Obituary 8

Death of Roquefort


The ice cubes in the gin glass hardly melted. This sitting room was my first crime scene. The body and clues arrayed before me like a cheap murder in True Crime or Gritty Tales. To the left of the body stood what the beat cops called the towers of despair and fear -- fifty thousand rejection letters in uneven stacks, each stamped in ruddy-red; REJECTED.

To the right of the body, a wall of empty gin bottles. Dirty highball glasses arrayed on side tables. A stale, dried-out cheese platter sitting nearby. At his feet, bunny slippers. On his knees, a computer plugged into a never-ending battery and a high-speed cable modem still working hard. Careful eyes saw years of posts set up for automatic display just to keep the masses bedazzled and mollified. In the yard, a fifty-pound block of Roquefort carved in the shape of a poodle knocked over on its side. The effigy of an unknown house god.

And the body -- disheveled, wearing a goofy grin, a smiley face on one lapel, a Wilkie for President button on the other. It's head lolled back, mouth open, chicken leg standing at attention, muttonchops covered in oily breading; ugly death by chicken gristle.

I am reminded of Hamlet: "Alas poor Yorick." A man of infinite jest and boundless joy, now brought low in the ground to commune with the lowliest of worms. They buried the dead man in Calvary Cemetery, and they buried the cheese where it lay.

--Dave F.