A Borkland Variety

By Herbert Borkland

A Borkland Variety collects shorter prose works by controversial novelist and international award-winning screenwriter Herbert Borkland.

Included are a trio of vivid short stories, two fast-paced comic stage plays, a wide-ranging selection of colorful essays, and the complete Pride Goes South, a taut, powerful short novel of Washington, DC do-gooders caught up in South American revolution.

“At a time when our Western tradition of free, ambitious literature is under attack, Borkland fights back.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359924783

Book preview

A Borkland Variety

A BORKLAND VARIETY

Herbert Borkland

ALSO BY HERBERT BORKLAND

-DOG$

-A CRIME NOT TO TRY

A BORKLAND VARIETY

Short Stories — Stage Plays — Essays — Short Novel

COPYRIGHT 2019, BY HERBERT BORKLAND

All rights reserved. This is work of fiction. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

EBOOK ISBN: 978-0-359-92478-3

Book cover set up, editing and book layout-design by Libby Lael.

DEDICATION

With love, to Margaret Virginia Mangan Borkland, my mother, and Herbert Kennington Borkland, my father.

God, how lucky I was!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Borkland Variety

Short Stories — Stage Plays — Essays — Short Novel

Introduction

Short Fiction:

Coffee Klatsch

Twelve Thousand Bar Blues

Call Me Sifu

Stage Plays:

Superhero

D'Fausto

Essays:

Greatest & Most

Greatest 20th century American Movie

Most Popular 20th century Fiction

Most Charming 20th century Man

Greatest 20th century Novel

Masculinity

Mencius on Men

Are You Half This Much Man?

Your Tongue is Rotting

Feminine

Cute Versus Charm

Mum Meets Mae West

The Truth About Men Women Don’t Know

Mutants

I am Not Ashamed to be…

Lords of Life

Sermonette

Short Novel:

Pride Goes South

.:.

And they want to know what we talked about?

"de litteris et de armis, praestantibus ingeniis,

Both of ancient times and our own; books, arms,

And men of unusual genius

Both of ancient times and our own, in short the usual subjects

Of conversation between intelligent men."

.:.

INTRODUCTION

The two genres I am best-known for — screenwriting and martial arts journalism — are not represented in these pages. Lucky you.

Screenplays are technical manuals which make boring reading except to other technicians. And a sports reporter’s popular style falls to pieces before a black belt because, to outsiders, martial arts seem boringly technical.

So, let no dull stuff come between us today. Instead, enjoy, please, the best from my fifty years of also writing novels, short stories, one- and two-act stage plays, essays appreciative, critical and satiric, plus a novella observing 1980’s Washingtonian do-gooders caught up in a South America revolution.

I did not decide to be a writer. At age eight, I knew I already was one, and, by eleven, taught myself to work an enormous clunky old Remington manual typewriter. It shook the desk every time one of my two index fingers stiffened to pound home the key to print the next letter in a furthering word for my on-going sentence. Nothing could stop me.

Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Malraux, Colette, Camus and Sartre — I write in several genres because, growing up, my literary idols demonstrated panache and breadth of culture by composing, with equal facility if not always uniform success, ambitious novels and short stories, daring stage plays and movies, timely essays, public journalism and autobiography honest to the point of pain.

Born authors know what is at stake is not so much riches and fame as immortality and love. When marvelous characters readers recognize as not unlike ourselves suddenly spring to life under our eyes, if we suffer an honest shock at how comic their tragedy is and how tragic their comedy, then, miraculously, mere fictions take on a life of their own. This is the godlike generative power of great prose. Falstaff, Sherlock Holmes and, from Man’s Fate, Baron Clappique simply walk out of their pages and into our world.

I don’t know if any of my people will ever make such an impact. No author can tell. Yet there does not exist a more honest, various and enthralling encyclopedia of the high and low truths about our humanity than World Literature. What matters to we who write is entering the lists. Our readers will sort us out in due time.

Prose written, not for him or for her, but forever. Thus has it always been for me. However many years separate us, an author to his reader either has or has not something to say. Good writers speak for us as much as to us.

Gentle reader, do you trust my voice?

This is perhaps the point of Art — to send forward through the years, the centuries, first of all, a worthy report of whatever our subject may be, but also, in parallel, we array before the future what was the state, the vigor, elegance and communicative force, of our English language.

.:SHORT FICTION:.

COFFEE KLATSCH

1

You can’t be serious.

It was too dark for his wife to see Salmaggi put on his Sicilian bandit face, but Verity’s heart took a hard bounce, and she sat up in bed when she heard the telltale I-am-simple tone creeping dangerously into Dino’s sleep-hoarse basso profundo.

You wake us up at five in the ayem, to hand me this boatload of hazanga? Salmaggi shifted the phone to his good ear. Just exactly how drunk are you, Brian?

Verity groaned. In their household, any mention of Dire Brian Megeath’s name triggered eye-rolling and one-shoulder shrugs.

"Wake up, doctor! Concentrate." Megeath’s urgent British tenor rasped more clearly now. I haven’t drank a dram. I’m afraid if I start, I won’t stop, now I sus the truth.

Okay, let me get this straight... Salmaggi stopped talking to bite off a yawn. He felt Verity touch his bare back, opening the spousal telepathy — I feel this, now you do, too — which comes in time between the well-married.

I believe I already explained, Megeath gritted.

So you did, Brian, so you did. Salmaggi rumbled back. Now is this a fair précis? After seven long years of being our security chief, the irony thickened, you now strongly suspect one member of the Coffee Klatsch is, in fact, a clairvoyant?

Not clairvoyance, doctor, the ex-pat Brit drawled scornfully. Precognition. Crystal-gazing. Seeing into the bloody future.

"Ah, yes, but, Brian, dear Brian," Salmaggi crooned as if to a very small child, "you know as well as do I. They are all psychics in the Coffee Klatsch. That’s the whole point of why the Agency keeps paying them."

Doctor, please, the voice turned fussy, stopping using nomenclature over an unsecure line.

Salmaggi borrowed a gesture from his Maltese grandfather and slapped himself glancingly between the eyes. Verity’s slender hand moved up to give his bicep a sympathetic squeeze.

This wasn’t at all like Megeath who, normally, the more he got his British up, the cooler he came across. Doctor Dino Salmaggi, the CIA Project Coordinator for the Coffee Klatsch, sat half-naked and hairy on the edge of his double bed, beginning to feel more worried than angry.

A short pause over the line, then, I am your senior in service, Megeath intoned, as well as being a highly-decorated war veteran…

His service record — Dino and Verity Salmaggi found out at office parties — was the second or third thing Megeath mentioned to everyone he met. Now Salmaggi visualized those thin lips tightening over horse-faced Megeath’s unfortunate Roquefort teeth. And what the hell was wrong, anyway, with British dentistry?

…So I do know something about the jagged little shapes and sizes trouble comes in. I cannot go into this over the telephone. Your country, doctor — and maybe this planet, too — is in mortal peril. Here is proof positive. A sound of papers being rattled.

Okay, okay, Brian, you’re the security chief. You called me up to tell me we can’t talk on the phone. Fine. Salmaggi scratched his low forehead and ran blunt fingers through coarse black hair. Where do we go from here?

2

Nineteen hours before, what Megeath began calling bad science fiction had materialized at work, around mid-morning, in the eggplant shape of Rajit Singh.

May I interrupt? Singh’s plumy baritone found oboe notes to sound in even the simplest sentence.

Intruding on the desk-bound morning of this hung-over ex-spy, Raj advanced, grinning, and tried to fathom Megeath’s mood by scrutinizing the corroded decency of his pinched features. It did not look at all promising.

’lo, Raj. Megeath’s bleary gray eyes drifted away from the familiar plump figure of the bearded and turbaned Sikh and, instead, zoomed in on a three-inch-thick stack of spread sheets he carried.

Megeath sat up straighter and took a closer look at Raj. What’s all this, then?

Something queer… Anxiety swam up from the depths of Singh’s lustrous black eyes. I’m afraid I may have… dropped a brick.

Megeath shifted his weight back in his creaky swivel chair and pretended to be bored. I suppose you’d better sit down and tell me.

Singh slumped into a straight-back visitors chair and clasped his hands between his knees. It’s to do with Kitty, you see…

At various times, both Megeath and Raj had tried, separately, to ask out Kitty Halliday of the Coffee Klatsch; and both had been blown off so expertly that neither man quite realized it even yet.

A fortnight ago, as a favor, I added in a tag-along of her’s to the regular weekly tasking of SandTalker. You know, the sort of little favor we do for Section Seven people all the time.

Raj? The Coffee Klatsch security chief sat up straighter. Come clean. There’s a good lad.

1,048,576 email addresses. Singh poked a finger at the spread sheets on the desk. A global list of English-speakers who frequent international on-line gambling casinos and sports-betting sites.

Her day job is with those Down’s syndrome girls. What does Halliday know about gambling?

"I wondered, too, so the 1,048,576th e-ddress is my own. Ten days ago, this came."

Megeath fetched out his reading glasses, held them up rather than put them on, and scanned over a single sheet of print-out.

10 DAYS IN A ROW OF WINNERS!

MortaLock names the winning team twenty-four hours

Before the match is played!

No-Cost Trial Offer

Dear Player: Due to your standing in the international gaming community, you have been pre-selected to receive free for ten days MortaLock’s daily pick of the world’s most bet-on sport: soccer.

This free trial comes without any obligation on your part. MortaLock does not book bets. If, after ten winning days, you wish to subscribe for six more weeks, our price on day-eleven will be $20,000 American paid by midnight New York Time. Credit card privacy and all banking transactions guaranteed secure.

Brian Megeath put down the sheet of paper and gave Raj a wintry smile. Are her tips any good?

Not very. The very first prediction was wrong and, since then, she’s only four-out-of-ten.

Am I missing something here?

Yes, I wondered, too. So I went back again this morning and consulted SandTalker.

Megeath steepled his fingers and nodded over them. And what conclusions have you two drawn?

Raj tilted forward suddenly and bugged his eyes. That a smokescreen of hundreds-of-thousands of bogus predictions is intentionally being laid down in order to disguise an ongoing core event.

Megeath slapped the desk. Drop the jargon, Raj, and come to the bloody point.

Kitty Halliday has been spoon-feeding a select inner circle of 256 gamblers absolutely spot-on predictions, bang bang bang, for ten days running.

256? Megeath’s jaw dropped. That can’t be luck!

Precisely. MortaLock is a smoke-and-mirrors humbug meant to cover up… something enormous. Raj’s glare raked Megeath. And you told us Klatschers can’t predict the future!

They can’t. There is such a thing as a psychic, but no such thing as a reliable one. Why do you think we use teams?

Haven’t the foggiest idea.

So we can compare and contrast ‘em, I suppose.

Look here, old man. Raj wrung his hands. I bring you this. I’m playing the game fair and square. When the fit hits the shan, I’m counting on you to put the best possible face on my unwitting and totally unintentional —

You know Company rules, Raj, Megeath interrupted, standing up from behind his desk. ‘It isn’t whether you win or lose, but how you laid the blame.’

3

Next day was Day Eleven, pay-out day: the global deadline for subscribing to MortaLock. After lunch with her girls, CEO Kit Halliday left to drive downtown for the Coffee Klatsch. This morning’s high blue sky had begun turning to lead, and the air felt soupy outside the Mulberry Street group home.

Looks like rain, girls, Kitty reported, turning in the doorway, one hand on the knob.

Darleen, Sissy and Yolanda sat absorbed in the Disney Channel. Clois, Kit’s favorite, waved her thick hand goodbye and, fighting a cleft palate to speak clearly, honked: Stay dry.

Outside, Kit paused and took in a deep lungful of moist porch air, feeling grateful, as usual, to escape the urine smell. Kathleen Moore Halliday, their house mother, was a salaried certified caregiver to the four Down’s syndrome women living here.

Projects and future plans occupied Kit’s thoughts all the drive long, until she turned into the Holiday Inn parking lot and, by long familiarity, took the back way inside the main building—a short cut to Conference Room B.

A flat-eyed man in a blue business suit spoke a cryptic word up his coat sleeve and then passed Kit inside through the double doors. She slowed to a stop and looked around the large empty curtained room, done up royally in carpet-reds and wallpaper-golds all going a little grubby under a dusty plastic chandelier.

That’s correct, Kitty. Doctor Salmaggi came up quietly behind her. Today’s session is going to be a little different.

"As if she didn’t know already," sniffed Megeath.

Simmer down, Brian. I’ll handle this.

Where’s the coffee? Kit’s pale green eyes flickered between the two men. Where’s the Klatsch?

A fortune-teller? Re-examining Kit Halliday solved none of her mystery for Salmaggi. Thirty-one, thirty-two? Today she wore a dowdy blouse buttoned up to her throat and a pair of earth-toned gardeners’ slacks; and the plain frames of her drugstore eyeglasses were curtained by limp colorless hair badly cut. And yet, even so, there was always something about Kit…

Megeath shoved his fists deep in the patch pockets of his blue blazer and moved in for the kill. Why do you feel you must act surprised?

I don’t know what you mean, Brian. I never do, Kit added, without heat, but Megeath suddenly remembered trying to date her last year; and his long sallow face flushed a shade darker.

The door man let himself in, coughed discretely, and handed Megeath a small manila envelope. I turned away Regina McQueen, sir, but she insisted I give you this.

Why? Regina was another one of their psychics, but Megeath had no idea—whatever this was about, was not about this—and he pocketed the envelope without giving it another thought.

Meanwhile, Kit had focused, over Megeath’s dandruff-dusted shoulder, on dear homely Doctor Salmaggi, whom she considered a friend. So we are not going to be searching for terrorists today?

Salmaggi shook his head. Megeath, as you know, is our security officer, Kit. He has a duty to perform.

You had a talk with Raj. Defiance crept into Kit’s soft voice. Is all this fuss over a few emails?

A few? Megeath chuckled. Okay, never mind the million other sods. Explain for us your 256 steady winners.

Kit’s green eyes narrowed but never wavered. Oh, I see. She spoke more deliberately, aware now that her face and every word was being recorded from several different angles. You found out about MortaLock and — Kit smiled despite herself. Now you think I can predict the future.

4

Megeath golf-clapped. "Bravo. I’m almost entirely fooled."

Megeath! Salmaggi growled. Give the woman a chance.

To do what, exactly, doctor? Megeath snapped back. Kitty has already foreseen everything that will happen here.

It’s all about wagering, Brian. Kit adjusted her eyeglasses. So let’s us bet, you and I. If I can prove you’re wrong about me, will you eat your hat?

"Oh, dear girl, abso-lutely!" Megeath turned to smirk at Doctor Salmaggi. This is bound to be ingenious, and whatever she says from now on will only go to prove she is too dangerous to ever be a free woman again.

Salmaggi had assumed Kit knew where she stood — the desperate seriousness of this absurd situation — but her shock drained the blood from Kit’s face. She kept her wave-green eyes steady on his, but the good family bones stuck out, starkly.

Doctor Salmaggi, Kit whispered, Brian can’t do that, can he? Lock me up for being a security risk?

The doctor took both her hands in his. Kit, I explained before you joined us. You signed a document. Five years incommunicado without access to council or hope of a trial. So did Brian and I, and so has everybody else who works on this project.

Okay. Kit pulled her fingers loose from Salmaggi’s grip, then turned to face down Megeath’s knowing sneer. Brian, tell me your theory. What is the secret of MortaLock?

Megeath threw back his narrow shoulders and stuck out his bony chest. I believe you to be a post-human terrorist caught red-handed massing funds to end the world as I know and love it. And I am here to tell you that mankind, at least in the humble shape of one Brian Trehern Megeath, will not go quietly into that good night, little Ms. Superperson!

Megeath snapped his jaws shut.

One look into Salmaggi’s startled face — horror made him even homelier — and Kit saw daylight there. Doctor, is your wife available for a quick tele-conference?

Megeath hated the idea, instantly. Ballocks, this is no quiz show!

Doctor Salmaggi flipped open his cell phone and punched speed-dial. Verity? Kitty Halliday from the Coffee Klatsch wants a conference. Brian and I are here.

Gravely nodding her thanks, Kit took the phone from Salmaggi.

Hi, Kitty, Verity spoke up, having never met her before. I’ve got my class soon. What can I do for you?

Professor, I enjoyed your new book. Reading it gave me an idea I’ve been testing on the Internet. Please, help me explain to your husband something about mathematical probabilities.

Verity giggled. Believe me, Kitty, I’ve tried before, but — all right.

If, ten times in a row, a black or a white value is randomly assigned to each one of a large group of numbers, how large must that group of numbers be in order for 250 of them to accumulate a perfect series of ten-out-of-ten white values?

I’ll be a suck-egg mule! Salmaggi’s eyes lit up like a pachinko parlor. It’s a con game.

Again, Megeath tried to protest, but Kit hushed him. Any luck, Verity?

My Boolean Algebra is a little rusty. Give me a sec, I’m running the numbers… Anyway, the magnitude of the critical field ought to be something in the order of one million-fifty-thousand.

Trying to keep a straight face, Salmaggi watched Megeath. His thin lips were locked over those unfortunate teeth, and the already long horse face fell even lower. The perfect squelch! The doctor began walking around in circles, smacking his forehead, rumbling low slow bass belly-laughs like a light-opera Mephistopheles.

Professor, my test confirms your figure. Out of a field of 1,048,576, after ten days of blind chance, my program has generated 256 perfect streaks. From my heart, I thank you. You’ve saved my life. Your husband will explain — and we’re all going to have dinner together tonight.

Oh yes, wonderful, Verity improvised gamely; and then added, slightly mystified, I do really feel we ought to meet.

5

The great-grandson of a great bandit, Sicilian Salmaggi pocketed his phone with a flourish and bowed to this greatest of all. Kit mock-curtseyed right back. Megeath stood off to one side, looking blank, jaw unhinged sideways, and eyes focused on nothing.

Not a big math buff, are you, Brian? Poor fool! Salmaggi made up his mind to play down this fiasco in the weekly report. But you do see, don’t you?, that the statistics conclusively prove clairvoyance has nothing to do with MortaLock.

I suppose. Megeath stood fiddling with his blazer’s brass buttons. He realized now the threads were loose on two. He was in danger of losing his buttons. The thought wrung a wintry smile from the security chief.

That’s the spirit! Salmaggi clapped Megeath on his bent back. Ten winners in a row was supposed to fool the suckers, not a pro like you.

Yes, one would think so. Megeath licked lips which, he suddenly realized, were almost two days dry of honest whiskey.

Salmaggi pulled Kit off to one side and wagged a finger. Multiply 256 winners times MortaLock’s twenty-grand subscription fee. Equals: $5,120,000 in under two weeks.

Less taxes, don’t forget, and the custom software, and access to a Micronesian server that’s big enough. Oh, and my lawyers’ fees.

That’s the beauty part. There is no law against practicing statistics over the Internet. MortaLock must be legal.

Only if I continue to generate six weeks more of random numbers for my subscribers. After that, Kit dusted her hands together, MortaLock goes quietly out of business.

And you got this idea from Verity’s book?

Yes, I’m an admirer of your wife.

Me, too, but I can’t say it’s made me a millionaire.

Megeath cleared his throat. I believe I’ll toddle along now.

Dinner at eight! Kitty piped up. Don’t be late.

The security chief stuck out his chin, threw back his shoulders and made the exit only to be expected of a highly decorated war veteran.

Salmaggi kept grinning and grinning and, on impulse, held Kitty’s hand for a moment, an intimacy which he ordinarily would never have permitted himself. And vice versa. Now, however, Kitty only smiled in return.

Seriously, what are you going to do with all that money?

Kit nodded definitely. I work with these special girls, and I love them dearly, they are good people, but their house… The sewer pipes keep backing up, the place stinks like a cat box. And it’s old, and the electric wiring is, like, Victorian, and our roof leaks in storms. My ladies need a new home.

5 1/2

So, that same evening, Kit had Megeath and Raj and Verity and Professor Salmaggi over for alfresco macaroni and cheese out in the backyard with Clois and Darleen and Sissy and Yolanda.

The members of the dinner party under the linden tree ended up pounding on the picnic table, begging the guest of honor to stop eating. Especially, the girls rocking on their bench, gasping for air, stomachs burning from laughing so hard for so long. But, no, Brian Megeath doggedly went on with his straight-faced, I-can-be-a-good-sport attempts to choke down the tenderer cuts of a Manchester-United cap served up baked in a ragù sauce.

Deafened by all the merry pandemonium at his own expense, the Coffee Klatsch security chief chewed grimly while trying to hear what Raj — whose bloody fault all this was — was yelling in his ear.

I meant to tell you. That McQueen woman called me on the way here. Something about reminding you to open the envelope.

"I have no idea — oops!" Somehow Megeath choked down another mouthful, lay aside his knife and fork, gratefully, and reached inside his blazer.

He pulled out the small manila envelope and tore off its top. Three restaurant packets of salt, pepper and ketchup slid loose into Megeath’s hand. A hand which suddenly became a violently trembling fist squirting red condiment all over his brass buttons.

THE TWELVE THOUSAND BAR BLUES

Once upon a crime — this was a long time ago — police tried to bag a ghetto pimp. The Friday night when Vice Squad detectives raided, however, only Leroy got caught at home. An apprentice player, he used to own half the car, too, but without warning mack daddy took off alone through an open window, heading for their purple Cadillac. So, the police could only arrest his funky boy, rather than The Man named on their warrant. Before, Leroy had looked young enough for the pimp’s purposes, his brown eyes shiny with a secret need to love. Now love was gone, and the booking sergeant only squinted across his many forms to be sure that this kid understood.

Next morning two fat marshals brought slim and unprotesting Leroy White in handcuffs through a gray city shower that fell all during the wet autumn of 1964. They escorted him downtown from a cold jail to the centrally-heated Court House. His trial came late by many bored official stares; then, being found hurting, it happened that Leroy White humiliated himself on the witness stand. He heard a strange loud voice suddenly begin to beg, but Leroy barely listened. No familiar face showed up in the gallery, and he was alone among them. The whole court quickened to quiet around him, leaning forward to stare at this shameful and exciting act. The defendant put down his head, abruptly quiet again. He felt something ("Please, please!") that was no feeling at all.

The pasty-face prosecutor stood up, and he strolled over, calm, even-smiling and assured. He said flatly that there was nothing surprising here; in his experience, all criminals were cowards. Holding himself inside very carefully now, Leroy gave out whispered answers to the questioning. Their hatred was mutual, almost sensual; the stooge of a pimp aspired to murder, but the district