his parents was unique in the colorful history of gutter speech. No matter how long you pondered the puzzle I’ve set before you, your solution would be the palest approximation of what he said.
Then he continued: “My born last name is Keister. You know what
Keister
means?”
Although we seemed to be laying the foundations of a friendship, I suspected that I could go from Kenny’s A-list to his death list from one second to the next. I was concerned that acknowledging my awareness of the meaning of the word
Keister
might light his fuse.
But he
had
asked. So I said, “Well, sir, it’s slang, and some people use it to mean a person’s bottom, you know, like what you sit on, you know, like the seat of your pants, or even sometimes, well, buttocks.”
“Ass,” he declared, managing to hiss and growl the word at the same time, while thundering it out loud enough to rattle the stable windows. “
Keister
means
ass
.”
I dared to glance to my left, and I saw that the western windows admitted more and much ruddier light than had shone through them only a few minutes earlier.
“You know what my first name was, my born name?” Kenny asked, though in such a way as to make the question a demand.
Meeting his gaze again and finding it no less disturbing, I said, “I guess it wasn’t Kenny.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his face squinched as if he must be preparing himself for a difficult revelation.
For an instant I considered bolting for the nearer door, but I wasafraid that by trying to flee I would put the lie to my pretense of friendship, motivating the forsaken Kenny to shoot me in the back.
Although they were to one degree or another eccentric, everyone else at Roseland tried to maintain an air of normalcy. This colorful giant, this walking armory with screaming-hyena tattoos snarling on his massive arms, made no such effort. I found it all but impossible to see him working with the other members of the estate-security team whom I had met. The safest assumption was that he was not a Roseland guard and not to be trusted for a second.
He took another deep breath, blew it out, opened his eyes, and said, “My born first name was Jack. They named me Jack Keister.”
“That’s just cruel, sir.”
“Sonofabitch bastards,” he said, which I inferred to be a less infuriated reference to his parents. “I got teased from day one in
preschool
, the little sonsofbitches couldn’t even wait till first grade. Minute I turned eighteen, I went to court to change my name.”
I almost said
To Kenny Keister?
but fortunately held my tongue.
“Kenneth Randolph Fitzgerald Mountbatten,” he said, rolling the names across his tongue with all the authority of the finest British stage actor.
“Impressive,” I declared, “and may I say, exactly fitting.”
He almost blushed with pleasure. “They’re names I always liked, so I strung ’em together.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything more to say to him. Unless Kenny Mountbatten proved to be a more gifted raconteur than all the evidence thus far indicated, we had reached the conclusion of our conversation.
I would not have been surprised if he punctuated his final line of dialogue by shooting me in the gut.
Instead, he glanced left and then right, suddenly aware of the rapid change in the quality of light at the windows. An expression ofsuch alarm came over him that in spite of his grievous scars, hideous teeth, and crocodilian eyes, I could see in his face a bit of the tormented little boy he had once been.
“I’m late,” he said, a tremor of distress in his voice, “late, late, late.”
He turned away from me and ran to the door through which we had both entered. Still repeating that word, he fled the building less like the Terminator that he had seemed to be and more like the White Rabbit frightened of what discipline might be imposed if he were late for tea with the Mad Hatter.
On the east side of the stable, the windows
Then he continued: “My born last name is Keister. You know what
Keister
means?”
Although we seemed to be laying the foundations of a friendship, I suspected that I could go from Kenny’s A-list to his death list from one second to the next. I was concerned that acknowledging my awareness of the meaning of the word
Keister
might light his fuse.
But he
had
asked. So I said, “Well, sir, it’s slang, and some people use it to mean a person’s bottom, you know, like what you sit on, you know, like the seat of your pants, or even sometimes, well, buttocks.”
“Ass,” he declared, managing to hiss and growl the word at the same time, while thundering it out loud enough to rattle the stable windows. “
Keister
means
ass
.”
I dared to glance to my left, and I saw that the western windows admitted more and much ruddier light than had shone through them only a few minutes earlier.
“You know what my first name was, my born name?” Kenny asked, though in such a way as to make the question a demand.
Meeting his gaze again and finding it no less disturbing, I said, “I guess it wasn’t Kenny.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his face squinched as if he must be preparing himself for a difficult revelation.
For an instant I considered bolting for the nearer door, but I wasafraid that by trying to flee I would put the lie to my pretense of friendship, motivating the forsaken Kenny to shoot me in the back.
Although they were to one degree or another eccentric, everyone else at Roseland tried to maintain an air of normalcy. This colorful giant, this walking armory with screaming-hyena tattoos snarling on his massive arms, made no such effort. I found it all but impossible to see him working with the other members of the estate-security team whom I had met. The safest assumption was that he was not a Roseland guard and not to be trusted for a second.
He took another deep breath, blew it out, opened his eyes, and said, “My born first name was Jack. They named me Jack Keister.”
“That’s just cruel, sir.”
“Sonofabitch bastards,” he said, which I inferred to be a less infuriated reference to his parents. “I got teased from day one in
preschool
, the little sonsofbitches couldn’t even wait till first grade. Minute I turned eighteen, I went to court to change my name.”
I almost said
To Kenny Keister?
but fortunately held my tongue.
“Kenneth Randolph Fitzgerald Mountbatten,” he said, rolling the names across his tongue with all the authority of the finest British stage actor.
“Impressive,” I declared, “and may I say, exactly fitting.”
He almost blushed with pleasure. “They’re names I always liked, so I strung ’em together.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything more to say to him. Unless Kenny Mountbatten proved to be a more gifted raconteur than all the evidence thus far indicated, we had reached the conclusion of our conversation.
I would not have been surprised if he punctuated his final line of dialogue by shooting me in the gut.
Instead, he glanced left and then right, suddenly aware of the rapid change in the quality of light at the windows. An expression ofsuch alarm came over him that in spite of his grievous scars, hideous teeth, and crocodilian eyes, I could see in his face a bit of the tormented little boy he had once been.
“I’m late,” he said, a tremor of distress in his voice, “late, late, late.”
He turned away from me and ran to the door through which we had both entered. Still repeating that word, he fled the building less like the Terminator that he had seemed to be and more like the White Rabbit frightened of what discipline might be imposed if he were late for tea with the Mad Hatter.
On the east side of the stable, the windows
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