A.E.I.O.U.

A menagerie of colorful tents had been erected in Sienna’s Piazza del Campo in anticipation of the infanta’s arrival. Frederick was excited. He was thirty-seven and just entering his prime. As King of Germany, he held onto a small but vital grip on Europe. Now it was time to consolidate his imminent authority. The vibrant eighteen-year-old that would arrive any minute was the key to it. He’d never met her but her considerable dowry would release him from his debt and the prospect of many years of children brought thoughts of real certitude.

A horn sounded. She’d arrived! Frederick nearly fell into the Fonte Gaia as he whirled to take his first glimpse into the future.

It was a large entourage that made its way from a shady alley on the west side of the plaza, much larger than he’d expected, obviously very costly. He snapped his tongue in disapproval.

“They’ll have to go, after the wedding,” he whispered to his aide.

When the princess gingerly stepped from her carriage, Frederick tried hard to conceal his concern.

“She’s very beautiful, indeed... but her hips... she seems rather thin, will she withstand bearing my heirs?”

Despite the differences between them, differences which occupied every nook of their mismatched lives, Frederick III and Eleanor of Portugal were married on March 16, 1452, and three days later, crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Empress. Eleanor would prove more than able in producing children and Frederick’s dreams became cemented in history – so that by the end of his life, he saw fit to inscribe on all the buildings in his empire the motto, “Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich untertan.”

The Habsburg dynasty would endure into the 20th century, though more likely because of its other motto: "Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry."

"Strike the tent"

What four years of war couldn’t do, nature was accomplishing in similar time. His heart, never once questioned, was now on the edge of surrender; its beats were numbered and the old General was the only one who knew it. True to character, he mentioned it to no one. Instead, he decided on one last trip, on the pretense of a much-needed rest but in actuality to say his farewells.

He rode south from Lexington, Virginia, greeted by family and friends and former brothers-in-arms at each stop, as well as by tens of thousands of well-wishers, admirers, and curious who knew in advance his every move in ways that his opponents had never been able to ascertain.

Early spring found him in Augusta, Georgia. For the entirety of that afternoon, the sixty-three-year-old warmly greeted the throngs of visitors in the lobby of his hotel. Among the crowds, children were especially abundant, pressing personalized cards and bouquets of japonica into hands. One boy in particular though, a thirteen-year-old who’d wormed his way to the old man’s side, caught his attention.

“What’s your name son?”

“Thomas, sir... I’m from Virginia...” He fell silent and stared in wonder at the model of the man he hoped one day to become.

The General winked a sad, tired eye at Thomas and put a hand on the boy’s back, forcing him to straighten his posture.

“Walk tall then,” he said, “you’re doubly blessed.” And the boy was shoved aside by the next group of strangers bearing gifts.

Seven months later, October 12, 1870, the General passed quietly into eternity after waking from sleep and issuing his final order. And forty-three years afterward, Thomas, better known as Woodrow Wilson, was sworn in as the 28th President. He never forgot his brief meeting with Robert E. Lee.

The New Imperialism

“What’s that thing, mommy?”

Anthony’s mother bent softly over his shoulder and pointed to a little wooden sign hanging on the door of the cage.

“Let’s read the words, Anthony. You should be able to sound it out and I think you might recognize it once you do.”

Anthony squinted at the letters.

“Or... or, ang... uh... Hey!” Anthony’s face lit up, “Momma, it’s an orangutan! Just like in my alphabet book!”

His mother tossled his curly brown hair and kissed him on the cheek. She was beaming too.

“Very good, Anthony! You are so smart. Now, let’s see what else it tells us about him. He’s from Malaysia and his name means “man of the forest." He’s considered to be the most intelligent of all primates. Not half as smart as my little man I bet, though.”

It was October 8, 1906; a few scant years into the new century, a century that promised new hope for new man. A century that showed signs of mankind shedding the last vestiges of its superstitious past and embracing the new sciences; the evolved would take control and guide the masses into a brave new future. Important bedrock work had been done in Europe in the last century, but now the future of scientific racism was unfolding in the United States, especially under the guidance of forward-thinking men like Madison Grant.

The pair moved leisurely through the monkey exhibit at the Bronx Zoo and stopped at another little sign.

“What does this one say, Anthony? “

“It says... Oh-Ta, Ben-Ga, mommy. That was easy, Ota Benga. But he’s not a monkey."

“No, Anthony,” his mother whispered, pulling the boy away from the small, dark man behind the fence. “But he’s not like us, Anthony. He’s a savage. But maybe with our help...”

Happy Father's Day

Back to writing again next week.

A Gun in the First Act Always Goes Off in the Third

The youth football played in South Central Los Angeles wasn’t just a game. It was a matter of survival, a refuge keeping the kids off the streets and out of the gangs for at least one day a week. And if a kid was lucky, it was a way out.

It had been for Kermit. Growing up in Watts in the 50’s, he’d found on the gridiron a release for his anger. He was allowed to run and hit and tackle at will. And he did it like no one else. But at the age of twelve he let his short-temper surface during a game and his father made sure to end it right there. Coming out of the stands he yanked Kermit off the field. “You’re embarrassing me... Sit down until you can control yourself!”

Kermit behaved after that; well enough to escape South Central through a scholarship to UCLA. Ten successful years in the pros followed.

---

He often returned to the stage of his youth, going to football games around the city. On September 21, 1974, one particular game jogged his memory clearly. As Kermit watched from the stands, an eight-year-old boy, the most obviously-talented boy on the field, was letting all of his rage go, just as Kermit had done years before. As the boy was dragged kicking off the field, Kermit thought of himself and said “somebody needs to help that boy.” But Kermit wasn’t that “somebody.”

---

Kermit recognized the defendant at last when the trial began.

“Oh my God...”

It was Tiequon Cox, the eight-year-old footballer from a decade earlier whom Kermit thought someone needed to help. Now it was too late. And it was too late to help Kermit Alexander’s mother, sister, and nephews too; victims of the gangland murder-for-hire gone wrong.

and it turned upon the point of a lance

Adhemar rolled over and coughed dryly. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust around the gleaming torchlight before he recognized the figure standing over him. He sat up in a cloud of dust and ran his fingers upward through his beard.

“Oh... it’s you. Is there movement?” The words barely escaped his parched throat.

“No, your Excellency,” the page replied, “it’s a miracle, come see!”

With much difficulty, Adhemar got to his feet and limped to the window. Outside was the Basilica of Saint Peter and at its entrance a large crowd was illuminated by a hundred fiercely burning torches. At the open doors, a skinny man, naked except for a tattered shirt, stood facing the crowd, holding something above his head.

“Who is that? What’s he got there?” Adhemar asked.

“It’s that visionary,” said the page, “He’s found the spear!”

At these words, color appeared in Adhemar’s face where none had been for weeks.

“Nonsense!” he screamed. “Damn that peasant. And damn those stupid enough to believe him. Our men need food and water and what does he do? He gives them...”

Adhemar de Monteil, Bishop of Puy-en-Velay and Papal Legate, caught his breath as he looked back down at the crowd. It had almost doubled in size. Every man was kneeling.

“He gives them... hope... yes, so be it. Hope.” He leaned out the window and bellowed, “Deus Vult!”

The object that Peter Bartholomew dug up on June 14, 1098 wasn’t even a spear; it was the cap to a standard. But it was close enough for the starving Franks. Abandoned by the Greeks, barricaded behind the walls of Antioch and on the brink of disaster, they rallied with their new relic of Longinus to scatter the superior Muslim armies, ensuring continuance of the First Crusade.

The National Movement for Abolishing Theatre Queues

About twenty kilometers west of London, in the little village of Stoke Poges, Eleanor closed the gate at St. Giles cemetery and shuffled down a rutted path. She’d just placed a little wreath on the marker of her deceased husband. He’d died during the Great War. Not in the war, just coincidentally during it; a heart attack while reading a Times story about the overthrow of the Russian Tsar. Eleanor always blamed the communists for his death and considered him a “wartime casualty,” even though the War Office consistently refused her demands for benefits.

With this thought on her mind she returned home to start a kettle for a cup of tea. Waiting for the water to boil, she turned on her crystal radio and plugged in the earpiece. A discussion of Gray’s “Elegy” was just concluding, one of her favorite pieces. But after just a moment, a familiar voice broke in.

“We interrupt this program with breaking news... There’s been a demonstration by the unemployed in London... The crowd has now passed along Whitehall and, at the suggestion of Mr Popplebury, Secretary of the National Movement for Abolishing Theatre Queues, is preparing to demolish the Houses of Parliament with trench mortars...”

Eleanor gasped, “Bolshevists! I knew this day would come!”

“...and the clock tower has just fallen to the ground...”

Before tuning out and rushing over to break the news to her neighbors, she heard the announcer mention that since there was no more Big Ben, Greenwich Time would instead now be obtained from Edinburgh on Uncle Leslie’s repeating watch.

If Eleanor, and a million other British listeners, had listened a little more attentively and trusted the new media a little less, the January 16, 1926 national panic caused by Father Ronald Knox’s burlesque broadcast might not have happened.

A Field Test on the Pedernales

By June 7th, 1844, the reputation of the Rangers had already been established. Deadly. The Comanche raiders who had slaughtered and raped their way north into Central Texas from the no-man’s lands of the Rio Grande certainly knew of it. And they knew that their return to Mexico would not go unchallenged by those stone-faced Anglos.

The Comanche though, had established their own reputation. Fearless in battle, lethal with the bow, they were arguably the finest horsemen to have ever lived. They’d developed flawless tactics that drew wasted fire from their enemies, enabling them to swoop down upon them with overwhelming force as they dismounted to slowly reload. So, when the scouts peered over the flinty ridge along the Pedernales River and saw only fifteen Rangers circling a campfire, they raced back to their camp to tell of the advantage.

Before those scouts even mounted their horses, Captain John Coffee Hays had already begun speaking softly to his men.

“I reckon’ you all saw that... probably have a little war dance tonight and attack when the sun comes up. Now, they’ll be seventy-five... at least. And they’ll try to draw us apart; don’t let ‘em. Wait ‘til they form up. We stay mounted. Now get some sleep.”

The next morning unfolded as predicted, and when the Rangers fired their single-shot rifles, the Indians confidently advanced with a terrifying cry. Facing five to one odds on open ground, not a single lawman should have been left alive. But the Rangers had some five to one odds of their own. For the first time, the new Colt Paterson 5-shot-revolver was used in the field; “one bullet for every finger.” Fifty-three Comanches fell in those violent fifteen minutes while the Rangers suffered only four casualties.

A new era in American/Indian relations was dawning.

And if you believe that...

As the two beat-cops strolled by, George adjusted the carnation on his breast and checked his watch. 11:30 a.m. on March 1, 1928. He had an hour and a half until they returned.

Ten minutes later, a handsome young couple came strolling across the bridge. The man was pointing as they walked, the woman nervously nodding her head. George greeted them with a warm smile. “Ah, I see you’ve brought the little miss!”

He bowed deeply and took the lady’s hand and pressed it to his lips. He addressed her in a tone of deep respect, “Madam, it’s an honor to have met you. You should not only be proud of your husband for the hard bargain he commanded of me, but proud of the future he’s ensured you and the wee one you’ll soon be bringing into this wonderful land of opportunity by the purchase he’s made. Your folks back in County Cork... well, just imagine what they’ll say when they hear that just three days off the boat, you’ve become real property owners! I congratulate you and sincerely welcome you to America!”

With an unquestionably confused look upon her face, the woman put a finger to her chin and she made movement to reply but George had already turned away, his broad arm coiling around her husband’s back. She stood there with her mouth agape as she watched her husband hand over nearly all of the money they’d brought with them.

The young immigrants would find out from the beat-cops later that day that they could not set up their toll-booth as planned. And George C. Parker would later that year begin a life sentence at Sing Sing prison after three decades of selling the Brooklyn Bridge, in addition to Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty.

The First National Bank

Michael Gray sat with his boys on a soft patch of clover staring back at the newly-finished cabin. It was built on a fine spot below the Animas Mountains, surrounded by endless grasses, and only a day’s-ride to the lucrative silver mines out west. After years as a Texas Ranger, he was looking forward to a more relaxed life ranching and prospecting in the New Mexico Territory.

“Daddy,” his son Dixie asked, “you think more settlers will be coming?”

Michael slid his hand across the Colt in his belt. “I reckon," he mused, "once we push out the last redskin, like in Texas. I might imagine a little town growing here. The grocery and post office would fit in nicely by those oaks... maybe a schoolhouse down by the creek.

Dixie liked the idea of founding a new town. “We’ll need a proper bank, too,” he said, “to manage all the money we’ll be bringing in... won’t have to ride all the way to Tombstone anymore.”

Michael Gray wouldn’t be around to see his daydreams come to life. On August 23, 1881, nineteen-year-old Dixie was murdered by bandits on his way to Tombstone and soon after, Michael sold the ranch.

The reign of the western cattle barons would then begin at the Gray Ranch. The schools, post offices and grocery stores would come and go. After eighty years, with both the land and the cattle-companies bankrupt, Dixie Gray’s dream of a bank would come true too, though not quite in the way he envisioned.

Today’s Gray Ranch is itself a bank, a grass bank, the first of its kind. Through unique environmental agreements, it leases out its 500 square miles of pristine pastureland to independent ranchers, preserving a way of life by preventing grazing land from ever becoming exhausted again.

The Alexandrian Solution

“We’ve been here floundering around for weeks!”

Alexander was irate at his siege-engineers. He stood in the shallows off the coast and looked out upon the fortress a thousand yards out into the Mediterranean Sea.

On January 27, 332 BC, the thirty-thousand men on the island city of Tyre sat securely, confident that the latest invader-king would eventually have to sue for peace. Tyre was impenetrable. Because of the rocks surrounding the island, no ships could get close enough to use their rams against the fortifications. Even if they could somehow land, the walls were one-hundred and fifty feet high, and any attackers would immediately be annihilated from above.

Alcippus, who’d joined the army during the Phrygian campaign, was surprised that a solution had not yet presented itself. “My king,” he began, “I joined you after witnessing the favor with which the gods regard you. I’m certain that with just a little more time, it will become obvious...”

Alexander snapped, “Must I do everything myself?!”

He grabbed the surprised Alcippus by the hair and began to drag him out into the water, intending to drown him in front of the others as an example. After pulling him along in the water for almost fifty yards, he stopped and released him. He was still only knee-deep in the sea.

“How far do these shallows extend?”

“All the way to Tyre, my king, six feet at the deepest,” Alcippus stammered.

In the same fashion with which he solved the Gordian Knot, by cutting straight to the heart of the matter, Alexander recognized the obvious and he smiled.

By July, two enormous catapults had smashed Tyre’s walls to bits, brought within range along a causeway patiently built rock by rock from the coast. Alexander the Great’s Macedonian army literally walked onto the island.

The Raising of Lazarus

Anatole noticed the bruise on his arm on the day that Ceauşescu came to power. It was a dark red oval on his otherwise unblemished skin. It probably happened when the police came to break up the clandestine meeting he’d attended three days earlier. It didn’t hurt so he thought little of it; there were more important things for an anti-communist in Romania to think about at the time. But the bruise grew larger, and darker, over the ensuing months. As the purple spread towards his wrist, the hair caught in its path fell out which made the splotch much more noticeable.

Anatole noticed the numbness in his fingers on the day he was arrested on suspicion of anti-government activities. A secret informant tipped off the Securitate that he had been seen loitering around the vacant home of a dissident pamphleteer. He was released after a few days with the warning that he would be watched. Anatole assumed that the deadening in his fingers was from the handcuffs they’d kept him in. But the bald patch of steadily-blackening skin began to concern him and he kept his sleeves rolled down.

Anatole noticed the smell on the day he was ordered to undergo a mental evaluation for not having registered with the Party. The doctor noticed it too, as well as his blackened arm and clumsy curled fist. After that day, no one ever saw Anatole again. It was the beginning of a time of disappearing and nobody asked questions.

On Christmas day, 1989, eight years after a cure for leprosy, and after nine days of revolution, a transistor radio in the hidden leper colony of Tichilesti crackled that Nicolae Ceauşescu had been executed by firing squad.

Anatole, blind and without a nose, raised himself up and smiled a toothless smile.

Katyn

If Janina still had her watch, she might have known it was her thirty-second birthday, April 22, 1940.

It had been a trying seven months in Soviet captivity. No matter. Janina kept her spirits for her strength was her stubbornness. Nobody but her God, and sometimes her father, was allowed to set limits upon her. That’s how she had become a pilot and even a parachutist, unheard of for a woman. It’s how she’d earned the rank of Lieutenant in the Polish Army. She never let her situation define her and wasn’t about to acquiesce now. So when the NKVD officer appeared that morning to transfer more of her fellow officers to yet another unknown prison, she demanded not to be separated from them.

At first, the young soldier assigned to transport her revealed a hint of decency and was somewhat gentler on Janina as he secured her wrists behind her back. But when she slipped her hand through the knot and waved it in his face, he grew red and became extra-rough in his second attempt. The rope now tore into her skin and he threw a sack over her head before shoving her into the back of a Black Maria.

The car rumbled away from Smolensk for a short time and then it took a sharp right into the forest. It stopped at a place called Goat Hill and Janina was dragged by three waiting soldiers for about 50 yards before halting. They yanked off her hood.

The first and last thing Janina Lewandowska saw in the next three seconds was a pit. Twelve feet deep and a hundred feet wide. It was full of bodies.

The Katyn massacre signaled the extermination of nearly 25,000 of Poland’s best and brightest, including almost half of its officer corps.

An Attack on Liberty

Quartermaster third class Jackson climbed the signal bridge shortly after 0400 on June 8, 1967. He liked the mid-watch. It was quiet, with most of the crew asleep there was rarely any excitement. Just him, the helmsman, the lookout, and the Officer of the Deck. The weather was pleasant and they’d passed their four hours together playing trivia games: name that tune, history, sports. Upon his relief, he spent a few more minutes staring up at the stars.

As he finished his Marlboro and tossed it into the slow-moving bow-wake some eighty feet below, he noticed that the lanyard securing the ensign had slipped loose. Sailing at five knots against a thirteen knot wind, the flag had worked itself free and was flying loose. Quickly, he reached out and grabbed the flailing line and rewrapped it around the empty cleat. Feeling a sense of pride, he descended the ladder and headed to his rack.

Jackson raised the colors again some twelve hours later beneath the bright Mediterranean sun. It was the holiday flag, twice the size of the shredded one that lay smoldering at his feet. He looked down from the signal bridge at the chaos that now consumed his ship. Napalm and white phosphorous fires covered the decks and the charred bodies of sailors lay strewn about. Bombers flew overhead and torpedo boats strafed the empty lifeboats hanging over the side.

Somehow, this weakly-armed listening ship survived three hellish hours of this attack without assistance from the nearby Sixth Fleet. It limped to port filled with thousands of holes, including a 40’ opening in her starboard beam.

The 200 casualties of the USS Liberty and their survivors have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation of why Israel conducted this attack and why the Secretary of Defense disregarded their SOS.

Fulk Nerra

The two servants rushed into Fulk’s chambers. He was still screaming incoherently.

By torchlight, they saw him standing atop his mattress, desperately trying to climb the wall at its headboard. His fingertipss were bloodied; the nails had broken off against the stone. When they called out to him, his mad scrambling stopped and slowly he turned his anguished face toward them. He stared past them with dilated eyes and whispered in an exhausted faraway voice.

“They won’t leave me alone...”

The servants said nothing, as this scene had become familiar in recent months, but only gave their hands to help him back down under his blankets.

When he was settled back into bed, one of the servants pulled up a chair next to the old man’s sweaty gray head.

“Who was it this time, master?”

Count Fulk had spent his lifetime consolidating the House of Anjou in Western France. He was extremely successful. His territory had grown incredibly and was marked with new towns, abbies, fortresses and castles. His neighbors at least feared his hard-gained power if they didn’t respect him, for Fulk’s success lay in the fact that he knew no boundaries. He was called a plunderer, a murderer, a robber, and a swearer of false oaths. He was truly a terrifying character of fiendish cruelty.

“It was all of them... even my wife...” he said shakily, “Make arrangements to travel immediately. I only pray I have time...”

On April 6, 1040, Easter Sunday, the trio approached the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Fulk was naked and being dragged along by one of his servants while the other followed behind, whipping his bare back with a stick. Severe in his lust for power, Fulk Nerra was just as severe in his penance.

He died on his return from the pilgrimage.