Return of the Incompetents
Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:31 am
L.H. Thompson
Manchester Boutique
You should know, dear reader, that we were happy, Morris and I.
From bewildering, suffocating depths we had risen – he and I – phoenix-like, resplendent. We were free, at last, from dark obsession and its servant most foul – that despicable creature of ignorance and perfidy whose royal blue and grey garments barely hid the sulfurous odors of his horny master. The hound of Hell’s malignant anthem (“Glycerine”) no longer ringing in our ears, Morris Cooley and I had, since the ignominious 2023 contraction of the Manchester Maulers baseball club, pursued distinct paths of enlightenment. But now, on this most devilish of days, our peace recedes into the mystical fogs of memory. Contentment: thou we hardly knew!
Ignominious though it was, no one could say that the Maulers’s relegation from the heights of the PEBA was undeserved. Overseen by an insufferable, incompetent jackass with inexplicable powers of regeneration (Jeff Dudas) – powers that were typically exercised in the service of a corrupt owner (Arturo Bruto) more interested in perverse desire than in the travails of the local 9 – the Maulers’ fate was right and just. But, as with any cleansing fire, the immolation of the Maulers burned the guilty and innocent alike. So it was that Morris Cooley, the team’s long-suffering General Manager, and I, the team’s heroic beat reporter, found ourselves unceremoniously sacked, tossed onto the street like so much garbage. Times were now tough, Dudas claimed; out we went.
It was the best thing that ever happened to us. After a nervous period, Morris reclaimed first his sanity and then his purpose in, of all places, the Devil’s playground itself. Never had Panama City, Florida seen the likes of this man reborn: a dynamo of entrepreneurial spirit! A catalytic converter of civic rejuvenation! Why, even the Sandpiper Hotel – site of a thousand gross teenage nightmares – succumbed to Cooley’s inevitability. The joint found itself, just last year, the proud recipient of the Panama City News Herald’s Reader’s Poll award for Best Local Breakfast.
And of what of me, mine author? I had seen too much, felt too much. There could be no more investigative reporting, no more sleuthing, no more holding of the people’s shining light to the foul peccadilloes of the powerful. I retreated into seclusion, deep in the Berkshires. I camped at Melville’s estate every spring and summer; I traversed the Hudson Valley, transfixed by the juxtaposition of Church’s masterwork and Earl’s street art; I studied architecture and birds. Publication of occasional essays (I found observational humor to pay well) allowed me to grind out a nomadic, deeply satisfying living.
We were happy, Morris and I.
Morris saw the devastating news first. “Maulers Promoted! After Seven Seasons in the Baseball Wilderness, Dudas and Bruto’s Vision Validated.” It was awful – a horror-movie villain disguised in athletic achievement. I hadn’t heard from Morris in 5 years; but the shock ruptured the happy silence with which we had comforted each other from afar. “U see this?,” he texted me.
And so here we are today, drawn back inexorably into the spring New Hampshire maelstrom. The Maulers are back in the PEBA; and there’s no point in denying it. The only thing to do is roll up our collective sleeves and fight. There can be no backing down, no complicity with this corrupt regime. We will not this time be thwarted. It’s a call to arms most virtuous; and Morris Cooley and I present ourselves, dear readers, for your consideration. We are at your service.
But remember, always, that we were happy, Morris and I.
Manchester Boutique
You should know, dear reader, that we were happy, Morris and I.
From bewildering, suffocating depths we had risen – he and I – phoenix-like, resplendent. We were free, at last, from dark obsession and its servant most foul – that despicable creature of ignorance and perfidy whose royal blue and grey garments barely hid the sulfurous odors of his horny master. The hound of Hell’s malignant anthem (“Glycerine”) no longer ringing in our ears, Morris Cooley and I had, since the ignominious 2023 contraction of the Manchester Maulers baseball club, pursued distinct paths of enlightenment. But now, on this most devilish of days, our peace recedes into the mystical fogs of memory. Contentment: thou we hardly knew!
Ignominious though it was, no one could say that the Maulers’s relegation from the heights of the PEBA was undeserved. Overseen by an insufferable, incompetent jackass with inexplicable powers of regeneration (Jeff Dudas) – powers that were typically exercised in the service of a corrupt owner (Arturo Bruto) more interested in perverse desire than in the travails of the local 9 – the Maulers’ fate was right and just. But, as with any cleansing fire, the immolation of the Maulers burned the guilty and innocent alike. So it was that Morris Cooley, the team’s long-suffering General Manager, and I, the team’s heroic beat reporter, found ourselves unceremoniously sacked, tossed onto the street like so much garbage. Times were now tough, Dudas claimed; out we went.
It was the best thing that ever happened to us. After a nervous period, Morris reclaimed first his sanity and then his purpose in, of all places, the Devil’s playground itself. Never had Panama City, Florida seen the likes of this man reborn: a dynamo of entrepreneurial spirit! A catalytic converter of civic rejuvenation! Why, even the Sandpiper Hotel – site of a thousand gross teenage nightmares – succumbed to Cooley’s inevitability. The joint found itself, just last year, the proud recipient of the Panama City News Herald’s Reader’s Poll award for Best Local Breakfast.
And of what of me, mine author? I had seen too much, felt too much. There could be no more investigative reporting, no more sleuthing, no more holding of the people’s shining light to the foul peccadilloes of the powerful. I retreated into seclusion, deep in the Berkshires. I camped at Melville’s estate every spring and summer; I traversed the Hudson Valley, transfixed by the juxtaposition of Church’s masterwork and Earl’s street art; I studied architecture and birds. Publication of occasional essays (I found observational humor to pay well) allowed me to grind out a nomadic, deeply satisfying living.
We were happy, Morris and I.
Morris saw the devastating news first. “Maulers Promoted! After Seven Seasons in the Baseball Wilderness, Dudas and Bruto’s Vision Validated.” It was awful – a horror-movie villain disguised in athletic achievement. I hadn’t heard from Morris in 5 years; but the shock ruptured the happy silence with which we had comforted each other from afar. “U see this?,” he texted me.
And so here we are today, drawn back inexorably into the spring New Hampshire maelstrom. The Maulers are back in the PEBA; and there’s no point in denying it. The only thing to do is roll up our collective sleeves and fight. There can be no backing down, no complicity with this corrupt regime. We will not this time be thwarted. It’s a call to arms most virtuous; and Morris Cooley and I present ourselves, dear readers, for your consideration. We are at your service.
But remember, always, that we were happy, Morris and I.
