The Big Over Easy

SACRED GONGA UPGRADED

Hearts rose at the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center yesterday when the World Council for Venerated Objects upgraded the much-revered Splotvian artifact to “most sacred” status, effective immediately. “It’s a tremendous honor,” said Professor Hardiman, whose grandfather smuggled the Sacred Gonga out of war-torn Splotvia in 1876, “and just in time for the Jellyman’s dedication on Saturday.” A spokesman from the WCVO pointed out that the “most” prefix was purely ceremonial, and the twelfth-century relic could still be referred to as “the Sacred Gonga” without disrespect.

—From the Reading Mercury, April 6, 2004

They pulled up at the curb, and Mary switched off the engine. It rattled on for a bit before it finally died.

“Must get that seen to.”

They climbed out of the car and looked at the glass-and-steel structure built on Forbury Gardens. If it had been anything other than the dreary day it was, the sun’s rays would doubtless have cascaded from the many-faceted glazed roof and given an effect as magical and wondrous as the treasure the building was built to house. As it was, the only thing cascading from anywhere was the rainwater running into the drains from the downpipes.

“Ugly as sin if you ask me,” said Jack.

“Beautiful piece of architecture,” said Mary, precisely at the same time. “We agree to differ,” she added. “A fine building should always court controversy. Isn’t that traffic warden staring at you?”

“Oh, shit,” said Jack. “Keep moving and pretend you haven’t seen her.”

But it was too late. The traffic warden, a woman about Jack’s age but whom the years had not blessed as kindly as, say, Lola Vavoom, trotted up to him. And she didn’t look very happy.

“Jack!” she said with an overblown sense of outrage. “You never call me!”

“Hello, Agatha,” said Jack with as much politeness as he could muster. “You’re looking well.”

“Don’t try and sweet-talk me, worm. Think you can just toss me aside like a… like a… like a used thing that needs tossing aside?”

“Steady on, Agatha.”

Mary stared curiously at the uniformed bundle of hot indignation—the overdone mascara and lipstick looked more like warpaint.

“Don’t you ‘steady on’ me, Jack. You don’t call, you don’t write—”

“Agatha, it’s over. It’s been over for a long, long time.”

“Maybe for you,” she said angrily. “What about if I came and told your wife, Sarah, about it? What would she say, huh?”

Jack sighed. “Sarah is… no longer in the picture. I remarried—”

“Remarried?” she asked in a shocked tone. “When?”

“Five years ago. And listen, you and I were finished long before I even met Sarah.”

“Do you have any idea how this makes me feel?”

“No,” said Jack, who had resisted the temptation of humiliating her with a restraining order, since she happened to be Briggs’s partner, “I have no idea at all. How’s Geoffrey?”

“Not half the man you are. The trombone’s driving me nuts—and he wants to change his name to Föngotskilérnie.”

“You have my sympathies. I’m busy, Agatha.”

She cheered up, blew her nose on a light mauve handkerchief, leaned closer, gave him a coy smile and walked her fingers up his tie.

“I’ll be waiting for your call, Jack. Anytime. I’ll be waiting. For your call. Whenever.”

“Good day, Agatha.” And he turned quickly and moved away.

“Yikes,” he said in an aside to Mary. “That was Agatha Diesel. Makes Dr. Quatt seem a picture of rationality.”

“There’s nothing mad about being miffed at rejection,” said Mary, who thought that even people like Agatha needed a champion in their corner.

“A week’s passion in 1979,” he replied wearily, “twenty-five years ago. And she called it off for a fling with Friedland. She doesn’t pester him because he has a hundred-yard restraining order out on her.”

“Ah,” said Mary, suitably contrite. “You’re right: mad as a March hare.”

They approached the main doors of the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center, which had been cast in a bronze relief that depicted in detail the turbulent history of Splotvia, from the earliest days of Splotvane I “The Unwashed” all the way through the medieval civil wars to the modern socialist republic, still coming to terms with itself after the overthrow of Splotvane XIV “The Deposed” in 1990.