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I won’t lie to you and tell you that I haven’t been giving it all a good hard think.  No sir, not with those bones showing up like they did on the back step, and me taking so long to realize just what they were, who they were, I should say.  That’s the thing that really knocked it out of me, realizing who it was that was showing up, piece by piece, a bone at a time, at my back door.  Damn fool dog!  As if I didn’t have enough to think about without him dragging all that up.  Maybe if I’d picked up that first one—a nice hefty human fibia, it turns out, although at the time I was thinking maybe an ostrich leg or something—and given that mutt a good thump on the head the whole business might have ended up on someone else’s back step.  Hell knows I didn’t need it, but then, once a guy starts thinking about something like that, he realizes, who does?  No one I knew of, that’s for sure, so I guess it might just as well been me as the next guy.  Besides, I’m not much for thumping dogs.  I’m not much for thumping anything, truth be known, which is maybe why the whole damn business landed at my feet.  Turns out, some fights just need a guy to step in and take the punches.

The spinning of the Spanglemocumentary story is going exactly as I had thought it would, which is saying that it is just as hard to keep up with as I thought it would be.  It is an impossible task, really, to go toe-to-toe with the Spanglemonkey and attempt to offer thoughts and false insight on even just a small fraction of the profusion that pours from that place, let alone think that I can say something entertaining about each and every entry while at the same time introduce (and create on the fly, mind you) the completely fictional history of Dr. Robert Stevenson.

I am two weeks into the impossible project and so far only a couple of days behind, which isn’t bad given the holidays and all, but not as good as one might expect when you take into account that Jo herself has been a bit quieter than usual.  The real challenge will come when she breaks back into full stride.  Am I ready?  Hardly, although I have given some thought to the direction that I want to take Dr. Stevenson’s story.

If you haven’t been following along, here’s a recap as well as some hints of things to come:

1. Dr. Robert ‘Obtusi’ Stevenson, amateur anthropologist, has hidden away in the home of Jo Spanglemonkey for a one-year study of her and her family.
2. Dr. Stevenson believes himself to be the great-grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson, proof of which hinges upon his ability to prove the existence of an illegitimate child born in 1894, yet unnamed, born between RLS and Princess Kaiulani, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawai’i before its overthrow in 1893.
3. Dr. Stevenson believes he is the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Hawai’i.
4. Despite any lack of formal training (or any training at all, for that matter), Dr. Stevenson seems to have something to say about nearly every aspect of human behavior.
5. Dr. Stevenson has an assistant named Rudy.
6. Dr. Stevenson, during the course of this study, will receive startling, eye-opening news regarding his true heritage.
7. Dr. Stevenson’s ties to a second, even more shocking illegitimate baby will throw everything into unexpectedly sharp focus.
8. Presidential secrets will be uncovered and revealed for the first time, resulting in a car chase, a sky diving incident that goes horribly wrong, an icy plunge into the San Francisco Bay, and the mysterious disappearance of Rudy.

Or maybe a week into January I’ll simply run out of steam and disappear along with Rudy.

I answered the the phone a few minutes ago and it was Herman Melville.

“Hello.”

“My good man, I’ve been calling now for months without success.  Most vexing.  I’m afraid to say I had all but given up on reaching you.”

“You had?  Sorry.  Who is this, by the way?”

“Why, Mr. Herman Melville, my dear sir.  I’d heard you’d had a bit of run-in with that scoundrel, Dreiser.”

It’d been several months now since Dreiser had called.  While I do remember him calling, I’m more than a little ashamed to admit that I can’t actually recall what it was we talked about.

“I believe in the end, everything was worked out for the best,” I lied to Melville.  It does nobody any good to admit the failings of a spotty memory.

“Nonsense.  Now ask me your question and let’s be done with it.”

“Ask you my question?”

“Yes.  Ask me your question and I will answer it clearly and precisely using only quotes pulled from my work.  Better yet, I will let you choose.  You may choose from any piece other than Moby Dick.

Other than Moby Dick put me in a bit of bind.  I’m even more ashamed to admit that a list of Melville’s work was even more fuzzy to me than my conversation with Dreiser.

“There are simply no clear answers in that story,” Melville said.  “Now, choose.”

“I’m thinking,” I said, stalling for time.

“Perhaps you could ask your question while you think.”

“Good idea.  How about, ‘How will I fair in the new year?’ How’s that?”

“Sir, that is perhaps as vague a question as I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying my ears upon.  But asked, it will be answered as promised.  Now, from where shall the answers come?  Let’s get to it, man.  The sea waits on no man, as they say.”

“Alright.  How about Billy Budd?”

“I was more than hoping you would choose one of my poems.  The Tuft of Kelp, perhaps, where I would have then replied, ‘If purer for that, O Weed, Bitterer, too are ye.’ “

“Yes, I see.”

“But if you’re set on Billy Budd, then Billy Budd it will be.  Ask your question, and I will answer.

“How will I fair in the new year?”

“ ‘That is thoughtfully put,’ said Captain Vere.’”

“That’s the answer?”

“No, no, of course not.  I was just warming up.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay, how about this?  ‘...something in your aspect seems to urge that it is not solely the heart that moves in you, but also the conscience, the private conscience.’ Does that help clear things up for you?”

“Yes, thank you.  I feel much better now, knowing that.  I’m glad I finally answered the phone.”

“Yes, so am I, my good man.  So am I.”

Don’t let ‘em fool you, kid, when all hell breaks loose it’s in little chunks and not everything at once like they’d have you think.  Scared talk, that’s what that there is, scared talk to get you all riled up.  Hell no!  It’s little things you don’t much notice, like your truck actin’ up or your kid takin’ a poke at you when your back’s turned.  Or like that good bitch of yours getting killed last winter.  Ain’t no sense in a dog gettin’ stomped down like that by some fool horse; none at all, and that’s just what I’m talkin’ about here.  You listenin’ kid, ‘cause I ain’t got no time for nursemaidin’ some fool kid too stupid to listen.  Hell no I don’t!  I got problems of my own.  Real problem you wouldn’t know nothin’ about.