Chapter 29
Since Mrs. Heartbreak’s retirement as President and Chief Executive Officer of Heartbreak’s Pretty Good Books & Really Dreadful Coffee, she has been able to devote herself almost exclusively to the task she best loves, to wit, the management and supervision of John Heartbreak.
One might assume that Mrs. Heartbreak finds this retirement-age obligation an onerous one but, truth be told, she takes to it like a duct to tape, like a Democrat to graft, and like a Republican to corporate handouts.
The bold italicized underlined fact is that Mrs. Heartbreak, like Social Order Theorists everywhere, such as say, Joe Stalin, Otto Preminger, Captain Bligh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carrie Nation, Albert Ellis, Sylvia Plath, Bobby Knight, Barnum & Bailey, George Meany, Joan Crawford, Albert Shanker, Lawrence Welk, Jane Austen, Vito Corleone, Margaret Sanger, Martin Dies, Scarlet O’Hara, and Rand McNally, was born with a lust for supervision. She would have it (all of it) no other way.
A secondary but quite important post retirement obligation has been her propagation of phrases such as ‘ain’t it awful’ and ‘we’ll all be eating grass for sure’.
These key phrases respond to articles appearing in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, and to accounts hurled past the amazing dentistry of photogenic people on the Television: exempli gratia, “Ain’t it awful how Congress is ruining the economy? Mark my words we’ll all be eating grass for sure…before Christmas…before sundown…before etc.!”
The whole ‘we’ll be eating grass’ and ‘ain’t it awful’ stuff was Mrs. Heartbreak’s natural and all purpose utilitarian rejoinder to any event, circumstance, occasion, body in motion, locution, Act of God, Supreme Court ruling, accident, juncture, conjecture, or atomic and other sub-particle reactions or chain reactions that was contrary to her notions of fair play and honest brokering.
(If you happen to be a Social Order Theorist yourself—you may be a retired person with a public service pension, or a Sociologist, Unitarian, vegan, or a Self-Made Man or Woman—you’ll understand the panicky relish with which Mrs. Heartbreak spouts such rejoinders without further explanation.
But how does one explain Mrs. Heartbreak’s attachment to John?
Well:
John was the result of a moment of weakness, moments that Mrs. Heartbreak’s mother, Hermione Rustingnuts, described as “one of my daughter’s rare ‘Josephine Baker moments’. JBMs are, BTW, characterized by succumbing to twisted, tempting, thundering, toe tapping, Thorazine infused brain infarcts which look an awful lot like Chaos Theory Moments as they temporarily transcend the normal locus of, in this case, the philosophic and operating frames of reference of Mrs. Heartbreak’s Social Order Theory.
John (as you must know by now) is a Chaos Theory Advocate. As a CTA, his belief is that everything is connected to everything else and that no reordering or restructuring or planning by Social Order Theorists can or will successfully change our inevitable free-fall into whatever. Consequently or subsequently or therefore, his and Mrs. Heartbreak’s marriage was inevitable.
Factors leading to that inevitable outcome may have been Mrs. Heartbreak’s desire to 1) leave behind an unfortunate maiden name, i.e. ‘The Fabulous Miss Rustingnuts’ and exchange it for one that more deeply resonated with her causative potential, i.e. ‘The Fabulous Mrs. Heartbreak; 2) confidence (long since proven to be both misplaced and delusional) that the raw material that was John could be refined into a useable product and; 3) trust that his unflagging love of, and deeply held devotion to her, was reliable and would last until the end of (his) time (and why wouldn’t it, considering who she was and is?). But: whatever; it was inevitable.
During the Heartbreak’s by now long and successful marriage, Mrs. Heartbreak’s application of the principles of Social Order Theory had softened a wee bit, at least around the edges. Had softened so much, as a matter of fact, that she hardly gave John’s current whereabouts—-he, stranded now in the Eveningside Ministry parking lot with Dr. Sloan (much to Dr. Sloan’s annoyance)-—much thought throughout this admittedly lengthy and discursive description of her World View and Operating Philosophy.
John’s management free moment was not due to any lessening of interest on Mrs. Heartbreak’s part but, rather, was rooted in her continuing distress at the Problem of Mother Rustingnuts and her imminent entry into the Witness Protection Program (WPP). As she got older—my goodness, no longer 39!—it became more difficult to multi-task, and to simultaneously manage more than one potential miscreant at a time. Thus, her concentration was 89% focused on Mrs. Rustingnuts and only 9% focused on John.
The remaining 2% was allocated to what Carl Rogers annoying labeled ‘the on-going experience’ which, at this precise moment is the Problem of the Bum in the Garden (1%) and the Problem of the Honking Big Winnebago (1%) just now weaving up Pritchard Street.
The Bum in the Garden Problem is Fiacre who, just now has found a crumpled note that he had forgotten to give to John. Mrs. Heartbreak is unaware of Fiacre’s consternation—one might conclude that Mrs. Heartbreak is not always in touch with the complexity of others—or that he has a tremendous belly ache from the consumption of John Heartbreak’s jalapeño peppers. Consternation plus heartburn has become distress, a notably rare feeling state for Saints, unless of the Martyr variety, in which case the bellyaching was professional, loud, cacophonous, and infinite.
“Dagnabbit,” Fiacre muttered (while Mrs. Heartbreak stared at the Winnebago poking up the street). “I guess I’ll have to go to Blue Eye and mosey over to Eveningside to deliver the note.”
Fiacre was discommoded, but edified that such a swell word would describe how he was feeling. Edified and confirmed that, however he might wish to remain among the vegetables, a Mission from God is a Mission Indeed; he had to play his part and would play it. So:
Fiacre prepared himself to become tridimensional while hoping that the Warrior Queen Sloan and Heartbreak were still in the parking lot. He didn’t want to waste time slumming around Eveningside looking for them.
Poof!
Pritchard Street’s narrow boundaries barely accommodated the lumbering Winnebago as it pulled to a stop in front of the Keever’s bright yellow house and directly across the street from the Heartbreak residence. Mrs. Heartbreak was not feeling fabulous or charitable about the proposed parking situation.
“My goodness,” she exclaimed. “I certainly hope Mr. and Mrs. Keever will ask their guest to park elsewhere!”
Mrs. Heartbreak’s alarm turned to astonishment, and then delight.
“Oh Clara Jane,” she exclaimed. You’ve come back!”
