"When did you take that feather?"
"Excelsior!" continued
Previous pageWe retired to her comfortable couch. She reclined into my lap, but not before she had started some music. The Beatles “Revolution”, Bob Marley “I Shot the Sheriff”, and both “Power to the People”s. I snorted at the last one.
“What? Too political for you, Quiet Man?”
I nodded. I was more in a “Just Like A Woman” mood, to be honest, Kitty.
She put her tongue between her lips. “Not ‘Lay, Lady, Lay’? She purred, and it was then I realized she was playing a feather–one of my white head-feathers–into her mouth, picking at a tooth or two with the quill. “I have a question, an intimate one.”
No secrets now, darling! I grinned the man grin.
“What were you saying to me? You know...last night..When we…when you…In seltzer roar? In seltzer roar?”
Roar? I smiled. Is that why you were growling like a polecat?
She reddened. “Really, Zeke? Polecat?” she said, held her feather aloft until ‘polecat’ fully hit home.Then back twixt her teeth it went, and she affixed a pouty face.
The coffee eggs bacon and butter all hit at once. Eureka! I thought, and chortled.
Not “In seltzer roar! EXCELSIOR! EXCELSIOR! I confessed, and covered my eyes, embarrassed. I got carried away… “Ooooooh, baby, yes you did, yes you did.” She sucked on the quill smiling. “Is that Greek or somethin’?” I reached down and brushed that wayward lock of hair away from her brow. Close, darlin’. It’s Latin. “Oh.” And my feather? When did you take it? I said accusingly, pointing a feathered finger down at her crossing eyes. She giggled, and, waving my plucked feather at me, affected a thick Russian accent. “You vant khome–e-let? You gotta brekk some ekks!” I started to tell her how many millions of Ukrainian and White Russian souls paid for that Stalin joke with their lives. That the feather extraction had NOT been without pain. And that it was the state motto. But, I thought the better of it.
"Excelsior!" first page
Not “In seltzer roar! EXCELSIOR! EXCELSIOR! I confessed, and covered my eyes, embarrassed. I got carried away… “Ooooooh, baby, yes you did, yes you did.” She sucked on the quill smiling. “Is that Greek or somethin’?” I reached down and brushed that wayward lock of hair away from her brow. Close, darlin’. It’s Latin. “Oh.” And my feather? When did you take it? I said accusingly, pointing a feathered finger down at her crossing eyes. She giggled, and, waving my plucked feather at me, affected a thick Russian accent. “You vant khome–e-let? You gotta brekk some ekks!” I started to tell her how many millions of Ukrainian and White Russian souls paid for that Stalin joke with their lives. That the feather extraction had NOT been without pain. And that it was the state motto. But, I thought the better of it.
"Excelsior!" first page