With Gusto

This Is a Closed Narrative

Jimmy talked to Mikey, and Mikey talked to Jean, and Jean talked to me, and I talked to Jimmy. That's how we were. We enjoyed it. But like that telephone game, something always went wrong. If Jimmy gossiped about Jean with me, by the time Jean heard of the gossip it was usually about something she hadn't done. One time in particular, on a pleasant afternoon at her aunt's sunning lawn, the gardener's arrived with lawnmowers and went to work. Naturally, Jean fired them both on the spot for sporting unruly mowers, and after a quick hottub, the gardeners were gone, dismayed, talked of hitting up the liquor store. When the news recirculated back to Jean, Mikey said Jean had bitten off her shoes and threw them into the paths of the lawnmowers -- pieces of leather went everywhere! I told Jimmy the Gardeners were fired after they arrived with a donkey, a plough and requested a few turkey dogs. . . Circulating a gossip-correction to gossip went through the same circle, but we enjoyed it this way, when Jimmy talked to Mikey, and Mikey talked to Jean, and Jean talked to Jimmy, and Jimmy talked to me.