Dinner with the Lord Bastard

"Are you coming to the lake with us on Sunday?", I asked. I had rented a ski boat on Lake Texoma for Sunday the Fourth of July. A ski boat without skiers is not very useful and I was attempting to fill it up.

"Yeah, sure." grumbled the Lord Bastard. "What time?"

"We'll have to leave around 8 A.M."

A long pause, then. "I'll have to ask Lady Bastard."

"OK, then. Let me know." I close the window and get back to work. Rive and Data, who had originally planned to go with us had backed out. Data had learned she had been assigned the pager over the Fourth of July weekend and feared being out on a lake, unable to answer a page. These pages would come from our customers, emergency cases.

"But, Data, really." I tried to reason with her, "No one is going to page you on the Fourth. It's the Fourth. Sure, they might page you on the Third and the Fifth, but not the Fourth."

She would not accept this, and refused to take the chance that some disgruntled Briton might just page her on the Fourth out of spite.

Miss Em, in possession of a new kitten, Chloe, also no longer wanted to go, afraid to leave the kitten alone for so long.

"But, Em, really." I tried to reason with her, "Chloe will be just fine for eight hours alone. I have three feral kittens living under my deck and they do just fine days on end without any human intervention."

She would not accept this, and refused to take the chance that despite a few billion years of evolution to help it along, Chloe could not survive eight hours alone in an air-conditioned apartment with ample food, water, toys, and litter.

The Brain had then suggested inviting the Lord and Lady Bastard, which sounded dandy to me.

Now, before I go further, let me explain that the Lady Bastard is a fine, sweet, genteel Texas lady. It is only through marriage that she will earn the title Lady Bastard from her husband, the Right Royal Lord Bastard. The Lord Bastard, on the other hand, has duly earned his title through years of hard effort and single-minded relentlessness in the pursuit of bastardy.

As the Fourth of July drew closer, I had still heard no word from the Lord Bastard or the Lady. It is sometimes the case that the Lord Bastard will order the Lady Bastard to call me so that he can yell his answers to me through her over the telephone. This usually happens when he doesn't want to do something I want to do, but doesn't want to offend me by telling me directly. So, I will get a call from the Lady Bastard, which goes something like this:

Phone rings.

Me: Hello, Lord Bastard (caller-id, of course).

The Lady Bastard: No, it's me, the Lady Bastard.

Me: Oh, hello my lady. How are you and the Lord today?

Lady: Oh, just fine. Thank you for asking. Um, the Lord Bastard wants me to tell you something...

Me: Oh? Alright.

Lady: (yelling away from phone) Bastard! What did you want me to tell Blubrik?

The Lord Bastard: (muffled voice from other room) Is that Blu on the phone?

Lady: (still yelling away from phone) Yes! What did you want me to tell him?

Lord: (still muffled) Tell him I don't want to get up at 8 A.M.!

Lady: (to me now) The Lord Bastard doesn't want to get up at 8 A.M.

Me: Alright, I guess that means you aren't going skiing with us?

Lady: (yelling) Does that mean we aren't going skiing with them?

Lord: (muffled) Unless they want to wait till noon to go.

Lady: (to me) Unless you want to wait till noon to go.

Me: Nope, sorry, can't. Boat is already rented for all-day.

And so on...

So it was that a few days before the Fourth, I had a ski boat rented and no skiers to fill it. About this time, El Cigarro announces to me that he has self-diagnosed himself with severe depression. El Cigarro was a medical student once, so I accepted his statement as completely reasonable.

"Well," I said, "perhaps some sunshine and open water will do you some good? I have a ski-boat rented on Texoma on the Fourth. Rive, Data, and Miss Em cancelled. The Lord and Lady Bastard don't want to get up at 8 A.M. Would you like to come?"

"I have a family." he replies. Despite the fact that the discussion occured over Messenger, I could hear the dreary tones in his voice.

"I counted to four when I said 'you'." I replied. "Everyone is invited."

He thought about it for a second, then said "I'll have to ask the wife. She's the social director."

Of course, I know that he's just said "no". It is well-known among single men that when their married men friends say "The wife's the social director" this translates roughly to "I'll ask, but my wife hates whatever you've suggested, so you might as well never ask me about this subject ever again."

The Brain and I made the most of the boat, nevertheless. We didn't ski, but tooled around the lake, anchored, ate, napped, swam, read, and returned to the dock safely.

As I lay on the couch that evening, showered, cool, and ever-so-slightly sun-burned, the phone rings. It is the Lord Bastard. He's angry.

"Where are you?" he demands.

"Well, at home, watching Six Feet Under. It's the first three episodes of the new season back-to-back."

"Did you go to the lake today?" he asks, icily.

"Well..." I reply slowly. Something is up. "Yes, yes I did."

"Why aren't you here, then?"

It is now that I remember that in the last conversation with the Lord Bastard about skiing wherein he stated that 8 A.M. was much too early to consider waking, that I offered that perhaps after the Brain and I went to lake we could come over for dinner. The Lord Bastard had replied, "I'll have to ask the Lady Bastard. She's the social director." and I had interpreted this normally.

What I didn't remember was that it was the Lord Bastard speaking. In this case, "she's the social director" translates to "I'll ask Lady Bastard, but she'll do whatever I want, so come over whenever the fuck you want."

"I'll be there in 30 minutes." I snapped.

"You're sure?" the Lord Bastard replies, trying to sound caring.

"Of course. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

"Alright." Click.

We arrived at their house exactly thirty minutes later. I gave the Lady Bastard a hug and explained that I was sorry, that it wasn't precisely clear that the Lord Bastard was expecting us. She was all grace and smiles, despite the fact that her dinner efforts were now long cold. The Lord Bastard was all smiles, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had occured. He was in the backyard, flipping june bugs into his massive, $5000 stainless-steel grill. The june bugs would shrivel up a bit, then he'd press them through the grill with the edge of his spatula. I looked on in horror.

I am not especially religious, but somewhere inside me I think I have a sense that life shouldn't just be wantonly snuffed out. I began trying to shepherd june bugs away from the grill, which was hard because the Lord Bastard had fixed two 100-watt lights above it, which attracted the bugs mercilessly. After a while, I gave up and tried not to pay attention to the insect holocaust.

Then, a june bug landed on my shirt. "This one," I said pointing at the bug on my shoulder, "I've named him Jerome." hoping that perhaps a name would humanize the june bug enough to protect him from the Lord Bastard's spatula and flames.

Jerome sat on my shoulder for a long time, then finally, with a mighty june bug heave-ho, leapt into the air and stumbled into the Lord Bastard's leg. The Lord Bastard gave a grunt of disgust, and flicked at Jerome with his spatula, knocking the bug to the ground. Then he stepped on him.

I pursed my lips. "You didn't need to step on him."

The Lord Bastard eyes were alight with rage now. "He touched me." is all he said.

As I watched hopelessly, another june bug landed on the open grill and began to cook. I felt a deep, terrible pang of sadness as I watched it quiver, shrivel, and blacken.

It's just a bug, after all.