Even His Wife

Even His Wife

       By Big Drinker Doug (Tipple) Reimer

Mongomann served excellent repasts and then gave each conferencee a small glass of Bunjee liquor exquisite on the tongue. As red as beet juice, not quite clear, rough and salty when first imbibed, it quickly turned to silkiness of flavor and aftertaste. When each had sipped, Mongomann announced his retirement and stood up to go. Each gasped, each struck with the new information. None had expected him to leave his post before he turned seventy-five. The war had troubled him, he explained, more than he had anticipated. His wife, too, working long hours at her job as president, recently requested that he step down. When he hesitated she said that she understood but he found her predictably persistent in the days following. He did not deserve to stay longer, he said in his closing remarks, appearing to his recovered guests to have grown smaller of late. Once a man of great stature, who had led the Chechnyan forces in their famed attempt at the Gruvkohvianja post sitting astride his small steed with assurance and firm resolve, now he appeared to those listening to be too frail to get on a horse, let alone ride one. Mongomann drank his liqueur, and in the secret rite of his ancestors threw the glass with all his might into the fireplace, crying something unintelligible at the top of his lungs while at the same time lifting one leg high in the air above his head and clutching convulsively at his privates. All the guests’ glasses followed with an immediate massive agitation of bellowing, leg lifting and clawing of testicles. He stepped away from his seat, slipped out through a curtain and was gone. His successor, a youthful man of forty-five, in prime of health and physique, black-haired, muscular, strong-jawed, Emmet Krukshjakc, smiled, for he of all those there had known of his imminent rise in fortune. Now, soon, the kitchens would be at his disposal. None there would ever be in a position to declare to him what needed doing, for he would be holding over them the decision of salary or no salary. From butler to maid, all would show him their respect. The butler would be eager to bring him fine food and wine at every opportunity. The maids would appear before him in secret when no one was looking and offer him to help himself to whatever took his fancy. Yes, things were going well. His wife would be pleased, too, but still he would need to be discreet. She had a way of sniffing out competition. And, too think that he had once been a simple scullery boy in this household! Now he held its most important station. Now he was king!