31 August 2007
Falling From the Family Tree
July, 1856
I emerged from the police station, blinking, into the hot, bright, sunny streets of New York. People bustled through the city, trying to avoid getting run over by one of the numerous carriages that swept up and down the road, seemingly intent on not stopping for anyone.
“Fuck me, it’s warm,” I said, removing my coat and thrusting into Botter’s outstretched arms.
“I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?” chirped Ludlow, who was leaning against a large, black carriage and smoking a cigarette.
“The only creatures that can possibly tolerate this kind of heat are lizards. You aren’t a lizard, are you Ludlow? Some sort of strange, freakish lizard-man?” I replied. “Our father didn’t impregnate a lizard on his travels, did he?”
“Oh, Lordy!” Ludlow beamed, tossing his dog-end onto the street. “You are so English! Here you are, in one of the most exciting and expansive cities on the globe, and you stand there complaining about the heat! You are so funny!”
As my brother broke into a rather raucous fit of laughter, I found myself wondering exactly how much Likely stock was actually in the man. I called him brother, but he was in fact really only my half-brother, as he was born as a result of our father’s brief fling with an American woman in New York, some forty years ago. While Ludlow had thus been blessed with the devastatingly handsome good-looks of the Likely family, he also seemed to have inherited a most irritatingly cheerful demeanour, no doubt inherited from his mother’s side. Still, blood is thicker than water, and has a lower viscosity than semen, so I felt obliged to be tolerant of Ludlow’s personality traits – even his annoying habit of calling me “Lordy”.
“So, Lordy, why doncha hop in the carriage, and we’ll go to my place,” Ludlow said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “I’m throwing a bit of a shindig tonight, to celebrate my first book getting published! They’ll be quite a few movers and shakers from the city, and plenty of booze, so it should be right up your alley!” He slapped my back again, laughing out loud at his own joke.
I smiled back weakly, and boarded the carriage. As the carriage set off, and rattled along the busy roads, Ludlow filled me in on his life to date, at quite unnecessary length. He told me how he had become a journalist for the New-York Evening Post, how he had won many awards for his incisive articles, how he had settled down with his sweetheart Emily-Rose, how he had won more awards, how he had bought a large house in the suburbs, and how he hoped to one day sire a son, punctuating his biography with the occasional “wow!” and “gee!” that made almost want to hurl myself from the moving vehicle, and allow my head to get dashed to pieces on the road. Why did he have to be so damned jolly all the time, I mused.
As Ludlow went into detail about his forthcoming novel, a tawdry-sounding thriller entitled ‘The Nefarious Nut-Slasher of New York‘, I watched the city fly past my window.
“Why do you need a ‘New York’, anyway?” I thought out loud.
“Sorry?”
“Well, what’s wrong with old York, back in England? It’s a lovely city. It’s rather picturesque, with it’s beautiful rivers, cobbled streets, and that massive cathedral. Did you know that Guy Fawkes was born there? Admittedly, it smells a bit funny, and has it’s fair share of hooligans and roughs, but still – “
“Oh, Lordy!” Ludlow guffawed. “New York isn’t named after York. Well, not directly. It’s named after the Duke of York – you know, James II.”
“They should have called it ‘New James’, then,” I retorted.
Lordy let out another rumbling laugh, slapping his thighs with delight.
“Oh, you are too much, Lordy!” he grinned.
“I have heard that said. Listen, Ludlow, it is wonderful to see you again and all, but I feel we must press on with business. Exactly why am I here? What was your rather curt little note all about?”
Ludlow’s smile vanished, and his whole face seemed to darken somewhat.
“It’s terrible, Lordy!” he wailed. “Terrible!“
“What? What’s so ruddy terrible?” I snapped.
“It’s about our brother,” Ludlow said.
“Which one? Farquad, or Harold? If it’s Harold, I really do not care. He is an awful little shit, who smells like arse-hair.”
“No, the other one, of course,” Ludlow answered, seeming somewhat perplexed.
“Other…one?”
“Lance,” came the blunt reply.
“Who the bollocks is Lance?” I shouted, getting incredibly frustrated with Ludlow’s frustratingly slow delivery of the facts.
“Lordy! Surely you know Lance! Lance! Lance! Old Lancey!” he repeated, as if trying to coax the small kitten of recollection out from behind the wardrobe of my mind.
“Look, stop just saying ‘Lance’ and simply tell me who the fuck he is, before I finally snap and then snap your stupid neck right in half and wipe that gormless smile from your face once and for all.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, as Ludlow looked at me, aghast. Finally he smoothed back his hair, and pressed on.
“Alright, Lordy, alright. Well, okay, our father it seems, did not have a simple one-night stand while here in America. After he had left my mother, he hooked up with another gal in Boston, called Shirley Swallows. The result of their brief fling was Lance, another accidental shoot on the Likely family tree.”
“Jesus cocking Christ!” I exclaimed. “Our father was a sex-maniac, wasn’t he? Could he not have kept his todger in his trousers for one blasted minute?”
“I have thought the same thing many times,” Botter sighed.
“You,” I said, pointing to my man-servant, “you can shut up.”
“Very good milord.”
“So, this Lance fellow. What exactly has he done then, that’s so terrible?” I asked, rubbing my temples as I attempted to marshal all the facts into some sort of coherent order.
“Well, by all accounts he has always been a bit of a hell-raiser. Father refused to be associated with him, considered him to be the black sheep of the family.”
“He’s a negro?” I cried out.
“No, Lordy. Lance was constantly getting into trouble with the law – minor offences at first, y’know, stealing pies off of window sills, breaking lamps, throwing tomatoes at police-men, and so on. But his crimes grew worse, and he began setting people’s houses on fire, assaulted the clergy, raped livestock, robbed banks and generally made quite a nuisance of himself. He was a wanted man, for a while. A bit of an outlaw, you might say. ‘Lightnin” Lance Likely, they called him. But now, things have gotten a whole lot worse, Lordy. Now he is wanted for murder. Cold-blooded MURDER.”
There was a pause.
“He raped livestock?” I said.
- Lord Likely
