MSTed: Return of the Native, Ch. 3, Part 3

[Jess Nevins]

Crow: I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty nasty.

He and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great banging
scarecrow.

Mike: Robert Englund *is* the Scarecrow in "If I only had a brain -
to EAT!"

What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's very likeness in en!

Tom: N being the curvature of spacetime and Thy Father's
Likeness being the gravimetric pull of a black hole, it follows that....

To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when

Crow (Fairway): Hardy read the galleys of _Tess_ to me.

I zid en, though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the
marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack
Changley and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window.

Mike: I Like To Watch, Part 7: The Wedding.

But the next moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I
called to mind that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man and wife,

Tom: That's above average for married couples.

and I zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the same
mess....Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"

"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
smock for a man like that."

Crow (Shatner voice): Smock! Smoooooock!
Tom (commercial voice): If it's Smockers, it's got to be good.
Mike: Great. I'm trapped in a Hardy novel with the Two Stooges.

The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,

Mike: We have someone new in group today, everybody. Let's give
a big AA welcome to Pete Cutter.
Tom & Crow: Hi Pete.

carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
dimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge
gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.

Tom: That makes the eighth Goofy Description Hardy has used in
this chapter - any bets on how high he'll go?
Crow: Infinity plus one.

"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd

Crow (Nunsuch): Only looked like Brad Pitt.

asked 'em," said the wide woman.

"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
inquired Humphrey.

Mike: Peter Vecsey?
Tom: Bob Dornan?
Crow: Anyone named Gallagher?

"I never did," said the turf-cutter.

"Nor I," said another.

"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.

"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway,

Tom (Fairway): Me, actually.

adding more firmness to one of his legs. "I did know of such a man.

Mike: But that was in another country. And besides, Johnny Bench
is dead.

But only once, mind." He gave his throat a thorough rake round,

Crow: Most people just clear their throats, rather than using gardening
tools.
Tom: Crow, he's English.
Crow: Oh, yeah.

as if it were the duty of every person not to be mistaken through
thickness
of voice. "Yes, I knew of such a man," he said.

Mike (singing): Oooh, what a lucky man, he was....

"And what ghastly gallicrow

Tom: Gallifrey isn't ghastly - on behalf of all Whovians everywhere,
I demand you take that back!

might the poor fellow have been like, Master Fairway?" asked the
turf-cutter.

"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What
'a was I don't say."

Crow (Fairway): I will say this, though. Any of you know what
Sorrell Booke looks like?

"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.

Mike: Contestant #3, are you known in these parts, or for your
work in the theatre?

"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name....Come, keep the fire up
there, youngsters."

Tom (Timothy): That's right, jump right on in to it.

"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy from
amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the

Crow: Poker table?

blaze. "Be ye a-cold, Christian?"

Mike (boy's voice): Or be ye a hot Muslim, ggggrrrrroowww!

A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply,

Tom: As he rode out of sight, "Bite me, pink boy - take a good long
bite!"

"No, not at all."

"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself.

Crow (Charles Laughton voice): Come to attention by the fire,
Mister Christian!

I didn't know you were here," said Fairway, with a humane look across
towards that quarter.

Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
great
quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes,

Mike: Jean Chretien?

advanced a step or two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of
others half a dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.

"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.

Tom (Christian Cantle voice): Because I already finished _Doom_.

"I'm the man."

Crow (announcer's voice): Joe Jackson, ladies and gentlemen!

"What man?"

"The man no woman will marry."

Mike: Marv Albert?

"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway,

Tom (pirate's voice): Arr, and I be the Ace, arr!

enlarging his

Crow covers his eyes.

gaze

Crow: Whew.

to cover Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer
Cantle
meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.

Mike: With eyes that say, "I was in labor laying you for 36 hours,
you sonuva...."

"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill
hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it, though I do
care
all the while."

Tom (Christian Cantle): Especially when I find out what they've
been writing about me on the ladies room walls.

"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd," said
Mr.
Fairway.

Crow (Fairway): Besides the opening day of the women's pro
tennis tour, I mean.

"I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the country, then! Why did
ye
reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"

Mike (Christian): It happens every time I use a urinal. I can't help
it.

"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
upon
them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines like
targets.

Tom: What, is he a cartoon?

"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
when
you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had thought
only
one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know the women won't
hae
thee?"

Crow (woman's voice): What, are you kidding? Just look at his
face - I'm talking dog's breakfast here!

"I've asked 'em."

"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps, after
all?"

Mike (Christian): Does a restraining order count?

"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,'
was the woman's words to me."

Tom: Ouch. That one will leave a mark.
Crow: Wasn't that what Gypsy said to you that time you two went
on a date?
Tom: Shut up! Just shut up!

"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
saying
No.

Crow (Christian): No duh, dickweed.

But even that might be overcome by time and patience,

Mike: Hey, "no" means "no," pal!

so as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head.
How old be you, Christian?"

"Thirty-one last tatie-digging,

Tom (beatnik voice): Man, I really dug that groovy tatie you got....

Mister Fairway."

"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."

Mike (Fairway): If you don't mind marrying outside your species, I
mean.

"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book of
the
Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was born
some time afore I was christened."

Crow (Christian): 17 years before, actually.

"Ah!"

Mike: Choo?

"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was no
moon."

Tom: Well, _that_ certainly narrows it down.

"No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"

"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.

"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had an
almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
saying,
'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she had. Do
ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no moon?"

Crow: Only if you're Georges Melies and you want to make a film.

"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.

Mike: I think this shows that the British still have too much lead in
their water pipes.

The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon.

Tom: He can't help it - he's a guy.
Mike: HEY!
Crow: It's true, Mike - we've heard all about this from Gypsy.

A bad job for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose
then
of all days in the month."

Crow (Christian): Hey, blame Mom, not me!

"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
Christian,
with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.

Mike (breathless, high-pitched voice): And then we can go
drinking, right, Fairway, right? `Cause you and me are pals, right,
Fairway?

"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested gaze.

Tom: That's not possible, according to Laura Mulvey.

"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide

Crow: And we all know _that_ ain't gonna happen.
Tom: Hey, Mike, at Lammas-tide, do all the llamas come washing
ashore?

than be a man of no moon," continued Christian, in the same shattered
recitative.

Mike: He wasn't trained at Juilliard, obviously.

"'Tis said I be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all;
and
I suppose that's the cause o't."

"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and yet his
mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
outgrow hisself and go for a soldier."

Tom (singing, in Cantle voice): I love a man in a uniform....

"Well, there's many just as bad as he." said Fairway.

Crow: Jim Carrey, for example.

"Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul."

"So perhaps I shall rub on?

Mike: Uh...what?

Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master Fairway?"

"You'll have to lie alone all your life;

Tom (Fairway): You loser.

and 'tis not to married couples but to single sleepers that a ghost
shows
himself when 'a do come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange
one."

Crow (Fairway): It looked like Dan Rather wearing a clown suit.

"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make my
skin
crawl when I think of it in bed alone.

Mike: I take it that's a common condition with you?

But you will--ah, you will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night
o't!
A very strange one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a
very
strange one, Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."

"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
enough--what I
was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it."

"What was it like?--no, don't--"

"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white;

Tom (Sinbad voice): Ghosts be different from men!

but this is as if it had been dipped in blood."

Crow (Frugal Gourmet voice): And then lightly rolled in
breadcrumbs. Now, the British have a delightful custom...

Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"

Mike (gravelly, guttural voice): And what has it gots in its pockets,
gollum, gollum....

"Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing to talk
about.
What do ye say,"

Tom: We say Barabbas!

continued Fairway in brisker tones, and turning upon them as if the idea
had not been Grandfer Cantle's--"what do you say to giving the new man
and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we go to bed--being their
wedding-day?

Crow: No wonder no one wants to honeymoon in England!

When folks are just married 'tis as well to look glad o't, since looking
sorry won't unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as we know,

Mike (fey voice): *Somebody* here is lying.

but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone home we can drop
down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet in front of the
married folks' door.

Tom (Fairway voice): I'll dance lead, and you, ugly boy, can be my
partner. Now get into those tights.

'Twill please the young wife,

Crow: Nothing else will, tonight.

and that's what I should like to do,

Mike: Whoa.

for many's the skinful I've had at her hands

Tom: Do we really need to hear this?

when she lived with her aunt at Blooms-End."

"Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that
his
copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a kex with biding up
here
in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour of drink since nammet-time
today.

Mike: When did Christopher Dodd enter the novel?

'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very pretty drinking. And,
neighbours, if we should be a little late in the finishing, why,
tomorrow's
Sunday, and we can sleep it off?"

Crow: Why is it that comic relief never is or does?

"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man," said
the
wide woman.

Mike (Dangerfield voice): Hoo, lemme tellya, she was wide! She
was so wide that when she sat around the house, she--
Tom: Sat around the house, yeah, Mike, we know.

"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women!

Tom: I wouldn't be boasting about that too loudly if I were you.

Klk! I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a weak old man
would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.

"The king' look'd o'-ver his left' shoul-der',
And a grim' look look'-ed hee',
Earl Mar'-shal, he said', but for' my oath'
Or hang'-ed thou' shouldst bee'."

Crow: Earl Marshall! They said you was hung!
Tom: And they was right!

"Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway. "We'll give 'em a song, an'
it
please the Lord.