piled high with every nonsoup food imaginable.
Seeing it again after three decades, I realize that I misremembered. The Queen is NOT sitting at the table. The Queen is NOT dining with the King as he gobbles his delicious new soup. The Queen does NOT help organize the contest.

After saying it’s time to find a new cook, the Queen vanishes from the story. No pictures of her, no dialogue or text about her. Gone, gone, gone.

What happened to the Queen?

Ohhh, the King was DEVASTATED by her news of the quitting cook. He wept and wept, and I see now why she was so worried, why the King ALWAYS got to pick what they had to eat. He is a filthy, filthy king. He is a King of Murder and Revenge!

“Ohhh, you ratchedy cratchedy woman, make me spill tears and I will spill your blood! The cook is gone, and the larder is thin like bad vichyssoise. Come here, my Queen, my precious darling Queen! I will hang your hocks in the smokehouse, dear and so lovely! I will pickle your sweetmeats and boil your marrowbones for the royal stock. Only so much time to wring those hands, dear and so lovely. Queensoup for the King! Queensoup for the King!”

This is possible. Don’t you think this is possible?

Wilfree Pepperduck

Wilfree Pepperduck was borned in the canteloupe antelope hotel. His eyes are dead seeds that willnt sprout no matter the number of times you say hello and kiss his outstretching hand. Them and those who kiss his outstretching hand must be dreaming dreams that fall off the planet, because their lips are burning forever with pulp acid. Now they stand on bone scaffolds way above the hotel, firemouths scorching his songs that rip through their heads like cabbagewire.

You dinna know what that is? Well, Ima Knot going to tell you. Why you look disappointed?

"OBSERVERS OF MR. PEPPERDUCK! THE CABBAGEWIRE IS AN ETERNAL RAZOR REEL OF WRATH AND ILL WISHES, THE UNCOILED SHADEBRAINS OF STUFFED ORPHANS, THE IRE BEHIND BUTTON EYES THAT GLISTEN AT NIGHT - SHRIEKING SCREAMING TO FRANCIS XAVIER 'WHY YOU TATTOO MY CLOTH ASS AND PUT ME IN BOX AND SELL ME TO THE STORE AND THEN the children! WE WILL GIVE YOU DIMPLES WITH NAILS!'" says Ima Knot

See, I told you Ima Knot going to tell you.

You keep on watching Wilfree Pepperduck. The petroleumfall winkles its coming in the dark part of his deadseed eyes. You got plenty to see.

Limerick bimmerick

There once was a drunkard named Charlie
Who tried to go swimming in barley
When he inhaled his first breath
Dumb bastard choked to death
And naught a soul in town is sorry

Rant of an Oilman's Son

Rant of an Oilman’s Son

My father is an oilman. I grew up in Texas, going out to the derricks with him. When I saw a puddle of that dark stuff ooze up from a newly-vacant cavity in the earth, I wanted to jump into its tarry center, to breathe it in, sucking all that ancient, ancient fat into my lungs until I was as dead as those animals from which the stuff comes.
You want me to repeat that? Yes, animals. Oil is a tangent shadow of faraway death. Ages ago, when smarter, murderous monkeys like my father hadn't yet stood up to shake their fists at God, a troglodyte died and began to decompose. Much later, an abandoned infant brachiasaurus collapsed from starvation in the same place, decomposition adding to the soup. The thick stew accumulated over eons until men like my father dug a hole and found it, sucking it out of an enormous cave to fuel trucks that shipped cancerous vegetables to people in South Carolina and South Korea, giving them stunted energy enough to fill up their own vehicles with old animal soup to buy more food to eat, shit and die.
But the hatred of my father didn't spawn from the discovery that he got rich on the world's reliance on the spoils of history. We are all babies suckling at the corpulent breasts of that which came before us, suckling with blind, feverish pleasure and need.
At some point, even babies must be sated and open their eyes.
I hate my father for not understanding that he continues to empty the cavities of the Earth. The world loves both the life and death of its children. Life moves upon the surface of the Earth like a smile or grimace upon the face of a loving mother, and when that life has ended, it sinks down to her heart, into hidden pockets of rich memories guarded and held secure. These are the memories of the physical world; she cannot pursue the future without this petroleum past.
My father steals the memories of the world in order to accelerate the movements of men, movements ridiculous and shameful in such a canyon of time. Soon, the caves of the world's remembrances will be hollow, as dry and abandoned as ice sifting forgotten through the far corners of the incomprehensible universe.
This hollowness, this world with an interior of devoured memories, cannot support the weight of men and women and children upon the surface.
Soon, the ground will collapse beneath my boots. I cannot convince my father that he is wrong. I cannot replenish the deposits of history.

Dream - Labrat Liver is Good for You/ Naked Trainstation

The student named Me sat high in the rear of the auditorium, looking down at his teachers as they performed a play about labrat liver pate and its superior nutrition. He was apart from and above the other pupils, peering at the action over the top of a stuffed rolling suitcase, which was crushing his lap.

Said Mr. Turrible, “By the time I am finished with this pile of delicious labrat liver, I will have so many more fingers with which to buy more labrat liver!”

Said, Mrs. Jinglebells, “All the little children on the world will see through extra eyes if they have more helpings!”

The entire faculty formed a circle around a small table upon which stood a plate of crackers with labrat liver pate. They held hands and sang while dancing round and round.

After two of their revolutions, the suitcase on Me’s lap exploded open, spewing out fountains of brightly-colored underwear and pants and socks and shirts. Me held tight to the luggage while the column of seatbacks directly in front of him lowered, creating a clear descent to the floor. An inordinate amount of blue silk pajamas fell from the air, covering the new path, molding tight onto the surface like melted cellophane.

The auditorium tilted forward, pitching Me and the suitcase into the clothing storm and down the silken hill. Me landed in the suitcase on the floor before the stage. He looked up at the audience. The boys and girls laughed at him without pause. Me glanced down and saw that he was naked from the waist down. He yelped and closed the lid against his chest to cover his dangledoo.

Mrs. Jinglebells, Mr. Turrible and a few other unimportant teachers jumped down and stood between him and the students.

“Do not worry,” said Mrs. Jinglebells, looking at his dangledoo. “We won’t let ANYONE see your dangledoo!”

Mr. Turrible said, “I think you will really like next week’s assignment.”

All the clothing in the air turned to water and splashed down, soaking everyone. A wet young woman descended the stairs at the other end of the auditorium, pointing at Me. “Follow me! I know where we can find your underwear!” She turned to the wall, which transformed into a thin pane of glass. The glass quickly slid up into the ceiling, revealing a train station platform. An infinite train powered through the station. The woman rushed onto the platform.

Me leaped out of the suitcase and ran after the woman, laughter at his back like gravel under the skin. He passed through into the station, and the wind from the train ballooned his shirt. The train was a constant streak of forest green. Me caught up with the woman, who had stopped beside a black button floating in the air close to the endless train. He tugged his shirt down to cover his dangledoo.

She pointed to the button. “Remember to push this if you fuck something up.” Turning, she ran a short distance to an empty ticket stand. Me followed. She opened a door to the office. “You will find your underwear in here.”

The train stopped and a door opened, out of which writhed an ethereal, forest green hand.

“Goodbye,” the woman said, and the hand jerked out and surrounded her, squeezing. The hand retracted back into the door, leaving only a clean skeleton standing before Me. The train resumed its eternal course, while the skeleton started to walk away. It tripped on a chocolate wrapper and smashed to the floor, breaking apart, and the hundreds of bones squirmed into the concrete and were still.

Me stared at the bone ridges for a moment until he heard the collective voice of thousands of people gain volume and near the empty station. People were coming! Frantic and horrifed, Me raced into the ticket office. A pair of shining boxers hung suspension above a glass vial on one of the desks. He quickly maneuvered around a counter, hearing the WHOOF and whimper before his heel crushed down on bone and flesh.

His brother’s Golden Retriever lay on the floor close to the counter; Me had smashed in her poor skull. Her Berenstain Bear legs pawed at the air in futile escape. He bent down and caressed her side. “Oh, shit. Shit. I’m so sorry.” Her head was cracked open, but it was strangely clean and dry. He remembered the button. Me ran back to the rushing train, sick in his throat. His brother loved the dear pup; how the hell would he tell him?

The ebony button responded to his nearness by flashing. It was shaped like a coconut. He pushed it and the train halted, then began to thunder in the opposite direction. As it moved backward, he watched ghostly images of him and the woman dance through the last few minutes in reverse. The coconut button flashed again, changing color to a blood red. Me pressed it again; the train stopped and resumed its original, furious journey.

Hopeful, he went back to the ticket office. The sounds of the impending crowd increased, intensified by the addition of two footsteps on stone for every voice. When he reached the office, he sobbed. The Retriever had stopped moving; her tongue was a moist black ribbon stretched across the floor. The dog’s head was now perfectly split like a blooming flowerbud. The brain had turned to mist and the brainmist rose and drifted back to the vial on the desk. His glowing underwear was gone. The brainmist caressed the vial and slowly filled it with a blue light, and once full, a shape began to emerge from the mouth of the vial. A head surfaced, blonde hair parted in the middle that continued as the being rose until its lengths ended plastered on the wet shoulders of the rising, naked woman. Her form billowed out into normal dimensions as she passed up through the neck of the vial.

The naked woman stepped out of the vial and dropped to the floor. She looked at Me, but she didn’t look at his dangledoo.

“You fucked up,” she said to Me. “But that’s normal.”

She walked out of the ticket office toward the train. The crowds had arrived, and they ambled hurriedly toward nowhere. The woman jostled through them in her nakedness, and each time one of the crowd looked at her, that person froze like Lot’s over-curious wife.

She looked over her shoulder at Me. “Follow me to find your underwear.”

So he followed.

Old Dream 2002

More miscellaneous shit. What about Jack's compound? Wasn't that one of the most bizarre dreams you've ever had? Were you the actual arsonist who exploded the gas-line, or were you a horrified observer? It was excruciating when the city began to fall, and there was no where for me to go. Rob didn't make it. He still worked as an Intern for Fifth Third in downtown Lexington. That entire building shrugged its shoulders, as if to say, Who the fuck cares?, and tumbled. I think he was in there, along with all the trust fund documents. I had to get to the Safehaven, but separating me from the Safe- haven was miles and miles of wasted city engorged with angry killers. And they were all so bright. I found temporary rest and solace and sustenance in Jack's compound on the way to the haven. It was there that I realized that Weckham not only owned the land upon which my family had built their home, but he also owned the World. Even though I knew him, there was nothing he could do personally to transport me to the Haven. We stood and talked just within the gates of the compound, and I learned that Ralph had purchased a home not a mile from my family's, and for a moment I was filled with a strange joy and anticipation. I had no friends left. I thought how wonderful it would be to visit Ralph, to talk about some of our old adventures, taking flowers to pretty girls' front doors in the small hours of summer mornings, with a safe margin between us and dawn. But then I dismissed it as impossible. I left the compound and mounted a tram to Safe-Haven. It moved very slow, but the doors locked and I was safe along with a dozen people with muddled profiles. We traveled through the eery wastelands. The angry killers climbed on the tram like ants, and shouted and shrieked and cursed and cried. They all had terrible weapons clenched in their hands or attached to their bodies. I remember one man in particular. He stood alone, wearing nothing but red overalls. He had blonde hair and his mouth stayed open in a toothy snarl. A splintered baseball bat rested, aware, upon his shoulder. As we passed him by, I pressed against the glass of the tram and it yielded. It stretched against my hand like cellophane. My hand bumped against this guy's head and he howled. He glared at me and told me he was going to kill me, pushing his face into the elastic glass. I quickly apologized and his wild anger disappeared. He said, "Okay." He boarded the tram and sat down next to a profile and became another profile. We moved on.

Over

The Commerce of Judgment

The Commerce of Judgment.

I planned to meet with the Regional Manager at Crackhead Barrel Thursday morning to eat eggs and babble.

So, I sit in a rocking chair to read Stephen King's Everything's Eventual. I rock back and forth, reading about Dinky Earnshaw and his fatal geometry while locals and dapper businessmen walk up to the front doors for a breakfast.

While caressing the edges of the pages with the tips of my fingers, enthralled with Mr. King's imaginings, I notice movement beyond the reading tunnel and look up to see an old man striding out of the restaurant. His face is creased from the weight of the work he has done and the weight of the work he is thinking about doing. He picks his teeth with a toothpick.

Two feet and three moments later, an old lady emerges behind him. She's dressed in a pink paisley wrap-thing that was probably designed by a committee reeking of Palmolive and baby powder. A smile is on her face, but dark speckles gather in her eyes. Speckles of guilt.

I didn't make the biscuits today! It's another day I didn't make the biscuits!

Her hair is piled atop her head like an iceberg thrusting out of the Arctic Ocean. As she passes before me, her eyes alight on my paperback book.

"Oh!" she exclaims. "Is that a Lillian Braun?" Peering closer, she freezes. Her mouth goes slack, and a lone breeze makes the sparse hairs emerging from the crust of makeup around her lips stir. The lady's hand presses against her pink paisley heart, and I feel the horrified exhalation from everyone in the committee. It is a horde swollen and neutralized by entropy. My spine cracks in the wind of that exhalation.

Rising from her stoop, her face crumples as if she discovered the Cracker Barrel breakfast had been fried in shit.

"Oh," she says. "Stephen King." She turns to follow her husband. Her eyes catch mine. "I'll pray for you."

As she floats away, her shoulders square. The speckles of guilt rise from her head like bats on fire. She has been scoured by her good deed. And within her peanut mind, an angel who looks too much like GW is knitting her pink paisley wings.

There is a smile on my face. I continue to read Stephen King, a man aware of darkness, but more aware of the light we need to keep the darkness at bay.