A fancy parlor in London with frilly lady-types and gentlemen of considerable intellect engage in bold conversation with resident curmudgeon and holder of shocking opinions, Mr. Leach .

Frilly lady one: Surely you do not suggest Herr Schliemann’s theories on the location of the ancient city of Troy are in fact correct? And that the city exists in the form he proposes, and that Agamemnon himself may be found in its dusty footings?

Frilly lady two: If we are to believe such specious thoughts, we may as well crawl on our knuckles and dine on the fruit of the ba-na-na tree, as Mr. Darwin’s savage apes would have us doing a mere thousand years ago or so!

leach_vivant

Coach Mike Leach, erupting from his chair: Cease, chickens. Darwin is correct, but not in your case. Your ancestors’ more evolved descendants are currently pecking corn from the floor of a barnyard. You, on the other hand, are pecking crumpets rudely from a tray and twisting the fine theories of Darwin into knots of misbegotten idiocy.

Frilly Ladies one and two: OH, THE DETESTABLE MR. LEACH. Must he always be so rude?

Mr. Leach: The truth is metal to add to the hot forge of an active mind, but it lands with a thud on the cold stove of a frigid brain devoid of all heat or fire.

Mr. Bummercund: Why, Leach, do you have any other preposterous ideas you’d like to vent today?

Mr. Leach: Certainly. For one, NFL coaches are terrible.

Frilly ladies in unison: Oh, heavens!

Mr. Leach: Yes, they’re as unimaginative as the lobotomized camels of the Sahel and just as long-lived. One may coach safely as a position coach in the NFL for thirty years provided one possesses the ability to make coffee well and trouble rarely.

Mr. Bummercund: Shocking, sir. You defame the good name of the NFL!

Mr. Leach: The NFL defames itself with the crude graffiti of boredom each Sunday. It needs no help from me.

Mr. Bummercund: Harumph! How dare you! What further outrages have you?

Mr. Leach: Only these, and a thousand more: We shall be out of India by 1950, tea is a pisspot beverage that shall be the death of our productivity as a nation, the prison colony of Australia produces a finer meat pie than any you shall find on the island, Darwin was right, and that the Aggie coaching staff mismanaged the career of Steven McGee as badly as they could by turning a fine passer into a running quarterback first, and a brutalized passer in an overly complex West Coast system second.

Frilly lady one: Why, the way you state things factually! It’s deplorable!

Frilly lady two: Yes! I’m particularly offended by your honesty, candor, and wit. They’re all damn unBritish, sir.

Mr. Leach: Fortunately for you, I’m a savage colonist on holiday among his primitive forebears. One last thing: avoid Whitechapel tonight. I shall be traveling with a particularly energetic friend of mine you may know by the name of Jack.

Frilly ladies in unison: YOU KNOW THE RIPPER?

Mr. Leach: Yes, yes, a chronological migrant known in the 21st century as successful college football announcer Mike Patrick. I’ve been chasing him for years now. Tonight, he will be mine.

Mr. Bummercund: As loathsome as you are, Mr. Leach, your bravery is unquestionable. Hip-hip to you!

Mr. Leach: There’s nothing brave about it. If you’d seen him kill Ron Franklin in front of your own eyes, you’d do the same, sir. Yes, you would.

[FIN]