Before jumping to the below Cocktail Talk quote, be sure to peep your peepers on the Skuldoggery Part I Cocktail Talk, to learn more about the mostly satiric, jolly, book itself, and also the author, Fletcher Flora (for that matter, and to see some more serious stuff from the normally noir-ish writer, check out all the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks). Then come back for more from Uncle Homer in the below quote, where he’s dealing with his “grief” Martini-style.
“As his only surviving son,” Uncle Hester said, “I am in no position to deny it. What I am in a position to do, however, is to offer everyone a nice Martini. Father, as you know, was drier than Woodrow Wilson, but I took the opportunity, immediately after his sad departure, to lay in a small stock of gin and vermouth. Just to see me through the difficult days of final arrangements, you understand. It’s in the kitchen and so I’ll just go and mix up a pitcher.”
We’ve had a fair amount of Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks, he being one of the pulp mag pulpsters I enjoy, and also being one who lived in Kansas, the state I grew up in (though he lived in Leavenworth, which is sorta fitting for someone who wrote a lot about crime), so, you know, connections. Like many who wrote for the mags and pocket-sized books, Mr. Flora’s oeuvre (so to speak) covers a fairly wide spectrum, though I tend to think of him of a slight tad more literary-minded than some, a bit off the beaten track in some of his subjects and narrators and such. But normally, those books of his I’ve read, slot nicely into a wider noir-crime area. Until Skuldoggery! While there may be light crimes committed (against good taste if nothing else), it’s way more a kind of comedic farce, with nearly all of the characters being, to be kind, idiots. There is a death of a patriarch, from natural causes, a rich one naturally. But one who leaves all his money to the care of his dog. A sentiment I can get on board with! But one which his descendants and relatives, a rum lot, aren’t as happy about. Which leads to Cocktail Talk moments, especially from Uncle Homer, who liked his gin even before the death of his father, and who, below, dreams a dream I’ve dreamt before.
Of all the mourners, though, the most impeccably impressive by far was Hester. Throughout the brief ceremony, her eyes were lifted to a cotton cloud drifting slowly across a pale blue sky as if Grandfather were riding it bareback into heaven and her face was so serene and lovely that Uncle Homer, observing it, felt a faint twinge in his leathery heart and was diverted for a few seconds from his dream of a five-to-one Martini.
