The Owl’s Mirror

The launch of the Majestic was an unmitigated disaster even for Crosley. Appearing at the launch site well ahead of time I found Ted, Joe, Gus the construction foreman, Mr. Busby the dancing instructor, Miss Pennypincher accompanied by Lauris the cross dresser, and Grietje the juvenile sex expert already present. For the occasion they had by now imbibed most of the contents of a keg of Mountain Red, and when that was gone I ordered another. All except Grietje were deep into the sauce, addressing me with slurred words and fourteen bleary eyes. A piano and a drum kit had been hoisted on deck, which was freshly painted a fog-piercing mauve. Four stout lines were attached each to dockside mooring rings and ending in neatly coiled ropes on deck. The barge itself rested on two robust wheeled carts on railroad tracks which vanished into the shallow water at an angle of some ten degrees. One wheel of the carts was blocked with a solid wooden wedge. A heavy two-inch hawser went from the clove hitch on a deck-side cleat to an apple tree halfway up the bank some thirty yards inland at the edge of the Middle Management parking lot.
Joe and Ted explained it all, spelled it out in gesticulation and verbal fragments which, if one stitched it all together, laid out the launching procedure about as follows.
Lauris was supposed to stand, big kitchen knife in hand, behind the hawser on dry land somewhere half-way between the Majestic and the apple tree, exact placement inconsequential. Ted, Joe, Gus and Mr. Busby were to climb on deck, each holding the end of one mooring line so that, after the launch, the barge would not float away into the bay. Pennypincher was to explain to the press and multimedia the purpose and procedure while casually dropping hints of coming attractions at Eulenspiegel Hall. Grietje was expected to fill the plastic tumblers of reporters and gawkers with libation and pose attractively if cameras were trained on her. She was dressed in smart sailing outfit complete with khaki captain’s cap and pictures of nautical knots printed all over her short-sleeved jacket. Yes, she would grow up to be a dancer all right.
I ordered yet another keg of wine but hid it until it would actually be needed to lubricate dry throats and promote the effusion of appreciative ahs and ohs. I myself was told to maintain a low profile as it was generally thought that my verbal expression might be too dialectal for a broad audience and thereby disturb the ambiance of public awe and admiration. All was now set for the big event.
The four musicians - a bass player, a trombonist, the pianist and the drummer - were the first hands to show up. There was yet enough of the Mountain Red to get them each a couple of good belts. Next arrived the Professor and his chauffeur plus a couple of very photogenic ladies in Hawaiian style high-density polyethylene mock grass skirts who looked deceptively like two of the hospitality maidens from the Professor’s private retreat. Then the reporters and camera operators and interviewers showed up. Safely out of the inner ring and noticing the gathering crowd, I quickly ordered yet one more jug of wine. Just in case. A hot dog vendor showed up with his pushcart, about a dozen onlookers dropped in, and the launch began.
Joe, Gus, Mr. Busby, the four musicians and the two hula dancers smartly took their positions on the deck as per game plan. Ted grasped a sledgehammer since, as a former miner, he was the most trusted hammer operator in the crew; he knocked out the wooden wedge in front of one of the wheels. Both carts with the Majestic on top leaped forward by about a yard and the tree up the bank bent dangerously in direction of the lake. Everybody stopped breathing for a moment. The tree held; cautious moans of appreciation. Ted scrambled aboard, triumph written all over his face.
Lauris, under fresh make-up and high-gloss lipstick, took his place behind the hawser, kitchen knife in hand. The band struck up Hello Dolly and the dancers gyrated their limbs more or less synchronised with the beat. Ted shouted “Now!” and Lauris began to hack away at the thick rope which didn’t show any signs of releasing its hold on the wheeled carts under the Majestic.
Video cameras rolled, reporters spoke into their microphones, still camera’s fill-in flashes lit patches of the scene here and there, someone who didn’t know what went on applauded and the spectators shouted ‘go, go, go’ in unison. However, Lauris could not hack through the rope and the apple tree began to emit some memorable creaks.
I was close enough for immediate rescue, so I leaped forward, relieved the exhausted rope cutter and began to whack into the strands of sisal until a muffled growl from within its core advertised its readiness to part.
“Faster, faster,” Ted shouted, the band struck up Tishomingo Blues and the hospitality maidens rotated their tanned limbs again. He turned around to face Joe: “Did you close the scuttle cock?”
“What the scuttle cock?” Joe, the Naval Architect asked.
“Shit,” said Ted the Captain.
With a loud snap which could be heard by all present, the hawser finally parted, one end whipping in direction of the Majestic and knocking out Lauris who erroneously believed to have planted himself safely out of harm’s way. The now released apple tree whipped the other way, hurling its fifty rock-hard apples into the parked cars and news vans, redirecting at least one of the roof-mounted parabolic antennas to face a different star in the universe. So, under the drum roll of green missiles, the wheeled carts supporting the barge began to roll, and roll ito the water, and roll even more, until they submerged whereupon the Majestic, now in its natural element, floated away into the bay with Ted shouting from the top of his lungs to hold on.
Reporters were unanimous later in praising the deck crew for their dedication and steadfast determination to hold back the barge. As it turned out, they held on just a moment too long and all four of them, Ted, Gus, Joe and Mr. Busby were pulled clean off the deck and into the water while the proud Majestic irrevocably drifted another fifty yards into the lake with musicians banging out Swanee and the dancing girls twirling.
From their vantage point on deck the remaining six passengers could not clearly perceive the totality themselves, but we on shore watched with great admiration as the Majestic slowly sank to the bottom where it finally came to rest, the deck still a foot above the water. The musicians struck up Sobbin’ Blues. The same guy from before clapped his hands again, and since it was not entirely clear if this spectacle before our eyes had rolled off as scripted or not, all bystanders joined in and applauded first tentatively, then enthusiastically while the four wet rope handlers scrambled out of the water. I attended to Lauris who just now came around again. “Wow,” he said. “Some launch, eh?”